Cruel Intent by J. A. Jance Read Free Book Online Page B

only honorable thing—she cut Cutloose loose.
    Months earlier a woman named Adele Richardson, aka Leda, had written in. Her history with a philandering husband paralleled Ali’s in many ways. At a time when Ali’s criminal defense attorneys were advising her to take a break from blogging, Adele had offered to step in and pinch-hit. Ali hadn’t accepted the offer, but later on, when she realized she really did need to step away from the blog, she had contacted Adele once more. The transition had been seamless and relatively painless. Ali had written a farewell blog in which she announced she was handing the reins over to someone else, and Cutloose seemed to have gone on quite nicely without her, thank you very much. That was one thing the past few years had taught Ali Reynolds in spades. She was nothing if not expendable.
    It had been true for her job and for her marriage and, apparently, for Dave Holman as well. Things happened. Circumstances changed. Life moved on. And as Ali logged on to Cutloose that night, it wasn’t because she felt a need to revisit or wallow in her own misery. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. She had journeyed a long way from the awful pain she’d been in when she first started the blog. She went there now knowing that the stories she was likely to find would allow her to count her blessings.
    For old time’s sake, she scrolled through that day’s postings. The stories were achingly familiar.
    My husband ran off with my sister. I’ve got three kids, no job, no car, and no money. What am I going to do?

    Go to work, Ali thought. Get a job. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
    As she scanned through the string of reader comments, she saw that was what the other writers were saying as well: Don’t sit around blaming your husband; be responsible for yourself; get a life. Some of the correspondents couched their suggestions in less confrontational ways, but they were all pretty much of a piece—a course in tough love; self-love seasoned with ample amounts of good common sense. Obviously, Adele was keeping Cutlooseblog.com on track, staying true to Ali’s original mission.
    Ali was interested to see that Cutloose seemed to have attracted a fair number of male readers.
    Thank you for showing me that I’m not the only man in the world who’s a victim of domestic violence. It helps to know that there are others out there like me who are finding the courage to speak out. Maybe there’s hope for me and my kids.

    The posts that followed that were a mixed bag. Two amazingly angry women declared in no uncertain terms that men were ALWAYS the perpetrators and NEVER the victims in domestic-violence situations. But one correspondent included a toll-free number where men could call to locate family-style shelters in their geographical area that would take male victims and their children right along with women.
    While I was off on a business trip with my boss, I had too much to drink and ended up in his room. When we got back home, he fired me. What do I do now?

    Get another job, Ali thought. Again the accompanying posts echoed that sentiment, some of them with the added proviso of: Quit drinking!!!
    Ali found it all interesting, but more as a trip down memory lane than anything else. She really had moved on, and she wondered how long her successor would be able to keep it up before she, too, would need to hand Cutloose off to someone else—to new blood, as it were.
    Leaving Cutloose behind, Ali logged on to the virtual edition of Phoenix’s daily newspaper, the Arizona Reporter. There, in the statewide news section, she found an article on Morgan Forester’s homicide.
    Morgan Forester, age twenty-seven, wife of prominent Sedona area contractor Bryan Forester, was found bludgeoned to death on the front porch of their rural home outside the Village of Oak Creek. Mrs. Forester had been dead for some time when the body was discovered by her two young children as they returned home from school.
    The