Edge Of Evil by J. A. Jance Read Free Book Online Page B

seven.”
    Obligingly, Chris loaded the ski rack and the skis onto the Cayenne’s roof rack. And when they left the house, Chris drove while Ali rode shotgun, managing the MP3 player. Wanting to think about songlyrics instead of what had happened to Reenie, Ali scrolled through the index, selecting one musical after another, songs Chris had culled from Aunt Evie’s personal CD collection and added to the playlist.
    Her mother and Aunt Evelyn had shared more than just their birthdays and a lifelong partnership in the Sugarloaf Café. Together they had adored musical scores, everything from Showboat to Cats ; and from Carousel and Oklahoma to Evita and The Lion King. Aunt Evie had collected them all. To celebrate their sixtieth birthday Ali had convinced her mother and aunt to get passports. Then, as a surprise and using some of Paul’s and her own accumulated air miles and credit card points, the three of them—Ali, her mother, and Aunt Evie—had flown first-class to London for five days of wonderful first-class hotels and nonstop theater productions. It had been great fun, and they had done it just in time, too. Only a few months later and with no advance warning, Aunt Evie had succumbed to a massive stroke.
    While listening and riding, Ali glanced over at Chris. He drove with both hands gripping the wheel and with his eyes constantly focused on traffic. As she watched him, Ali was at once both startled and gratified to realize how old he was and how competent. Christopher was twenty-two—a grown man now—only two years younger than his father had been when he died. And a close-but-not-quite carbon copy of his father—Chris was taller and heavier than Dean had been.
    For the past seven years, living with his stepfather’s money and privilege and with his mother a staple on the nightly news, it would have been easy for Chris to lose track of who he was. An atmosphere of poisonous privilege and ready access to drugs had blighted many of his classmates. That he hadn’t fallen into those traps was due primarily to the way his mother had raised him prior to Paul Grayson’s appearance on the scene.
    For years it had been just the two of them—Ali and Christopher. There had been a song in Aunt Evie’s collection that spoke to that as well—Helen Reddy’s poignant “You and Me Against the World.” And now, driving eastward on I-10 and in heavy traffic, it was true again. But with Chris grown—in another two months, he’d be graduating from college—this might well be the last road trip they’d take together, riding along and listening to Aunt Evie’s music. She wondered if, as Chris grew older, hearing some of these old familiar songs would bring him back to this long sad trip.
    They drove onto the 10 at the beginning of rush-hour traffic, so it took them the better part of three hours to make it to Palm Springs. They had just passed Rancho Mirage, Ali mindlessly humming along with “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls , when her cell rang. She saw at a glance it was Paul.
    “What’s wrong with you?” he demanded the moment she answered. “How come you’re talking to an attorney? I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t start any proceedings against the station.”
    There was no mention of what had happened to Reenie. No explanation of why it had taken him so long to get back to her. No, just an instant all-out verbal attack.
    “I don’t remember any such agreement,” Ali returned.
    “Come on, Ali,” he said. “I told you very clearly the other night that, with me as a network exec, we couldn’t afford to get mixed up in any kind of legal dust-up. We just have to take our lumps and move on.”
    “Our lumps?” she asked. “What do you mean our? I’m the one who got fired, not you.”
    “And you sure as hell better hope it isn’t catching. What if you piss them off and they end up firing me, too? Then we’d be in a hell of a mess. We can get by without what you make, but we can’t get by