Free Left for Dead by J.A. Jance Page B

the one who blacked your eye just before that Labor Day weekend?”
    “That’s the one,” Ali answered with a smile. “He’s also the one who helped me out when Brenda Riley was in such bad shape. Donnatelle Craig, one of our classmates, heard about it on a Blue Alert and called from Yuma to let me know.”
    “Is he going to be all right?”
    “Can’t tell,” Ali answered. “He’s been airlifted to Tucson for surgery. According to Donnatelle, he and his wife are expecting a baby in a matter of weeks, and there are two older kids as well.”
    “Tough,” B. said.
    Nodding her agreement, Ali stepped onto the treadmill and punched in her settings. “Sister Anselm is coming for dinner tonight, and Leland has been cooking up a storm. Tomorrow I’ll drive down to Tucson and see what I can do to help. Being in a hospital waiting room with an injured husband and little kids is no picnic.”
    “Speaking of Brenda Riley,” B. said after a pause, “what do you hear from her these days? Is she still sober?”
    Brenda Riley and Ali Reynolds had been contemporaries working for sister television stations back in the days when Ali was a television newscaster in L.A. They had been forced off-screen about the same time, due to having reached the female equivalent of a pull-by date. Since that was about the same time Ali’s second marriage blew up, she had come home to Sedona to get her her life back in order and recover. Brenda had done the opposite. She had gone on a bender that lasted for a couple of years and nearly killed her.
    While Brenda was in the process of sobering up, she’d had the misfortune of falling under the spell of a cyberstalker. When the situationhad gone from bad to worse, Ali, with the help of a Grass Valley homicide detective named Gilbert Morris, had managed to pull Brenda’s fat out of the fire.
    Much to Ali’s surprise, in the ensuing months, Detective Morris and Brenda had morphed into a romantic item, complete with a beachside wedding Ali had attended solo because B. was off on some business trip or other. After the ceremony, Gil and Brenda had laughingly told Ali that theirs was a match made in hell rather than heaven.
    “Yes, she’s still sober,” Ali said. “She wrote a book that's due out soon. You do remember that her mother died, don’t you?”
    “Not really,” B. admitted.
    “Brenda’s share of the estate evidently came to quite a chunk of change. Last month Gil was able to pull the pin on his job with the Grass Valley PD.”
    “He’s a little young to be retired, isn’t he?” B. asked.
    “He’s only retired from law enforcement,” Ali answered. “He and Brenda are in the process of buying an operating B-and-B in Ashland, Oregon. Ashland isn’t all that far from Redding, where Gil’s kids live with his ex-wife.”
    “Sounds like a lot of work,” B. said.
    “Having an ex-wife?”
    “No, running a B-and-B. It’s a job description that automatically requires the owner to be civil to a bunch of yahoo customers first thing in the morning,” B said. “Before you even have your first cup of coffee. Spare me.”
    “Because you’re a grump in the morning?” Ali asked.
    “Pretty much,” B. agreed.
    When their joint workout was over, Ali and B. paused in the kitchen long enough to share a cup of coffee and two pieces of leftover pizza. Coffee beans kept in the freezer were the only fresh food that could survive B.’s long absences without going bad. Ali was grateful for the pizza. After spending the night living in sin at her place or B.’s, she was capable of showing up at the Sugarloaf and brazening it out with her parents, but she didn’t like doing it.
    “I’m going to miss you,” Ali said.
    “No, you won’t,” B. replied. “You’ll be too busy planting that garden of yours to even notice I’m gone.”
    “You’re wrong,” Ali told him. “I’ll notice.”
    Sometime later, knowing that B. needed time to get gathered up and packed, Ali kissed him