J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 2: Trial by Fire, Fatal Error, Left for Dead
Authors: J.A. Jance
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ALSO BY J.A. JANCE
A
LI
R
EYNOLDS
M
YSTERIES
Edge of Evil
Web of Evil
Hand of Evil
Cruel Intent
J
OANNA
B
RADY
M
YSTERIES
Desert Heat
Tombstone Courage
Shoot / Don’t Shoot
Dead to Rights
Skeleton Canyon
Rattlesnake Crossing
Outlaw Mountain
Devil’s Claw
Paradise Lost
Partner in Crime
Exit Wounds
Dead Wrong
Damage Control
Fire and Ice
J. P. B
EAUMONT
M
YSTERIES
Until Proven Guilty
Injustice for All
Trial by Fury
Taking the Fifth
Improbable Cause
A More Perfect Union
Dismissed with Prejudice
Minor in Possession
Payment in Kind
Without Due Process
Failure to Appear
Lying in Wait
Name Withheld
Breach of Duty
Birds of Prey
Partner in Crime
Long Time Gone
Justice Denied
Fire and Ice
AND
Hour of the Hunter
Kiss of the Bees
Day of the Dead
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by J.A. Jance
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone hardcover edition December 2009
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jance, Judith A.
Trial by fire/J.A. Jance.
p. cm.
“A Touchstone book.”
1. Reynolds, Ali (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2.
Arizona—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3560.A44T75 2009
813'.54—dc22
2009015875
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6380-8
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6380-6
ISBN 978-1-4516-7578-8 (eBook)
In memory of Anthony Nadolski and to Ernie Gabrielson, two outstanding Bisbee educators.
TRIAL BY FIRE
She awakened to the sound of roaring flames and to searing heat and lung-choking smoke. Maybe she was already dead and this was hell, but why would she go to hell? What had she done to deserve that? Just then a scorched beam fell across her leg, and she felt the horrifying pain of burning flesh—
her
burning flesh. That’s when she knew wasn’t dead. She was still alive. And on fire.
She tried to shake the burning two-by-four off her leg but it was too heavy. It wouldn’t budge. She tried shoving it away and managed to move it a little, but in the process her hand caught fire as well. She tried to sit up, desperate to find some avenue of escape, but the floor around her was a sea of flame. She was barefoot. She couldn’t bring herself to step into the fire. There was nowhere for her to go, no way to escape. It was hopeless. She was going to die.
Falling back onto the bed, she began screaming and praying and coughing, all at the same time. “Please, God. Let it be quick. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Another wooden beam fell. This one didn’t land on her di
rectly, but as the hungry flames licked away at it, she knew they were really searching for her. The pain was all around her now. Her whole body was on fire. Somewhere, far beyond the flames, she heard something else—the sound of breaking glass. Was there glass in heaven?
“Hello,” a voice called. “Where are you?”
Why is He asking that?
she wondered.
God knows everything.
He must know where I am.
Then, unexpectedly, a mysterious figure clothed all in yellow or maybe even orange rose up silently out of the flame and smoke. He was holding his arms stretched out toward her, reaching for her.
Not God after all,
she thought despairingly.
Satan. I really am in hell.
Darkness fell and there was nothing at all.
On a gorgeous mid-May morning with temperatures still in the seventies, all was right with Ali Reynolds’s world. The cobalt blue sky overhead was unblemished by even a single cloud, and Sedona’s towering red rocks gleamed in brilliant sunlight.
The seemingly endless remodeling project on Ali’s recently purchased Manzanita Hills Road house had finally come to an end. The workers were gone, along with their trucks and their constant noise. Now, seated on her newly refurbished flagstone patio and surrounded by an ancient wisteria in full and glorious bloom, she was enjoying the peace and quiet, as well as a third cup of freshly brewed coffee, while she worked on a speech, a commencement speech actually, that she was due to deliver at not one but two high school graduation ceremonies at the end of the week.
How she had gotten roped into doing two commencement speeches one day apart was a wonder to her still.
A year or so earlier Ali had agreed to take the helm of the Amelia Dougherty Askins Scholarship Fund, a charitable entity
that helped provide financial assistance for college expenses to deserving students from schools all over Arizona’s Verde Valley. Though she was once an Askins Scholarship winner herself, this was Ali’s first year of administering the program. The time-consuming process of searching out and evaluating likely recipients had put her in touch with students, teachers, and administrators from a number of local schools.
Ali’s ties to Sedona Red Rock High School had to do with the fact that both her son, Christopher, and her new daughter-in-law, Chris’s bride, Athena, taught there. When it came time to cajole Ali into agreeing to speak at commencement, her son and daughter-in-law had known just which strings to pull.
