Edge Of Evil Read Online Free Page A

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 isgoing 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.
    “What happened?” Ali demanded.
    “Nobody knows. One of the detectives from the Yavapai County sheriff’s department came in forlunch. According to him, Reenie was supposed to go to Scottsdale on Thursday morning for a doctor’s appointment. She left the doctor’s office in mid afternoon and hasn’t been seen since.”
    In a matter of seconds the fact that Ali had lost her newsroom job seemed ridiculously unimportant—and selfish.
    “That’s awful,” she said. “How are Howie and the kids doing?”
    Reenie’s husband, Dr. Howard Bernard, was a history professor at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. His and Reenie’s marriage was a late-blooming, second-time-around affair for both of them. Their children—Matthew and Julie—were nine and six respectively. Julie had just barely made it in under her mother’s self-imposed child-bearing deadline of age 40.
    “I don’t know,” Edie replied. “I haven’t called them. I didn’t want to be a bother, but I thought you might want to.”
    “Yes,” Ali agreed. “I will. As soon as we get off the phone.”
    And she did. The moment the call to her mother ended, Ali scrolled through the saved numbers in her cell phone and dialed Reenie’s home number. Someone whose voice Ali didn’t recognize answered before the end of the first ring.
    “It’s Bree,” Reenie’s sister said, once Ali identified herself.
    Bree and Reenie’s parents, Ed and Diane Holzer, were now staunch, Sunday-go-to-meeting-style Missouri Synod Lutherans—a direct contradiction to their wild and misspent youth. Ed had straightened up enough to join and eventually manage his family banking and real estate interests in Cottonwood. Prior to that, however, he and Diane together had sowed plenty of wild oats. They had named their now middle-aged daughters in the spirit of those psychedelic, free-wheeling days. Reenie, formally dubbed Misty Irene, had spent her school years dodging what she considered a name straight out of the sixties by opting for a variation on her middle name. Reenie’s