Alison Reynolds 01 - Edge Of Evil (v5.0)

by J. A. Jance

  Somehow she managed to hold the stemmed cocktail glass steady enough that when she took that first sip she didn’t spill any of it.

  “Cliff Baker fired me,” she said quietly. “Tonight. After the news.”

  “Oh, Ali Bunny,” he said. “I’m so sorry. What a hell of a thing!”

  She hated it when he called her Ali Bunny.

  “I may take them to court,” she said calmly.

  That shocked Paul, all right—shocked him good.

  “You’re going to what?” he demanded, slopping his own drink down the unknotted three-hundred-dollar tie dangling around his neck.

  “It’s age and sex discrimination,” she said. “The three guys that are left are all older than I am. Randall’s got to be sixty if he’s a day. Nobody’s sacking any of them.”

  “You can’t take the station to court,” Paul said. “I mean, how would it look? We’re married. I work for the network. What would people say?”

  “People would say it’s about time somebody stood up for women,” Ali replied. “Over forty isn’t exactly over the hill.”

  “If you take the station to court, you’ll be black-balled for sure. You’ll never work in the mainstream media again.”

  “All the more reason to sue them, then,” she said.

  “But think what it’ll do to my career!”

  Ali took another sip of her drink. “Frankly, my dear,” she told him. “I don’t give a damn.”

  Paul stood up abruptly and stalked off to his study, closing the door firmly behind him. Other people might have given the door a good hard slam, but not Paul Grayson. He disdained what he called “cheap theatrics.” He considered himself above all that.

  But when the heavy door clicked shut, Alison Reynolds heard something else entirely. The sound that echoed down the marble-floored hallway had nothing to do with the locking mechanism on the door and everything to do with the end of their marriage.

  Ali sat for a few moments longer. When she and Paul had moved into this house years earlier, she thought herself extremely lucky. After years of being a single parent, she had been glad to have a father figure for her hormone-charged fourteen-year-old son. But things hadn’t turned out the way she expected. Paul and Chris weren’t close. Not at all. And her happily-ever-after fairy tale romance wasn’t what it had been cracked up to be, either. An exciting, whirlwind romance had morphed into a marriage where divergent jobs and interests kept them busy and apart. At times it seemed to Ali that she and Paul were roommates and housemates more than they were man and wife.

  Ali surveyed the room, eyeing the opulent leather furnishings that Paul preferred. She hadn’t liked them much to begin with, but they had grown on her over time, unlike the art. The splashy modern art that adorned the walls—large pieces with gilt frames, vivid colors, steep price tags, and not much heart—came with enough bragging rights to cut it with Paul’s art-snob pals, but they didn’t speak to Ali. Not at all.

  “I’ll miss this chair,” she allowed at last, “but the art can go straight to hell.”

  With that, she knocked back the remains of her drink in one long swallow. Then she stood up, collected her shoes, and headed for bed.

  By the time Ali got up the next day Paul was already gone, on an out-of-town trip. It was early Saturday morning. She was pulled downstairs by an irresistible smell. She found Chris in the kitchen, expertly moving an omelet from a frying pan to a plate, folding it with a gentle flick of the wrist just the way Ali’s father had taught him.

  “You’ve got to learn to cook, boy,” Bob Larson had said. “If you leave it up to your mother, you’ll starve to death.”

  Her parents ran Sedona’s Sugarloaf Café, a down-home-style diner that had been started in the mid-fifties by her maternal grandmother, Myrtle Hansen. Myrtle had left the business to her twin daughters, Edie Larson and Evelyn Hansen. Now, with Ali’s Aunt Evie gone, Bob and Edie were still running the place, which was usually packed on weekends, especially at breakfast time.

  “Hey, Mom,” Chris said. “You look like hell. Hungry?”

  The double Manhattan had gone straight to Ali’s head, but she hadn’t slept. She’d lain awake, tossing and turning, and she felt hung-over as hell.

  “Yes, please,” she said.

  “Have this,” Chris said, passing her the filled plate. “I’ll make another one.”

  Ali took a seat at the island counter and then watched Chris. “I got fired last night,” she said.

  Chris whirled in her direction, almost dropping an egg in the process. “You got fired? No way!”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Just like that?”

  Ali nodded.

  “When’s your final broadcast?” Chris asked.

  “Already had it,” Ali said. “They pulled the plug on me last night as soon as the news was over.”

  Turning off the fire under the frying pan, Chris hurried to his mother’s side and took her hand. “That’s terrible, Mom,” he said. “I can’t believe they did that to you. Did Paul know about it? Did he know in advance that they were going to let you go?”

  “Probably,” Ali said.

  “And he didn’t tell you or try to do anything to stop it?”

  Ali shrugged.

  “That bastard,” Chris muttered.

  Ali said nothing. She had arrived at much the same conclusion. Paul Grayson was a bastard.

  “Which means you don’t even get to say goodbye to the people who’ve watched you for the past seven years?” Chris continued, his voice shaking in outrage.

  “Evidently not.”

  “That sucks!”

  “Well, yes,” Ali agreed. “Yes, it does.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to let people know what happened—tell them your side of the story?”

  Ali laughed. “I don’t think that’s an option.

  “We’ll see about that,” Chris vowed.

  With that, he got up from the counter, returned to the stove, and turned the fire back on under his omelet pan.

  Ali spent the day quietly. Once it was two o’clock Arizona time and the Sugarloaf Café was closed for the day, Ali called her parents and told Bob and Edie Larson what was going on—the job part of it anyway, not the marriage part. Bob was as outraged as Chris had been. Edie was instantly sympathetic.

  “If you have time off, you should come visit,” she said. “You have your Aunt Evie’s house to stay in. Come over, relax, and give yourself time to think about what you’re going to do next.”

  Ali had already decided what she was going to do next—track down the names of several wrongful termination attorneys. “Thanks, Mom,” Ali said. “I’ll think about it.”

  On Sunday morning, Ali came downstairs and was surprised to find a sheaf of e-mail printouts sitting next to the coffeepot. There were dozens of them, all addressed to her home e-mail account. One by one she read through them.

  * * *

  Dear Ali,

  I’m so sorry you’re leaving. You seem like a good friend. I’ll never forget what a wonderful job you did when our next door neighbor’s son was killed in Iraq. Please let me know where you end up. I’m hoping I’ll still be able to watch you.

  Mrs. Edith Wilson,

  Glendale, CA

  * * *

  Dear Ms. Reynolds,

  How can they fire you? You’re the only bright spot on that dying news team. I hope you get a good job somewhere else and beat them up in the ratings. They deserve it.

  Mac, Sherman Oaks

  * * *

  To whom it may concern:

  Since you fired Ali Reynolds, you can kiss my advertising dollars goodbye. You guys don’t know a good thing when you see it.

  Walter Duffy

  * * *

  Dear Ali Reynolds,

  You don’t remember me, but we walked together at the Relay for Life in Sherman Oaks. My husband had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer and you told me about losing your first husband when he was only twenty-four and when y
ou were expecting a baby. I just want you to know how much I appreciated your being there for me and for all the other people who are fighting cancer. I wish you all the best.

  Millie Sanders

  Chris came into the kitchen just then, coffee cup in hand and grinning from ear to ear. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Where did all these come from?” Ali asked.

  “From your blog—your weblog,” Chris answered. “I called it cutlooseblog.com. Me and some of my marketing friends came up with the idea yesterday. I posted a note saying that you’d been fired— that you weren’t sick or going into politics or wanting to spend more time with your family. We posted the blog and then we went to the various search engines to make sure it was added. This is what came back.”

  “But there must be a hundred of them,” Ali marveled.

  “More than that,” Chris said. “These are only the ones I’ve printed. There are more coming in all the time.”

  “But how do I answer them all?” Ali asked. “Do I do it one at a time?”

  Chris shrugged. That’s up to you. You can answer in a group posting or you can do it one at a time. From the volume, I’d suggest a single posting. Otherwise you’ll go nuts.”

  “But, Chris,” Ali objected, “I don’t do blogs. I never have.”

  Chris grinned back at her. “You do now.”

  Chapter 2

  cutlooseblog.com

  Sunday, March 13, 2005

  My son, Christopher, first laid hands on a computer when he was six. I was given an old Epson from work. I brought it home and gave it to him. Once his fingers hit the keyboard, it was love at first touch—and, yes, he’s actually a better typist than I am. It’s because of him that I’m writing this today. And not only is this the first time I’ve visited a blog, this is also the first time I’ve posted on one.

  When Chris created this site, he named it cutlooseblog.com because that’s exactly what’s happened to me. I’ve been cut loose and set adrift from a job I loved. There was no advance warning. I didn’t see it coming. Chris has already told you that as of 11:30 Friday evening, I was told that my services would no longer be required on the evening and nighttime news. You’ll notice that I’m not naming names or going into any kind of specifics here. That’s because, come Monday morning, I expect to have an appointment seeking legal advice. With that in mind, the less said the better.

  One thing is certain. I wasn’t allowed to tell my viewers good-bye, and that made me sad. Now, though, thanks to efforts by Chris and some of his computer-savvy marketing friends at UCLA (Thanks, guys and gals!) I have a chance to tell you goodbye after all.

  Through my years on the air I have diligently tried to answer all my own fan mail. But never have I seen the outpouring of kind wishes and words that have turned up in my life today. I can see that there’s no way I’ll be able to answer them all individually. So let me say a big group thank you to all of you.

  Chris tells me that if I really am going to be a Blogger??!!! when I grow up, I’ll need to post articles like this one on a fairly regular basis. Since I’m a trained journalist, that shouldn’t be all that difficult. I’ll try to let you know how things are going for me. I’ll also let you know where I next find myself behind an anchor desk because I’d like to think that my career in television news isn’t over. I believe I still have a lot to offer.

  Again, thank you for writing. I was at a very low ebb this morning when I came downstairs. I was upset. I hadn’t slept for the better part of two nights. You have no idea how much your wonderful notes mean to me. If anyone wants to write to me, my e-mail address is listed at the top of this form.

  Be well.

  Posted: 11:23 A.M. by AliR

  Chris left in the early afternoon to go hang out with his friends. Ali more than half expected that her phone would ring with people calling to say how sorry they were, but the people who were friends enough to have her unlisted home phone and her cell stayed away in droves. Either they didn’t know or they didn’t want to get too close for all the same reasons her co-workers from the newsroom had stayed away on Friday night. Guilt by association.

  And so, feeling at loose ends, Ali did what her mother and her Aunt Evie would have done—she cleaned out her closet. Closets, actually. She was surprised by the sheer number of outfits she had. That came with being on television. You had to vary the wardrobe. You couldn’t show up night after night wearing the same thing. And Paul never stinted when it came to spending money on clothing for either one of them. He was a great believer in the old adage “Clothes make the man,” or woman, as the case might be. He wanted to look good and he wanted his wife to look good too—guilt by association again.

  Ali was ruthless. The YWCA had a clothing bank, run in conjunction with a homeless shelter, where women who needed nice clothing for interviews or for new jobs could go and find appropriate attire. She loaded up three black leaf bags full of clothing and another one of shoes, then she dragged the entire bunch out to the Cayenne and loaded them in the back so she could deliver them the next day.

  Her cell phone rang as she came back into the house. “Hi, Mom,” she said. “How’s business?”

  “Not so hot,” her mother returned. “We even ended up with leftover sweet rolls.”

  The very thought of her mother’s sweet rolls made Ali’s mouth water. Baked fresh every day according to Myrtle Hansen’s own recipe, the delectable treats were usually sold out by ten A.M.

  “How did that happen?” Ali asked.

  “With all the rain and snow we’ve had this winter—with RVs getting washed down Oak Creek and all—business is way off. In fact, the big storm that came through Friday night dropped five inches of snow right here in Sedona, and a lot more up on the rim. Naturally, with fresh powder, your dad took off from work early so he and Hal Sims could get in some skiing up at the Snow Bowl. On the way, they’re going to drop off our leftovers at that homeless encampment just off the freeway up by Flagstaff. You know what a soft touch your father is. He’s a regular Loaves and Fishes kind of guy.”

  That was one of the things Ali loved about her father, and despite the annoyance in her voice, it was probably one of the things Edie Larson loved about her husband as well. Bob may have had a gruff exterior, but inside he was a pushover. He was forever offering a helping hand to anyone who needed it. Through the years Ali had lost track of the countless vagrants—drunks, mental cases, whatever—Bob had dragged home. He found them clothing and gave them odd jobs to do long enough for them to “earn some moolah and get some traction,” as Bob liked to say.

  While still a child, Ali had often accompanied Bob Larson on his self-appointed rounds to distribute what would otherwise have been Sugarloaf discards. Sometimes they went to homes where there were children with no food and zero heat. The next day Bob would be on the phone with the utility company trying to negotiate a way to turn the power or gas back on, or else he’d be tracking down some local contractor who, in the process of clearing land, might have access to a cord of firewood or two. Sometimes Bob went looking for homeless people living in parks or camped out in picnic areas. For those unfortunates living rough in cold weather, he often brought along discarded coats and blankets as well as food.

  That was what had happened this past year over Christmas when Ali had accompanied her father on one of his mercy missions. With the freeway newly plowed and snow lying ten inches deep, Bob had turned off the I-17 a few miles south of Munds Park and then wandered off the beaten track onto a Forest Service road that was just barely passable with Bob’s ’72 Bronco 4[.dotmath]4. Twenty minutes later, as soon as Bob stopped the SUV, fifteen or so people had materialized out of the snowbound, thickly forested wilderness and had quickly divested the 4×4 of its mini-truckload of bounty.

  “These people live here year-round?” an astonished Ali had asked as they drove back to Sedona.

  “Pretty much,” her father returned.

  “You’d think they’d freeze.”

 
“They’ve got tents and campers hidden in here in the woods. Believe me, some of these guys have plenty of reason for staying out of sight.”

  “Is it safe to come here, then?”

  Bob grinned. “It is for me,” he said. “They’re all hungry, and I’m the guy with the food.”

  “I keep wondering when in the world that man is going to grow up,” Edie was saying. “Put him on a pair of skis and he thinks he’s twenty again. But I didn’t call you up to bend your ear complaining about your father. I’m really calling about Reenie.”

  Reenie Bernard was Ali’s best friend from high school. “What about her?” Ali asked at once. “Is she all right?”

  “I don’t know, she’s missing,” Edie Larson answered. She sounded worried.

  “Missing?” Ali repeated, as though she hadn’t heard properly.

  “That’s right,” Edie said. “Hasn’t been seen or heard from since she went to Phoenix on Thursday. I had heard rumors about it yesterday, but you were so upset about your job situation at the time that I didn’t want to bring it up until it was actually confirmed. esides, I was hoping they’d have found her by now, but they haven’t. She’s officially listed as a missing person.”

  Ali’s head swam. There were times when she and Misty Irene Bernard had gone for a year or two without any more communication than a hastily scrawled note on a Christmas card. The last time she had seen Ali had been at the Sugarloaf Christmas party back in December. Still, despite the years and distance, Ali considered Reenie to be her best friend.