Free Edge Of Evil by J. A. Jance Page A

retrieve an order.
    Unasked, Edie poured coffee for both Ali and Chris and pushed the cream pitcher in her grandson’s direction.
    “Your father’s off his game this morning,” she continued. “Stayed up too late waiting for you to call. He’s already botched two orders. If I were actually paying the man, I suppose I’d have to dock him. How come it took you so long to get here—I thought you were leaving at two? And what’ll you have, besides sweet rolls, I mean?”
    Chris ordered ham and eggs. Ali ordered a roll along with one egg and two strips of bacon, then she turned around and surveyed the room. In the old days, Edie and Aunt Evie and the other waitresses had worn black-and-white uniforms. Those had now given way to blue-and-white Sugarloaf Café sweatshirts (available for purchase at the cash register), tennis shoes, and jeans.
    Ali’s sweet roll arrived huge and soft and oozing icing. She had just picked up the first sticky piece to put in her mouth when her cell phone rang. She glanced at it, saw it was Paul, and didn’t answer.
    “Still playing hard to get, I see,” said a male voice close to her shoulder.
    Ali turned to look. The man seated on the next stool, unlike every other man in the place, was dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and a colorful and properly knotted red-and-blue tie. He was broad-shouldered and bull-necked, and his salt-and-pepper hair was definitely receding.
    “Excuse me?” she said.
    “I’m sure you’ve forgotten me long ago,” the man continued. “But nobody around here is allowed to forget you. Your mother won’t stand for it.”
    Pointing, he indicated the wall behind the cash register. Plastered there, right along with the business license and the fire-department plaque for maximum occupancy, were a dozen or more professionally produced publicity shots. Some of them dated from Ali’searly work in Milwaukee. Others came from her time at Fox News. Most of them, taken for whatever reason, came from Ali’s long stint as anchor on the station in LA. All of them testified to Edie Larson’s unstinting motherly pride in her daughter’s accomplishments. Seeing them there together made Ali blush with embarrassment.
    “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, then,” she said. “You know who I am, but I’m sorry to say, I don’t know you.”
    “Dave Holman, Class of ’77, at your service,” he said. Grinning, he held out his hand. Ali brushed as much of the icing off her fingers as possible before placing her still slightly sticky hand in his. “Detective Dave Holman,” he added. “Good to see you in person again after all these years.”
    Ali returned to her sweet roll. “Obviously my parents keep you up to date on what’s going on with me. What have you been doing in the meantime?”
    Holman shrugged. “Spent some time in the military—the Marines—and I’m still in the reserves,” he answered. “Graduated from college. Got married; had kids; got divorced. All the usual stuff. Now I’m a homicide detective with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s department. But back at Mingus Mountain High, Billy Garrett was a good buddy of mine. Remember him?”
    Ali tried to reconcile this powerful-looking, middle-aged man—this Dave Holman—with the tall scrawnyboy she remembered from high school. As for Billy Garrett? She recalled him as an even skinnier but much shorter kid—a regular smart-ass—who, his senior year, had mustered up enough courage to invite Ali to the prom. And she had turned him down. Not because she was playing hard to get, as Dave Holman seemed to assume, and not because Billy Garrett wasn’t tall enough, either.
    Finances had been tight in the Larson household the last two years Ali was in high school. Remodeling the restaurant had taken more time and cash than anyone had anticipated. That was the reason Ali had graduated from high school with no class ring to show for it and with no yearbook for those two years, either. She had helped