LITMIR.BIZ

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around, but it bein’ the start of the holiday weekend and all, it’ll prob’ly be Tuesday or Wednesday before I know for sure.”

      “But you said it was just the transmission.”

      “Lady, there ain’t no just to it when it comes to them foreign jobs. This here model of your’n is especially wonky.”

      “Wonky. I…see.” Danni squeezed her eyes shut and tried to find that safe place in her mind. Unfortunately, it seemed to have disappeared, along with darn near everything else she and her late husband Mark had accumulated during twelve years of marriage. Like the silver Lexus Mark had given her four years ago on their tenth anniversary and the healthy nest egg from his insurance settlement that she’d put aside for Lyssa’s college education.

      This morning on the way to the restored Victorian white elephant on the edge of Portland’s historic district that she shared with two other psychotherapists, the nine-year-old hatchback that was now her only mode of transportation had started bucking like a deranged bronc.

      By the time she’d made it to the nearest off-ramp, narrowly averting death by collision several times, her entire thirty-six years on earth had passed before her eyes. She’d barely made it to the ramp’s shoulder when smoke had started pouring out from under the hood. The driver of the tow truck she’d called on her cell phone had recommended Bruno’s.

      “Couldn’t you just fix some of the gears? I mean, I only need Drive and Reverse and Park. The others are just superfluous.”

      This time Bruno snorted something approximating a belly laugh. “That’s a good one, Miz Fabrizio. Yes, ma’am, it surely is. But no can do.”

      “In other words, it’s all or…nothing. Transmission-wise.”

      “That’s about the size of it, yep.”

      She drew in a lungful of air. The pink hybrid tea roses she’d brought from home yesterday morning gave off a cloyingly sweet smell, and her stomach did a slow, clammy roll. The Cajun chicken salad she’d forced down at her desk five hours earlier had clearly been a mistake.

      “So worst-case scenario, if I want it fixed, I have to come up with eleven hunnert—hundred dollars?”

      “Yep. Like the man says, cash on the barrelhead.”

      No one said that these days. No one had said that for a hundred years at least. Nevertheless, the meaning was all too clear. No money, no car.

      Like it or not, Lyssa would have to transfer to a middle school closer to the house they were currently renting on Mill Works Ridge. It would break her daughter’s heart to leave her friends in Lake Oswego, but even with a student pass, the bus fare was more than their already whisper-thin budget could handle.

      She took another breath, fighting a sick feeling of helplessness. The phone rang twice in Paul Baxter’s office next door before the service picked up. Outside, a MAX train swooshed past. A horn tooted cheerfully. It was the start of Memorial Day weekend, and downtown was emptying fast. Happy people rushing out to have fun despite the gray skies and icy wind.

      The weather was due to break late tomorrow night, however, with the promise of sunshine for the rest of the long weekend. As a special surprise, she’d planned to take Lyssa down to the family vineyard near Ashland on Sunday. Fortunately Danni hadn’t told her yet. Her little girl had already had too many broken promises in her twelve short years.

      “Okay, say you can get those used parts,” she said with determined cheerfulness. “What’s the best I can hope for, cost-wise?”

      “Hmm. Let me do some calculatin’ here.”

      “With a sharp pencil, okay?”

      “Ain’t no need for a pencil. I got me a knack for figures, do it all in my head.”

      Which, as she recalled, was shaped exactly like a bullet. With a greasy “gimme” cap on top.

      Torn between laughing hysterically or pleading piteously, Danni clamped her mouth shut and leaned back against the high back of her cushy executive chair. One by one she toed off her low-heeled pumps, then closed her eyes.

      She’d been up since six, with scarcely a moment to herself since she’d dropped Lyssa off at school. Her calendar had been packed, with only a hurried twenty minutes for lunch. Her last session had been highly emotional, and she’d been drained by the time Cindy Habiz had left, calmer, finally, but still dangerously volatile.

      Now it was nearly 5:00 p.m. and she still had patient notes to dictate so that their part-time medical assistant Ruthie could transcribe them over the weekend. Friday was also her night to stop at the market for groceries. Did taxis charge extra to carry groceries? she wondered, feeling a little giddy.

      “Well, near’s I can figure, the best we can do even with used parts would be a thou.”

      Sharpen the damn pencil again! she wanted to shout. Instead, she dropped her head and rubbed her forehead with her free hand. The spot above her right eyebrow was beginning to throb and her stomach was growing more iffy by the second.

      “I can pay you a third now and the rest over the next three months.” It would mean more belt-tightening, but—

      “Sorry, little lady, I don’t give credit. Got burned too many times by deadbeats, y’know?”

      “Yes, I suppose you have.” Danni felt truly queasy now. Humiliation had a taste, she’d learned. It was beyond bitter. She cleared her throat, but the bitterness remained. “Uh, let me see what I can do and I’ll call you Tuesday morning.”

      There was a momentary silence before Bruno said in a softer tone, “Tell you the truth, I don’t like takin’ plastic on account of the service charge, but I s’pose I could make an exception, seein’ as how you’re expecting a little ’un and all.”

      A sudden wash of tears blurred the outlines of her mauve-and-blue office. The kindness of strangers, she thought. “I’m afraid that won’t help, but thank you for the offer,” she said in a wobbly voice.

      Both of her platinum cards had been cancelled. In the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet was a thick file folder full of overdue statements and threatening letters. While she’d been basking in newlywed bliss—and her adoring husband’s constant attention—Jonathan Sommerset, may he rot in the hottest bowels of hell, had managed to steal every cent of her liquid assets, sell her beautiful home on a bluff and all the furnishings before destroying her credit rating.

      The damage he’d done to an innocent young girl desperate to feel a father’s love again was his greatest crime, however. For that alone, the lying weasel deserved to spend the rest of his worthless life in a particularly nasty prison.

      There was one bright spot however. Her own silver lining. A tired smile curved her lips as she pressed her hand to her swelling tummy. Jonathan had given her a baby.

      Her baby, and Lyssa’s, not his. Never his.

      As desperate as she was financially, she had still gotten the best of the bargain. Perhaps that was the best revenge, she thought with a small measure of satisfaction.

      “Miz Fabrizio, you still with me?”

      “Still here.” Barely. “Uh, tell you what, Bruno, let me see what I can do about raising the money, and I’ll call you on Tuesday.”

      “Yes ma’am. I’ll be waiting.” He cleared his throat. “Uh, Miz Fabrizio, say you wasn’t able to come up with the money, I’d be willing to take that old hatchback off your hands for…say, four hunnert.”

      She sucked in a breath. “Cash on the barrelhead?” she couldn’t resist asking as her headache suddenly increased exponentially.

      “Why yes, ma’am.” He chuckled. “You might do you some askin’ around before you accept, but I promise you, it’s a right fair offer. You’re not gonna get a better one.”

      Her throat was suddenly clogged with

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