J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 1: Web of Evil, Hand of Evil, Cruel Intent (43 page)

Ali posted that comment and skimmed the rest. More comments came clicking in while she was reading. In the end, there were so many that it simply wasn’t feasible to respond to them all individually. She replied in her post instead.

By then it was late afternoon. When Chris came home after school, he went directly to the kitchen to dish up and zap a bowl of his grandmother’s beef stew. “The last I knew you were heading out to find Dave Holman’s missing daughter,” Chris said while he waited for the microwave. “How did that work out?”

“Not all that well,” Ali said. “I brought her home here, and while I was sleeping this morning, she tried to sneak off in one of your ski jackets.”

“As in steal?” he asked.

“Exactly,” Ali replied.

“So she wasn’t particularly grateful.”

“You could say that,” Ali agreed. “Not particularly.”

“How old is she again?”

“Thirteen.”

“And you did get my jacket back?” Chris asked.

“Yes.”

“So where is she now?”

“I dropped her off at her dad’s.”

Chris grinned. “So, now she’s his problem.” He pulled his bowl out of the microwave. “I don’t remember ever being quite that difficult.”

“I don’t remember it either,” Ali said. “Because I don’t think you ever were that difficult—not even when you were sixteen, which, as I remember, wasn’t a banner year.”

“Does that mean the next time I leave the kitchen a mess, I’ve got some slack coming?” he wanted to know.

“Get out of here,” Ali said. She plucked a small pillow off the couch and threw it at him. Sam, who disapproved of pillow fights, disappeared into the bedroom while Chris, bowl in hand, headed for the basement studio they had carved for him out of what had once been Aunt Evie’s two-car garage. Later, Ali heard him head out for the evening. She didn’t ask him where he was going, and he didn’t offer to tell her.

In the deepening twilight, Ali helped herself to her own bowl of stew. Only after dinner had been eaten and cleared away and with the house quiet once more, did she realize that she no longer had any viable excuse for avoiding Arabella Ashcroft’s diary. By agreeing to take the volume with her, she had tacitly agreed to read it—whether or not she wanted to—and it was time to start.

Ali adjusted the living room lights and turned on the gas log in the fireplace. Then, after retrieving the diary from her purse, she settled onto the leather sofa. She had no more than sat down when Sam joined her there, snuggling up against her leg and purring noisily. Comforted by the big cat’s solid presence, Ali opened the gold-embossed book. Shuffling through the book, she found that the vast majority of the pages were blank, but the pages that had been used were covered in a blocky, immature cursive. Ali turned to the first one.

That initial diary entry wasn’t at all what Ali had expected. She had thought she’d encounter something terribly graphic or terribly grim or both, and she hadn’t wanted to inflict those gory details on herself. She didn’t really want to know exactly how little Arabella Ashcroft, incest survivor, had been victimized by her older brother. What Ali had discovered instead, was a profound and completely unexpected connection between herself and the nine-year-old child who had penned those innocently bittersweet words some six decades earlier.

Ali Larson had been around nine years old when she, like Arabella, had been bitten by a similar ambition. Ali Larson had decided in fourth grade that she wanted to be a writer. And through some combination of luck and determination, and with the timely help of Arabella’s mother, Ali had done just exactly that—she had become a journalist. And now she was writing every day in her blog with people reading what she had written and, more important, responding to it in very personal ways

For whatever reason, Arabella’s ambitions had never come to fruition. And maybe that’s what this was all about. Maybe that was one of the reasons Ali had been put in touch with Arabella at this juncture in their lives. Maybe, even at this late date, Ali Reynolds could somehow help Arabella Ashcroft realize her long-buried dream. Or perhaps Ali was involved with Arabella, just as she was with Velma T, in order to sort things out between these two aging women and their interfering younger relatives—Velma’s son and Arabella’s nephew.

Before Ali managed to turn to the next entry in the diary, her phone rang. “What am I going to do with her?” Dave Holman asked.

He sounded exasperated beyond bearing. Having spent several long hours with Crystal Holman, Ali knew the girl came complete with a tangle of complications, none of them with easy answers. Before Ali tried to reply, though, she needed to know which one of Crystal’s many thorny issues Dave’s question addressed. Was it primarily due to Crystal’s being a runaway? Was it about her precocious and generally blasé attitude toward sexual activity and the need to have her checked out for possible STDs? Maybe the real answer was all of the above.

“It’s like I don’t even know her anymore,” Dave went on. “She’s not the same kid she used to be. She won’t look me in the eye. When I ask her questions, she won’t give me a straight answer about anything.”

“Did you ask her why she ran away?”

“Of course.”

“What did she tell you?”

“All the usual BS,” Dave replied. “She hates her new school. She doesn’t have any friends. Her teachers are stupid. Gary Whitman is a jerk. Her mother likes Richey better than she likes her. It’s all pretty typical teenage angst. My God, Ali. I know I wasn’t the easiest kid to deal with when I was her age, but I never pulled anything like this.”

Listening to Dave’s recitation of what Crystal had told him, Ali couldn’t help thinking about Arabella Ashcroft. She had been molested and had never told anyone, most especially her parents. Would things have been better for Arabella if she had told? And did anyone else have the right to tell Dave about what was going on with his daughter if Crystal couldn’t bring herself to do it? Yes, Crystal was a child, but even children had a right to some privacy.

As for Dave? He was an experienced homicide cop, used to interrogating crooks and getting them to answer tough questions. Evidently his tried-and-true questioning techniques weren’t working very well on his own daughter.

“Did you talk to her about hitchhiking?” Ali asked. “About how dangerous it is?”

“Are you kidding? I talked about that until I was blue in the face,” Dave returned. “But I don’t think she was listening. I tried to explain to her how lucky she was that something terrible hadn’t happened to her on the way here.”

Something terrible did happen,
Ali thought.
She lost her innocence. She sold her body for a ride, and the damage to her self-respect will probably last a lifetime.

“Did she tell you about the guy who hit her?” Ali asked.

“She said it was a boyfriend, and that she’s broken up with him now,” Dave continued. “But she’s still threatening to run away, especially if I’m going to take her back to Vegas. So what happens when I have to go to work in the morning, Ali? I’m due to testify in court tomorrow or the next day. The county courthouse is in Prescott. That means I have to be in Prescott as well. What do I do with Crystal while I’m gone? Lock her up in the house? And if she were to let herself out, all she’d have to do is walk down to the bottom of the hill and stick out her thumb. She’ll be long gone in a matter of minutes.”

“You’re right to be worried,” Ali said. “But since you have to work, and since Roxie is the one with custody, couldn’t she or Gary drive down from Vegas to pick Crystal up?”

“They have jobs, too,” Dave replied. “Besides, Roxie has taken the position that this whole thing is somehow my fault, that I must have encouraged Crystal to run away. Now that Crystal’s here, Roxie says it’s my responsibility to get her back home. While I was talking to Roxie on the phone, I could hear Gary talking in the background, muttering something about ‘custodial interference.’”

“You think they’ll try to make some kind of official issue out of this?”

“I’d bet money on it,” Dave said. “The sooner I can get it handled, the sooner it’ll go away, but the earliest I’ll be able to drive back up to Vegas will be Saturday morning—unless the court appearance finishes up earlier.”

“Does Crystal want to go back?” Ali asked.

“What do you mean?” Dave asked.

“When I picked her up last night, I got the impression that she was hoping to come live with you on a permanent basis.”

“Crystal’s old enough to have some say in the matter, but not by pulling a stunt like this, and for right now the divorce decree is very clear. It specifies that Roxie gets full custody and I get to pay full child support. If Crystal were to come to live with me, Gary and Roxie would have to lose some of the child support. Believe me, that’s never going to happen.

“Besides,” he added, “if it did, what would I do with her? Where would we go? This is only a one-bedroom place, but it’s as much as I can afford. I’m fine here on my own, but it would never work for two people. Tonight, Crystal is in the bedroom, and I’m camping out on the couch. That’s not feasible in the long run. If she was going to stay on here permanently, I’d have to find somewhere else to live. You take what I make, deduct what I pay in child support, and figure out how much is left. Not very much. Not enough to pay for a decent two-bedroom apartment. We’d end up in one of those trailer parks down by Oak Creek. They’re probably okay, but they’re not the kinds of places where I’d like to raise my daughter.”

Ali could hear the distress in Dave’s voice. Buffeted by indecision, he was unable to see his way clear in any one direction.

“Why don’t you bring Crystal here tomorrow and let me look after her for the day?” Ali suggested finally. “Better yet, bring her along to the Sugarloaf when you come to breakfast tomorrow morning. I’ll come down to the restaurant and pick her up. She can stay with me until you get back from Prescott. Ditto for Friday.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” Dave asked. The relief in his voice was obvious. “I mean, you’ve already done so much…”

“Hey, Dave,” Ali said. “Hello!!! It’s Ali Reynolds, remember me? Remember everything you did for me when we were out in California? We’re a long way from being even. Besides, isn’t that what friends are for?”

“As long as you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Ali said. “See you in the morning.”

Ali had planned on returning to Arabella’s diary, but she changed her mind, closed the slim volume, and returned it to her purse.