Ali’s heart gave a lurch. “You’re not saying the two Forester children may have actually seen what happened to their mother?”

“No,” Dave assured her. “Not as in eyewitnesses, no. The ME’s preliminary report says Morgan Forester died shortly after she put the twins on their school bus this morning. But if there was something going on in the house-if Bryan and Morgan Forester were feuding in some fashion-I’m guessing those girls know all about it. That’s one thing I learned from dealing with Crystal this past year. Kids know a lot more about what’s going on with their parents than they’re willing to let on.”

The door opened, and Chris bounded into the room in a burst of cold air. “Hey, Dave,” Chris said. “Did Mom tell you the good news-that Athena and I are engaged?”

Grinning, Dave gave Chris a high five. “That’s great,” he said. “Congrats!”

“We’re having a little get-together at the high school gym tomorrow night before the game,” Chris continued. “You’re welcome to come.”

“We’ll see,” Dave said. “I’m up to my eyeballs in a case right now.”

“The Forester murder?” Chris asked.

Dave sent a questioning look in Ali’s direction.

“It’s not my fault,” she said. “I didn’t tell him, not one word.”

“I just heard about it from Athena,” Chris explained. “Mindy, Athena’s roommate, called and told us about it while we were outside. She couldn’t believe it had happened.”

“Mindy?” Dave asked.

“Mindy Farber,” Chris answered. “She teaches second grade at the school in the village. Both the Forester girls are in her class.”

“And the teacher is Athena’s roommate?” Dave asked.

Chris nodded.

“I’ll need that phone number, then,” Dave said, “so I can talk to her as well.”

Chris recited the number, and Dave jotted it down. Watching him, Ali knew it was necessary, knew he was doing his job, but she hated the idea of someone going through those little girls’ lives. Bryan Forester’s daughters had already lost their mother. And if Dave was able to get the goods on their father, they could be destined to lose him as well.

Chris said good night and headed for his room. Dave turned back to Ali. “Can you think of anything else?” he asked.

Ali gave him an appraising look. “I like Bryan Forester,” she said. “I’ve been working with him for months now. I’ve never heard him raise his voice on the job. I’ve never heard him swear. He works hard, and he does a good job. I don’t think he’s a killer.”

Thoughtfully, Dave closed his notebook and dropped it into his pocket. “The problem is,” he said, “most killers don’t wear sandwich boards announcing the fact. And as you and I both know, just because a marriage looks solid to outside observers doesn’t necessarily make it so.”

“Do you know for sure that the Foresters’ marriage was in trouble?” Ali asked.

Dave shook his head. “The two of us have been through a lot,” he said, “but I’m sure you can understand that I can’t reveal details of an ongoing investigation-not even to you. I will tell you, though, that some details have come up that give us grounds to be suspicious of Bryan Forester.”

“Those poor little girls,” Ali murmured.

“Poor little girls indeed,” Dave agreed. “Their mother was murdered in an act of homicidal violence. This wasn’t random, Ali, it was personal. Morgan Forester’s killer was someone operating in a blind rage. And if Bryan Forester is the perpetrator here-if he’s capable of that kind of violence-I’m honor-bound to see that his daughters don’t fall victim to it as well.”

Reluctantly, Ali found herself nodding in agreement. Dave was right. If, behind his smooth facade, Bryan Forester was a cold-blooded killer, then someone had to stand up for his daughters. That someone was Detective Dave Holman.

“I’d best be going,” Dave said.

Appalled by her own bad manners, Ali realized she hadn’t offered him anything to drink. “What about a cup of coffee?” she asked belatedly. “It won’t take long.”

Dave shook his head. “No,” he said. “Sorry. First forty-eight and all that.”

Ali, like most American TV viewers, knew what he meant: If a homicide isn’t solved in the first forty-eight hours after the crime, the likelihood that it will never be solved increases dramatically.

Dave started for the door.

“When you come to talk to Bryan’s crew,” Ali suggested, “you should probably plan on talking to the film crew as well.”

“What film crew?” Dave asked.

“They’ve been taping the entire remodeling project for a possible series on Home and Garden TV.”

“Oh,” he said. “I see.” He gave her a cursory kiss on the way out. Clearly, his mind was elsewhere. Like a bloodhound hot on a trail, he refused to be distracted.

Ali watched him as far as his car, then turned off the porch light and locked the door. She leaned her forehead against the door, and a sense of disappointment passed over her. Women always expected to juggle more than one thing at a time-family, work, relationships. Obviously, men did the same thing, but their priorities were entirely different. For Dave, duty came first. Being a good father had detracted from his ability to be a good lover. And now, with Morgan Forester’s homicide case taking precedence, Ali worried that the fatherhood part might be losing ground as well.

Ali wondered if maybe the same thing was true for Bryan Forester. She could speak to the fact that the man was a conscientious worker, someone whose word was his bond. But what if being good at his job made him a bad husband or father? What then?

As for Bryan’s two little girls? Ali was dismayed to realize that she didn’t even know their names. Saddened by the reminder that real evil was alive and well in the world, Ali went into the bedroom.

After changing into her nightgown, she gently shifted Sam off her pillow and crawled into bed. Long after she turned out the light, though, Ali was still wide awake. At last, she turned on the light. While Sam stalked out of the bedroom in a huff, Ali took her computer out of the nightstand drawer and booted it up.

In the aftermath of losing both her job and her marriage and encouraged by her son, Chris, Ali had started Cutlooseblog. com. Much to her surprise, what she had written about her own travails had resonated with plenty of other women. They had written in, sharing their own difficulties, their triumphs and tragedies. Some of those women, like the dauntless Velma T of Laguna Niguel, California, an eightysomething tough-as-nails cancer patient, Ali counted as friends.

But as her own life changed, Ali had found that Cutloose hadn’t. Every few months a brand-new crop of women seemed to cycle through the website, dealing with the same kinds of issues Ali had already dealt with, drowning in their own pain, trying to put their lives back together. When Ali’s direction changed, when she went from agonizing about her life and times to something else-like remodeling the house or choosing plumbing fixtures, for instance-many of the people who continued to visit Cutloose weren’t interested. Her previous readers didn’t want to learn about architectural drawings or getting permits or battling dry rot or sistering joists or any of the other countless new things the Manzanita Hills house was bringing to Ali’s attention on a daily basis. It didn’t take long for Ali to realize there was a looming disconnect between her own life and those of her readers. Once she did, she had done the only honorable thing-she cut Cutloose loose.

Months earlier a woman named Adele Richardson, aka Leda, had written in. Her history with a philandering husband paralleled Ali’s in many ways. At a time when Ali’s criminal defense attorneys were advising her to take a break from blogging, Adele had offered to step in and pinch-hit. Ali hadn’t accepted the offer, but later on, when she realized she really did need to step away from the blog, she had contacted Adele once more. The transition had been seamless and relatively painless. Ali had written a farewell blog in which she announced she was handing the reins over to someone else, and Cutloose seemed to have gone on quite nicely without her, thank you very much. That was one thing the past few years had taught Ali Reynolds in spades. She was nothing if not expendable.