Edge Of Evil by J. A. Jance

doesn’t like Aunt Bree,” Julie interrupted. “She and Uncle John have dogs. Poodles. Sam definitely doesn’t like dogs. That’s why she’s hiding.”
    Clearly Ali’s arguments were going nowhere. She and the kids spent the next half hour searching the whole interior of the house. Ali had concluded that the cat must have escaped unobserved through an open door when Matt found her, curled up and sleeping on a stack of folded bath towels in the far reaches of the linen closet.
    All through the search, Ali had envisioned finding some cute and helpless little kitten-like puffball. When Matt dragged Sam from her hidey-hole, sheturned out to be a fifteen-pound heavyweight tabby cat with a raggedy torn ear and one missing eye. She may have been ugly as sin, but she purred mightily once Julie hefted her onto the couch and let her curl up in her lap.
    Mindful of the fact that Sam didn’t like strangers, and not wanting to provoke another disappearing act, Ali stayed on the far side of the room. “Does she mind riding in cars?” Ali asked.
    “She hates it,” Julie said.
    Great! Ali thought.
    “But we have a cat carrier,” Matt offered. “Mom uses it when she takes Sam to the…” Looking stricken, he stopped suddenly when he realized what he’d said and knew that his mother wouldn’t be taking Sam anywhere ever again. “It’s out in the garage,” he finished lamely. “I’ll go get it.”
    Straightening his shoulders, he headed for the kitchen and the door that led to the attached garage. Watching him fight back tears and struggle to maintain his dignity as he walked away, Ali felt her heart constrict.
    I’m in way, way over my head! she told herself. What on earth am I doing here?
    When Reenie’s parents showed up, Ali was shocked by their appearance. Ed and Diane had to be about the same age as Ali’s own parents, but they seemed far older and, when it came to Ed, far frailer as well. Remembering what Bree had said about Edhaving had heart bypass surgery, Ali wasn’t too surprised when Diane directed her gray-faced husband to have a seat in the living room while she oversaw getting Matt and Julie and their possessions loaded into the car.
    “Your children aren’t supposed to die first,” Ed Holzer said, repeating a sentiment Ali had heard from her first in-laws. Ed wasn’t looking at Ali when he spoke. He seemed to be addressing the universe in general.
    “No,” Ali agreed. “They’re not.”
    “You were her friend, Ali,” he said quietly. “Do you think Reenie killed herself?”
    The question caught Ali by surprise.” No,” she answered. “I don’t think she did.”
    “Why?” he asked.
    “Because I don’t think she’d drive herself off a cliff without telling her kids good-bye,” Ali answered.
    “Neither do I,” he said. “Everybody else says I’m way off base here—Bree, Diane, Howie, the cops—but I don’t think she’d just give up that way without a fight. And I don’t think she did.”
    Ali waited for Ed to say more, but he didn’t.
    “How long did the doctors say she had?”
    Ed shrugged. “All she ever told me was two to five years after diagnosis.”
    “And her diagnosis was when?”
    “She just got a final confirmation last week,” Ed said. “Evidently her back started bothering her latelast fall, but I had just had my heart bypass then, and she never mentioned it to anybody. She just toughed it out. She didn’t want to do anything that would upset the holidays. She finally went to the doctor sometime in January.”
    “So this was early, then?” Ali asked.
    Ed nodded. “Way early,” he replied.
    “Has anyone talked to her doctor?” Ali asked. “The one she saw before she disappeared?”
    Ed shrugged. “I’m sure Howie has,” he said. “And probably the cops have. Why?”
    “I’d like to know what exactly he told her,” Ali replied. “Maybe her ALS was progressing faster than anyone knew.”
    “Maybe,” Ed agreed. “But still…”
    He seemed