Hand of Evil Read Free

venture.
    “It’s still sealed, isn’t it?” Aunt Evie had asked. “How about if you open it and find out?”
    Ali had opened the envelope on the spot. Inside she had found a note card very similar to the one she had received just now: “Please join my daughter and me for tea, this coming Sunday, May 21, 2:30 P.M. at our home, 113 Manzanita Hills Road, Sedona, Arizona.” The note had been signed Anna Lee Ashcroft, Arabella’s mother.
    “Tea!” Ali had exclaimed in disbelief. “I’ve been invited to tea?”
    Taking the note from Ali’s hand, Aunt Evie examined it and then handed it back. “That’s the way it looks,” she said.
    “I’ve never been invited to tea in my life,” Ali said. “And who all is going? Are you invited?”
    Aunt Evie shook her head.
    “Is anyone else I know invited, then?” Ali asked. “And why would someone my age want to go to tea with a bunch of old ladies in the first place?”
    “You’ll want to go if you know what’s good for you,” Aunt Evie had said severely. “But this doesn’t give us much time.”
    “Time for what?” Ali had asked.
    “To get down to Phoenix and find you something appropriate to wear,” Aunt Evie had answered.
    Ali’s high school years had been tough ones for the owners and operators of the Sugarloaf Café. Things had been so lean during Ali’s junior year that she had turned down an invitation to the prom rather than admit she didn’t have a formal to wear and couldn’t afford to buy one.
    By the end of her senior year, things were only marginally better, but she was astonished when Aunt Evie took the whole next day—a Saturday—off work. She drove Ali to Metrocenter, a shopping mall two hours away in Phoenix, where they spent the whole day at what Ali considered to be the very ritzy Goldwater’s Department Store putting together a tea-appropriate outfit. Aunt Evie had charged the whole extravagant expense—a stylish linen suit, silk blouse, and shoes—to her personal account. The loan of Aunt Evie’s fake pearls would complete the outfit.
    At the time, Ali had been too naive to question her aunt’s uncharacteristic behavior. Instead she had simply accepted Aunt Evie’s kindness at face value.
    The next week at school, Ali had held her breath hoping to hear that some of her classmates had also received invitations to the unprecedented Ashcroft tea, but no one had. No one mentioned it, not even Ali’s best friend, Reenie Bernard, so Ali didn’t mention it, either.
    Finally, on the appointed day, Ali had left her parents and Aunt Evie hard at work at the Sugarloaf doing Sunday afternoon cleanup and had driven herself to Anna Lee Ashcroft’s Manzanita Hills place overlooking downtown Sedona. Compared to her parents humble abode out behind the restaurant, the Ashcroft home was downright palatial.
    Ali had driven up the steep, blacktopped driveway and parked her mother’s Dodge in front of a glass-walled architectural miracle with a spectacular view that encompassed the whole valley. Once out of the car, Ali, unaccustomed to wearing high heels, had tottered unsteadily up the wide flagstone walkway. By the time she stepped onto the spacious front porch shaded by a curtain of bloom-laden wisteria, her knees were still knocking but she was grateful not to have tripped and fallen.
    Taking a deep, steadying breath, Ali rang the bell. The door was opened by a maid wearing a black-and-white uniform who led her into and through the house. The exquisite furniture, gleaming wood tables, and lush oriental rugs were marvelous to behold. She tried not to stare as she was escorted out to a screened porch overlooking an immense swimming pool. Her hostess, a frail and seemingly ancient woman confined to a wheelchair and with her legs wrapped in a shawl, waited there while another somewhat younger woman hovered watchfully in the background.
    Ali was shown to a chair next to a table set with an elaborate collection of delicate cups, saucers, plates, and