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the usual stuff, I guess.”
    “Did she mention the possibility that you might be under any kind of suspicion?”
    The severity of Helga’s tone put Ali on edge and made her wonder if perhaps Detective Little’s questions weren’t quite so “usual” after all.
    “Me?” Ali demanded, dumbfounded. “Why on earth would I be a suspect?”
    “Has Paul changed his will?” Helga asked.
    “I have no idea about that,” Ali said. “We’re getting a divorce, remember? I’ve rewritten my will so Chris is my primary beneficiary in case anything happens to me. I would assume Paul has done the same thing in favor of April and her baby.”
    “Not necessarily,” Helga mused. “In my experience, men often put off handling those pesky little details.”
    “What are you saying?” Ali asked.
    “Let’s assume the worst,” Helga said. “Let’s say Paul Grayson turns up dead, a victim of some kind of foul play. If you and he aren’t divorced—and you’re not—and if, by some chance, his will hasn’t been rewritten, it’s likely you’ll make out far better as a widow than you would have as a divorcée. From an investigative point of view and considering the dollar amounts involved, that might well put you at the top of the suspect list in a murder-for-profit scheme.”
    “Me?” Ali asked. “How is that possible? I had nothing to do with any of this—nothing at all. Besides, at the time Paul disappeared from his so-called bachelor party, I was out in the middle of the desert, somewhere this side of Blythe.”
    “Let’s don’t push panic buttons then,” Helga reassured her. “We’ll just sit back and see what happens. But, in the meantime, don’t talk to any more detectives without having your attorney present.”
    “My attorney,” Ali repeated. “You mean you?”
    “No. Not me. I do divorces. I don’t do criminal law,” Helga continued. “That’s a whole other can of worms. Not to worry, though. Weldon, Davis, and Reed has several top-drawer criminal attorneys on staff. I’ll get a recommendation and have one of them be in touch with you.”
    Great, Ali thought. Just what I need. Another frigging attorney!
    Once she was off the phone, Ali paced for a while. Finally, she lay down on the floor and forced herself to do some relaxation exercises. After settling some of her agitation, she climbed up on the bed. She never expected to fall asleep, but she did, waking just in time to switch on the local news. Out of force of habit, she turned once again to her old station.
    Of course, the amazingly perky and spike-haired Annette Carrera was front and center, but so was the rest of the old news gang. The foppish Randall James, still wearing his appallingly awful wig, continued on as co-anchor. There, too, was Axel Rod-bury, who, false teeth and all, had to be older than God. If Ali was considered over the hill, why wasn’t he? And there was Bill Nickels, too, the leering and always overly enthusiastic sportscaster. Ali had wanted to smack the smug grin off his face for years, especially after hearing rumors that, when it came to student interns, Mr. Sports Guy had a tendency to try for a home run.
    Ali had steeled herself for the ordeal, expecting that seeing her old colleagues gathered in the familiar confines of the newsroom set would hit her with some sense of loss. But as the quartet yucked it up in the required and supposedly unscripted pre-newscast lead-in, Ali wasn’t at all surprised to see that Bill Nickels and Annette seemed to have an especially chummy relationship.
    Don’t you have brains enough to aim a little higher than that? Ali thought. Not that aiming higher did me any good.
    Beyond that, though, she felt nothing at all. Nothing. Her leaving may not have been of Ali Reynolds’s own volition, but as it turned out, she really had moved on. Whatever had happened, she was over it—except for her wrongful dismissal lawsuit. She wasn’t over that—not by a long shot.
    The lead story,