Left for Dead Read Free

then set it for two, laying out as sumptuous an array of food as Breeze Domingo had ever seen.
    “Since you won’t have any champagne,” her host said, “would you care for some iced tea?”
    “Yes, thank you.”
    “Sugar?”
    “Please.”
    She took the icy glass gratefully and swilled down the tea. That was the last thing she remembered for a very long time.

1
    10:00 A.M ., Friday, April 9
Sedona, Arizona
    In the late morning, on a cold but bright Friday in early April, Ali Reynolds sat outside on her patio in Sedona, Arizona, ninety miles north of Phoenix. An outdoor heater hissed nearby, keeping the chill at bay. Around her, Sedona’s iconic red cliffs glowed in the distance, but on this particular morning, Ali was immune to the view. Instead, she tried desperately to focus on the table in front of her, spread with a dozen paper-filled folders. Ali had been scrutinizing each of the files one at a time for the past hour and was more than ready for a break. She just couldn’t concentrate.
    How had she, intrepid reporter turned L.A. anchorwoman, then murder suspect, widow, and police academy graduate, wound up administering a private charitable fund as her primary duty in life? Surely she was too young to be put out to pasture.
    “I’m going in to check on Sister Anselm’s cassoulet,” Leland Brooks said, stopping in front of the table on his way past. “While I’m there, would you care for some coffee?”
    Leland was Ali’s majordomo, her butler, her right hand, and her elderly but spry man Friday. Since Ali’s return to Sedona, Sister Anselm, a Sister of Providence who lived in nearby Jerome, had become one of Ali’s dearest friends. In the process Sister Anselm and Leland Brooks had become friends as well.
    Sister Anselm served on the board of an organization that helped people dealing with substance abuse issues in several northern Arizona counties. On the second Saturday of each month, after a regularlyscheduled board meeting in Flagstaff, she would often stop off in Sedona to enjoy one of Leland’s signature meals. Cassoulet, a savory stew that the good sister had loved during her childhood in France, was one of her personal favorites. Even though it took Leland the better part of two days to make the stuff, he was always eager to serve it to such an appreciative guest. Sister Anselm had told him that eating it “transported” her back home.
    All morning long, enticing aromas had leaked out of the kitchen and blown across the patio, setting Ali’s mouth watering.
    Looking up, she smiled. “The cassoulet smells delicious, even out here,” she told him. “And coffee would be great.”
    Leland Brooks and Ali's newly remodeled house on Sedona’s Manzanita Hills Road had come into her life as a package deal. Leland, a displaced Brit and a Korean War veteran, had managed the place for decades for its former owner, Arabella Ashcroft, and for Arabella’s mother, Anne Marie Ashcroft, before that. When Ali purchased the property with the intention of restoring it, she had kept Leland on, supposedly for the duration of the restoration process.
    The remodeling project was long since over. The house, a gem of midcentury-modern architecture, had been returned to its original glory but updated to twenty-first-century building codes and fully stocked with modern-day appliances and computer-driven convenience. In the meantime, what Ali and Leland had both envisioned as a temporary employment situation had become more or less permanent.
    During the Ashcroft years, Leland had occupied the servants’ quarters just off the kitchen. Now he lived in his own place, a fifth-wheel trailer parked on the far side of the garage, while Ali had the remodeled house to herself. Leland did the cooking and oversaw the cleaning. He had finally admitted that, at his stage of life, he could perhaps use a little help with the more rigorous chores. Nonetheless, he demanded perfection of all visiting crews of cleaners, window