license.
“I won’t,” she said. “Just take me to Mom’s.”
“What about your apartment?”
Brenda didn’t want to admit to her sister that three weeks ago she’d been evicted from her apartment because she hadn’t paid the rent. For months. That was one of the reasons she’d hit the road. She’d been living out of her car, but she was still afraid that someone might see her and recognize her.
Was that what hitting bottom really meant-living out of your car or not caring if people knew you were living out of your car? Which was worse? And did it really matter? Whatever possessions she’d had left had been in the car with her. Now the car was gone and so was everything else.
She tried to lighten the somber mood. “It’s like they say in that old song: ‘I figure whenever you’re down and out, the only way is up.’”
“Don’t even start,” Valerie said. “Give me a break.”
After that they pretty much stopped talking. By the time Valerie stopped in front of their mother’s faux Victorian house on P Street in Sacramento, it was well after dark. A single lamp was lit in the living room, and Brenda caught sight of her mother sitting in the halo of light. She was just sitting there, waiting. There was no television set glowing in the background. There was no book on her lap. She was simply waiting.
Brenda looked at her sister. “Are you coming in?”
“I guess,” Valerie said. “But only for a minute. If I stay any longer than that, I might say something I’d regret.”
“Thank you for the ride.”
“You’re welcome,” Valerie replied. She didn’t say the rest of it, but she was sure Brenda got the message- just don’t let it happen again.
Palm Springs, California
One week later, again on a Friday afternoon, Mina made another trip to the casino, where she found Enrique Gallegos waiting for her in the bar. He sat in a corner booth with an athletic bag on the banquette between them. After a brief chat, Gallegos walked away, leaving the bag behind.
As Mina drove out of the parking lot, she called Mark. “Did they spring with the cash?” he asked.
“Some,” she said. “Not as much as I wanted but enough to bring Richard Lowensdale on board.” The truth was they had given her exactly what she’d asked for in terms of the cash advance, but she wasn’t going to tell Mark the whole truth about that. He’d find a way to fritter away the money on things he felt were essential-like bringing their mortgage payments up to date.
Mark sighed with relief. “So you’re off to see Richard?” It had taken some talking, but she had finally convinced Mark that Richard was their only hope of resolving their technical problems without bringing in a lot more people.
Mina glanced at her watch. “Yes,” she said. “I’m on my way to the airport. If I can get a flight to Sacramento tonight, I’ll go see Richard in the morning. The sooner we get him started working on this, the sooner we get the rest of our money.”
She couldn’t help feeling just a little sorry for Mark. The man was incredibly transparent. He was afraid of losing what they had, and by most standards, they had a lot. Generally speaking, having was better than not having, but Mina wasn’t nearly as hung up on that prospect as Mark was.
Losing possessions held no particular terror for Ermina Vlasic Blaylock. She’d already been through that once. She’d lost everything and everyone she’d held dear as a thirteen-year-old child during the Bosnian war. A Croat by birth, she had hidden in a barn while her entire family was slaughtered-her parents, her grandparents, her brothers and sisters. Of all those people, she was the only one to survive. More than survive, she had thrived. She had been adopted by an older couple from America, Sam and Lola Cunningham. Lola had wanted a daughter. Sam had wanted something else, but that had been her ticket to the American dream, one she had made her own.
She had been working as a minimum wage server for a caterer at what turned out to be the memorial reception for Mark Blaylock’s first wife, Christine. Mina had seen Mark looking broken-hearted and handsome and needy-to say nothing of rich-and had sought him out like a heat-seeking missile. She had managed to put herself in his way, and he had taken the bait. They had been married now for seven years.
Somewhere along the line Mark had been given what was supposedly an inside track on getting a military contract for guidance systems on a particular class of UAVs. It had the potential of turning into a financial gold mine. Mark had mortgaged everything they owned to buy Rutherford International. They had put Mina at the helm of the new entity so it would qualify as a woman-owned company in terms of government contracts. Had they managed to get the drone contract, they would have been millionaires several times over, but the drone contract had gone away completely, and now they were broke.
One thing was certain, however. Ermina Vlasic Cunningham Blaylock was nothing if not resourceful. She was pretty sure she’d be able to bring Richard Lowensdale to heel just as she had Mark Blaylock and Enrique Gallegos. Instead of heading directly to the airport, she drove east past the Palm Springs exits, toward Indio. With the bag of money safely in her trunk, she turned south on California 86.
She had changed clothes at the office, slipping out of her work clothes and into a golf shirt, jeans, and sandals. Dressed like any other weekender, she drove to Mark’s cabin. She was glad to be coming from the north. That meant she could turn off toward the cabin miles before the Border Patrol checkpoint. The cash was most likely in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. She knew, however, that far too many of those bills might have come into contact with the drug trade in one guise or another. She didn’t need a drug-sniffing dog to point out the cash.
The property on the outskirts of Salton City had been in Mark’s family for generations. The cabin was a stout clapboard affair that decades after being built still somehow managed to hold together and remain upright in the face of howling desert winds and scorching dust. Nothing if not austere, it included a single multipurpose room that was kitchen, dining room, and living room combined, a tiny bedroom with a minuscule closet, and a bathroom that was functional but definitely not deluxe. When the AC was on, the place was comfortable enough. There was running water, but the brownish stuff that came out of the taps tasted and smelled like dirt-salty dirt. There was no real furniture, only a collection of odd mismatched outdoor chairs and lounges that were stored inside and then dragged outside and to the sandy beach as needed.
Mina knew how much Mark had appreciated the fact that she understood his need to hang on to the derelict old wreck. It had escaped being mortgaged along with everything else, because the lending officer from the bank had claimed it was essentially worthless.
Sometime earlier-during that terrible year the fish in the Salton Sea all died for no apparent reason-there had been a period of months when almost no one had been able to use their cabins owing to the fierce odor of dead fish. While the owners were mostly absent, someone had broken into Mark’s cabin and most of the others and vandalized them all. As a consequence and at great expense, Mark had insisted on installing a system of roll-down metal shutters that covered the cabin’s windows and doors.
It had been an expensive process, not unlike putting lipstick on a pig, but the shutters made the cabin, humble as it was, impervious to intrusion. Once the shutters were in place, Mina had made her own contribution. She had hired a workman to install a fireproof safe concealed behind what appeared to be an electrical box in the cabin’s only closet. The safe made a perfect hidey-hole for Mina’s private hoard of cash, not just Gallegos’s cash but other monies she had accumulated over the years by skimming funds off the top and hiding them without Mark’s ever being the wiser.
Mark Blaylock was under the impression they were going broke. Mina knew that wasn’t entirely true. Mark would be broke; Mina would be fine. She would see to it.
Driving to the Salton City cabin early that evening, Mina threaded her way through various campsites with their outdoor bonfires and their amazing collections of ATV rolling stock parked outside massive motor homes and fifth-wheel campers. Using her remote control, Mina opened only the shutter that covered the front door, then she let herself inside with a key. Without the AC on, the place was like an oven. She held back only as much cash as she thought Richard might demand. She stuffed that into her Gucci bag and then put the remainder in the safe.
She was in the cabin for only a matter of minutes, but by the time she left, she was dripping with sweat. She paused outside long enough to relock the front door and close the shutter. With the now-empty athletic bag safely stowed in the trunk of her car, she headed for the airport.
Mina knew that she was cutting it close, but she didn’t need to check any luggage. Besides, with this new influx of cash, she was once again flying first-class. That meant security wouldn’t be a problem. She’d be there in
