Left for Dead Read Free Page A

washers, and yard people, and having them available had allowed him to dive headfirst into a long-postponed project of creating a lush English garden in Ali’s front yard.
    When Ali had mentioned Leland’s proposal to her parents, Bob and Edie Larson, her father immediately voiced his adamant disapproval. As far as he was concerned, putting a garden like that in the high desert of Arizona would be a colossal waste of time, effort, money, andwater, but Ali was determined, and so was Leland; Ali because she’d always dreamed of having her very own “Enchanted Garden,” and Leland because he’d promised the house’s original owner that he’d complete her beloved project. During the “Arabella years,” when Anne Marie’s daughter had inherited the house and the butler, plans for the garden had been scrapped due to Arabella’s lack of interest. Now, with Ali in charge, Leland was determined to bring Anne Marie’s ambitious vision to fruition.
    As far as gardening was concerned, Ali was well aware of her own personal limitations, one of which was having a perpetually black thumb. She had killed more indoor ficus plants than she cared to count. Initially, she’d been wary of such an undertaking, but it soon became clear that Leland was prepared to take the entire project in hand.
    Leland had looked after Anne Marie’s troubled daughter for years after Anne Marie’s death, though his primary loyalty had always been to the family matriarch. When Leland first showed Ali the original garden plans, hand-sketched by Anne Marie on what was now wrinkled, yellowed sketch-pad paper, Ali knew what they needed to do.
    She agreed to the project but on the condition that Leland’s role would be strictly supervisory. That was why, for the better part of the past week, a crew of strapping young men had been busily digging trenches and turning the soil, first to install the irrigation system and then to prepare the garden plot for planting. After that would come the pouring of the foundation for the garden’s centerpiece, a statue of a bighorn sheep created by Ali’s son, Christopher. Only when the statue was in place would it be time to plant the colorful array of growing things that Ali and Leland had selected while trudging through what had seemed like miles of aisles at Gardeners World in Phoenix.
    Once Leland disappeared into the house, Ali turned her attention back to the folders on the table in front of her. The materials included both printed and handwritten (often barely decipherable) letters of recommendation from various teachers, employers, and friends stating why one particular girl or another should be the recipient of this year’s Amelia Dougherty Askins Scholarship.
    Almost thirty years earlier, when Ali had received her own invitation from Anne Marie Ashcroft to come to tea at this very house,she’d had no idea that the scholarship program even existed, much less that she was a candidate. She had been quietly nominated by her high school English teacher, and receiving that unexpected scholarship had enabled Ali to attend college when she couldn’t have done so otherwise. Now, through a twist of fate, she was in charge of doling out those same scholarships to a new generation of deserving girls, and although it was a job she loved, it was hardly enough to keep her busy full-time.
    That morning Ali had started with a field of twelve semifinalists. She stacked ten of the folders on one side of the table and put those of the two finalists on the other.
    Rubbing her eyes and stretching her shoulders, Ali looked off across a valley punctuated with Sedona’s striking red-rock cliffs as Leland emerged from the house carrying a tray laden with coffee and a plate of freshly baked shortbread cookies.
    “How’s the selection process coming along?” he asked, unloading the tray and depressing the plunger in the French press. Leland came from a class-conscious English background. It had taken more than a little persuading