J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds Mysteries 3-Book Boxed Set, Volume 2: Trial by Fire, Fatal Error, Left for Dead Read Free Page B

of her life. She had been devastated when her television broadcast career had been ended without warning. She had walked away from her marriage to an adulterous spouse expecting to leave with her dignity and a reasonable property settlement. Her financial situation had changed remarkably when Paul Grayson was murdered prior to finalizing their divorce. As Paul’s surviving spouse, Ali had been left with far more financial security than she had ever expected. It wasn’t really necessary for her to go looking for work, but it seemed that, in this case, work had come looking for her.

    On Thursday of that week, she delivered the commencement address at Sedona Red Rock High School. After giving what Ali hoped was a motivational speech, she watched with pride as one of her scholarship winners, Marissa Dvorak, rolled herwheelchair across the stage to accept her diploma. The Askins Scholarship award would enable Marissa to attend the University of Arizona, where she hoped to earn a degree that would allow her to work in the field of medical research.
    As the Sedona High graduating class filed across the stage in alphabetical order, Ali noticed that the school’s second runner-up for the Askins Scholarship, a boy named Ricky Farraday, wasn’t listed in the program. Ali had scratched him from the list when she had learned, through Leland’s efforts, that Ricky had scammed his way into a large financial settlement by staging a phony hate crime. The school district had paid up, but Ali wondered if Ricky had transferred to another school or simply dropped out. He was bright enough, but if other people in the community had caught on to his shenanigans, the kids at school, along with the teachers, might have made life miserable for him—and in Ali’s opinion, deservedly so.
    After the ceremony, Ali posed for photos with Marissa and her adoptive and very proud parents. Then she went home and read through another hundred pages in a book called Street Legal, a textbook on criminal investigative procedures written by a guy named Ken Wallentine. In her previous existence as a television news anchor, she had always believed in being prepared before she did an interview.
    Now, faced with the prospect of being on the other side of the news process—the one being interviewed as opposed to the one doing the interviewing—Ali thought it reasonable to prepare in the same way. That’s where the textbook came in, giving her a crash course in pretrial criminal procedure. Then, on Friday, after reading for most of the day, she gave the commencement address for Mingus Union High.
    When Ali’s speech was over, she watched with undisguisedpride as the other of her two scholarship winners received her high school diploma. Haley Marsh, looking confident and determined, strode across the stage in her cap and gown with her almost three-year-old son, Liam, perched on one hip.
    When Ali first met her, months earlier, Haley had seemed defeated and close to giving up. She had enrolled at Mingus Union High as a sophomore—a very pregnant and unmarried sophomore. She and her grandmother had moved to Cottonwood from Oklahoma in the aftermath of the vicious rape that had resulted in Haley’s unintended pregnancy.
    Predictably, Haley’s well-established schoolmates at Mingus Union had treated the new arrival as a social pariah. For the next three years, Haley had soldiered on, persisting in being a good student if not an outstanding one. With her grandmother’s help, she had managed to eke out a decent GPA while also caring for her baby. By Haley’s senior year, however, the strain had taken its toll, and Haley had all but given up on her ambition of becoming a nurse. Her family’s straitened financial situation and her less than top-drawer grades made going on to college seem impossible. Instead, she had expected to use her high school diploma to help her land full-time work at a local discount store.
    Ali’s appearance on the scene and her offer of an