J. Jance - Web of Evil

"Yes," Ali said. "Please do."

Ali stood in the open doorway of her room to greet Edie Larson when she arrived a few minutes later, dragging an immense roll-aboard bag behind her.

"I hope it's okay if I bunk with you," Edie said uncertainly.

"It's fine," Ali said, gesturing toward the king-sized bed.

"Did you know Dave Holman was coming?" Edie asked. "I ran into him down in the lobby. He was going to rent a room here, but then he found out how much they cost and almost had a heart attack, so he's gone to find someplace else to stay." Edie stopped in the middle of the room and turned around, slowly examining the plush surroundings. "Are you sure you can afford this?"

"Yes," Ali said, thinking back to her lawyer-filled morning and the news that over time she was bound to inherit a good deal of Paul Grayson's considerable fortune. In fact, she could afford to stay here now far more easily than she could have before. She closed the hallway door and turned to face her mother.

"So how are things?" Edie Larson asked. "And how are you?"

For some reason, those two questions, coming from Edie, were enough to cause Ali's emotional dam to break. All the tears she hadn't shed in the coroner's officeall the tears she had put on hold and hadn't shed during her visit to the house on Robert Laneburst through now. Sobbing, she let herself be pulled into her mother's armsheld and comfortedwhile Edie patted her shoulder and crooned soothing words.

"Shush now," Edie murmured. "It's going to be all right. You'll see. Now then, have you had any lunch?"

This was so typically Edie Larson that Ali had to smile through her tears. Edie's daughter might be a crazed killer on her way to the slammer, but Edie would move heaven and earth to be sure Ali was properly fed beforehand.

"Not yet," Ali said.

Edie heaved her oversized suitcase up onto the bed and unzipped it. "Now then," she said. "Let me hang up my clothes and put things away. I'll be able to think better once I get organized."

"When you finish, maybe we can go downstairs and have something to eat."

"Bad idea," Edie said. "We'd probably be better off ordering from room service."

"How come?" Ali asked.

"Because there are a lot of people milling around down in the lobby who looked like news people to me. I asked one of the helper guys, a doorman, I think, what they were doing. He said they were looking for you."

"For me?" echoed Ali.

"Not by name," Edie answered. "He said they were here because there's a murder suspect' reportedly staying at the hotel right now. He said they're trying to get a glimpse of her. This may be California," Edie added, "but I'm assuming that even in L.A. there's not more than one murder suspect at a time staying in a place like this."

When Ali had worked the news desk, one of the rules had been that suspects weren't mentioned by name until they'd actually been charged with a crime. But that wouldn't help her. Her face had already turned up on camera the night before as she and Victor were leaving the coroner's office. And people had noticed. People had recognized her. She didn't know how they had managed to trace her to the hotel. Most likely someone had followed Victor's Lincoln when they left Robert Lane. Now, knowing they were here, Ali felt besieged.

"Room service sounds good to me," she said.

Half an hour later, Ali's cell phone rang. "How do people stand this traffic day in and day out?" Dave Holman wanted to know. "And it's not just during rush hour, either. It lasts all day long."

"Where are you?" Ali asked.

"Motel 6. That's a little more my speed than the place you're staying."

"Where?"

"Highway 101 and some other freeway, I-210, I think. The good thing is, I should be able to make my way back there from here on surface streets. The people driving on the freeways are nuts."

Ali had come to L.A. from New York. The metro area had seemed different to her but not entirely alien. Dave hailed from Sedona. She could see how foreign the city must seem to someone accustomed to living in small-town Arizona.

"Our room number is 703," she told him. "When you get back here to the hotel, come directly up to the room. Whatever you do, don't ask for me by name. Mom says there are reporters down in the lobby. One of them might be listening."

"No kidding," Dave returned. "I may be a hick, but when I met up with Edie a while ago down in the lobby, I did notice one or two reporters had been added to the mix."

"So we'll have lunch up here," Ali said. "From room service. What do you want?"

"A burger. Medium rare. No tofu!"

Ali laughed at that. "No tofu it is."

She called room service and ordered a burger for Dave and tortilla soup for Edie and herself. When she put down the phone, she found Edie studying her daughter's reflection in the mirror.

"Have you met her?" Edie asked.

"Met who?"

"April Gaddis," Edie replied. "Paul's fiancee."

"How do you know her name?" Ali asked.

Edie reached into a capacious purse and pulled out a handful of newspapers. "I stopped for coffee at that truck stop on the far side of Palm Springs and picked up a couple of newspapers," she replied. "I wanted to know what we were up against before I got here."

Edie laid the papers on the desk and then pulled out a brand-new spiral notebook. She opened the notebook to the first page, which was blank. "When Dave Holman is working a homicide, I know he always keeps a casebook," Edie added, picking up a pen. "I think we should do the same thing. I'm going to write down everything so we don't forget details. So tell me. What's April like?"

Under any other circumstance, Ali might have found her mother's businesslike approach amusing, but this wasn't funny. As Edie sat with her pen poised over paper, it was clear she wanted answers.

"Very young, very pretty, very pregnant," Ali said finally.

"And she was supposed to get married today," Edie said.

Ali nodded.

"Is she considered a suspect in Paul's murder?" Edie wanted to know.

"Probably not," Ali said. "No motive. Had the divorce been finalized and the wedding ceremony performed, it might be a different story, but when the will was read this morning, I was still Paul's legal wife and primary beneficiary. If April was going to knock him off, surely she would have been smart enough to wait until they were actually married."

"Is she that smart?" Edie asked.

Ali thought about what Helga had saidabout April being smart enough to throw herself on Ali's mercy. "I think so," Ali responded.

"Who else would have a motive then?" Edie asked. She was approaching the problem in her accustomed mannerwith no nonsense and plenty of common sense. "Is there a chance there's another man in the picture?" she added. "If money isn't the motivating factor, maybe something else islike jealousy, for example. From what I see on TV, jealousy works."

Ali had thought about April Gaddis and Paul Grayson primarily in terms of the two of them cheating on her. The idea that they might have been cheating on each other had never crossed her mind.

"It's possible, I suppose," Ali said dubiously. She wasn't entirely convinced.

"Of course it is," Edie declared. "If Paul would cheat on you, he'd cheat on her, too. That's what your father says: Once a cheat, always a cheat. So the first thing we have to do is find out everything there is to know about April Gaddis."

"We should ask Christopher about that," Ali said. "He knew about April long before I did. She's related to some friend of his. April was working for Paul as his administrative assistant, but I don't know which came first, the chicken or the eggthe job or the affair. I think it's likely that he got her the job so she could earn enough money to support herself. That way there wouldn't be a paper trail linking money from him to her."