Read Online Deadly Stakes by J. A. Jance - Free Book Online

glad to have you all to himself. From what you’re saying, though, I take it you’re not that disappointed that we lost?”
    “I don’t suppose I am,” Edie agreed after a pause. “Not really. It was our first time out, and we came really close to unseating an incumbent. That counts for something. And I’m glad I ran. Doing that taught me that I can do anything I set my mind to. Now all I have to do is figure out what that is. Speaking of same, now that you’re out of a job, too, what’s your next step?”
    “I’ll have to start thinking about next year’s scholarship nominees, and the symphony has been after me to take charge of next spring’sauthor luncheon. I’ve been putting them off because I was too busy with the election.”
    Edie smiled. “You don’t have that excuse anymore.”
    “No, I don’t,” Ali agreed. “I guess I’ll give them a call and see if they’ve gotten someone else to handle it.”
    “When does B. get in?” Edie asked.
    “He’s due back from Hong Kong tomorrow afternoon.”
    “Does he know about the election?” Edie asked.
    Ali nodded. “I sent him a text while you were giving your concession speech. He said you gave it the old college try and that he’s proud of us both.”
    “We did give it a good try, didn’t we?” Edie said. “We certainly did.”
    There was a hint of sorrow in her voice that belied her words, and Ali suspected that her mother was maintaining that stiff upper lip for her daughter’s benefit.
    “Get some rest, Mom,” Ali advised. “I’ll spend the morning pulling together the rest of the financial reports—paying the last few bills, that sort of thing.”
    “Is the campaign going to end up owing a lot of money?” Edie asked.
    “No,” Ali said. “No worries there. The outstanding bills amount to only a couple of hundred dollars.”
    Most of Edie’s campaign had been done the old-fashioned way—expending shoe-leather and building yard signs—rather than buying television and radio airtime. “Edie for Mayor” campaign workers had done plenty of walking, but they hadn’t spent much money, which was more than could be said for their opponent. According to federally mandated campaign finance reports, Ali had learned that the newly reelected mayor of Sedona had won that two-hundred-vote margin by spending almost two hundred thousand dollars in campaign funds, most of it his own money.
    “That’s a relief, then,” Edie said. “I wouldn’t want to be out busting my butt and asking for donations to retire campaign debt. People hate donating to lost causes. On that note, I think I’ll head for the barn.”
    With that, her mother got up. Edie walked across the lobby with her shoulders back and her head held high. It was an impressive act, one that might have fooled someone else, but not her daughter. Ali saw right through it to the disappointment underneath, and it broke her heart that there wasn’t a thing she could do about it—not a single thing.

6
    L ynn Martinson was grateful that her mother was out of the house for most of the afternoon. Weather in the Valley of the Sun had cooled off enough that Beatrice Hart and some of her seventysomething pals had decided to play a round of golf, and for a daughter who had misplaced her cell phone once again, that was good news.
    For as long as she could remember, Beatrice had poked fun at Lynn about being a scatterbrain, and that criticism wasn’t entirely wrong, but what once was good-hearted teasing had taken a more serious turn. In the aftermath of Lynn’s father’s long struggle first with dementia and later with Alzheimer’s, Beatrice was on full alert for signs that a set of missing car keys or an AWOL cell phone were harbingers of a first downhill slip that might signal the full-scale unstoppable slide that had taken her husband’s life.
    Lynn had noticed that the phone was missing much earlier that morning. When she had arrived home from Chip’s place, the phone wasn’t in its