Hand of Evil Read Online Free PDF Page B

overtaken by a renewed sense of loss. Growing up Ali had felt blessed to have two mothers rather than one. Edie Larson and her never-married sister, Evelyn Hansen, had not only looked alike, they had worked together on a daily basis as partners in the Sugarloaf. In many ways—including their devotion to Ali—they had been very much alike, but they had also been subtly different.
    Edie Larson was always the solid, practical one of the pair—quiet and down to earth. Edie never took shortcuts. She cooked everything from scratch, and her recreational reading consisted almost entirely of cookbooks. She liked to see art films—tea-and-cookies films, as Bob called them—and documentaries occasionally, but that was about it.
    Aunt Evie had been a vivacious and outgoing Auntie Mame kind of character. She was someone with eclectic tastes, a fondness for practical jokes, and a real sense of fun. She had loved movies and books—all kinds of movies and all kinds of books. She had read voraciously, everything from potboilers to highbrow literary fiction. She had devoured musicals and knew the lyrics to countless Broadway hit songs. Even though Ali had been living in California at the time Aunt Evie had succumbed to a massive stroke, Ali had felt her lively aunt’s loss more than she would have thought possible. To this day Ali’s MP3 player was filled with the songs and music from Aunt Evie’s huge collection of tapes, records, and CDs. Chris had spent most of a previous Christmas vacation loading them into his mother’s player.
    Hearing Aunt Evie’s name mentioned in passing brought back afresh the pain of losing her. “I miss her, too,” Ali said.
    “I’m sure you do.”
    Arabella turned to the waiting butler. “You may bring the tea now, Mr. Brooks.”
    “Very well, madam,” he said, nodding his assent. With that, he turned and disappeared the way he had come, silently closing the heavy double doors behind him.
    “So,” Arabella said.
    Ali remembered that other long-ago interview. Anna Lee had begun hers in exactly the same way, but back then, Ali, dressed in her unaccustomed finery, had been ill at ease and unsure of what she should say. This time she was far more confident.
    “I’ve been terribly remiss,” Ali said at once. “I should have stopped by years ago to thank both you and your mother for what you did for me when you awarded me that wonderful scholarship. I want you to know that your single act of kindness made a huge difference in my life.”
    Arabella waved aside Ali’s gratitude. “It’s not necessary,” she said. “Not at all. You may have been our first scholarship recipient, Ms. Reynolds, but you certainly weren’t the last. My mother derived a lot of enjoyment from the process, and so have I.”
    “Ali. Please call me Ali.”
    “And you must call me Arabella. I have to say that searching out possible scholarship winners is a bit like having a new treasure hunt every single year,” the woman continued brightly. “We’ve resisted having a formal application process. Mr. Brooks works with me on this, you see. The two of us are a team. We track down deserving students and ferret them out on our own by talking to teachers and students and by asking questions in the community. That way we don’t end up having to ignore a deserving student just because of some hard-and-fast official guideline. In fact, although traditionally most of our recipients have been female, one of our recent winners happens to be a boy who’s majoring in nursing.”
    The butler reappeared, bearing a familiar silver tray polished to a gleaming finish. In addition to the tea service and a collection of sandwiches and sweets there was also a silver cocktail shaker and a pair of long-stemmed glasses.
    “Care for a pre-tea martini?” Arabella asked.
    “No, thanks,” Ali said. “It’s a little early for me.”
    “Not for me,” Arabella said, smiling her thanks as Brooks poured her drink from the shaker and handed