Cruel Intent

“Won’t having his files help you with all that?” Ali asked.

“That depends,” Dave said.

“On what?”

“On whether or not a judge rules our having them constitutes an illegal wiretap.”

CHAPTER 18

It took until Monday for things to get back to seminormal. Complaining about the cost, Edie and Bob Larson bailed out of the hotel first and were back home by Saturday evening. Ali convinced Leland that he needed to take it easy for a few days, but by Monday morning he insisted that he was well enough to go home to his fifth wheel. By Monday afternoon Ali and Sam were back home, too, in the house on Andante Drive in Skyview.

As soon as Ali let Sam out of her crate, the cat made a beeline for her safe-haven hidey-hole in the laundry room while Ali wandered through the house. She’d had a locksmith come through and change all the locks, for safety’s sake, but knowing that the house had been invaded-that she and Leland had both been attacked there-left her feeling nervous and uncomfortable.

Chris, Athena, and some of their friends had spent the weekend cleaning up the mess left behind by the water and the investigation; they’d also reshampooed the carpets. Even though none of the damage was visible, Ali still felt Peter Winter’s ominous presence in her home and in her life.

Athena’s phone rang. Ali had been too busy in the intervening days to go to the store to replace the one that had died in her bathtub.

“Hello?” Ali said.

“Hello,” a woman’s voice returned. “Is Athena Carlson there?”

“I’m sorry,” Ali said. “I’m Athena’s fiancé’s mother. My phone was damaged last week, and she’s letting me use hers temporarily. I can give you Chris’s number, if you like. You can call her on that line.”

There was a momentary hesitation on the other end of the phone. “Alison?” the woman asked warily. “Is this Alison Larson, then?”

No one had called Ali Reynolds by that name in years-decades, even. “Yes,” Ali said. “Who is this?”

“It’s Jeanette. Jeanette Reynolds, Dean’s mother. I can’t believe I’m actually hearing your voice. Athena tracked Angus down over the Internet. She sent him an e-mail at work, introducing herself and asking if we’d like to be in touch. We were overjoyed to hear from her. This is the phone number she left in the e-mail in case we wanted to call. I know it’s a bit awkward for us to come horning back into your lives like this after so many years, but yes, we’d be so honored to have a chance to finally meet our grandson, and we’ll be thrilled to come to the wedding. He’s the only grandson we have, you know. We wouldn’t want to miss it.”

As soon as Jeanette Reynolds hung up, Ali called Chris’s number. “What wedding?” she demanded.

“Oops,” Chris said. “I think you need to talk to Athena.”

“What wedding?” Ali asked when her future daughter-in-law came on the phone. “Are we having a wedding?”

“Well, yes,” Athena said. “We are.”

“When?”

“Over Thanksgiving weekend, if that’s all right with you,” Athena said. “On Saturday afternoon. You said that we should do it our way, and I told Chris that if we can pull off a wedding with two weeks’ notice, it’ll be just about right. Not too big and not too small. The people who want to be here will be, and the people who don’t won’t.”

“Who all knows about this?” Ali asked.

“You and Chris and me,” Athena said.

“To say nothing of Angus and Jeanette Reynolds.”

“Chris’s grandparents?” Athena asked. “You mean they called?”

“They called,” Ali returned dryly. “So tell me, where are we having this little event?”

“I’m not sure about that yet,” Athena said. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Only one,” Ali said. “Call Leland Brooks first, but after that, your next call had better be to my mother.”

EPILOGUE

On Tuesday Ali managed to purchase a replacement cell phone. As soon as she turned it on, it let her know there were messages. Several of those were from Jacky Jackson, but before she could call him back, he rang through again.

“It’s over,” he said dolefully.

“What’s over?”

“Mid-Century-Modern Renovations,” he said. “They’ve dropped it completely.”

As far as Ali was concerned, that seemed like good news.

“That’s not all,” Jacky continued. “The other deal is off, too. You never should have left us standing out there on the porch like that. He’s a very important man. It made me look like a complete fool, Ali. Really, it did.”

Obviously, Jacky and the very important man hadn’t stuck around town long enough to hear what had happened or to learn how narrowly they had escaped because Ali hadn’t opened the door. She could have told him about it right then, but she didn’t. Jacky was on a tear, and she let him continue.

“Having two deals blow up like that isn’t a good thing,” he added. “Not if you expect to be considered bankable.”

“What are you saying?” Ali asked. “Are you telling me it’s over?”

Jacky paused as if he’d been taken by surprise, as if he hadn’t expected Ali to beat him to the punch. “I suppose so,” he said. “I mean, it sounds as though you’re not that interested in working, as though you’re not that hungry…”

“Fax me the paperwork,” Ali said. “We’ll go our separate ways.”

“No hard feelings?”

“None,” Ali said.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving dawned clear and crisp. Early in the afternoon, Ali found herself standing in bright sunlight in the doorway of a flower-bedecked party tent that had been pitched in the driveway of her unfinished house on Manzanita Hills Road. Watching the arriving guests, she reflected that pulling all this off in a mere two weeks had been just about right.

And what a two weeks it had been. Edie had gone nuts over flowers and dresses and food, but she hadn’t had enough advance warning to do any real damage. Athena absolutely put her foot down when Edie tried to convince her that having a storebought wedding cake or hiring caterers wouldn’t do.

“You’re coming to this wedding as an honored guest,” Athena insisted. “You’re not doing the cooking, and that’s final.”

Edie had been aghast at the idea that Angus and Jeanette Reynolds, the very people who had disowned their own son, Chris’s father, would be coming to the event as honored guests, too. Since there wasn’t a thing either Edie and Ali could do about that situation, Ali advised her mother to accept it with good grace. By the day of the wedding, however, she realized the advice was far easier to give than it was to take.

Leland Brooks’s arm was still in a sling, but that hadn’t kept him from organizing the wedding in jig time. He had also supervised Ali’s great adventure in cooking her first ever Thanksgiving di

Ali’s folks were there, of course, as were Chris and Athena and Athena’s grandmother, Betsy Peterson, who had flown in from Mi

Their loss, Ali thought.

Maddy Watkins and her two golden retrievers had driven from Seattle to L.A., where they picked up Velma T in Laguna Niguel. Then the four of them had driven over to Sedona, where they had taken up residence in the pet friendly Majestic Mountain I