Left for Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

her and got her transported. She’s an illegal. That makes her somebody else’s problem.”
    Al knew that Sergeant Dobbs wasn’t a fan of extra paperwork, either. “What if she isn’t?” Al asked.
    “Isn’t what?”
    “Isn’t an illegal.”
    “You found her out here in the desert all by herself, in an area that is known to be full of illegal immigrants, right?”
    Al nodded. “Right.”
    “Did she look like an illegal to you?” Dobbs asked.
    “Yes, but—” Al began.
    “But nothing,” Dobbs interrupted. “If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it is a duck. End of story. Go write up your report and hand it over. I’ll take it from here, and I want you signed out at the time your shift is over. Got it?”
    “Got it,” Al answered.
    But once he got back to his vehicle, he made a note of the location showing in his GPS. He thought it was likely that Dobbs would simply deep-six any investigation, but if Al needed to get back here with a local homicide detective and without the vehicle he had driven that day, he wanted to know exactly where he was going.

4
    5:00 P.M ., Friday, April 9
Sedona, Arizona
    Late in the afternoon Ali’s peaceful reverie was broken by the welcome arrival of twin tornadoes in the form of her two-year-old grandkids. Squealing with delight, Colleen and Colin raced onto the patio just ahead of their father, Chris.
    “Mom, can you watch these two dust devils while I check on the footing forms for the cement pour?” Chris, who left nothing to chance and was determined that the sculpture would be spot-on perfect, had arrived carrying a diaper bag laden with kid stuff as well as a giant tape measure.
    Seeing both things together made Ali smile. “Sure,” she said, “they’re safe with me.”
    When the twins were born, Chris had put both his teaching and his artwork on hold in favor of being a stay-at-home dad, while Athena, their mother, continued to teach and coach at Sedona High. Chris had done an excellent job of caring for the little ones, but as they grew older, Ali had seen evidence of his feeling frustrated and stuck, something she saw as the male equivalent of postpartum depression. Her decision to commission Chris to create the garden’s centerpiece had helped snap him out of it. As the job progressed, the old Chris reemerged—energetic, humorous, and full of enthusiasm. And two more people who had seen the work in progress in his basement studio had commissioned him to do pieces for them.
    As Ali watched the twins explore the patio—clambering off and on the furniture; chasing after fallen wisteria blossoms; examining anungainly praying mantis; and asking nonstop questions—she smiled to think what her sophisticated friends from her newscasting days or from the police academy shooting range would think if they could see her now.
    She had never been one of those women who spent years longing to be a grandparent, so the joy she took in getting to know Colin and Coleen was entirely unexpected. During the first few months, she had helped out a lot while Chris was trying to get his head around caring for not one but two newborns. With Chris’s artwork bringing in extra cash, he and Athena had been able to hire someone to come in and help out as a part-time nanny. Not wanting to be regarded as an interfering mother-in-law, Ali had used the arrival of the nanny as an opportunity to step back. She found herself in the position of seeing the twins less and enjoying them more.
    She loved watching their similarities as well as their differences. Did Colleen take after her mother? In some ways, yes. She was fiercely independent, but she also mimicked her father’s more artistic side. She loved cooking “pretend” meals and, even more, “helping” a doting and exceedingly patient Leland with real cooking chores at Ali’s house.
    Colin, on the other hand, was introspective, almost dreamy. Needless to say, he was the quieter of the two. Yes,