by Kristen Lamb
“Payback’s a bitch.” He strolled around the other side of his desk and keyed something into his computer. “You might as well not come back here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been fun watching you squirm, but let’s say, I’ve grown bored. You will never work anywhere.”
“What?” I asked, not believing I’d heard correctly.
“Anywhere,” he said, and I heard the strike of a judge’s gavel in some far corner of my mind.
“But you can’t do that. How am I supposed to live?”
“I’d recommend you crawl back to whatever Dairy Queen gave you your start.” His gaze roved from my chest down to my legs. “Though with that tight little bod of yours, a stripper pole might be more lucrative. You could lap dance your way back into money.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” My voice sounded distant, as if I wasn’t even in my own body, rather floating overhead watching my own vivisection.
“People don’t take kindly to thieves, Miss Lachlan. This should teach you to keep better company. We are who we mingle with. Don’t bother with your little résumé. In fact, don’t bother even being in Dallas-Fort Worth. We might be a big city, but we’re run by old money. Old money has a long reach and even longer memory.”
The room seemed to spin around me. How could this be happening?
“On the other hand…” he said.
“Yes?” I needed a lifeline. Anything. I was sinking fast.
“We are good Christian folk.”
I was sure I’d heard wrong. “Excuse me?”
His eyes smoldered with hate. “True repentance starts with admission of guilt, and clearly you aren’t broken enough for confession.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.” It seemed like I’d said this far too many times already.
“Such is the end of all who go after ill-gotten gain, it takes away the lives of those who get it. God will break you down and make you see the error of your ways. Repentance requires sacrifice, suffering, for the good of your character and your soul. Sin demands recompense.”
I blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Make this right. You find Phil. You find that money and we will forgive.” He winked. “Might even find you a nice little job where you can start hunting for a new sugar daddy.”
My mind scrambled for some witty retort, but nothing. I might have vomited except I hadn’t yet eaten.
“What? Cat got yer tongue?” he asked and I wanted to punch those white perfect teeth into the back of his head.
My cheeks burned and I felt the tears, but I’d slice my own throat with that stupid letter opener before giving Cunningham the satisfaction. I managed a, “Thank you for your time.” I don’t remember running from Cunningham’s office, or even how I made it to the elevator. All I knew was that once the big steel doors closed, my brain decided to work. I finally had a reply, which just pissed me off even more.
I knew if I’d stayed in Bisby, Texas and flipped patties at the local Whataburger, Mark and his ilk would have tsk-tsked down their billionaire noses how poor people were all lazy and not willing to work for something better. But when we did break free, when we did work hard and climb our way up, we were gold-digging sluts too stupid to know our place. I wanted to charge back there and shove his fancy letter opener…
But it was too late. The moment was gone. Anything I said beyond this point would make me look like an even bigger idiot, provided that was possible. I staggered outside, welcoming the heat. For over a year I’d been unwilling to admit defeat. When Verify Software Solutions claimed bankruptcy and Phil and the other execs disappeared with all the money, it was bad. When I’d discovered all my checking and savings accounts were empty, I was afraid. When the IRS and Texas Employment Commission informed me there was no record I’d ever paid any withholdings out of my salary for the previous year, I was terrified. When a jeweler informed me that my three-karat diamond $60,000 engagement ring was actually moissanite and worth about $800, I was homicidal. I swore I’d figure it out, that they wouldn’t get the best of me. One day I would see Phil rot for this.
Now? I couldn’t even afford to pay rent and Cunningham had sentenced me to perpetual unemployment. I was blackballed. Game over. I sank into a wedge of shade, fished my prepaid cell phone out of my purse and punched in a number I hadn’t called in months, too ashamed. I braced as the phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Four. I was about to give up when a familiar female voice answered the phone. “Lachlan residence. We love Jesus, hate Democrats, and we’re broke and won’t buy anything so don’t ask.”
“Heather?” I stammered, surprised she’d answered. Surprised anyone answered.
“Romi,” my sister said, her voice tight and muddied by what sounded like a Chihuahua barking like mad in the background. Weird. My father hated animals and would never let us have pets when we were kids. When had he gotten a dog? “What do you want?” she asked, her tone frosted.
I drew a steadying breath and figured I’d get it over with. I dove in. “I’m broke. I need a place to stay.”
“And?”
I fiddled with the edges of my skirt. Taking a deep breath, I said, “I was wondering if I might come home for a while.”
“Really,” she said as the little dog continued to yap. “I thought you were living the high life. Flying to France and dressing in diamonds while Nana and me did the heavy lifting. You know Daddy has a bad back. Damn near crippled.” The yapping grew louder.
“No, I didn’t—”
“Gizmo shut the hell up,” she said then returned to our conversation. “Not that you’d care. I’m sure you’re busy with far more important things. Wasn’t that Phil guy, the one who took off with all the company’s money, wasn’t he the same fella you were gonna marry?”
“Yes. Yes, he was.” My mouth had gone dry and I wanted to hang up, but I couldn’t. “I, uh, just need a place to stay until I can get some work and save some money. Some time to get on my feet is all.”
“Oh, well The Cactus Flower Trailer Park probably is below your standards. We don’t have concierge service. People here work real jobs.”
“I didn’t call for you to give me a hard time. Obviously, I’m out of options if I’m calling at all.”
“Boy, that makes us feel special, being last on the list. Thought you were too good for the likes of us.” The dog resumed barking louder and louder, ratcheting up my anxiety, winding my nerves ever tighter.
“That isn’t true.” I flared. “I called every week and left a message on Daddy’s machine, and he never called back. Sue me. I gave up. I’ve had a little more on my mind than trying to mend fences with a father who ignores me.”
“You can’t blame him. After Mama left—”
“I’m not Mama,” I said, noticing the shaking in my voice, hating that my sister still held so much power over me. “I went to college. I didn’t disappear without so much as a note. I’m sorry I wanted more than a life in Bisby, but I had to get away.” I drooped against the building, the summer-heated concrete cooking my butt through the fabric. I brushed my fingers over my gold St. Jude necklace, the one almost identical to my mother’s, searching for my center. I hadn’t seen the other necklace or my mother since the day she’d dropped me off for school then never returned.
Heather’s voice snapped me back to the moment. “You aren’t the only one who wanted to leave, but some of us soldier on.”
“I begged you to come to Dallas with me,” I said, wiping the stinging lines of sweat from my eyes. Why was she making this so difficult?
“Seems a good thing I didn’t. Would’ve just ended up back here.”
I smothered a retort.
“Not everyone can so easily up and leave family. Family takes care of each other, no matter how ugly life gets. Would serve you right to learn that,” she said, her resentment coming through the phone in waves stronger than the Texas heat.
“Get off the cross—”
“There’s no home to come to.” This time it was my
sister’s voice that trembled.
It took a moment to absorb what she’d said. “What do you mean?”
“A lot’s changed Romi.” She let out a long heavy breath. “The trailer park’s being dismantled to make way for a new vineyard.”
“A what?”
“Bisby ain’t the same place you left. Ferris brought in a fancy foreign investor and they’ve spent the past few years sprucing up the place. Hell, I’ve gotten lost four times in the last month with all the new development.”
“Ferris? What does Sheriff Ferris have to do with…?”
“Mayor. Mayor Ferris.” The barking in the background reached a feverish pitch. “Shut up.” Heather’s words punctuated by the smack of newspaper then a sharp yelp. “Dumbass dog. Can’t hear myself think.”
“What? Are you serious?” I said.
“As Judge Judy. Sorry. Wish I could help, but my paycheck only goes so far and I’m already taking care of Nana and Daddy. Nana’s enough work for ten saints and she’d have them slitting their wrists by noon.”
“Nana’s living with you?”
“Yep. Pawns everything she can get her hands on for bingo money. Last week I had to pawn our blender to buy back our toaster.” The edge had worn off her voice leaving only weariness. A part of me missed my sister and hated the wall that had come between us. I wanted to make things right.
“Let me help,” I said.
“Romi, I don’t know.” I could hear her shuffling around then the distinctive click of a cigarette lighter. Heather had been giving up smoking since she was thirteen. She hesitated so long I thought we’d lost connection. “You can’t give me a ‘family helps no matter what’ lecture then turn me down when I offer. I can at least babysit Nana.”
She blew out a long puff of smoke. “You always were good with the old people. All that vacation bible camp did you real good.”
“See? And then we can work this out together. As a family. If the place is as grown up as you’re saying, then maybe I can find work.” I never imagined I’d feel so hopeful about going home. Cunningham had a hold on DFW, but Bisby was hundreds of miles away. Was it far enough to get a new start?
“Maybe that fancy college degree will come in handy,” she said, her tone softening. “Problem is. I don’t have anywhere to put you. Nana, Daddy, and me are already crammed asses to elbows in the trailer.”
My heart stuttered, but then the words flew out of my mouth before I could fully think. “I’ll come anyway. Figure it out when I get there.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why don’t we wait—?”
“No time. It’ll be fine. I always land on my feet,” I said. The way I saw things I was going to be living out of my car in two weeks anyway, so geography made little difference at this point.
“All right. Can’t see why not,” she finally said, which stunned me.
I hesitated. “What do we tell Daddy?”
“Leave Daddy to me. I’m the one who buys his smokes, so he’ll shut up if he wants his fix.”
By the time we ended the call, I was feeling pretty good. But, minutes later as I walked to my car, all I could think was What the hell have I gotten myself into?
Chapter Two
I’d been stuck almost three hours in road construction, the scene in Cunningham’s office replaying over and over in my mind as I cooked and sweated in my un-air-conditioned car. Every time I pushed his face out of my head, I saw my mom’s instead and felt that old ache I’d managed to ignore for so long.
None of us knew why she’d left, and as time passed we stopped asking, afraid we might find the answer. It didn’t stop me from missing her, but I’d spent so many years burying the pain, I’d buried her memory along with it. I no longer remembered precisely what my mom looked like, save for a rare few moments when I’d catch a glimpse of her in a mirror, her visage reflected in my own.
An ugly ball of dread had curdled inside me. I didn’t know what I feared more, Cunningham or my own family.
East Berry was crowded with dirty shopping malls older than me, crammed with pawnshops, payday loan centers, and liquor stores. Cinderblock bail bond offices crouched at every major intersection, all open seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Large work trucks spilled loads of Illegals eager to spend their day labor wages on lotto tickets, beer, and microwaved burritos. Discarded Styrofoam cups, baby diapers, cans, bottles, and plundered fast food bags clogged all the gutters. Empty Dollar Store bags floated along the jetties created by moving cars. I hated to be judgmental, but I wondered if anyone east of I-35 knew what a trashcan was for.
The bass vibrations of rap music rumbled through the floorboard of my Honda two blocks before I reached my apartment complex. By the time I turned into Casa Linda, it was already dusk, but even the amber glow of evening was powerless to soften the edges of the hell I called home. The complex was an ugly pile of beige bricks surrounded by hedges and trees that had long ago burned away but no one had bothered to replace. No grass, only a world of aged asphalt cratered with trash-filled potholes, peppered with broken crack pipes and cigarette butts. A sun-bleached yellow sign fluttered over the office. Our Background Checks Make Casa Linda a Safer Choice! Uh huh. That’s why the office had bars?
The parking lot hummed with activity. Young girls clad in hot pants, mini-dresses, and hooker heels draped off tattooed males with black bandanas and baggy pants belted low enough to showcase their boxer shorts. They huddled around a pimped out 1998 Crown Victoria painted a shade of green only seen on Chicano cars and Amazonian poison dart frogs. Different day, same routine. They’d drink forty-ounce beers, feel up their underage girlfriends, then, at around ten or so get in a fight, then make up over a blunt, provided no one was dead or in jail.
My neighbors smoked so much pot, I wondered if I’d suffered permanent brain damage.
I nodded at the group as I passed. Not overly friendly, but not scared either. That nice polite medium between Hey, let’s get naked and Mug me, I’m a frightened sheep.
Fort Worth’s Gang Unit had rounded up a good number of the hard-core criminals, leaving mostly the gang-banger-wanna-be-dregs who’d be joining their elder brothers and cousins in the Texas penal system soon enough. Yet, I never lowered my guard. Never knew who’d made bail, been paroled, or even who might be searching for ways to impress or climb the ranks of thugdom. According to the local paper, one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico was straining all law enforcement agencies—ICE, Border Patrol, Homeland Security, the FBI, and even the CIA. Los Espectros de Hielos. The Ice Wraiths. They’d gotten their start running crack and expanded from there. Los Espectros was invading up the I-35 corridor and spreading like a virus. The cartel was starting to get a toehold in Fort Worth, and the city’s gang units were becoming fast outmanned and outgunned. I didn’t know if we had any Wraiths in Casa Linda. Didn’t want to know.
Ignorance was more than bliss, it was life insurance.
As I parked my Honda I noticed the blinds move in an upstairs apartment across from mine, a glimmer of movement caught in the far corner of my vision. Either I’d been living in the hood too long or someone was watching me.
Before I could open my door, someone did it for me, making me jump. A young Latino male swayed near my car, grinning. His eyes had that lazy droop from too much alcohol and weed. The air throbbed with hip-hop and heat and all I wanted was a shower and cool air. Police sirens wailed in the distance. Seconds later, ambulance sirens joined the evening serenade.
It never stopped. Ever.
“Damn, Tigre, you lookin’ to get popped?” I said, trying to appear calm but tough. No weakness. They could smell it. I exited my car and fetched two grocery bags from the back seat. Tigre was all of seventeen though appeared far younger, more Tigger than Tiger for sure, though I’d never say that to his face.
“When you gonna go out with me?” he asked, his words slurred. I could see his homeboys watching from the electric green car. They joked and ribbed each other and gestured o
ur way while the females glared. Those girls would slice my throat if I so much as looked at one of their men a second too long. I kept my attention on my bags, but watched the crowd from the corner of my eye. One of the group, Cesar, concerned me more than any of the others. Tigre was just a kid in the wrong group of friends, but Cesar had the feel of one born mean, sleeved in prison tattoos and legendary for his temper. Though barely nineteen he’d already done hard time. Word around the complex was that he had a penchant for dogfighting pit bulls when he wasn’t beating on his grandmother or smoking crack. A tiny Chicana female, maybe all of fourteen and ninety pounds soaking wet dangled off his arm. Her black eyes mirrored the same hardened heart. I wondered if her mother knew, but then again, her mom was probably dead, high or in jail like the rest of the moms in this place. It wasn’t much different than The Cactus Flower where I’d grown up. Substitute some crack-heads with drunken rednecks and the rules were the same. Keep your head down, your guard up, and your mouth shut. Whatever happened, never get involved.
“Come on, Rubia. I’d treat you good,” Tigre said and slouched against my car.
I knew the male ego was fragile, so I handled with care. Prepared for this, I fished a scratch-off ticket out of one of the grocery sacks. “When you win this, you can take me out. The Jackpot. Not five bucks.” I handed him the ticket and a penny. “Could be worth twenty-five thousand. You could take me somewhere real nice.” I winked knowing the odds of Tigre winning that scratch-off jackpot were about the same as me willingly dating gang-banger jailbait, but this way he could save face and I could save my neck.
