J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 1: Web of Evil, Hand of Evil, Cruel Intent by J.A. Jance Page B

surprised herself by falling asleep almost immediately. After what seemed like only a matter of minutes, the ringing phone awakened her.
    “What in the world is going on?” Edie Larson demanded.
    “What are you talking about?” Ali grumbled groggily. “And what time is it?” The room’s blackout curtains were pulled shut. In the pitch black room she had to turn over to see the clock, which read 5:35 A.M.
    “Why didn’t you call me?” Edie continued. “What happened to Paul? And why did you have to do the identification? What about his bride-to-be who isn’t?”
    “Who told you all this?” Ali asked.
    “You did,” Edie answered. “In cutloose.”
    Ali was astonished. It had never occurred to her that her mother might join the Internet world. “You read my blog?” she asked.
    “Of course I do,” Edie said. “Why wouldn’t I? Every morning while I’m waiting for the sweet rolls to rise and when there’s no one here in the restaurant to keep me company, I read the whole thing. When Dad and I got Chris that new Mac, he gave us his old one. Hooked it up here in the office, got me an Internet account, the whole nine yards. My Internet handle is sugarloafmama, by the way, but I didn’t call to talk about me. I want to know what’s going on with you. Tell me everything, and hurry it up. We open in a few minutes.”
    So Ali told her mother as much as she could remember—the parts she had put in the blog as well as the parts she’d left out. The truth is, after sitting through the statement she’d given to Detectives Sims and Taylor, Victor had advised her to say nothing in her blog about any of it—nothing at all. Feeling a certain loyalty to her readers, Ali had written her blog entry anyway, saying only what she thought would pass muster. She never came right out and said that she had ridden to Indio in the company of the two homicide detectives. And she never breathed a word about hitching a ride back from Jacqueline Cochran Airport with the newest member of Ali’s burgeoning troop of attorneys.
    In talking to Edie, however, Ali corrected this deliberate oversight by mentioning Victor Angeleri by name, while at the same time somehow glossing over the criminal defense portion of his curriculum vitae.
    “You say his name’s Victor, Victor Angeleri? What kind of a name is that?” Edie wanted to know.
    “Italian, I suppose,” Ali answered.
    “And he flies his own plane?”
    “No. He chartered one.” And on the way home, to take my mind off my troubles, gave me an in-depth lesson on Jacqueline Cochran, the lady the airport is named after, and on the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II, Ali thought.
    “What’s he like?” Edie asked. “Old? Young? What?”
    “About the same age as Dad, I suppose,” Ali said. “And big. He had to use a seat-belt extender in the airplane.”
    “I don’t care one whit about his size,” Edie declared. “What I want to know is whether or not he’s any good. Now what kind of attorney is he again? Not your divorce attorney,” she added. “That’s Myra somebody.”
    Ali wondered how it was Edie Larson could somehow play dumb while simultaneously and unerringly sniffing out Ali’s every attempt at subterfuge.
    “Not Myra, Helga Myerhoff,” Ali corrected. “She was the one handling the divorce proceedings. Victor specializes in criminal defense.”
    “But why on earth would you need a criminal defense attorney?” Edie wanted to know. “Do the cops think you had something to do with Paul’s death—that you’re somehow responsible? How could you be? You were miles away at the time.”
    Ali remembered the pulsing, telltale glow from that long line of emergency lights that had lit up the desert floor as they streamed through the night toward the scene of the wreck.
    Not nearly as many miles away as I should have been, Ali thought.
    Victor hadn’t wanted her to mention seeing those flashing lights in the course of giving Detectives Sims and Taylor