PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Jackson studied the shopping mall's long corridor, noting haggard mothers piloting loaded strollers and the senior citizens group walking the mall both for exercise and conversation. Dressed in a gray pinstriped suit, the stocky Jackson stared intently at the north entrance to the shopping mall. That would no doubt be the one she would use since the bus stop was right in front. She had, Jackson knew, no other form of transportation. Her live-in boyfriend's truck was in the impoundment lot, the fourth time in as many months. It must be getting a little tedious for her, he thought. The bus stop was on the main road. She would have to walk about a mile to get there, but she often did that. What other choice did she have? The baby would be with her. She would never leave it with the boyfriend, Jackson was certain of that.

While his name always remained Jackson for all of his business endeavors, next month his appearance would change dramatically from the hefty middle-aged man he was currently. Facial features of course would again be altered; weight would probably be lost; height added or taken away, along with hair. Male or female? Aged or youthful? Often, the persona would be taken from people whom he knew, either wholly or bits of thread from different ones, sewn together until the delicate quilt of fabrication was complete. In school, biology had been a favorite subject. Specimens belonging to that rarest of all classes, the hermaphrodite, had never ceased to fascinate him. He smiled as he dwelled for a moment on this greatest of all physical duplicities.

Jackson had received a first-rate education from a prestigious Eastern school. Combining his love of acting with his natural acumen for science and chemistry, he had achieved a rare double major in drama and chemical engineering. Mornings would find him hunched over pages of complex equations or malodorous concoctions in the university's chemistry lab, while the evenings would have him energetically embroiled in the production of a Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller classic.

Those accomplishments were serving him very well. Indeed, if his classmates could only see him now.

In keeping with today's character—a middle-aged male, overweight and out of shape from leading a sedentary lifestyle—a bead of perspiration suddenly sprouted on Jackson's forehead. His lips curled into a smile. This physical reaction pleased him immensely, aided as it was by the insulation of the padding he was wearing to provide bulky proportions and to conceal his own wiry frame. But it was something more than that too: He took pride in the fact that he became the person totally, as though different chemical reactions took place within him depending on who and what he was pretending to be.

He didn't normally inhabit shopping malls; his personal tastes were far more sophisticated. However, his clientele were most comfortable in these types of surroundings, and comfort was an important consideration in his line of work. His meetings tended to make people quite excited, sometimes in negative ways. Several interviews had become extremely animated, compelling him to think on his feet. These reminiscences brought another smile to Jackson's lips. You couldn't argue with success, though. He was batting a thousand. However, it only took one to spoil his perfect record. His smile quickly faded. Killing someone was never a pleasant experience. Rarely was it justified, but when it was, one simply had to do it and move on. For several reasons he hoped the meeting today would not precipitate such an outcome.

He carefully dabbed his forehead with his pocket handkerchief and adjusted his shirt cuffs. He smoothed down a barely visible tangle in the synthetic fibers of his neatly groomed wig. His real hair was compressed under a latex skullcap.

He pulled open the door to the space he had rented in the mall and went inside. The area was clean and orderly—in fact too much so, he thought suddenly as he slowly surveyed the interior. It lacked the look of a true working space.

The receptionist seated behind the cheap metal desk in the foyer looked up at him. In accordance with his earlier instructions, she didn't attempt to speak. She had no idea who he was or why she was here. As soon as Jackson's appointment showed up, the receptionist had been instructed to leave. Very soon she would be on a bus out of town, her purse a little fatter for her minimal troubles. Jackson never looked at her; she was a simple prop in his latest stage production.

The phone beside her sat silent, the typewriter next to that, unused. Yes, absolutely, too well organized, Jackson decided with a frown. He eyed the stack of paper on the receptionist's desk. With a sudden motion he spread some of the papers around the desk's surface. He then cocked the phone around just so and put a piece of paper in the typewriter, winding it through with several quick spins of the platen knob.

Jackson looked around at his handiwork and sighed. You couldn't think of everything all at once.

Jackson walked past the small reception area, quickly hitting the end of the shallow space, and then turned right. He opened the door to the tiny interior office, slipped across the room, and sat down behind the scuffed wooden desk. A small TV sat in one corner of the room, its blank screen staring back at him. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and leaned far back in the chair, trying his best to relax despite the constant flow of adrenaline. He stroked his thin, dark mustache. It too was made of synthetic fiber ventilated on a lace foundation and attached to his skin with spirit gum. His nose had been changed considerably as well: a putty base highlighted and shadowed, to make his nose's actual delicate and straight appearance bulky and slightly crooked. The small mole resting next to the altered bridge of his nose was also fake: a concoction of gelatin and alfalfa seeds mixed in hot water. His straight teeth were covered with acrylic caps to give them an uneven and unhealthy appearance. All of these illusions would be remembered by even the most casual observer. Thus when they were removed, he, in essence, disappeared. What more could someone wholeheartedly engaged in illegal activities want?

Soon, if things went according to plan, it would all begin again. Each time was a little different, but that was the exciting part: the not knowing. He checked his watch again. Yes, very soon. He expected to have an extremely productive meeting with her; more to the point, a mutually beneficial meeting.

He only had one question to ask LuAnn Tyler, one simple question that carried the potential for very complex repercussions. Based upon his experience, he was reasonably certain of her answer, but one just never knew. He dearly hoped, for her sake, that she would give the right one. For there was only one “right” answer. If she said no? Well, the baby would never have the opportunity to know its mother, because the baby would be an orphan. He smacked the desktop with the palm of his hand. She would say yes. All the others had. Jackson shook his head vigorously as he thought it through. He would make her see, convince her of the inescapable logic of joining with him. How it would change everything for her. More than she could ever imagine. More than she could ever hope for. How could she say no? It was an offer that simply no one could refuse.

If she came. Jackson rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand, took a long, slow drag on the cigarette, and stared absently at a nail pop in the wall. But, truth be known, how could she not come?

CHAPTER TWO

The brisk wind sailed straight down the narrow dirt road between the compression of thick woods on either side. Suddenly the road curved north and then just as abruptly dipped to the east. Over a slight rise the view yielded still more trees, some dying, bent into what seemed painful shapes by wind, disease, and weather; but the majority were ramrod straight, with thickening girths and soaring, leafy branches. On the left side of the road, the more diligent eye could discern a half circle of open space consisting of mud interspersed with patches of new spring grass. Also nestled with nature into this clearing were rusted engine blocks, piles of trash, a small mountain of bone-dry beer cans, discarded furniture, and a litany of other debris that served as visual art objects when covered with snow, and as home to snakes and other creatures when the mercury made its way north. Smack in the middle of that semicircular island rested a short, squat mobile trailer atop a crumbling cinder block foundation. Seemingly its only touch with the rest of the world were the electrical and telephone lines that ran down from the thick, leaning poles along the road and collided with one side of the trailer. The trailer was a decided eyesore in the middle of nowhere. Its occupants would have agreed with that description: The middle of nowhere was aptly applied to themselves as well.

Inside the trailer, LuAnn Tyler looked at herself in the small mirror perched atop the leaning chest of drawers. She held her face at an unusual angle, not only because the battered piece of furniture listed to one side with a broken leg, but also because the mirror was shattered. Meandering lines grew outward on the surface of the glass like the slender branches of a sapling such that if LuAnn had looked head-on into the mirror she would have seen not one but three faces in the reflection.

LuAnn didn't smile as she studied herself; she could never really remember smiling at her appearance. Her looks were her only asset—that had been beaten into her head ever since she could remember—although she could have used some dental work. Growing up on unfluoridated well water and never stepping foot inside a dentist's office had contributed to that situation.

No smarts, of course, her father had said over and over. No smarts, or no opportunity to use them? She had never broached the subject with Benny Tyler, dead now these past five years. Her mother, Joy, who had passed away almost three years ago, had never been happier than after her husband died. That should have completely dispelled Benny Tyler's opinions of her mental ability, but little girls believed what their daddy told them, mostly unconditionally.

She looked over to the wall where the clock hung. It was the only thing she had of her mother's; a family heirloom of sorts, as it had been given to Joy Tyler by her own mother on the day she married Benny. It had no intrinsic value; you could buy one in any pawnshop for ten bucks. Yet LuAnn treasured it. As a little girl LuAnn had listened to the slow, methodical ticks of that clock far into the night. Knowing that in the middle of all the darkness it would always be there, it would always soothe her into sleep and greet her in the morning. Throughout her growing up it had been one of her few anchoring points. It had a connection, too, in that it went back to her grandmother, a woman LuAnn had adored. Having that clock around was like having her grandmother around forever. As the years had gone by, its inner workings had worn down considerably so that it produced unique sounds. It had carried LuAnn through more bad times than good, and right before Joy died she had told LuAnn to take it, to take good care of it. And now LuAnn would keep it for her daughter.

She pulled her thick auburn hair straight back, tried a bun, and then dexterously knotted a French braid. Not satisfied with either of these looks, she finally piled her thick tresses on top and secured them with a legion of bobby pins, frequently cocking her head to test the effect. At five feet ten inches tall, she also had to stoop to see herself in the mirror.

Every few seconds she looked over at the small bundle on the chair next to her. She smiled as she took in the droopy eyes, the curved mouth, the chipmunk cheeks, and doughy fists. Eight months and growing up fast. Her daughter had already started to crawl with the funny, back-and-forth gyrations of infancy. Walking would soon replace that. LuAnn stopped smiling as she looked around. It would not take Lisa long to navigate the boundaries of this place. The interior, despite LuAnn's diligent efforts to keep it clean, resembled the exterior largely due to the temperamental outbursts of the man sprawled on the bed. Duane Harvey had twitched once or twice since staggering into the house at four A.M., throwing off his clothes, and climbing into bed, but otherwise he had remained motionless. She recalled fondly that on one night early in their relationship, Duane had not come home drunk: Lisa had been the result. Tears glimmered for the briefest time in LuAnn's hazel eyes. She hadn't much time or sympathy for tears, particularly her own. At twenty years of age she had already cried enough of them to last her until the end of her days, she figured.

She turned back to the mirror. While one of her hands played with Lisa's tiny fist, LuAnn used the other to pull out all the bobby pins. She swept her hair back and then let her bangs fall naturally forward over her high forehead. It was a style she had worn in school, at least through the seventh grade, when she had joined many of her friends in the rural county in dropping out and seeking work and the paycheck that came with it. They had all thought, wrongly as it turned out, that a regular paycheck beat the hell out of an education any day of the week. For LuAnn, there hadn't been much choice. Half her wages went to help her chronically unemployed parents. The other half went to pay for things her parents couldn't afford to give her, such as food and clothes.

She eyed Duane carefully as she undid her tattered robe, revealing her naked body. Seeing no sign of life from him, she swiftly pulled on her underwear. As she grew up, her blossoming figure had been a true eye-opener for the local boys, making them press for manhood even before the natural order of things would allow them official entry.

LuAnn Tyler, the movie-star-slash-supermodel-to-be. Many of the residents of Rikersville County, Georgia, had thoroughly considered the issue of LuAnn and bestowed upon her that title, weighted down as it was with the highest of expectations. She was not long for their way of life, it was plain to see, proclaimed the wrinkled, thick local women holding court on their broad, decaying porches, and no one disagreed with them. The natural beauty she possessed would hold out for nothing less than the glossiest of all brass rings. She was the vicarious hope for the locals. New York or maybe Los Angeles would beckon to their LuAnn, it was only a matter of time. Only she was still here, still in the very same county where she had lived all her life. She was a disappointment of sorts without ever—despite being barely out of her teens—having had the opportunity to realize any of her goals. She knew the townsfolk would have been surprised to realize that her ambitions did not include lying naked in bed next to Hollywood's hunk of the month or treading the models' catwalk wearing the latest creations of the haute couture crowd. Although, as she slipped into her bra, it occurred to her that, right about now, sliding into the latest fashions in exchange for ten thousand dollars a day was not such a bad deal.

Her face. And her body. Her father had often commented on that attribute too. Voluptuous, full-figured, he had described it, as though it were an entity distinct from her. Weak mind, dazzling body. Thankfully, he had never gone beyond those verbalizations. Late at night she sometimes wondered if he had ever wanted to but simply lacked the courage or the opportunity. Sometimes the way he would look at her. On rare occasions, she would venture into the deepest parts of her subconscious and sense, like the sudden, scary prick of a needle, the disjointed pieces of a memory that made her wonder if the opportunity maybe had presented itself. At that point she would always shudder and tell herself that thinking such evil of the dead was not a good thing.

She studied the contents of the small closet. Really, she owned only one dress that would be appropriate for her appointment. The short-sleeve, navy blue with white trim around the collar and hemline. She remembered the day she bought it. A whole paycheck blown. Sixty-five entire dollars. That was two years ago and she had never repeated that insane extravagance, in fact it was the last dress she had bought. The garment was a little frayed now, but she had done a nice touch-up job with needle and thread. A strand of small, fake pearls, a birthday gift from a former admirer, encircled her long neck. She had stayed up late methodically coloring in the nicks on her only pair of high heels. They were dark brown and didn't match the dress but they would have to do. Flip-flops or sneakers, her only other two choices, were not going to cut it today, although she would wear the sneakers on the mile-long trek to the bus stop. Today could be the start of something new, or at least different. Who knew? It could lead to somewhere, anywhere. It could carry her and Lisa away to something other than the Duanes of the world.

LuAnn took a deep breath, opened up the zippered interior pocket of her purse, and carefully unfolded the piece of paper. She had written down the address and other information from the phone call from someone who had identified himself as a Mr. Jackson, a call she had almost not answered after pulling the midnight to seven shift as a waitress at the Number One Truck Stop.

When the phone call came LuAnn's eyes had been welded shut as she sat on the kitchen floor breast-feeding Lisa. The little girl's teeth were coming in and LuAnn's nipples felt like they were on fire, but the baby formula was too damn expensive and they were out of milk. At first, LuAnn had no desire to answer the phone. Her job at the popular truck stop right off the interstate kept her running nonstop, with Lisa meanwhile tucked safely under the counter in her baby seat. Luckily, the little girl could hold a bottle and the diner's manager liked LuAnn enough that the arrangement hadn't jeopardized her position. They didn't get many calls. Mostly Duane's buddy looking for him to go drinking or strip a few cars that had broken down on the highway. Their Bud and Babe money they called it, and often right to her face. No, it was not Duane's boys calling this early. Seven A.M. would find them three hours into the deep sleep of another drinking binge.

After the third ring, for some reason, her hand had reached out and plucked up the phone. The man's voice was crisp and professional. He had sounded as though he were reading from a script and her sleep-clouded mind had pretty much reasoned that he was trying to sell her something. That was a joke! No charge cards, no checking account, just the little bit of cash hung in a plastic bag inside the hamper she used for Lisa's dirty diapers. It was the only place Duane would never search. Go ahead, mister, you just try to sell me something. Credit card number? Well let me just make one up right now. Visa? MasterCard? AmEx? Platinum. I've got 'em all, at least in my dreams. But the man had asked for her by name. And then he had mentioned the work. He wasn't selling her anything. He, essentially, was offering her employment. How did you get my phone number? she had asked him. The information was readily available, he had replied, so authoritatively that she instantly believed him. But she already had a job, she had told him. He asked what her salary was. She refused to answer at first and then, opening her eyes while Lisa suckled contentedly, she told him. She wasn't sure why. Later, she would think that it was a premonition of things to come.

Because that's when he had mentioned the pay.

One hundred dollars per weekday for a guaranteed two weeks. She had quickly done the arithmetic in her head. A total of one thousand dollars with the very real possibility of more work to come at those same rates. And they weren't full days. The man had said four hours tops, per day. That wouldn't affect her job at the truck stop at all. That came to twenty-five dollars per hour. No one she knew had ever earned such money. Why, at a full year that was twenty-five thousand dollars! And really, she would only be working half-time. So the rate was more like fifty thousand dollars per year! Doctors, lawyers, and movie stars earned such gigantic sums, not a high school dropout mother residing in the hopeless grip of poverty with someone called Duane. As if responding to her unspoken thoughts, Duane stirred for an instant, looking at her through brick-red eyes.

“Where the hell you going?” Duane's voice was thick with the drawl of the area. It seemed that she had heard those same words, that same tone, all her life from a variety of men. In response she picked up an empty beer can off the chest of drawers.

“How 'bout another beer, bay-bee?” She smiled coyly and arched her eyebrows wickedly. Her thick lips dangled each syllable seductively. It had the desired effect. Duane groaned at the sight of his malt and aluminum God and slumped back into the grip of his coming hangover. Despite his frequent drinking binges, he never could hold his liquor. In another minute he was asleep once more. The baby-doll smile instantly faded and LuAnn looked at the note again. The work, the man had said, involved trying new products, listening to some ads, getting her opinion on things. Sort of like a survey. Demographic analysis, he had termed it, whatever the hell that was. They did it all the time. It was connected to advertising rates, and television commercials, things like that. A hundred dollars a day for just giving her opinion, something she did for free just about every minute of her life.

Too good to be true, really. She had thought that a number of times since his phone call. She was not nearly as dumb as her father had thought. In fact, housed behind her comely face was an intellect far more powerful than the late Benny Tyler could have imagined, and it was coupled with a shrewdness that had allowed her to live by her wits for years now. However, only rarely did anyone go beyond her looks. She often dreamed of an existence where her boobs and butt weren't the first, last, and only thing anyone ever noticed about her, ever commented on.

She looked over at Lisa. The little girl was awake now, her eyes darting around the bedroom until they came to rest with much glee upon her mother's face. LuAnn's eyes crinkled back at her little girl. After all, could it be worse than her and Lisa's present reality? She normally held a job for a couple of months or, if she was really lucky, half a year, and then a layoff came with the promise of a rehire when times got better, which they never seemed to do. Without a high school diploma she was immediately categorized as stupid. By virtue of living with Duane, she had long ago decided she deserved that label. But he was Lisa's father even if he had no intention of marrying LuAnn, not that she had pushed him on that. She was not overeager to take Duane's last name or the man-child that came with it. However, having grown up in something less than the embrace of a happy, caring household, LuAnn was firmly convinced that the family unit was vitally important to a child's well-being. She had read all the magazines and watched numerous talk shows on the subject. In Rikersville, LuAnn was one step ahead of the welfare rolls most of the time; there were about twenty people for every lousy job. Lisa could and would do far better than her mother—LuAnn had dedicated her life to making that a reality. But with a thousand dollars, perhaps LuAnn would do all right for herself. A bus ticket to somewhere else. Some money to live off until she could find a job; the little nest egg she had so desperately wanted over the years but had never been able to accumulate.

Rikersville was dying. The trailer was Duane's unofficial sepulcher. He would never have it any better and probably would have it much worse before the ground swallowed him up. It could be her crypt too, LuAnn realized, only it wouldn't be. Not after today. Not after she kept her appointment. She folded up the piece of paper and put it back in her purse. Sliding a small box out of one of the drawers, she found enough change for bus fare. She finished with her hair, buttoned her dress, swooped up Lisa, and quietly left the trailer, and Duane, behind.

CHAPTER THREE

There was a sharp knock on the door. The man quickly stood up from behind the desk, adjusted his tie, and opened a file folder lying in front of him. In the ashtray next to him were the remains of three cigarettes.

“Come in,” he said, his voice firm and clear.

The door opened and LuAnn stepped into the room and looked around. Her left hand clutched the handle of the baby carrier where Lisa lay, her eyes looking around the room with obvious curiosity. Over LuAnn's right shoulder hung a large bag. The man observed the vein plunging down LuAnn's long, sinewy biceps until it connected with a maze of others in her muscular forearm. The woman was obviously strong, physically. What about her character? Was it as strong?

“Are you Mr. Jackson?” LuAnn asked. She looked directly at him as she spoke, waiting for his eyes to take the inevitable inventory of her face, bosom, hips, and so on. It didn't matter from what walk of life they came, in that regard men were all the same. She was thus very surprised when his gaze did not leave her face. He held out his hand and she shook it firmly.

“I am. Please sit down, Ms. Tyler. Thank you for coming. Your daughter is quite beautiful. Would you care to put her down over here?” He pointed to a corner of the room.

“She just woke up. The walk and the bus ride makes her go to sleep every time. I'll just keep her beside me, if that's okay.” As if in agreement, Lisa began to jabber and point.

He nodded his assent and then sat back down and took a moment to peruse the file.

LuAnn put Lisa and the large bag down next to her, pulled out a set of plastic keys, and handed them to her daughter to play with. LuAnn straightened back up and studied Jackson with considerable interest. He was dressed expensively. A line of perspiration was strung across his forehead like a miniature set of pearls and he appeared a little nervous. She ordinarily would put that down to her looks. Most of the men she encountered either acted like fools in attempts to impress her or shut down within themselves like wounded animals. Something told her that neither was the case with this man.

“I didn't see a sign over your office. People might not know you're even here.” She looked at him curiously.

Jackson smiled tightly at her. “In our business we don't cater to foot traffic. It doesn't matter to us if people in the mall know we're here or not. All of our business is conducted via appointments, phone calls, that sort of thing.”

“I must be the only appointment right now then. Y'all's waiting room is empty.”

Jackson's cheek twitched as he formed a steeple with his hands. “We stagger our appointments so as not to keep people waiting. I'm the only member of the firm at this location.”

“So you got other places of business?”

He nodded absently. “Would you mind filling out this information sheet for me? Take your time.” He slid a piece of paper and pen over to her. LuAnn quickly filled out the form, making short, tight motions with the pen. Jackson watched as she did so. He reviewed her information after she finished. He already knew everything on it.

LuAnn looked around the place. She had always been observant. Being the object of many males' desires, she typically studied the configuration of every place she was in, if only to determine the fastest exit.

When he looked up he noted her scrutinizing the office surroundings. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“It's kinda funny.”

“I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“You got a funny office, is all.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, there's no clock anywhere, no trash can, no calendar, and no phone. Now, I ain't worked in any places where people wear neckties on the job, but even Red over at the truck stop keeps a calendar, and he's on the phone more than he's not. And the lady out front, she don't got a clue as to what's going on. Hell, with those three-inch nails, using that typewriter would be mighty hard anyway.” LuAnn caught the stunned look on his face and quickly bit her lip. Her mouth had gotten her in trouble before, and this was one job interview she couldn't afford to blow. “I don't mean nothing by it,” she said quickly. “Just talking. Guess I'm a little nervous, is all.”

Jackson's lips moved for an instant and then he smiled grimly. “You're very observant.”

“Got two eyes like everybody else.” LuAnn smiled prettily, falling back on the old reliable.

Jackson ignored her look and rustled his papers. “You recall the terms of employment I gave to you over the phone?”

She snapped back to business. “One hundred dollars per day for two weeks, with maybe some more weeks at that same pay. I work until seven in the morning right now. If it's all right I'd like to come and do this job in the early afternoon. Around about two? And is it okay if I bring my little girl? She takes her big nap around then, she won't be no trouble at all. Cross my heart.” With an automatic motion LuAnn reached down and picked up the toy keys from the floor where the little girl had flung them and handed them back to Lisa. Lisa thanked her mother with a loud grunt.

Jackson stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “That's fine. It's all fine. You're an only child and your parents are dead, correct?”

LuAnn jerked at the abrupt change in subject. She hesitated and then nodded, her eyes narrowing.

“And for the better part of two years you have lived with one Duane Harvey, an unskilled laborer of sorts, currently unemployed, in a trailer in the western part of Rikersville.” He looked at her as he recounted this information. He was not waiting for affirmation now. LuAnn sensed that and merely stared back at him. “Duane Harvey is the father of your daughter, Lisa, age eight months. You quit school in the seventh grade and have held numerous low-paying jobs since that time; all of them I think would be accurately summed up as dead-ends. You are uncommonly bright and possess admirable survival skills. Nothing is more important to you than your daughter's well-being. You are desperate to change the circumstances of your life and you are just as desperate to leave Mr. Harvey far behind. Right now you are wondering how to accomplish any of this when you lack the financial means to do so and likely always will. You feel trapped, and well you should. You are most assuredly trapped, Ms. Tyler.” He stared across the desk at her.

LuAnn's face was flushed as she stood up. “What the hell's going on here? What right do you have—”

He impatiently broke in. “You came here because I offered you more money than you've ever earned before. Isn't that right?”

“How come you know all those things 'bout me?” she demanded.

He crossed his arms and studied her intently before answering. “It's in my best interests to know everything I can about someone with whom I'm about to do business.”

“What does knowing about me have to do with my opinions and surveys and such?”

“Very simple, Ms. Tyler. To know how to evaluate your opinion on things I need to know intimate details about the opinion maker. Who you are, what you want, what you know. And don't know. The things you like, dislike, your prejudices, your strengths, and weaknesses. We all have them, in varying degrees. In sum, if I don't know all about you, I haven't done my job.” He came around the corner of the desk and perched on the edge. “I'm sorry if I offended you. I can be rather blunt; however, I didn't want to waste your time.”

Finally the anger in LuAnn's eyes passed away. “Well, I guess if you put it that way—”

“I do, Ms. Tyler. May I call you LuAnn?”

“That's my name,” she said brusquely. She sat back down. “Well, I don't want to waste your time either, so what about the hours? Is the afternoon okay?”

Jackson abruptly returned to his seat and looked down at the desk, rubbing his hands slowly over its cracked surface. When he looked back up at her, his countenance was even more serious than it had been seconds before.

“Have you ever dreamed of being rich, LuAnn? I mean rich beyond all your wildest fantasies. So wealthy in fact that you and your daughter could literally do anything in the world you wanted to do, when you wanted to do it? Have you ever had that dream?”

LuAnn started to laugh until she caught the look in his eyes. There was no humor, no diffidence, no sympathy in their depths, merely an intense desire to hear her answer.

“Hell, yes. Who hasn't had that dream?”

“Well, those who are already filthy rich rarely do, I can tell you that. However, you're right, most other people, at some point in their lives, have that fantasy. Yet virtually no one ever makes that fantasy a reality. The reason is simple: They can't.”

LuAnn smiled disarmingly. “But a hundred bucks a day ain't bad either.”

Jackson stroked his chin for several seconds, coughed to clear his throat, and then asked a question. “LuAnn, do you ever play the lottery?”

She was surprised by the inquiry but readily replied. “Now and then. Everybody around here does. It can get expensive, though. Duane plays every week, sometimes half his paycheck—that is when he pulls a paycheck, which ain't usually the case. He's all-fired certain he's going to win. Plays the same numbers every time. Says he saw them in a dream. I say he's just dumber than dirt. Why?”

“Have you ever played the national Lotto?”

“You mean the one for the whole country?”

Jackson nodded, his eyes fixed on her. “Yes,” he said slowly, “that's exactly the one I mean.”

“Once in a while. But the odds are so big I got a better chance of going for a stroll on the moon than I do of winning that thing.”

“You're absolutely right. In fact, the odds this month are approximately one in thirty million.”

“That's what I mean. I'd rather go for the dollar scratch-offs. At least then you got a chance to make a quick twenty bucks. No sense throwing good money after bad, I always say, particularly when you don't got none to speak of.”

Jackson licked his lips and leaned his elbows on the desk as he looked at her. “What would you say if I told you I could drastically better your chances of winning the lottery?” He kept his eyes trained resolutely on her.

“Excuse me?” Jackson said nothing. LuAnn looked around the room as if expecting to see a surveillance camera somewhere. “What's this got to do with the job? I didn't come here to play no games, mister.”

“In fact,” Jackson continued, ignoring her queries, “what if I could lower your odds to one in one? Would you do it?”

LuAnn exploded. “Is this some kind of big joke? If I didn't know better I'd think maybe Duane was behind this. You better tell me what the hell's going on before I really get mad.”

“This is no joke, LuAnn.”

LuAnn rose out of the chair. “You durn sure got something else on the burner and I don't want no parts of it. No parts! Hundred bucks a day or not,” she said with deep disgust, mingled with deeper disappointment as her plans for the thousand-dollar payday rapidly faded away. She picked up Lisa and her bag and turned to leave.

The quiet tones of Jackson's voice rippled across her back. “I am guaranteeing that you will win the lottery, LuAnn. I am guaranteeing that you will win, at minimum, fifty million dollars.”

She stopped. Despite her brain's telling her to run as fast as she could out of the place, she found herself slowly turning to face him.

Jackson had not moved. He still sat behind the desk, his hands clasped in front of him. “No more Duanes, no more graveyard shifts at the truck diner, no more worrying about having food and clean clothes for your daughter. Anything you want, you can have. Anywhere you want to go, you can go. Anyone you want to become, you can.” His tone remained quiet and steady.

“You mind telling me how can you do that?” Had he said fifty million dollars? Lord Almighty! She placed one hand against the door to steady herself.

“I need an answer to my question.”

“What question?”

Jackson spread his hands. “Do you want to be rich?”

“Are you a crazy man or what? I'm strong as all get out so if you try anything I'll kick your little butt all the way down the street and leave you with half the brains you started the day with.”

“Do I take that as a no?” he said.

LuAnn tossed her hair to one side and switched Lisa's carrier from her right to her left hand. The little girl was looking back and forth at them, as though absorbed in the heated conversation. “Look, there is no way in hell that you can guarantee me something like that. So I'm just gonna walk on out of here and call the nut house to come get you.”

In response, Jackson looked at his watch and walked over to the TV and turned it on.

“In one minute the national daily drawing will be held. It's only a one million dollar payoff; however, it will serve to illustrate a point nonetheless. Understand, I do not profit from this, it's used only for demonstration purposes, to quell your quite understandable skepticism.”

LuAnn turned to look at the screen. She watched as the lottery drawing began and the ball machines fired up.

Jackson glanced over at her. “The winning numbers will be eight, four, seven, eleven, nine, and six, in that order.” He pulled a pen and paper from his pocket and wrote the numbers down. He handed the paper to LuAnn.

She almost laughed and a loud snort did escape her mouth. It stopped just as quickly when the first number announced was eight. In rapid succession the four, seven, eleven, nine, and six balls were kicked out and announced as the winning combination. Her face pale, LuAnn stared down at the paper and then at the winning numbers on the screen.

Jackson turned off the TV. “I trust that your doubts about my abilities are now satisfied. Perhaps we can get back to my offer.”

LuAnn leaned back against the wall. Her skin seemed to be humming against her bones, as though a million bees had plunged into her body. She looked at the TV. She saw no special wires or contraptions that could have aided him in predicting the outcome. No VCR. It was just plugged into the wall. She swallowed hard and looked back at him.

“How the hell did you do that?” The words came out in a hushed, fearful tone.

“You have no possible need to know that information. Just answer my question, please.” His voice rose slightly.

She took a deep breath, tried to calm her twitching nerves. “You're asking me if I want to do something wrong. Then I'm telling you flat-out that I won't. I ain't got much, but I'm no criminal.”

“Who says it's anything wrong?”

“Excuse me, but are you saying that guaranteeing to win the lottery ain't wrong? Sure as hell sounds like a fix to me. You think just because I work crap jobs I'm stupid?”

“I actually have a high opinion of your intelligence. That's why you're here. However, someone has to win that money, LuAnn. Why not you?”

“Because it's wrong, that's why.”

“And who exactly are you hurting? Besides, it's not wrong, technically, if no one ever finds out.”

“I'd know.”

Jackson sighed. “That's very noble. However, do you really want to spend the rest of your life with Duane?”

“He has his good points.”

“Really? Would you care to enumerate them?”

“Why don't you go straight on to hell! I think my next stop's gonna be at the police station. I got a friend who's a cop. I betcha he'll be real interested to hear about all this.” LuAnn turned and gripped the doorknob.

This was the moment Jackson had been waiting for. His voice continued to rise. “So Lisa grows up in a filthy trailer in the woods. Your little girl will be extraordinarily beautiful if she takes after her mother. She reaches a certain age, the young men start to get interested, she drops out of school, a baby perhaps comes along, the cycle starts anew. Like your mother?” He paused. “Like you?” Jackson added very quietly.

LuAnn turned slowly around, her eyes wide and glimmering.

Jackson eyed her sympathetically. “It's inevitable, LuAnn. I'm speaking the truth, you know I am. What future do you and Lisa have with him? And if not him, another Duane and then another and another. You'll live in poverty and you'll die in poverty and your little girl will do the same. There's no changing that. It's not fair of course, but that doesn't make it any less certain. Oh, people who have never been in your situation would say that you should just pack up and go. Take your daughter and just leave. Only they never tell you how you're supposed to do that. Where will the money for bus fare and motel rooms and food come from? Who'll watch your child, first while you look for work, and then when you find it, if you ever do.” Jackson shook his head in sympathy and slid the back of one hand under his chin as he eyed her. “Of course, you can go to the police if you want. But by the time you get back, there will be no one here. And do you think they'll really believe you?” An expression of condescension played across his features. “And then what will you have accomplished? You'll have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. Your only shot at getting out. Gone.” He shook his head sadly at her, as if to say, “Please don't be that stupid.”

LuAnn tightened her grip on the baby carrier. An agitated Lisa was starting to struggle to get out and her mother automatically started rocking the little girl back and forth. “You talking about dreams, Mr. Jackson, I got me my own dreams. Big ones. Damn big ones.” Her voice was trembling though. LuAnn Tyler had a very tough exterior built up over long, hard years of scrapping for an existence and never getting anywhere; however, Jackson's words had hurt LuAnn, or rather the truth in those words.

“I know you do. I said you were bright and you've done nothing at this meeting but reinforce that opinion. You deserve far better than what you have now. However, rarely do people get what they deserve in life. I'm offering you a way to achieve your big dreams.” He abruptly snapped his fingers for effect. “Like that.”

She suddenly looked wary. “How do I know you're not the police trying to set me up? I ain't going to no prison over money.”

“Because it would be a clear case of entrapment, that's why. It would never hold up in court. And why in the world would the police target you for such an elaborate scheme?”

LuAnn leaned up against the door. Under her dress she felt her heart beating erratically between her breasts.

Jackson stood up. “I know you don't know me, but I take my business very, very seriously. I never do anything without a very good reason. I would not be here wasting your time with some joke, and I most certainly never waste my time.” Jackson's voice carried an unmistakable ring of authority and his eyes bored into LuAnn with an intensity that was impossible to ignore.

“Why me? Out of all the people in the whole friggin' world, why'd you come knocking on my door?” She was almost pleading.

“Fair question; however, it's not one I'm prepared to answer, nor is it particularly pertinent.”

“How can you know I'm going to win?”

He looked at the TV. “Unless you think I was incredibly lucky with that drawing, then you shouldn't doubt the outcome.”

“Huh! Right now, I doubt everything I'm hearing. So what if I play along and I still don't win?”

“Then what have you lost?”

“The two bucks it costs to play, that's what! It might not sound like much money to you, but that's bus fare for almost a whole week!”

Jackson pulled four singles from his pocket and handed them to her. “Then consider that risk eliminated and a hundred percent return on top of it.”

She rubbed the money between her fingers. “I wanta know what's in it for you. I'm a little too old to believe in good fairies and wishes on a star.” LuAnn's eyes were clear and focused now.

“Again, a good question, but one that only becomes applicable if and when you agree to participate. You're right, however: I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart.” A tiny smile escaped his lips. “It's a business transaction. And in all good business transactions, both sides benefit. However, I think you'll be pleased at how generous the terms will be.”

LuAnn slid the money into her bag. “If you need my answer right this very minute, it's going to be a big, fat no.”

“I realize that my proposition has certain complexities. Therefore, I will give you some time to think about it.” He wrote a toll-free phone number down on a piece of paper and held it out to her. “But not too much time. The monthly lottery drawing takes place in four days. I have to have your answer by ten A.M. the day after tomorrow. This number will reach me anywhere.”

She looked at the paper in his hand. “And if I still say no in two days, which I probably will?”

Jackson shrugged. “Then someone else will win the lottery, LuAnn. Someone else will be at least fifty million dollars richer and they certainly won't waste any time feeling guilty about it, I can assure you.” He smiled pleasantly. “Believe me when I tell you that a lot of people would gladly take your place. Gladly.” He put the paper in her hand and closed her fist around it. “Remember, one minute past ten A.M. and the offer to you is gone. Forever.” Jackson of course did not mention the fact that if LuAnn said no, he would have her immediately killed. His tone was almost harsh, but then he quickly smiled again and opened the door for her, glancing at Lisa as he did so. The little girl stopped thrashing and stared wide-eyed at him. “She looks just like you. I hope she got your brains as well.” As she passed through the doorway, he added, “Thank you for coming, LuAnn. And have a nice day.”

“What makes me think your name ain't Jackson?” she said, giving him a piercing stare.

“I sincerely hope to hear from you soon, LuAnn. I like to see good things happen to deserving people. Don't you?” He shut the door softly behind her.

CHAPTER FOUR

On the bus ride home, LuAnn clutched both Lisa and the piece of paper bearing the phone number with equal tenacity. She had the very uncomfortable feeling that everyone on the bus was acutely aware of what had just happened to her and was judging her harshly as a result. An old woman wearing a battered coat and droopy, torn knee-high stockings gripped her plastic shopping bags and glared at LuAnn. Whether she was really privy to LuAnn's interview or simply resented her youth, looks, and beautiful baby girl, LuAnn couldn't be sure.

She sat back in her seat and let her mind race ahead to examine her life if she said yes or no to the proposal. While declining the offer seemed to carry with it certain consequences, all of them emblazoned with Duane-like features, acceptance seemed to bear its own problems. If she actually won the lottery and came into incalculable wealth, the man had said she could have anything she wanted. Anything! Go anywhere. Do anything. God! The thought of such unbridled freedom only a phone call and four days away made her want to run screaming with joy through the bus's narrow aisle. She had put aside the notion that it was all a hoax or some bizarre scheme. Jackson had asked for no money, not that she had any to give. He had also given no indication that he desired any sexual favors from her, although the full terms had not, as yet, been disclosed. However, Jackson did not strike her as being interested in her sexually. He had not tried to touch her, had not commented on her features, at least not directly, and seemed, in every way, professional and sincere. He could be a nut, but if he was he certainly had done an admirable job of feigning sanity in front of her. Plus, it had cost money to rent the space, hire the receptionist, and so forth. If Jackson was certifiable, he definitely had his normal moments. She shook her head. And he had called every number correctly on the daily drawing, before the damn machines had even kicked them out. She couldn't deny that. So if he was telling the truth, then the only catch was that his business proposal resonated with illegality, with fraud, with more bad things than she cared to think about. That was a big catch. And what if she went along and then was caught somehow, the whole truth coming out? She could go to prison, maybe for the rest of her life. What would happen to Lisa? She suddenly felt miserable. Like most people, she had dreamt often of the pot of gold. It was a vision that had carried her through many a hopeless time when self-pity threatened to overtake her. In her dreams, though, the pot of gold had not been attached to a ball and chain. “Damn,” she said under her breath. A clear choice between heaven and hell? And what were Jackson's conditions? She was sure the man would exact a very high price in exchange for transforming her from penniless to a princess.

So if she accepted and actually won, what would she do? The potential of such freedom was easy to see, taste, hear, feel. The actual implementation of it was something altogether different. Travel the world? She had never been outside Rikersville, which was best known for its annual fair and reeking slaughterhouses. She could count the times on one hand that she had ridden in an elevator. She had never owned a house or a car; in fact, she had never really owned anything. No bank account had ever borne her name. She could read, write, and speak the king's English passably, but she clearly wasn't Social Register material. Jackson said she could have anything. But could she really? Could you really pluck a toad from the mud in some backwater and deposit it in a castle in France and really believe it could actually work? But she didn't need to do it all, change her life so dramatically, become something and someone that she decidedly wasn't. She shuddered.

That was the thing, though. She flipped her long hair out of her face, leaned against Lisa, and played her fingers over her daughter's forehead where the golden hairs drifted across. LuAnn took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sweet spring air from the open bus window. The thing was, she wanted desperately to be someone else, anyone other than who she was. Most of her life she had felt, believed, and hoped that one day she would do something about it. With each passing year, however, that hope grew more and more hollow, more and more like a dream that one day would break completely free from her and drift away until finally, when she was the shrunken, wrinkled owner of a quickly fading, unremarkable life, she would no longer remember she had ever possessed such dreams. Every day her bleak future became more and more graphic, like a TV with an antenna finally attached.

Now things had abruptly changed. She stared down at the phone number as the bus rolled down the bumpy street, carrying her and Lisa back to the dirt road that would lead to the dirtier trailer, where Duane Harvey lurked, awaiting their return in what she was certain would be a foul temper. He would want beer money. But she brightened as she recalled she had two extra singles riding in her pocket. Mr. Jackson had already provided her with some benefit. Having Duane out of the way so she could think things through would be a start. Tonight was dollar pitcher night at the Squat and Gobble, his favorite hangout. With two bucks, Duane would happily drink himself into oblivion. She looked out the window at the world awakening from winter. Spring was here. A new beginning. Perhaps for her as well? To occur at or before ten A.M., two days from now. She and Lisa locked eyes for a long moment and then mother and daughter exchanged tender smiles. She laid her head gently down on Lisa's chest not knowing whether to laugh or cry and yet wanting very much to do both.

CHAPTER FIVE

The busted screen door creaked open and LuAnn passed through carrying Lisa. The trailer was dark, cool, and quiet. Duane might still be asleep. However, as she navigated through the narrow passageway, she kept her eyes and ears on high alert for movement or sound. She wasn't anything close to being afraid of Duane unless he got the drop on her. In a fair fight, she could more than hold her own. She had kicked the crap out of him on more than one occasion when he had been particularly drunk. He normally didn't try anything too outrageous when he was sober, which he would be now, or as close to it as he usually got. It was a strange relationship to have with someone who could be categorized as her significant other. However, she could name ten other women she knew who had similar arrangements, based more on pure economics, limited options, and in essence, inertia, than on anything approaching tender emotions. She had had other offers; but rarely was the grass greener elsewhere, she knew that firsthand. She picked up her pace as she heard the snores coming from the bedroom and leaned her head in the small room. She sucked in her breath as she eyed the twin figures lying under the sheets. Duane's head was visible on the right. The other person was completely covered by the sheet; however, the twin humps in the chest region suggested it was not one of Duane's male drinking buddies sleeping it off.

LuAnn quietly stepped down the hallway and placed an anxious-looking Lisa and her carrier down in the bathroom, then closed the door. LuAnn didn't want her little girl to be disturbed by what was about to happen. When she again opened the bedroom door, Duane was still snoring loudly; however, the body beside him had moved, and the dark red hair was clearly visible now. It only took a second for LuAnn to clamp a hand around the thick mane, and then she pulled with all her immense strength and the unfortunate owner of those long locks was hauled out of the bed to crash buck-naked against the far wall.

“Shit!” the woman bellowed as she landed on her butt and was immediately pulled across the rough, ragged carpet by a grim-looking LuAnn. “Dammit, LuAnn, let go.”

LuAnn looked back at her for a split second. “Shirley, you slut around here again, and I swear to God I'll break your neck.”

“Duane! Help me for chrissakes! She's crazy!” Shirley wailed, pulling and clawing at her hair in a futile effort to make LuAnn let go. Shirley was short and about twenty pounds overweight. Her chubby legs and full, wobbly breasts slapped back and forth against each other as the two women made their way to the bedroom door.

Duane stirred as LuAnn passed by. “What's going on here?” he said sleepily.

“Shut up,” LuAnn snapped back.

As his eyes focused on the situation, Duane reached across to the nightstand and pulled out a pack of Marlboros from the drawer. He grinned at Shirley as he lit up.

“Going home so soon, Shirl?” He wiped his droopy hair out of his face as he sucked contentedly on his cigarette.

Facing to the rear as she was, Shirley glared at him, her fat cheeks a deep burgundy. “You're a piece of crap.”

Duane blew her an imaginary kiss. “I love you too, Shirl. Thanks for the visit. Made my morning.” He belly-laughed and slapped his thigh as he propped himself up on the pillow. Then LuAnn and Shirley disappeared through the doorway.

After depositing Shirley next to a rusted-out Ford engine block in the front yard, LuAnn turned back to the trailer.

Shirley stood up and shrieked, “You pulled half my hair out, you bitch.” LuAnn kept walking, not looking back. “I want my clothes. Give me my damned clothes, LuAnn.”

LuAnn turned around. “You didn't need 'em while you were here, so I can't see no reason why you'd need 'em now.”

“I can't go home like this.”

“Then don't go home.” LuAnn went up the cinder block steps to the trailer and slammed the door behind her.

Duane met her in the hallway, dressed in his boxers, an unlit Marlboro dangling from his mouth. “Does a man good to have two alleycats fighting over him. Got my blood going, LuAnn. How 'bout you stepping up to the plate? Come on, baby, give me a kiss.” He grinned at her and tried to slide an arm around her long neck. His next breath was a tortured one as her right fist smashed into his mouth, loosening a couple of his teeth. As painful as that blow was, it did not come close on the hurt scale to the knee that planted itself violently between his legs. Duane dropped heavily to the floor.

LuAnn hovered over him. “If you pull that crap again, Duane Harvey, so help me God, I'll rip it right off and flush it down the toilet.”

“Crazy-ass woman,” he half-sputtered, half-whimpered, clutching at his groin; blood seeped through his lips.

She reached down and clamped an iron grip across his cheeks. “No, you're crazy if you think for one second I'm gonna put up with that shit.”

“We ain't married.”

“That's right, but we live together. We got a kid together. And this place is as much mine as it is yours.”

“Shirl don't mean nothing to me. What do you care?” He stared up at her, small tears gathering in the corners of his eyes as he continued to clutch his privates.

“Because that little fat piece of bacon is gonna waddle on down to the IGA and the beauty parlor and the damned Squat and Gobble and tell everybody that will listen all about it and I'm gonna look like the biggest piece of trash in the world.”

“You shouldn't have left me this morning.” He struggled up off the floor. “See, this here's all your fault. She came by to see you about something. What was I supposed to do?”

“I don't know, Duane, how about giving her a cup of coffee instead of your dick?”

“I don't feel so good, babe. I really don't.” He leaned up against the wall.

She roughly pushed past him on her way to check on Lisa. “Best news I've heard all day.”

A minute later she marched past him again and entered the bedroom, where she proceeded to rip the sheets off the bed.

Duane sulkily watched her from the doorway. “Go ahead and throw 'em away. I don't give a crap, you bought 'em.”

She didn't look at him as she answered. “I'm taking 'em over to Wanda's to wash. If you're gonna sleep around with sluts, it ain't gonna cost me nothing.”

As she lifted the mattress, a flash of green caught her eye. She shoved the mattress off the bed frame and then looked over at Duane. “What the hell is this?” she demanded.

Duane looked at her coldly. He sauntered into the room, scooped up the piles of cash, and stuffed them in a paper bag that had been sitting on the table beside the bed. He continued to eye her as he closed up the bag. “Let's just say I won the lottery,” he said arrogantly.

She perceptibly stiffened at his words as though she'd been slapped flush in the face. For a moment she felt as though she would topple right over in a dead faint. Had Duane actually been behind all of this? Were he and Jackson in this together? She could not have envisioned a more unlikely pair. It couldn't possibly be. She quickly recovered and crossed her arms. “Bull. Where'd you get it, Duane?”

“Let's just say it's a real good reason to be nice to me and to keep your mouth shut.”

Angrily pushing him from the room, she locked the door. She changed into jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt and then quickly packed an overnight bag. When she unlocked and threw open the door, Duane hadn't budged; the bag was still clutched in his hand. She moved quickly past him, opened the door to the bathroom, and scooped up a wriggling Lisa in one arm; the dirty linen and overnight bag in her other hand, she headed for the front door.

“Where you going, LuAnn?”

“None of your damned business.”

“How long you gonna be pissed about this? I didn't get mad at you for kicking me in the balls, did I? I done already forgot about it, in fact.”

She whirled around for a second. “Duane, you have got to be the dumbest person on the face of this earth.”

“Is that right? Well who do you think you are? Why, if it weren't for me, you and Lisa wouldn't even have a damned place to stay. I took you in or you wouldn't have nothing.” He lit up another cigarette but warily kept out of range of her fist. He scrunched the match out on the tattered carpet. “So maybe instead of bitching all the time, you oughta try being nice to me.” He held up the paper bag stuffed with cash. “There's plenty more where this came from, too, little girl. I ain't gonna be living in this craphole much longer. You best think about it. You best think real good about that. I ain't taking crap from you or anybody else anymore. You hear me?”

She opened the front door. “Duane, I'll start being nice to you right now. You know how? I'm gonna leave before I kill you!” Lisa started to cry at her mother's angry tones as though she thought they were directed at her. LuAnn kissed the little girl and cooed in her ear to calm her down.

Duane watched LuAnn march across the muddy yard, admiring her soft behind in the tight jeans. For a moment he looked around for Shirley, but she had evidently already made a run for it, naked and all.

“I love you, babe,” he yelled after LuAnn, grinning.

“Go to hell, Duane.”

CHAPTER SIX

The mall was far busier than it had been during her visit the day before. LuAnn was grateful for the crowds as she made a wide berth around the office she had visited earlier, though she did glance in its direction as she passed by. Through the glass panes on either side of the door it seemed dark inside. She supposed if she tried the door, it would be locked. She didn't imagine that Jackson would have hung around long after she had left, and she assumed she had been his sole “client.”

She had called in sick to work and spent a sleepless night at a friend's house alternating between staring at a full moon and Lisa's tiny mouth as it randomly produced smiles, grimaces, and every expression in between while the little girl slept heavily. She had finally decided not to make a decision on Jackson's proposal until she had some more information. One conclusion had come fairly rapidly: She would not go to the police. She could prove nothing, and who would believe her? There was no upside potential to such a move and at least fifty million reasons against it. For all her sense of right and wrong, she could not get past that one inescapable temptation: Incredible, sudden wealth was perhaps staring her in the face. She felt guilty that the decision wasn't more black and white. However, her latest episode with Duane had only reinforced to her that Lisa could not be allowed to grow up in such an environment. Something had to give.

The mall office was at the end of a corridor on the south side of the building. LuAnn swung open the door and went in.

“LuAnn?”

LuAnn stared at the source of this exclamation. Behind the counter, the young man was dressed neatly in a short-sleeve shirt, necktie, and black slacks. In his excitement, he repeatedly clicked a pen in his right hand. LuAnn stared at him, but no recognition was forthcoming.

The young man almost vaulted over the counter. “I didn't expect you to remember me. Johnny Jarvis. I go by John now.” He extended a hand in a professional manner and then, grinning, he gave her a solid hug and spent a full minute cooing over Lisa. LuAnn pulled out a small blanket from her bag, set her daughter down on it, and gave her a stuffed animal.

“I can't believe it's you, Johnny. I haven't seen you since, what, the sixth grade?”

“You were in the seventh, I was in the ninth.”

“You look good. Real good. How long you been working here?”

Jarvis grinned proudly. “After high school I went on to the community college and got my A.S. That stands for associate degree in science. Been at the mall for two years now. Started out as a data inputter but now I've moved up to sort of the assistant manager of mall operations.”

“Congratulations. That's wonderful, Johnny—I mean John.”

“Oh hell, you can call me Johnny. I can't believe you just walked on in that door. When I saw you, I thought I was gonna fall over and die. I never thought I'd see you again. I supposed you'd just gone on to New York City or something.”

“Nope, still here,” she said quickly.

“I'm kinda surprised I've never seen you around the mall before then.”

“I don't get up here much. It's a pretty long way from where I live now.”

“Have a seat and tell me what you been up to. I didn't know you had a baby. Didn't even know you were married.”

“I'm not married.”

“Oh.” Jarvis's face reddened slightly. “Uh, you want some coffee or something? I just put on a fresh pot.”

“I'm kind of in a hurry, Johnny.”

“Oh, well, what can I do for you?” He suddenly looked surprised. “You aren't looking for a job, are you?”

She looked pointedly at him. “What if I was? Something wrong with that?”

“No, I mean, course not. I just meant, you know, I never expected you to hang around here, working in no mall, that's all.” He smiled.

“A job's a job, ain't it? You work here. And while we're talking about it, exactly what am I supposed to be doing with my life?”

Jarvis's smile quickly faded and he rubbed his hands nervously down the legs of his pants. “I didn't mean nothing by it, LuAnn. I just always thought of you living in some castle somewhere wearing fancy clothes and driving fancy cars. I'm sorry.”

LuAnn's anger faded as she thought back to Jackson's proposition. Castles might be within her reach now. “It's okay, Johnny, it's been a long week, you know what I mean? I'm not looking for a job. What I'm looking for is a little information about one of your renters here.”

Jarvis glanced over his shoulder at the rear office area where the sounds of phones and clattering keyboards could be heard mixed with short bursts of conversation, and then he turned back to her. “Information?”

“Yeah. I came by here yesterday morning. Had an appointment.”

“With who?”

“That's what I want you to tell me. It was that business on the right as you come in the mall next to the bus stop. It ain't got no sign or anything, but it's next to the ice cream place.”

Jarvis looked puzzled for a second. “I thought that space was still vacant. We got a lot of that. This mall isn't exactly in the middle of a booming area.”

“Well, it wasn't vacant yesterday.”

Jarvis walked over to the computer on the counter and started punching buttons. “What was the appointment for?”

LuAnn's reply was immediate. “Oh, it was a sales job, you know. Pushing products door-to-door.”

“Yeah, we've had some people like that come in on a temporary basis. More like an interview room than anything else. If we have the space, which we usually do, we rent it out, sometimes just for the day. Especially if it's already been built out, you know, ready-made office space.”

He pulled up a screen and studied it. As voices continued to filter in from the back office he went over and shut the door. He looked a little apprehensively at LuAnn. “So what'd you want to know?”

She noted his concerned look and glanced in the direction of the door he had just shut. “You're not going to get in trouble over this, are you, Johnny?”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Hell, no. Remember, I'm the assistant manager here,” he said importantly.

“Well, just tell me whatever you can. Who the people are. What the business is. An address somewhere. Stuff like that.”

Jarvis looked confused. “Well, didn't they tell you that during the interview?”

“Some of it,” she said slowly. “But I just want to make sure it's all legit, you know. Before I accept or not. I got to buy some nicer clothes and maybe get me a car. I don't want to do that if it's not on the up-and-up.”

Jarvis snorted. “Well, you're smart to do that. I mean just because we rent space to these people, it don't mean they're shooting straight with you.” He added anxiously, “They didn't ask for money from you, did they?”

“No, as a matter of fact, the money they were talking about me getting was pretty unbelievable.”

“Probably too good to be true then.”

“That's what I'm afraid of.” She watched his fingers sail across the computer keyboard. “Where'd you learn to do that stuff?” she said with admiration.

“What, this? That's when I was at the community college. They got programs over there that teach you just about anything. Computers are cool.”

“I wouldn't mind going back to school one day.”

“You were always real smart in school, LuAnn. I bet you'd pick it up like nobody's business.”

She gave him a pretty look. “Maybe one day. Now what'cha got for me?”

Jarvis studied the screen again. “Company's name is Associates, Inc. At least that's what they put on the rental agreement. They leased for a week, starting yesterday in fact. Paid in cash. Didn't give any other address. When they pay in cash we don't really care.”

“They ain't nobody there now.”

Jarvis nodded absently as he tabbed down the screen. “Guy named Jackson signed the lease agreement,” he said.

“About my height with black hair, sort of fat?”

“That's right. I remember him now. He seemed very professional. Anything out of the way happen during your interview?”

“Depends on what you call out of the way. But he was real professional to me, too. Anything else you can tell me?”

Jarvis studied the screen again, hoping to find a few more kernels of information with which to entice LuAnn. Finally, strong disappointment etched across his features, he looked at her and sighed. “Not really, I guess.”

LuAnn hoisted up Lisa and then eyed a stack of steno pads and a cup of pens on the counter. “Could I have one of those pads and a pen, Johnny? I could pay you something for them.”

“You kidding? Good golly, take all you want.”

“One of each is all I need. Thanks.” She put the pad and pen in her handbag.

“No problem at all, we got tons of that stuff.”

“Well, I appreciate what you told me. I really do. And it was real nice seeing you, Johnny.”

“Hell, you made my whole year walking in the door like that.” He took a peek at his watch. “I take my lunch break in about ten minutes. They got a nice Chinese place down at the food court. You have time? My treat. We could talk some more, catch up.”

“Maybe another time. Like I said, I'm kind of in a hurry.”

LuAnn observed Jarvis's disappointment and felt a little guilty. She put Lisa down and gave him a big hug. She smiled as she listened to him breathe deeply into her freshly washed hair. As he pressed his hands against the small of her back, and the warmth and softness of her chest spread over his, Jarvis's spirits were instantly rekindled. “You've done real well for yourself, Johnny,” LuAnn said as she stepped back. “Always knew you'd do just fine.” Things might have been different, she thought, if she had come across Johnny a while back.

Jarvis was now treading across fine white clouds. “You did? I'm kind of surprised you even thought about me at all.”

“There you go, I'm just full of surprises. Take care of yourself, maybe I'll see you around.” She picked up Lisa, who was rubbing the stuffed animal against her mother's cheek and jabbering happily, and headed for the door.

“Hey, LuAnn?”

She turned back around.

“You gonna take that job?”

She considered the question for a moment. “I don't know yet. But I expect you'll probably hear about it if I do.”

LuAnn's next stop was the public library, a place she had frequented when in school, but it had been years since she had last been there. The librarian was very pleasant and complimented LuAnn on her daughter. Lisa snuggled against her mother while she looked around at all the books.

“Da. Da, ooh.”

“She likes books,” said LuAnn. “I read to her every day.”

“She's got your eyes,” the woman said looking back and forth between mother and child. LuAnn's hand gently slid against Lisa's cheek.

The woman's smile faded when she saw no ring on LuAnn's finger. LuAnn noted the look. “Best thing I've ever done. I ain't got much, but this little girl's never gonna be hurting for love.”

The woman smiled weakly and nodded. “My daughter is a single mother. I do what I can to help out but it's very hard. There's never enough money to go around.”

“Tell me about it.” LuAnn dug a bottle and a container of water out of her diaper bag, mixed some formula she had gotten from a friend together, and helped Lisa get a grip on it. “If I ever get to the end of a week with more money than I started with, I'm not going to know what to do with myself.”

The woman shook her head wistfully. “I know they say that money is the root of all evil, but I often think how nice it would be not to have to worry about the bills. I can't imagine the feeling. Can you?”

“I can imagine it. I imagine it must feel pretty durn good.”

The woman laughed. “Now, how can I help you?”

“You keep copies of different newspapers here on that film stuff, don't you?”

The woman nodded. “On microfilm. It's in that room.” She pointed to a doorway at the far end of the library.

LuAnn hesitated.

“Do you know how to use the microfilm machine? If not, I can show you. It's not very difficult.”

“That'd be real nice. Thank you.”

They entered the room, which was vacant and dark. The woman turned on the overhead light, seated LuAnn at one of the terminals, and picked out a microfilm spool from one of the files. It only took a minute to insert the spool, and information appeared on the lit screen. The woman worked the controls and lines of text flashed across the screen. LuAnn watched her carefully as she removed the spool and turned the machine off. “Now, you try it,” the woman said.

LuAnn expertly inserted the spool and manipulated the controls as the film advanced.

“That's very good. You learn quickly. Most people don't get the hang of it right away.”

“I've always been good with my hands.”

“The catalogue files are clearly marked. We carry the local paper, of course, and some of the national ones. The publication dates are printed on the outside of the file drawers.”

“Thank you very much.”

As soon as the woman left, LuAnn carried Lisa, who was still slurping on the bottle, and started exploring the rows of file cabinets. She set Lisa down and watched in amusement as the little girl rolled to a cabinet, put down the bottle, and tried to pull herself up. LuAnn located a major newspaper in one of the cabinets and proceeded to check the boxes housing the spools until she found the dates corresponding to the last six months. She took a minute to change and burp Lisa and then inserted the first spool into the microfilm machine. With Lisa perched on her lap and pointing excitedly and jabbering on about the sights on the screen, LuAnn's eyes scanned the front page. It didn't take long to locate the story and the accompanying two-inch headline. “Lottery Winner Nets Forty-five Million Dollars.” LuAnn quickly read the story. Outside, the sound of a sudden rainstorm assailed her ears. Spring brought a lot of rain to the area, usually in the form of thunderstorms. As if in response to her thoughts, thunder boomed and the entire building seemed to shake. LuAnn glanced anxiously over at Lisa, but the little girl was oblivious to the sounds. LuAnn pulled a blanket from her bag, set it down on the floor with some toys, and put Lisa down. LuAnn turned back to the headline. She pulled the steno pad and pen out of her handbag and started scribbling notes. She flipped to the next month. The U.S. Lotto drawing was held on the fifteenth of each month. The dates she was looking at were for the sixteenth through the twentieth. Two hours later she had completed her review of the past six winners. She unwound the last spool and replaced it in the file drawer. She sat back and looked at her notes. Her head was pounding and she wanted a cup of coffee. The rain was still coming down hard. Carrying Lisa, she went back into the library, pulled some childrens' books down, and showed Lisa the pictures in them and read to the little girl. Within twenty minutes, Lisa had fallen asleep and LuAnn put her in the baby carrier and set it on the table next to her. The room was quiet and warm. As LuAnn felt herself starting to doze she put one arm protectively across Lisa and gripped the little girl's leg in a gentle squeeze. The next thing she knew she was startled awake when a hand touched her shoulder. She looked up into the eyes of the librarian.

“I'm sorry to wake you, but we're closing up.”

LuAnn looked around bewildered for a moment. “Good Lord, what time is it?”

“A little after six, dear.”

LuAnn quickly packed up. “I'm sorry for falling asleep in here like that.”

“Didn't bother me a bit. I'm just sorry I had to wake you, you looked so peaceful there with your daughter and all.”

“Thanks again for all your help.” LuAnn cocked her head as she listened to the rain pounding on the roof.

The woman looked at her. “I wish I could offer you a ride somewhere, but I take the bus.”

“That's okay. The bus and me know each other real good.”

LuAnn draped her coat over Lisa and left. She sprinted to the bus stop and waited until the bus pulled up a half hour later with a squeal of brakes and a deep sigh of its air-powered door. She was ten cents short on the fare, but the driver, a heavyset black man whom she knew by sight, waved her on after dropping in the rest from his own pocket.

“We all of us need help every now and again,” he said. She thanked him with a smile. Twenty minutes later, LuAnn walked into the Number One Truck Stop several hours before her shift.

“Hey, girl, what you doing here so soon?” asked Beth, LuAnn's fiftyish and very matronly coworker, as she wiped a wet cloth across the Formica counter.

A three-hundred-pound truck driver appraised LuAnn over the rim of his coffee cup and, even soaked as she was from her jaunt in the rain, he came away dutifully impressed. As always. “She come early so she wouldn't miss big old Frankie here,” he said with a grin that threatened to swallow up his whole wide face. “She knew I got on the earlier shift and couldn't bear the thought of not seeing me no more.”

“You're right, Frankie, it'd just break her heart if LuAnn didn't see your big old hairy mug on a regular basis,” Beth rejoined, while prying between her teeth with a swizzle stick.

“Hi, Frankie, how you?” LuAnn said.

“Just fine, now,” Frankie replied, the smile still cemented on his features.

“Beth, can you watch Lisa for a minute while I change into my uniform?” LuAnn asked as she wiped her face and arms down with a towel. She checked Lisa and was relieved to find her dry and hungry. “I'm going to make her up a bottle in just a minute and mix up some of that oatmeal. Then she should be ready to go down for the night even though she had a pretty big nap not too long ago.”

“You bet I can take that beautiful little child into my arms. Come here, darling.” Beth hoisted up Lisa and settled her against her chest, where Lisa proceeded to make all manner of noises and pull at the pen stuck behind Beth's ear. “Really, now, LuAnn, you ain't got to be here for hours. What's up?”

“I got soaked and my uniform's the only clean thing I got. Besides, I felt bad about missing last night. Hey, is there anything left over from lunch? I sorta can't remember eating yet today.”

Beth gave LuAnn a disapproving look and planted one hand on a very full hip. “If you took half as good care of yourself as you do this baby. My Lord, child, it is almost eight o'clock.”

“Don't nag, Beth. I just forgot, that's all.”

Beth grunted. “Right, Duane drank your money away again, didn't he?”

“You oughta drop that little sumbitch, LuAnn,” Frankie grumbled. “But let me kick his ass first for you. You deserve better than that crap.”

Beth raised an eyebrow that clearly signaled her agreement with Frankie.

LuAnn scowled at them. “Thank you both for your vote on my life, now if you'll excuse me?”

Later that evening, LuAnn sat at the far corner booth finishing a plate of food Beth had rounded up for her. She finally pushed the dinner away and sipped a cup of fresh coffee. The rain had started again and the clattering sound against the diner's tin roof was comforting. She pulled a thin sweater tighter around her shoulders and checked the clock behind the counter. She still had two hours before she went on duty. Normally, when she got to the diner early she'd try to catch a little overtime, but the manager wasn't letting her do that anymore. Hurt the bottom line, he had told LuAnn. Well, you don't want to know about my bottom line, she had told him right back, but to no avail. But that was okay, he let her bring Lisa in. Without that, there'd be no way she could work at all. And he paid her in cash. She knew he was avoiding payroll taxes that way, but she made little enough money as it was without the government taking any. She had never filed a tax return; she had lived her entire life well below the poverty line and rightly figured she didn't owe any taxes.

Lisa was in her carrier across from her. LuAnn tucked the blanket more snugly around her sleeping daughter. LuAnn had fed Lisa parts of her meal; her daughter was taking to solid food real well, but she hadn't made it through the mushed carrots before falling asleep again. LuAnn worried that her daughter wasn't getting the right kind of sleep. And she wondered, Was putting her baby under the counter of a noisy, smoky truck stop every night going to mess up Lisa's head years from now? Lower her self-esteem and do other damage LuAnn had read about in the magazines or seen on TV. That nightmarish thought had cost LuAnn more sleep than she could remember. And that wasn't all. When Lisa turned to solid food for good would there always be enough? Not having a car, always scrounging change for the bus, walking, or running through the rain. What if Lisa caught something? What if LuAnn did? What if she were laid up for a while? Who would take care of Lisa? She had no insurance. She took Lisa to the free county clinic for her shots and checkups, but LuAnn hadn't been to a doctor in over ten years. She was young, strong, and healthy, but that could change quickly. You never knew. She almost laughed when she thought of Duane trying to navigate the endless details of Lisa's daily requirements. The boy would run screaming into the woods after a few minutes. But it really wasn't a laughing matter.

While she looked at the tiny mouth opening and closing, LuAnn's heart suddenly felt as heavy as the semis parked in the diner's parking lot. Her daughter depended on her for everything and the truth was LuAnn had nothing. One step from the edge every day of her life and getting closer all the time. A fall was inevitable; it was only a matter of time. She thought back to Jackson's words. A cycle. Her mother. Then LuAnn. Duane resembled Benny Tyler in more ways than she cared to think about. Next up was Lisa, her darling little girl for whom she would kill, or be killed, whatever it took to protect her. America was full of opportunity, everybody said. You just had to unlock it. Only they forgot to give out keys for LuAnn's kind. Or maybe they didn't forget at all. Maybe it was intentional. At least that's how she usually saw things when she was more than a little depressed, like now.

She shook her head clear and squeezed her hands together. That kind of thinking wasn't going to help her now. LuAnn pulled her handbag over and slid out the steno pad. What she had found at the library had greatly intrigued her.

Six lottery winners. She had started with the ones last fall and continued up to the present. She had written down their names and backgrounds. The articles had carried a photo of each winner; their smiles had seemed to stretch across the width of the page. In reverse order of winning they were: Judy Davis, age twenty-seven, a welfare mother with three young children; Herman Rudy, age fifty-eight, a former truck driver on disability with massive medical bills from an injury on the job; Wanda Tripp, sixty-six, widowed and subsisting on Social Security's “safety net” of four hundred dollars a month; Randy Stith, thirty-one, a recent widower with a young child, who had recently been laid off from his assembly line job; Bobbie Jo Reynolds, thirty-three, a waitress in New York who after winning the article said had given up her dream of starring on Broadway to take up painting in the south of France. Finally, there was Raymond Powell, forty-four, a recent bankrupt who had moved into a homeless shelter.

LuAnn slumped back in her seat. And LuAnn Tyler, twenty years old, single mother, dirt poor, uneducated, no prospects, no future. She would fit in perfectly with this desperate group.

She had only gone back six months. How many more of them were there? It made for great stories, she had to admit. People in dire straits hit the jackpot. Old people with newfound wealth. Young children with a suddenly bright future. All their dreams coming true. Jackson's face appeared in her thoughts. Someone has to win. Why not you, LuAnn? His calm, cool tones beckoned to her. In fact, those two sentences reverberated over and over in her head. She felt herself beginning to slide over the top of an imaginary dam. What was awaiting her in the deep waters below, she was not sure. The unknown both scared her and drew her, fiercely. She looked at Lisa. She could not shake the image of her little girl growing into a woman in a trailer with no way to escape while the young wolves circled.

“What'cha doing, sweetie?”

LuAnn jerked around and stared into Beth's face. The older woman expertly juggled plates full of food in both hands.

“Nothing much, just counting up all my fortune,” LuAnn said.

Beth grinned and looked at the steno pad, which LuAnn quickly closed. “Well, don't forget the little people when you hit the big time, Miss LuAnn Tyler.” Beth cackled and then carried the food orders to the waiting customers.

LuAnn smiled uneasily. “I won't, Beth. I swear,” she said quietly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It was eight o'clock in the morning on the day. LuAnn stepped off the bus with Lisa. This was not her usual stop, but it was close enough to the trailer that she could walk it in half an hour or so, which was nothing to her. The rain had passed and left the sky a brilliant blue and the earth a lush green. Small clusters of birds sang the praises of the changing season and the exit of another tedious winter. Everywhere LuAnn turned as she tramped along under the newly risen sun there was fresh growth. She liked this time of the day. It was calm, soothing, and she tended to feel hopeful about things.

LuAnn looked ahead to the gently rolling fields and her manner grew both somber and expectant. She walked slowly through the arched gateway and past the patinated sign proclaiming her entrance into the Heavenly Meadows Cemetery. Her long, slender feet carried her automatically to Section 14, Lot 21, Plot 6; it occupied a space on a small knoll in the shadow of a mature dogwood that would soon begin showing its unique wares. She laid Lisa's carrier down on the stone bench near her mother's grave and lifted out the little girl. Kneeling in the dewy grass, she brushed some twigs and dirt off the bronze marker. Her mother, Joy, had not lived all that long: thirty-seven years. It had seemed both brief and an eternity for Joy Tyler, that LuAnn knew. The years with Benny had not been pleasant, and had, LuAnn firmly believed now, hastened her mother's exit from the living.

“Remember? This is where your grandma is, Lisa. We haven't been for a while because the weather was so bad. But now that it's spring it's time to visit again.” LuAnn held up her daughter and pointed with her finger at the recessed ground. “Right there. She's sleeping right now, but whenever we come by, she sort of wakes up. She can't really talk back to us but if you close your eyes tight as a baby bird's, and listen real, real hard, you can kinda hear her. She's letting you know what she thinks about things.”

After saying this, LuAnn rose up and sat on the bench with Lisa on her lap, bundled against the chill of the early morning. Lisa was still sleepy; it usually took her a while to wake up, but once she did, the little girl wouldn't stop moving or talking for several hours. The cemetery was deserted except for a workman LuAnn could see far in the distance, cutting grass on a riding mower. The sounds of the mower's engine didn't reach her and there were few cars on the roadway. The silence was peaceful and she closed her eyes tight as a baby bird's and listened as hard as she could.

At the diner she had made up her mind to call Jackson right after she got off work. He had said anytime and she figured he would answer the phone on the first ring regardless of the time. Saying yes had seemed like the easiest thing in the world to do. And the smartest. It was her turn. After twenty years filled with grief, disappointment, and depths of despair that seemed to have endless elasticity, the gods had smiled upon her. Out of the masses of billions, LuAnn Tyler's name had turned the hat trick on the slot machine. It would never happen again, of that she was dead certain. She was also sure that the other people she had read about in the paper had made a similar phone call. She hadn't read anything about them getting in trouble. That sort of news would have been all over, certainly in as poor an area as she lived in, where everyone played the lottery in a frantic effort to throw off the bitter hopelessness of being a have-not. Somewhere between leaving the diner and stepping on the bus, however, she had felt something very deep inside of her prompting her to not pick up the phone but, instead, to seek counsel other than her own. She came here often, to talk, to lay flowers she had picked, or to spruce up her mother's final resting place. In the past, she had often thought she actually did communicate with her mother. She had never heard voices; it was more levels of feelings, of senses. Euphoria or deep sadness sometimes overtook her here, and she had finally put it down to her mother reaching out to her, letting her opinion on things having to do with LuAnn seep into her child's body, into her mind. Doctors would probably call her crazy, she knew, but that didn't take away from what she felt.

Right now she hoped for something to speak to her, to let her know what to do. Her mother had raised her right. LuAnn had never told a lie until she had started living with Duane. Then the fabrications seemed to just happen; they seemed to be an inextricable part of simply surviving. But she had never stolen anything in her life, never really done anything wrong that she knew of. She had kept her dignity and self-respect through a lot over the years and it felt good. It helped her get up and face the toil of another day when that day contained little in the way of hope that the next day and the next would be any different, any better.

But today, nothing was happening. The noisy lawn mower was drawing closer and the traffic on the road had picked up. She opened her eyes and sighed. Things were not right. Her mother apparently was not going to be available today of all days. She stood up and was preparing to leave when a feeling came over her. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before. Her eyes were automatically drawn to another section of the cemetery, to another plot that lay about five hundred yards away. Something was pulling her there, and she had no doubt what it was. Eyes wide, and her legs moving of their own accord, LuAnn made her way down the narrow, winding asphalt walkway. Something made her clutch Lisa tightly to her bosom, as though if she didn't the little girl would be snatched away by the unseen force compelling LuAnn to its epicenter. As she drew nearer to the spot, the sky seemed to turn a terrible dark. The sounds of the mowing were gone, the cars had stopped coming down the road. The only sound was the wind whistling over the flat grass and around the weathered testaments to the dead. Her hair blowing straight back, LuAnn finally stopped and looked down. The bronze marker was similar in style to her mother's, and the last name on it was identical: Benjamin Herbert Tyler. She had not been to this spot since her father had died. She had tightly clutched her mother's hand at his funeral, neither woman feeling the least bit saddened and yet having to display appropriate emotions for the many friends and family of the departed. In the strange way the world sometimes worked, Benny Tyler had been immensely popular with just about everyone except his own family because he had been generous and cordial with everyone except his own family. Seeing his formal name etched in the metal made her suck in her breath. It was as though the letters were stenciled over an office door and she would soon be ushered in to see the man himself. She started to draw back from the sunken earth, to retreat from the sharp jabs that seemed to sink in deeper with each step she had taken toward his remains. Then the intense feeling she had not realized beside her mother's grave suddenly overtook her. Of all places. She could almost see wisps of gauzy membrane swirling above the grave like a spiderweb picked up by the wind. She turned and ran. Even with Lisa, she hit an all-out sprint three steps into a run that would have made many an Olympian bristle with envy. Without missing a step and gripping Lisa to her chest, LuAnn snatched up Lisa's baby carrier and flew past the gates of the cemetery. She had not closed her eyes tight like a baby bird. She had not even been listening particularly hard. And yet the immortal speech of Benny Tyler had risen from depths so far down she could not contemplate them, and had made its way ferociously into the tender ear canals of his only child.

Take the money, little girl. Daddy says take it and damn everyone and everything else. Listen to me. Use what little brain you've got. When the body goes, you got nothing. Nothing! When did I ever lie to you, baby doll? Take it, dammit, take it, you dumb bitch! Daddy loves you. Do it for Big Daddy. You know you want to.

The man on the mower paused to watch her race away under a sky of pristine blue that begged to be photographed. The traffic on the road had picked up considerably. All the sounds of life, which had disappeared so inexplicably for LuAnn during those few moments, had once again reappeared.

The man looked over at the grave from which LuAnn had fled. Some people just got spooked in a graveyard, he figured, even in broad daylight. He went back to his mowing.

LuAnn was already out of sight.

The wind chased the pair down the long dirt road. Sweat drenched LuAnn's face as the sun bore down on her from gaps in the foliage; her long legs ate up the ground with a stride that was both machine-like in its precision and wonderfully animalistic in its grace. Growing up she had been able to outrun just about everybody in the county, including most of the varsity football team. God-given world-class speed, her seventh-grade gym teacher had told her. What exactly she was supposed to do with that gift no one ever told her. For a thirteen-year-old girl with a woman's figure it had just meant if she couldn't beat up the boy who was trying to feel her up, at least she could probably outrun him.

Now her chest was burning. For a minute she wondered if she would keel over from a heart attack, as her father had. Perhaps there was some physical flaw buried deep within all the descendants of the man, just waiting for the opportunity to cleave another Tyler from the ranks. She slowed down. Lisa was bawling now and LuAnn finally stopped running and hugged her baby hard, whispering soothing words into the little girl's small pink ear while she made slow, wide circles in the dense shadows of the forest until the cries finally stopped.

LuAnn walked the rest of the way home. The words of Benny Tyler had made up her mind. She would pack what she could from the trailer and send somebody back for the rest. She would stay with Beth for a while. Beth had offered before. She had an old ramshackle house, but it had a lot of rooms and after the death of her husband her only companions were a pair of cats that Beth swore were crazier than she was. LuAnn would take Lisa into the classroom with her if need be, but she was going to get her GED and then maybe take some classes at the community college. If Johnny Jarvis could do it then she could, too. And Mr. Jackson could find somebody else to “gladly” take her place. All these answers to her life's dilemmas had come roaring in upon her so fast she could barely keep her head from exploding off her shoulders with relief. Her mother had spoken to her, in a roundabout manner perhaps, but the magic had been worked. “Never forget about the dearly departed, Lisa,” she whispered to the little girl. “You just never know.”

LuAnn slowed as she neared the trailer. Duane had been rolling in money the day before. She wondered how much he had left. He was quick to buy rounds at the Squat and Gobble when he had a few bucks in his pocket. Lord only knew what he had done with the wad he had under the bed. She didn't want to know where he had gotten it. She figured it was only an additional reason to get the hell out.

As she rounded the bend, a flock of blackbirds scattered from the trees overhead and scared her. She looked up at them angrily for a moment and then kept walking. As the trailer came into her line of sight, she abruptly stopped. There was a car parked out front. A convertible, big and wide, shiny black with white sidewalls, and on the hood a huge chrome ornament that from a distance looked vaguely like a woman engaged in some indecent sexual act. Duane drove a battered Ford pickup truck which had been in the impoundment lot the last LuAnn had seen it. None of Duane's cronies drove anything like this crazy machine. What in the world was going on? Had Duane gone flat-out loco and bought this boat? She stole up to the vehicle and examined it, keeping one eye on the trailer. The seats were covered in a white leather with inlays of deep burgundy. The inside of the car was spotless, the dashboard clock polished enough to hurt your eye when the sunlight hit it just so. There was nothing in the front or rear seats to identify the owner. The keys hung in the ignition, a tiny Bud can attached to the ring. A phone rested in a device built specifically to hold it and attached to the hump between the front seat and the dashboard. Maybe this thing did belong to Duane. But she figured it would've taken all the cash under his mattress and then some to buy this rig.

She moved quickly up the steps and listened for sounds from within before venturing farther. When she didn't hear anything, she decided finally to brave it. She had kicked his butt the last time, she could do it again.

“Duane?” She slammed the door loudly. “Duane, what the hell did you do? Is that thing out there yours?” There was still no answer. LuAnn put an agitated Lisa down in her baby carrier and moved through the trailer. “Duane, are you here? Come on, answer me, will you, please. I don't have time to play around.”

She went into the bedroom, but he wasn't there. Her eyes were riveted by her clock on the wall. It took her an instant to stuff it in her bag. She wasn't going to leave it with Duane. She exited the bedroom and moved down the hallway, passing Lisa as she did so. She stopped to calm the little girl down and placed her bag next to the baby carrier.

She finally saw Duane, lying on the raggedy couch. The TV was on, but no sound came from the battered box. A grease-stained bucket of chicken wings was on the coffee table next to what LuAnn assumed was an empty can of beer. A mess of fries and an overturned bottle of ketchup were next to the bucket of wings. Whether this was breakfast or the remnants of dinner from last night, she didn't know.

“Hey, Duane, didn't you hear me?”

She saw him turn his head, very, very slowly, toward her. She scowled. Still drunk. “Duane, ain't you never going to grow up?” She started forward. “We got to talk. And you ain't going to like it, but that's too bad becau—” She got no further as the big hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off her scream. A thick arm encircled her waist, pinning her arms to her sides. As her panicked eyes swept the room, she noted for the first time that the front of Duane's shirt was a mass of splotchy crimson. As she watched in horror, he fell off the couch with a small groan and then didn't move again.

The hand shot up to her throat and pushed her chin up so hard she thought her neck was going to snap under the pressure. She sucked in a huge breath as she saw the other hand holding the blade that descended toward her neck.

“Sorry, lady, wrong time, wrong place.” LuAnn didn't recognize the voice. The breath was a mixture of cheap beer and spicy chicken wings. The foul odor pressed against her cheek as fiercely as the hand against her mouth. He had made a mistake, though. With one hand bracing her chin and the other holding the knife, he had left her arms free. Perhaps he thought she would be paralyzed with fear. She was far from it. Her foot crunched backward against his knee at the same moment her bony elbow sunk deep into his flabby gut, hitting right at the diaphragm.

The force of her blow caused his hand to jerk suddenly and the knife slashed her chin. She tasted blood. The man dropped to the floor, spitting and coughing. The hunting knife clattered to the bare carpet next to him. LuAnn hurtled toward the front door, but her attacker managed to snag a leg as she passed by and she tumbled to the floor a few feet from him. Despite being doubled over, he clamped thick fingers around her ankle and dragged her back toward him. Finally, she got a good look at him as she turned over on her back, kicking at him with all her might: sunburned skin, thick, caterpillar eyebrows, sweaty, matted black hair, and full, cracked lips that were at the moment grimacing in pain. She couldn't see his eyes, which were half-closed as his body shrugged off her blows. LuAnn took in those features in an instant. What was even more evident was that he was twice her size. In the grip that tightened around her leg, she knew she had no chance against him, strength-wise. However, she wasn't about to leave Lisa to face him alone; not without a lot more fight than she had already given him.

Instead of resisting further, she threw herself toward him, screaming as loudly as she could. The scream and her sudden leap startled him. Off-balance, he let go of her leg. Now she could see his eyes; they were deep brown, the color of old pennies. In another second they were shut tightly again as she planted her index fingers in both of them. Howling again, the man fell backward against the wall but then he ricocheted off like a bounced ball and slammed blindly into her. They both pitched over the couch. LuAnn's flailing hand seized an object on the way down. She couldn't see exactly what it was, but it was solid and hard and that's all she cared about as she swung with all her might and smashed it against his head right before she hit the floor, barely missing Duane's limp body, and then she slammed headfirst into the wall.

The telephone had shattered into pieces upon impact with the man's thick skull. Seemingly unconscious, her attacker lay facedown on the floor. The dark hair was now a mass of red as the blood poured from the head wound. LuAnn lay on the floor for a moment and then sat up. Her arm tingled where she had hit the coffee table, and then it went numb on her. Her buttocks ached where she had slammed into the floor. Her head pounded where it had struck the wall. “Damn,” she said as she struggled to regain her equilibrium. She had to get out of here, she told herself. Grab Lisa and keep running until her legs or lungs gave out. Her vision blurred for an instant and her eyes rolled up into her head. “Oh, Lord,” she moaned as she felt it coming. Her lips parted and she sank back down to the floor, unconscious.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LuAnn had no idea how long she had been out. The blood that had poured out of the wound on her chin hadn't yet hardened against her skin so it couldn't have been all that long. Her shirt was ripped and bloody; one breast hung loose from her bra. She slowly sat up and rearranged herself with her good arm. She wiped her chin and touched the cut; it was jagged and painful. She slowly lifted herself up. She could not seem to catch her breath as lingering terror and physical trauma battered her from within and without.

The two men lay side by side; the big man was clearly still breathing, the expansions and contractions of his huge gut were easy to see. LuAnn wasn't sure about Duane. She dropped to her knees and felt for his pulse, but if it was there, she couldn't find it. His face looked gray, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. She jumped up and flipped on a light, but the illumination was still poor. She knelt down beside him again and touched his chest gingerly. Then she lifted his shirt. She quickly pulled it back down, nauseated at the sight of all the blood there. “Oh, Lord, Duane, what have you gone and done? Duane, can you hear me? Duane!” In the dim light she was able to see that no more blood was flowing from his wounds: a sign that his heart was probably no longer beating. She felt his arm; it was still warm to the touch, but she felt his fingers and they were already beginning to curl and grow cold. She eyed the remnants of the phone. There was no way to call the ambulance now, although it didn't look like Duane was going to need one. She should probably go fetch the police, though. Find out who the other man was, why he had cut up Duane and tried to kill her.

When LuAnn rose to leave, she noticed the small pile of bags that had been hidden behind the greasy bucket of chicken. They had fallen off the table in the scuffle. LuAnn stooped down and picked one up. It was clear plastic. Inside was a small amount of white powder. Drugs.

Then she heard the whimpering. Oh God, where was Lisa? But there was another sound. LuAnn sucked in her breath as she jerked around and looked down. The big man's hand was moving, he was starting to rise. He was coming for her! Oh sweet Lord, he was coming for her! She dropped the bag and raced to the hallway. Using her good arm to snatch up Lisa, who started screaming when she saw her mother, LuAnn bolted through the front door, slamming it back against the side of the trailer. She ran past the convertible, stopped, and turned back. The massive wall of flesh she had clocked with the phone didn't explode through the door. At least not yet. Her eyes shifted slightly to the car; the dangling keys glimmered temptingly in the sunlight. She hesitated for only an instant, then she and Lisa were in the car. LuAnn gunned the motor and fishtailed out of the muck and onto the road. She took a minute to get her nerves under control before she turned onto the main highway into town.

Now Duane's sudden wealth made a lot of sense. Selling drugs was obviously far more lucrative than stripping cars for a living. Only Duane had apparently gotten greedy and kept a little too much of the drugs or green for himself. The stupid idiot! She had to call the police. Even if Duane was alive, which she doubted, she was probably only saving him for a long spell in jail. But if he was still alive, she couldn't just leave him to die. The other fellow she didn't give a damn about. She only wished she had hit him harder. As she sped up, she looked over at Lisa. The little girl sat wide-eyed in her baby carrier, the terror still clearly observable in her quivering lips and cheeks. LuAnn settled her injured arm over her daughter, biting back the pain this simple movement caused her. Her neck felt as though a car had run over it. Then her eyes alighted on the cellular phone. She pulled off the road and snatched it up.

After quickly figuring out how to work it, she started to dial 911. Then she slowly put down the phone. She looked down at her fingers. They were shaking so hard she couldn't make a fist. They were also covered with blood, and probably not just her own. It was suddenly dawning on her that she could easily be implicated in all of this. Despite his starting to move, the guy could have slumped back down, dead, for all she knew. She would have killed him in self-defense, she knew that, but would anyone else? A drug dealer. She was driving his car.

This thought made her look around suddenly to see if anyone was watching. Some cars were heading toward her. The top! She had to close the ragtop. She jumped into the backseat and gripped the stiff fabric. She pulled upward, and then the big white convertible top descended down upon them like a clam closing up. She hit the ragtop's clamps, jumped back into the driver's seat, and tore down the road.

Would the police believe that she knew nothing about Duane's selling drugs? Somehow Duane had kept the truth from her, but who would accept that as the truth? She didn't believe it herself. This reality swept over her like a fire raging through a paper house; there seemed to be no escape. But maybe there was. She almost shrieked as she thought of it. For an instant her mother's face appeared in her thoughts. It was with immense difficulty that she pushed it away. “I'm sorry, Momma. I ain't got no choices left.” She had to do it: the call to Jackson.

That's when her gaze came to rest on the dashboard. For several seconds she could not even manage a breath. It was like every ounce of blood had evaporated from her body as her eyes stayed locked on the shiny clock.

It was five minutes past ten.

Gone. Forever, Jackson had said, and she didn't doubt for an instant he had meant it. She pulled off the road and slumped over the steering wheel in her misery. What would happen to Lisa while she was in prison? Stupid, stupid Duane. Screwed her in life, and now in death.

She slowly raised her head up and looked across the street, wiping her eyes so she could make out the image: a bank branch, squat, solid, all-brick. If she had owned a gun, she would have seriously contemplated robbing it. Even that was not an option, though; it was Sunday and the bank was closed. As her eyes drifted over the front of the bank her heart started to beat rapidly again. The change in her state of mind was so sudden as to feel almost drug-induced.

The bank clock showed four minutes before ten.

Bankers were supposed to be steady, reliable folk. She hoped to God their clocks were reliable as well. She snatched up the phone, at the same time digging frantically in her pocket for the slip of paper with the number on it. Her coordination seemed to have totally deserted her. She could barely force her fingers to punch in the numbers. It seemed to take forever for the line to begin ringing. Fortunately for her nerves, it rang only once before being answered.

“I was beginning to wonder about you, LuAnn,” Jackson said. She could envision him checking his watch, probably marveling at how close she had cut it.

She forced herself to breathe normally. “I guess the time just got away from me. I had a lot going on.”

“Your cavalier attitude is refreshing, although, quite frankly, it's a bit amazing to me.”

“So what now?”

“Aren't you forgetting something?”

LuAnn looked puzzled. “What?” Her brain was near serious burnout. A series of pains shot throughout her body. If all this turned out to be a joke . . .

“I made you an offer, LuAnn. In order to have a legally enforceable arrangement, I need an acceptance from you. A formality, perhaps, but one on which I have to insist.”

“I accept.”

“Wonderful. I can tell you with complete assurance that you will never regret that decision.”

LuAnn looked nervously around. Two people walking on the other side of the highway were staring at the car. She put the vehicle in gear and headed down the road. “So now what?” she again asked Jackson.

“Where are you?”

Her tone was wary. “Why?” Then she added quickly, “I'm at home.”

“Fine. You are to go to the nearest outlet selling lottery tickets. You will purchase one.”

“What numbers do I play?”

“That doesn't matter. As you know, you have two options. Either accept a ticket with numbers automatically dispensed by the machine or pick whatever numbers you want. They're all fed into the same central computer system with up-to-the-second results and no duplicate combinations are allowed; that ensures only one winner. If you opt for a personalized combination and your first choice has already been taken, simply pick another combination.”

“But I don't understand. I thought you were gonna tell me what numbers to play. The winning numbers.”

“There is no need for you to understand anything, LuAnn.” Jackson's voice had risen a notch higher. “You are simply to do what you're told. Once you have the combination, call me back and tell me what the numbers are. I'll take care of the rest.”

“So when do I get the money?”

“There will be a press conference—”

“Press conference!” LuAnn almost flipped the car over. She fought to keep it under control with her good arm as she cradled the phone under her chin.

Now Jackson sounded truly exasperated. “Haven't you ever watched one of these things? The winner attends a press conference, usually in New York. It's televised across the country, the world. You'll have your photo taken holding a ceremonial check and then reporters will ask questions about your background, your child, your dreams, what you'll do with the money. Quite nauseating, but the Lottery Commission insists. It's terrific PR for them. That's why ticket sales have been doubling every year for the last five years. Everybody loves a deserving winner, if for no other reason than most people believe themselves to be quite deserving.”

“Do I have to do it?”

“Excuse me?”

“I don't want to be on TV.”

“Well, I'm afraid you don't have a choice. Keep in mind that you're going to be at least fifty million dollars richer, LuAnn. For that kind of money, they expect you to be able to handle one press conference. And, frankly, they are right.”

“So I have to go?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do I have to use my real name?”

“Why wouldn't you want to?”

“I've got my reasons, Mr. Jackson. Would I?”

“Yes! There is a certain statute, LuAnn, not that I would expect you to be aware of it, popularly termed the ‘right to know’ law. To put it simply, it says that the public is entitled to know the identities, the real identities, of all lottery winners.”

LuAnn let out a deep breath filled with disappointment. “Okay, so when do I get the money?”

Now Jackson discernibly paused. The hair on the back of LuAnn's neck started to bristle. “Listen, don't try pulling no crap on me here. What about the damn money?”

“There's no cause to get testy, LuAnn. I was merely pondering how to explain it to you in the simplest terms possible. The money will be transferred into an account of your designation.”

“But I don't have any account. I've never had enough money to open a damn account.”

“Calm down, LuAnn, I'll take care of all of that. You don't have to worry about it. The only thing you have to do is win.” Jackson's voice tried to sound upbeat. “Go to New York with Lisa, hold that big check, smile, wave, say nice, humble things, and then spend the rest of your life on the beach.”

“How do I get to New York?”

“Good question; however, one for which I have already prepared. There's no airport near where you live, but there is a bus station. You'll take a bus to the train station in Atlanta. That's on Amtrak's Crescent line. The Gainesville station is closer to you, but they don't sell tickets there. It's a long ride, about eighteen hours or so with numerous stops; however, a good part of it will be while you're sleeping. It will take you to New York and you won't have to change trains. I'd put you on a plane to New York, but that's a little more complicated. You have to show identification, and, frankly, I don't want you in New York that quickly. I'll make all the arrangements. A reserved ticket will be waiting for you at each station. You can leave for New York right after the lottery drawing takes place.”

The prone figures of Duane and the man who had tried his best to kill her flashed across LuAnn's mind. “I'm not sure I want to hang around here that long.”

Jackson was startled. “Why not?”

“That's my business,” she said sharply, then her tone softened. “It's just that if I'm gonna win this thing, I don't want to be around here when people find out, is all. It'll be like a pack of wolves on a calf, if you know what I mean.”

“That won't happen. You won't be publicly identified as the winner until the press conference occurs in New York. When you arrive in the city, someone will be waiting for you and will take you to the lottery headquarters. Your winning ticket will be confirmed and then the press conference will occur the next day. It used to take weeks to verify the winning ticket. With the technology they have today, it takes hours.”

“How about if I drive to Atlanta and take the train up today?”

“You have a car? My goodness, what will Duane say?” There was considerable mirth in Jackson's tone.

“Let me worry about that,” LuAnn snapped.

“You know, LuAnn, you might want to act a little more grateful, unless, of course, someone makes you rich beyond your wildest dreams on a routine basis.”

LuAnn swallowed hard. She was going to be rich all right. By cheating. “I am,” she said slowly. “It's just now that I made up my mind, everything's going to change. My whole life. And Lisa's, too. It's a little mind-boggling.”

“Well, I understand that. But keep in mind that this particular change is definitely of the positive variety. It's not like you're going to prison or anything.”

LuAnn fought back the catch in her throat and clenched her bottom lip between her teeth. “Can't I please take the train up today? Please?”

“Hold on for one minute.” He clicked off. LuAnn looked up ahead. A police cruiser sat on the side of the road, a radar gun perched on the door. LuAnn automatically checked her speedometer and, although she was under the speed limit, slowed down slightly. She didn't breathe again until she was several hundred yards down the road. Jackson clicked back on, his abrupt tones startling her.

“The Crescent pulls into Atlanta at seven-fifteen this evening and arrives in New York at one-thirty tomorrow afternoon. Atlanta is only a couple hours' drive from where you are.” He paused for an instant. “You're going to need money for the ticket, though, and I'm assuming you'll need additional funds, perhaps for some travel-related incidentals.”

LuAnn unconsciously nodded at the phone. “Yes.” She suddenly felt very dirty, like a whore pleading for some extra cash after an hour's work.

“There's a Western Union office near the train station. I'll wire you five thousand dollars there.” LuAnn gulped at the amount. “Remember my initial job offer? We'll just call it your salary for a job well done. You just have to show proper identification—”

“I don't have any.”

“Just a driver's license or passport. That's all they need.”

LuAnn almost laughed. “Passport? You don't need a passport to go from the Piggly-Wiggly to the Wal-Mart, do you? And I don't have a driver's license either.”

“But you're planning to drive a car to Atlanta.” Jackson's astonished tone was even more amusing to her. Here the man was, orchestrating a multimillion-dollar scam, and he could not comprehend that LuAnn would operate an automobile without a license.

“You'd be surprised how many people ain't got a license for anything and they still do it.”

“Well, you can't get the money without proper identification.”

“Are you anywhere nearby?”

“LuAnn, I only came to glorious Rikersville to conduct my meeting with you. Once it was done, I didn't hang around.” He paused again and LuAnn could hear the displeasure in his voice when he spoke next. “Well, we have a problem then.”

“Well, how much would the train ticket be?”

“About fifteen hundred.”

Remembering Duane's money hoard, a sudden thought struck LuAnn. She again pulled off the road, put down the phone, and quickly searched the car's interior. The brown leather bag she pulled from underneath the front seat didn't disappoint her. There was enough cash in there probably to buy the train.

“A woman I work with, her husband left her some money when he passed on. I can ask her for the money. A loan. I know she'll give it to me,” she told Jackson. “I won't need no ID for cash, will I?” she added.

“Money is king, LuAnn. I'm sure Amtrak will accommodate you. Just don't use your real name, of course. Use something simple, but not too phony sounding. Now go buy the lottery ticket and then call me back immediately. Do you know how to get to Atlanta?”

“It's a big place, or so I've heard. I'll find it.”

“Wear something to hide your face. The last thing we need is for you to be recognized.”

“I understand, Mr. Jackson.”

“You're almost there, LuAnn. Congratulations.”

“I don't feel much like celebrating.”

“Not to worry, you have the rest of your life to do that.”

LuAnn put down the phone and looked around. The car windows were tinted so she didn't think anyone had actually seen her, but that could change. She had to ditch the car as fast as possible. The only question was where. She didn't want to be seen getting out of the car. It would be pretty hard to miss a tall, blood-caked woman hauling a baby out of a car with tinted windows and a chrome figure doing nasty things on the vehicle's hood. An idea finally hit her. A little dangerous perhaps, but right now she didn't have much alternative. She did a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction. Within twenty minutes she was pulling slowly down the dirt road, and straining to see ahead as she drew nearer to her destination. The trailer finally came into view. She saw no other vehicles, no movement. As she pulled in front of the trailer cold dread poured over her as she once again felt the man's hands around her throat, as she watched the blade swooping toward her. “You see that man coming out that house,” LuAnn said out loud to herself, “you're gonna run right over his butt, let his lips kiss the oil pan on this thing.”

She rolled down the passenger window so she could check for sounds coming from within but heard nothing. She pulled a diaper wipe out of Lisa's bag and methodically rubbed down all of the car's surfaces that she had touched. She had watched a few episodes of America's Most Wanted. If it hadn't been too dangerous she would have gone back inside the trailer and wiped down the telephone. But she had lived there for almost two years. Her fingerprints would be all over the place, anyway. She climbed out of the car, stuffing as much cash from the bag as she could under the liner of Lisa's baby seat. She pulled her torn shirt together as best she could. She noiselessly closed the car door and, holding Lisa with her good arm, she quickly made her way back down the dirt road.

From within the trailer, the pair of dark eyes watched LuAnn's hasty departure, taking in every detail. When she suddenly glanced around the man stepped back into the shadow of the trailer's interior. LuAnn didn't know him, but he wasn't taking any chances at being observed. His dark leather jacket was zipped halfway up the front, the butt of a 9-mm visible sticking out of the inside pocket. He stepped quickly over the two men lying on the floor, careful to avoid the pools of blood. He had happened along at an opportune time. He was left with the spoils of a battle he had not even had to fight. What could be better? He scooped the drug packets off both the coffee table and the floor and deposited them in a plastic bag that the man pulled from his jacket. After thinking about it for a moment, he put half the stash back where he had found it. No sense being greedy, and if the organization these boys worked for got wind that no drugs had been discovered by the police in the trailer they might start looking for who took it. If only part of the stash was missing they'd probably assume the cops had sticky fingers.

He eyed the fight scene and then noted the torn fabric on the floor; recognition spread across his features. It was from the woman's shirt. He put it in his pocket. She owed him now. He looked at the remnants of the phone, the position of each man's body, the knife and the dents in the wall. She must have walked right into the middle of this, he deduced. Fat man got the little man, and LuAnn somehow got the fat man. His admiration for her increased as he noted the man's bulk.

As if he sensed this observation, the fat man started to stir again slowly. Not waiting for the fat man to recover further, the other man stooped down, used a cloth to snatch up the knife, and then plunged it repeatedly into the man's side. The dying man grew momentarily stiff, his fingers digging into the threadbare carpet, hanging on to the last seconds of his life, desperately unwilling to let go. After a few moments, though, his entire body shook for an instant and then slowly relaxed, his fingers uncurled and splayed out, his palms flush against the floor. His face was turned to the side; one lifeless, blood-filled eye stared up at his killer.

Next, he roughly flipped over Duane, squinting in the dim light as he tried to determine if the chest was moving up or down. Just to be safe he used several carefully aimed thrusts to make certain Duane Harvey joined the fat man in the hereafter. He tossed the knife down.

In another few seconds he was through the front door and around the back of the trailer where he plunged into the woods. His car was parked off a little-used dirt trail that snaked through the heavy woods. It was windy and rough, but it would deliver him onto the main road in plenty of time to take up his real task: following LuAnn Tyler. When he climbed into his car, his car phone was ringing. He picked it up.

“Your duties are at an end,” Jackson said. “The hunt has officially been called off. The balance of your payment will be sent to you via the usual channels. I thank you for your work and I'll keep you in mind for future employment.”

Anthony Romanello gripped the phone hard. He debated whether to tell Jackson about the two bodies in the trailer and then decided not to. He might have stumbled onto something really interesting.

“I saw the little lady tearing out of here on foot. But she doesn't look like she has the resources to go very far,” Romanello said.

Jackson chuckled. “I think money will be the least of her worries.” Then the line went dead.

Romanello clicked off his phone and pondered the matter for a moment. Technically, he had been called off. His work was at an end and he could just return home and wait for the rest of his money. But there was something screwy going on here. Everything about the job was somehow off. Sending him down here to the sticks to kill some hick chick. And then being told not to. And there was Jackson's passing reference to money. Dollars were something that always held Romanello's interest. He made up his mind and put the car in gear. He was going to follow LuAnn Tyler.