Clawback by J.A. Jance Read Free Book Online Page B

with that,” Ali suggested. “I know from personal experience that cell phone service up there is mighty spotty.”
    â€œRight,” Edie grumbled. “And the old fool probably drove that rattletrap Bronco of his straight up Schnebly Hill Road to get there. For all we know, he might have driven off a cliff somewhere, and he’s lying out there dead in a spot where only the buzzards will find him. Wouldn’t you think he’d have brains enough to leave me a note telling me where he’s going? I swear, sometimes I think that man is going to drive me to drink.”
    â€œAfter fifty-odd years of marriage, I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Ali observed, saying the words with a smile she was glad her mother couldn’t see.
    â€œNo,” Edie agreed. “I suppose not. I’d better head out and pick up that blasted cake, but if you hear from your father before I do, you tell him from me that he’s in hot water.”
    â€œI will,” Ali agreed. “I’ll let him have it with both barrels.”
    â€œGood,” Edie said. “He might just listen to you.”
    When Edie ended the call, Ali glanced at her watch and saw that it really was almost noon. After being shut up in a dreary, windowless space all morning long, she decided that a brisk walk was in order. She stopped off in the break room long enough to pick up the egg salad sandwich her majordomo, Leland Brooks, had made that morning and sent along for her to have at lunch. With sandwich and a Diet Coke in hand, Ali left the building and stepped out into the warm sunshine.
    It was June. There were no clouds dotting the bright blue sky overhead. How did that almost forgotten old poem go? Ali recited part of it aloud as she marched along, not caring if passersby thought she was nuts and talking to herself. It didn’t matter:
    â€œAnd what is so rare as a day in June?
    Then, if ever, come perfect days . . .”
    As far as Ali could see right then, it seemed like a perfect June day, and it kept right on being perfect—until the moment it wasn’t.

5
    D elayed by countless phone calls, it was late midmorning before Haley finally arrived at the office. By then the strip mall’s parking lot was already loaded with cars, including two separate media vans, one from a television station in Flagstaff and the other from one in Phoenix.
    A disorganized crowd of people had gathered on the sidewalk outside the front door, milling restlessly on either side of an unmarked delivery truck parked directly in front of the agency’s main entrance. The door itself had been propped open. Under the direction of Agent Ferris, two men in matching coveralls were busily carrying armload after armload of Bankers Boxes out of the office and packing them into the truck. It was all Haley could do not to break down and weep. In no small way, those boxes represented her life’s work.
    As Haley moved through the crowd, people began hailing her by name and shouting angry questions in her direction. She knew most of the hecklers by sight. Some were insurance customers only, worried about what would happen to their coverage if Frazier Insurance went out of business. Several of them, folks she knew to be OFM customers, had arrived in full protest mode, carrying handmade placards that said, “HEY, DANNO. SAY IT AIN’T SO!”
    Frank Merrick, one of the placard-bearers, waved his sign directly in Haley’s face, forcing her to retreat.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” Frank demanded. “Is Dan Frazier such a coward that he can’t come out and talk to us himself? He had to send you?”
    Haley had never liked Frank Merrick. Because he was a customer, she forced herself to tolerate his frequent bouts of rude behavior. She often ran interference for the other girls in the office by handling Frank’s visits herself rather than subjecting other employees to his routine