Marvin Greenfield made his way down the hall, giving a gruff harrumph to those who said hello and ignoring those who averted their eyes and said nothing. The hallway was not well lit. A few bulbs were out here and there, and combined with the dingy yellow painted cement brick walls, the corridor felt like one more cheap and meretricious pathway in the labyrinth of mediocrity that was his life. Even worse, he knew that in a few minutes, he would have to turn on his “game face,” as the idiot of a director called it. He would have to appear enthusiastic and happy, as if there were nowhere else on earth he would rather be than standing next to Mariah, the ditzy and completely superfluous girl-child the production company had hired to assist him.

The company, hired by the consortium that ran the Colossus Ball lottery on behalf of the states, attempted to cut every corner imaginable, including the quality of the crew, the make-up artists, the sets, and the food in the green room (forget about flowers or anything else to brighten the place up) when there had still been green rooms. Immediately, Marvin realized that the producers must have seen him as a bargain as well, getting a former game show host to announce the multi-state lottery numbers. Now that the company had decided to broadcast remotely from more public locations, they were cutting other costs even more.

Two years ago, he was making over a million dollars a year, living in the Hollywood Hills, and driving a Porsche. Then his show had been cancelled, and he found himself scrambling to make ends meet doing the odd commercial or cameo here and there. It wasn’t enough. Now he lived in the Valley and was reduced to driving a ten-year-old Toyota.

Tonight, they were shooting from South Beach in Miami, which would have been great if Marvin had any use for sand and drunken teenagers. He rounded the corner and walked on to the set the crew had set up in a converted warehouse that was now a trendy indoor/outdoor bar. He knew he was viewed by the crew as arrogant and demanding, and he couldn’t care less. He was here to get this over with and go back to the hotel bar as quickly as possible. He walked over to the center of the set where a chubby, thick-fingered young man miked him, smiled awkwardly, and then backed away as Marvin took his place in front of the screens that would display photos of past winners and “interesting” information about lottery rules.

The beachside wall of the club was open to the outdoors and already, there were curious onlookers gawking at the set from the sidewalk. When Mariah came out, the growing number of boys looking on began to hoot and holler, making catcalls and rude gestures, as if that was going to impress her. Actually, it probably would. He knew that once the cameras were on, several of these morons would begin to engage in all kinds of lunacy to try and distract him. Everywhere he went, he kept encountering the same behavior. Every fiber of his being wanted to yell “get a life” but that would have gotten him a slap on the wrist at best and a non-renewal at worst. Fortunately, the one area the company didn’t skimp on was security. Given the amount of money involved and the level of oversight by the states, it was seen as an unfortunate but necessary expense.

On the other side of the cameras, Marvin could see the external auditors that were present for every Colossus Ball drawing. The machines used for the drawing were sealed tight and could only be set up with the auditors present. It was like preparing for the moon landing, Marvin thought to himself. They went through a mind-numbingly detailed checklist to certify that everything had been done according to regulation, and because their signature constituted a sworn statement, they didn’t mess around. As a result, the crew had already been at work for three hours just setting up the two machines. Fortunately, he only had to be present for the few minutes it would take to announce the winning numbers.

In his earpiece, Marvin heard the director give the command to turn on the machines. To his right and left stood two large glass globes, one full of white balls, the other containing far fewer red balls. A tech turned both of them on and the balls began their bumblebee dance as Marvin licked his lips and began his articulation exercises. He moved his body beneath his suit, straightened his gray silk tie, and prepared himself to appear, and sound, excited. Even though it was a beautiful February Miami night, with the temperature hanging just at 74 degrees, he already felt overly warm. It was so humid, unlike the cool California nights he was used to. Now with the lights bearing down on him, he became worried that he might begin to perspire profusely.

He could hear the countdown in his ear, but he tuned it out. Graphics appeared on the screens all around him and something that was supposed to pass for music began to play loudly in the background. Some genius actually got paid for coming up with that vapid tune, he thought. The words on the teleprompter were fuzzy for some reason. Everything he said, other than announcing the numbers, was carefully scripted, as though he couldn’t get through a one-minute performance without some wannabe screenwriter giving him useless dialogue. But he didn’t need the prompter. He could have done this in his sleep.

          “Welcome to Colossus Ball!” Marvin went into announcer mode, smiling at the cameras, at the audience that had gathered, and at Mariah. As he continued to talk into the camera, five white balls were sucked up one by one into a plastic tube and transported into another tube, which was enlarged so that the viewers with eyesight even worse than his could still easily make out each number. Mariah then walked to the right and typed the numbers into a small keyboard, which then appeared on a large screen behind her, surrounded by blinking yellow lights.

“With $152 million on the line tonight, you’ll want to pay close attention to these numbers. The first one is forty-two. Here’s a photo of Jack and Mary Silvesky of Knoxville, Tennessee who won $25 million. Look at the smiles on their faces.”

“The second number is—thirteen, not unlucky here. The next number is twenty-seven, followed by five and finally, twenty-eight.”

Marvin moved to his left toward the machine full of red balls. “Remember, just over $152 million in the Colossus Ball jackpot tonight. You’ll want to look closely at your tickets as we go to the red Colossus Ball, which is…thirty-two.” He moved forward, closer to the cameras.

“Live from South Beach, good night and bon chance.” The French had been his little addition. At first he’d gotten his wrist slapped for going off script, but later on the company had a change of heart. Apparently a pollster had told marketing that it added a touch of class to the whole performance, making it easier to ignore the fact that the vast majority of people watching knew about as much French as his ex-wife’s cocker spaniel.

The red light on the camera in front of him died, but he kept smiling for a few more moments, just in case someone in the booth screwed up and kept them live. Then he tore his mike off and walked off the set, ignoring Mariah completely as he passed by her, and returning the way he had come, through the stale yellow corridor that led through the back offices and to the parking lot out back. He found the black Mercedes he had rented—there was no way he was going to drive that ridiculous Chevy Impala the company said it would pay for, and an extra $60 a day was a small price to pay to relive a little of his former glory. He started it up and pulled out of the lot quickly, as if he had a pressing engagement. In fact, he knew he would go back to the hotel, eat something he shouldn’t, and spend the rest of the evening in the bar wondering how he had been reduced to this state.

It really was unfair, he thought. In one sense, his job involved announcing to someone, directly or indirectly, that their life had changed, that their dreams, as debased as they might be, had come true. Someone or several someones may very well have just won $152 million, which would give them the freedom to craft for themselves the life they wanted. They would not be stuck with the life fate had handed them.

The problem was that those with the ability to appreciate what that freedom meant rarely won. Instead, it was always some yahoo who wouldn’t know Merlot from Merlin. He’d known that feeling of earthly deliverance for a few months, and if someone cared enough to ask his opinion, he would have told them that it would have been better if he’d never known what it felt like, than to have had it and lost it.

As he drove on through the Miami night, he realized he’d spent too much time dwelling on this fact already. Someone was made rich tonight, someone who probably didn’t deserve it, meaning someone other than the rapidly aging man looking back at him in the rear view mirror.

Three Years Earlier

Alex looked around the room at a host of unfamiliar faces. Facing the beginning of a new school year had never bothered him before. But now he was surrounded by strangers, most of whom, it appeared, were better off than he was. His eyes landed on a girl with dark hair and dark eyes sitting three rows away next to the enormous window that ran the length of the classroom. He’d seen her in the parking lot a few hours earlier, getting out of a Jaguar convertible, but he was too nervous to pay much attention at that point. Yet here she was again, chatting with the three guys that surrounded her, front, back and side. She looked in his direction and he realized he was staring. He turned away quickly, embarrassed. What was the right word? Beautiful but severe. CIA interrogator by day; supermodel by night. He glanced over again, more discreetly this time. She was wearing a tennis bracelet. The diamonds were large and almost certainly real. She must come from a family as wealthy as his had once been. As he looked around the room again at his classmates, he realized she wasn’t the only one. This was his first day ever at a public school, but it was still a public school in wealthy Main Line Philadelphia.

It was going to take a while, he knew, to learn to handle being middle class for the first time in his life. Money had never been a concern before. Now it was the concern.

His family wasn’t poor, certainly. His mother made a decent living. Adela Emmerich was a biology professor with a well-respected record of research in genetics. She’d come to Philadelphia from Chile nearly two decades before to pursue a Ph.D. at Penn, where she met Alex’s father. Daniel J. Emmerich had moved from southern New Jersey to attend Penn as well, where he learned he had a real knack for finance. Within three years of graduation, Alex’s father opened his own firm, taking many of his clients with him. Given his talents, it wasn’t long before he was a millionaire many times over. He sold his house in the city, and he and his wife moved into a large home in the beautiful wooded hills of Gladwyne, West of Philadelphia. It was the only home Alex had ever known, and now it was gone. Everything was gone.

Alex’s momentary brooding was interrupted when a short, stocky man with bright red hair entered the classroom, carrying an old brown briefcase. He watched as the man turned on the computer, and within a few seconds, Alex could see the words “Critical Thinking” and “Mr. Randall Eliot” appear on the screen.

The class was limited to twenty students, all of whom had to be signed in by the teacher personally. Alex was surrounded by the best and the brightest at his new school, and he knew he was fortunate to be in the class at all. It was his mother’s doing; she and Eliot had been friends at Penn. When his parents broke the news to him about changing schools, it was one of the benefits his mother used to try to soften the blow.

Her words hadn’t helped much; this was still a catastrophic event for him. Moreover, the man standing in front of him now didn’t look particularly ruthless or intimidating, words she’d used to describe how he came across to those who didn’t know him. He was badly dressed, Alex noticed, wearing clothes that were probably right off the rack at some cheap mall store. Of course, he thought to himself, it might not be long before he was doing the same.

Alex could see that Eliot was scanning the faces of his new students. To his great horror, Eliot’s eyes met his and he began to walk to the back of the room toward him.

“Mr. Emmerich?”

“Yes sir.”

Eliot pointed to a door just behind Alex’s seat. “Let me have a word with you, if you don’t mind.” Alex got up and the two of them walked into a large storage room. Eliot left the door open and his back was to the class. Alex was relieved to see that his peers were busy talking, texting, and essentially not noticing the tête-à-tête going on in the back room.

Eliot put out his hand and Alex shook it eagerly. “Your mother has spoken of you to me often, and she probably told you we are friends.”

“Yes. She mentioned it. I appreciate…” Eliot held up a hand and cut him off.

“None of that. If I didn’t think you belonged in here, I wouldn’t have signed you in. Your mother showed me some of your writings from your previous classes and I know you’ve been attending the seminars at your church. It seems to me you’re already doing university-level work in the history of science.” Alex must have blushed. “She didn’t mention to you that she shared your work with me? Well, that’s probably for the best. Despite our philosophical differences—she probably told you I’m an atheist—I respect her greatly. I have learned the hard way that Anglicans can be particularly formidable opponents.”

Eliot paused for a moment, long enough for Alex to become uncomfortable. He could see the man’s brow furrowing. “I also must tell you that—again, despite our ideological differences—I have enormous respect for your father and the choices that he and your mother have made, though, I know those choices have turned your own life upside-down. Your father has frankly shaken my belief that all members of the financial elite are rotten to the core. Oh, I’m sorry. I see I’ve embarrassed you.”

Alex stared at the floor. “No, sir. It’s OK,” he managed to say weakly, though he was, in fact, mortified. “They both are…yes…he believes he has to make things right.” A year and a half ago, there had been rumblings in the financial world indicating that his father’s firm was in some trouble. Alex was alarmed to see his father’s name appear in reports regarding high-risk investments that lost major institutional investors millions of dollars. In the end, no criminal charges were ever filed, and it turned out that another partner in the firm had been responsible for the losses.

That should have been the end of the matter, as far as Alex was concerned.

“A profound spiritual experience.” Those were the words his parents used to describe what seemed to Alex like a mutual mid-life crisis that was just a side effect of the scandal. But his parents were now under the impression that they had to undo the damage his father’s firm had caused, even though doing so meant leaving the upper class and all the amenities that came with enormous wealth. D.J. sold his share of the company to his partners. His parents sold the house—his house—their expensive cars, the pied-à-terre in Manhattan, everything. They used every penny from the sale of those assets to make good the losses. His father set up a non-profit ministry to give financial advice to other non-profits, most of which were run inefficiently and were barely surviving. He stayed busy, but he charged nothing for his services, living only on donations. In reality, this meant that they lived on Adela’s more modest salary.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Alex believed in God, certainly, and he faithfully went with his parents on Sunday mornings to the small Anglican church near the university. He could clearly see that his parents’ burden was lifted by a religious experience they referred to as their “Zacchaeus moment,” though he didn’t understand exactly what that meant. What he did understand was that their lack of moderation was now beginning to affect his own future. He’d had to leave a private school that was a known conduit straight into the Ivy Leagues.

Eliot turned a bit toward the classroom and folded his arms, then looked back at Alex. “I’m sure the counselor mentioned that you could come to him with any problems caused by this transition, but as a friend of the family, you should know that I am also available to help you in any way that I can. At the same time, since I’ve seen what you’re capable of, I will probably be hard on you in class.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Good. Well, I suppose we’d better get started.” Eliot began to walk away from him, but then turned back again and said quietly, “By the way, her name is Natalya Ivanov, but she goes by Talya. I’m afraid that’s all the intelligence that would be appropriate for me to pass on to you at this point.”

As he took his seat at the back of the class, Alex could now actually feel the blood rushing to his face. His head must look like a tomato covered with black hair. Had he been that obvious? He remained distracted by embarrassment as Eliot introduced himself to the class. His level of attention grew dramatically, however, when Eliot drew two boxes on the board and labeled one “science” and the other “religion.” “These are your choices,” he said. “Reason or superstition. Faith or evidence. Enlightenment or the dark ages and a flat earth. By the end of this year, you are going to be able to explain to me why these choices reflect truth, fallacy, or some combination of both.”

Alex was elated. This was going to be a lot of fun.

He loved the course, more than any he had ever taken. Even though Eliot had them reading well over a hundred pages a week of very dense material, it never seemed like work. He quickly became the center of attention in the class due to an uncharacteristic flamboyance that arose from his confidence in his knowledge of the subject matter. He and Eliot would clash almost daily, and they would rapidly move into territory that was beyond the ability of the rest of the class to keep up. Alex could tell that his teacher was having as much fun as he, and after two weeks, he was able to detect the look of disappointment that would creep into Eliot’s eyes just seconds before he would have to bring their private debates to an end for the sake of the other nineteen students in the class.

Alex knew that part of the reason for his theatrics had to do with a desire to impress the girl he’d been so taken with on the first day of school, Talya Ivanov. Eliot’s unwillingness to pass on much information was more than made up for by Talya’s friend Amber, who sat next to Alex in senior English. Talya’s parents were Russian immigrants from St. Petersburg, where Talya was born and raised. Her father’s profession remained a mystery to Amber, though she knew it had something to do with the casino business in Atlantic City. He spent almost all of his time there, and it obviously paid very well, but he apparently didn’t think it a proper environment for his daughter.

Talya was tall, with dark eyes and dark, almost black, hair that fell just below her shoulders. She was nothing like the girls who surrounded her, with their youthful perky faces and cheerleader dispositions. Her accent made her seem somewhat exotic, it was true. But she also had a kind of intelligence, fierce beauty, and lethal wit that, taken together, made her an incredibly intimidating figure to many students and teachers alike. It wasn’t long before he found he couldn’t stop thinking about her, but she didn’t pay any attention to him outside of class. Nor, he admitted to himself, was she ever likely to.

“So, Mrs. Blackwell.”

“Please, call me Marie.”

“For the record, I’m Detective Mark Pursewell, the lead investigator in this case, and next to me is John Engel, representing Advantage Mutual Insurance of New York. Detective Roy Fagan of the Thompson Beach Police Department and Bill Marston of the Harrison County Sheriff’s Office are also present. I want to note that you’re aware this conversation is being recorded, and you’ve not requested that counsel be present, though you are aware that you have the right to counsel. Is that correct?”

“Yes, it is,” she replied softly.

John Engel reveled in the sweet tones of her voice. A native New Yorker, he had always found Southern accents unpleasant. These detectives had accents he could barely make out. But hers was enchanting. If fate dictated that he had to be stuck for two days in Thompson Beach, Mississippi, then it was only just that he be fairly compensated. And fate had done very well, in this instance.

The only reason he was here was because his employer wanted to make certain that the quarter million dollar policy they were getting ready to pay out was legitimate. It wasn’t a lot of money, but a computer program in Memphis automatically sent up a red flag when a claim was filed only two months after the policy was purchased. Both Memphis investigators were gone, one sick and one on vacation. Memphis called the New York office with the flagged file, and he’d drawn the short straw. Or so he’d thought.

According to the file, she was born in Boone, North Carolina, but there wasn’t much of a record of her beyond that. No real credit or work history until recently. Of course, if this were about real money, he might be concerned enough to run down some more information on her. The detective’s irritating voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Marie, I think we all want to offer you our condolences” the man said. “The initial results of our investigation corroborate your version of what happened. Not that we doubted you,” he hastened to add. “So this interview is just to provide us and your insurance company with a formal account of the events that led to your husband’s death two weeks ago.”

Any death was tragic, John thought to himself, but her husband was truly unlucky. She looked as though she could have stepped off the movie screen right into the dull gray and white room they sat in. He guessed she was about 5’10”, maybe 125 pounds, thin but not quite emaciated. She had light blue eyes and short, dark hair that perfectly framed her oval face. It was so dark that it nearly matched the shade of the appropriately mournful black top and pencil skirt she was wearing.

This meeting was really about her insurance, so why did anyone but him need to be in here with her? He found Pursewell grotesque, frankly. It was like putting a finger-painting, one that smelled like bad aftershave, next to the Mona Lisa. Not only was the man’s presence repulsive, it was distracting, and it was simply a crime to distract one’s attention from a great work of art. He cringed as the detective put his meaty arms up on the table, crossed his fingers, and leaned forward.

“Marie, I‘m sorry to make you do this again, but can you recount for us what happened?”

“Well, it’s like I told y’all before. Lee and I were out on the ocean in a little sailboat he rented. Ya’ll know, it was so windy that day. And even besides the weather, I don’t like them, boats, I mean. I don’t really know how to swim. But he was upset when I said I didn’t want to come along. And, well, when he got upset.” She paused and looked mournfully at the detectives around the room, shaking her head. “I think y’all understand what can happen when a man drinks and gets angry.”

“I’m very sorry about that, Marie,” said Pursewell. “I wish we’d known. Go on.”

“Well, I was wearing a vest, ’cause I’m terrified of the water, but he wouldn’t. When I asked him to put one on, he started yelling at me, telling me that I should mind my own business. He’d had a lot to drink already that day.”

John was transfixed by her voice. He decided it was time for him to get a little of her attention. “Do you believe he was inebriated?” he asked. She looked directly at him, and it made his day. He could barely concentrate on her answer.

“Inebriated? You mean drunk? Oh yes, he was very drunk by then. It was three in the afternoon, and he’d been drinking since morning. So we’re in the boat, and he had a bottle of rum with him, and he was drinking it straight.”

“151?” John asked.

“I suppose. I don’t know much about that sort of thing.”

He wrote the numbers down on his legal pad anyway. It would certainly explain things, and it was consistent with the tox screen. The guy had enough alcohol in him to make him incapable of walking, much less sailing.

“So then he takes us way out beyond the peninsula, and I got scared ’cause the wind was coming up. Then he got up, and when he did, the wind caught the sail just right and it swung around and hit him just hard enough to knock him into the water. I jumped in and tried to help him, but then he just tried to crawl up on top of me and I went under.”

She pointed to a long scratch on her cheek. “You can see where he scratched me here. He wasn’t in his right mind. Well, I guess instinct took over, ’cause I panicked and backed away. And then I look over and see the boat is drifting away, and I just didn’t know what to do.” She began to tear up.

She put her head in her hands, but her voice remained clear. “I didn’t know what to do. I was just so afraid of not being able to get help, but also afraid of him drowning me.” She lifted her head and looked at John. “I just don’t know what I could have done. What could I have done?” He shook his head and tried to look sympathetic.

She began to cry softly. The detective standing behind them walked around and put his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him appreciatively. “So, I got on the cell and called for help, but it was too late.” She paused, then touched her abdomen lightly. “I’m glad the baby was okay. I was so afraid I was going to lose it.”

Pursewell repeated his condolences and then asked her a few more questions, but it was all perfunctory and John stopped listening. He looked down again at the file. Her husband had owned a business, but it was not doing well. He had a photo of the man. He sure didn’t look like someone that would turn the head of a woman like this. He was medium height, a little overweight, not especially handsome. He was also quite a bit older than she. Some guys are just in the right place at the right time, he thought. He closed the file to concentrate on listening to her voice and memorizing every detail of her face, even the scratch on her cheek. How long should a man have to wait before asking a widow out to dinner? Maybe he’d tell the Memphis office to go ahead and give her the money, but that he’d need to make a few “follow-up” visits to close the file. It just might be worth it, baby and all.

*  *  *

Lissa St. Denis, a.k.a. the newly-widowed “Marie Blackwell,” turned into a convenience store parking lot and parked her red Mercedes in front. The air conditioner was on high to drive out the hot, humid Mississippi air that had lodged in her car during the interrogation. August in the South was unbearable, and she would be very glad to leave this awful place behind.

The door was about fifteen feet away. She looked around a little nervously. This was definitely not her part of town and the car could draw some attention. She opened the glove box, pulled out a tiny black .380 semi-automatic, and stuck it in her purse. It would be prudent to drive a little further toward the outskirts of town, but she’d been waiting for this moment for a while. She was a quarter-million dollars richer than she’d been this morning; she could afford to indulge herself a bit.

The interview with the police had gone even better than expected. That was one reason for the little celebration. She’d been a bit nervous about the insurance investigator. Companies did not like to pay out, and it was likely they would send a pro. But she could tell within thirty seconds of meeting the man that he was going to fold as quickly as the police had. He was doing what men typically did, plotting, thinking about the best way to approach her, rather than listening.

She entered the store and saw it was empty, except for the clerk standing at the counter. The woman was not aging well, Lissa thought. White, probably fifty, but trying to look thirty. Not going to work if you let your roots grow out that far. Trailer trash. She walked straight up to the counter and eyed the cigarettes behind the woman. She saw the familiar camel shape. It had been so long since she’d smoked that the non-filtered kind would probably make her turn green and throw up.

She pointed at the counter behind the clerk. “Give me a pack of those, no, two packs, of Blues.”

“Just two?”

“Yeah. And some matches. And that’s it.”

“’Preciate it if next time you come in, you leave that gun outside.” Apparently, the clerk wasn’t as stupid as she looked. “Any of them come in here to rob the place, I got plenty of firepower to take care of us both.” What she meant by “them,” she didn’t say, but Lissa understood the implicit message. This was Mississippi.

“Yes, I’ll remember that next time. Thanks.”

Lissa paid her and then, just for fun, pointed to her stomach. “I just like to be safe. I’m expecting in a few months.”

“Congrats, darlin’” the woman said as Lissa walked toward the door.

“Thanks much.” Once she was safely in her car, she locked the doors, unwrapped the package, pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Lee would have had a fit, but thanks to her ingenuity, he wasn’t around now to complain. She took her first drag in several months, and it felt like vaporous sunshine entering her lungs. She had incredible will power; she’d never allowed herself to become addicted to anything. And she would have to put a very strict limit on how many of these she smoked to make sure that didn’t change. It was a bad habit, one she only engaged in between “projects.” But for tonight at least, these—along with the white wine chilling at home and no husband—would make for a perfect evening.

As she merged on to the highway, she thought through the interview again. Had she made any mistakes? The police were really the easy part. Other than the usual distractions, they’d been convinced that no woman would ever risk harming her baby by doing precisely what she’d done. Logic is only as good as one’s assumptions, she thought. The baby. That was the final hook she’d gotten into Lee. Not that she’d needed it. He was ready to marry her on their first date, but once she became pregnant, that was it. It was an incredible inconvenience, of course, but the baby was the impetus behind the policy. “If anything were to happen to you, what would we do?”

Again, bad premise, bad logic. He’d been thrilled when she told him she was pregnant. It was a permanent connection. “Now you have to marry me, hun,” he’d said. “Law of the South, you know.”

She pulled close to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and kissed him. “I reckon you’re right. You gonna be a daddy, sweety. And I want my children to grow up with their daddy at home.”

“Children?”

“Well, sweety, why stop at one?” He could see her words had the intended effect: shock and joy. Worked every time. Let them get worked up, begging for more, then back off a bit. Just when they thought things might be over, hit them hard in the other direction and work some financial magic when they aren’t thinking rationally. Even in the face of bankruptcy, Lee was willing to pay the premium.

It was tempting to get greedy, but $250,000 was a Goldilocks decision, not so high that it would arouse a lot of suspicion, but high enough to make the investment worth the time. And the scenario was plausible. Death by drowning was the fourth highest killer of working age adults, after car accidents, poisoning, and falls. Accidents and poison left evidence behind. Falls and drowning, on the other hand, were much harder to detect. Impossible if they were done correctly. There had already been a tragic rappelling accident the previous year in the North Georgia mountains. She—or rather “Donna Lassiter”—had lost a husband but gained over a million dollars, one more step toward her goals: 10 million by twenty-five; 100 million by thirty-five; and a lifetime to enjoy it.

*  *  *

Lissa put her glass of wine on the coffee table and put out her third and last cigarette for the evening. Even though there was a cell phone right next to her, she reached for the landline and called Chet Hunter, Lee’s foreman. The cell phone was a burner, registered under a false name. She would need it, and the new name, in the days ahead.

Chet answered after two rings. Not a surprise. “Hello?” he said, eagerly.

“Chet, this is Marie.”

“Hey. You need me for somethin’ this evening? I’m sure willing to come over, if you need help.” Of course you would, she thought. At the funeral, of all places, he couldn’t stop staring at her, with Lee fresh in his grave and Chet’s wife standing right beside him. And under different circumstances, she’d be glad to oblige. He was a very handsome man; no doubt about it. But she had to stay on task.

“No. I appreciate it. But I’m just calling to tell you that I want to meet with you and the managers at 10-tomorrow morning. So if ya’ll are on jobs, you’ll need to find someone to take your place. And I’ll need estimates from each on how much longer their current jobs will take to finish. The meeting shouldn’t go more than an hour or so.”

She could hear the disappointment in his voice. “Oh, OK. No problem. I’ll call ’em right now and let ’em know.”

“Thanks, hun.” She couldn’t resist the last word. This was just too much fun. She picked up the wine glass and laid back on the sofa. On the far wall, there was a picture of her and Lee in Vegas, his idea of a honeymoon. She raised her glass toward the photo. “Rest in peace, you pig.”

Of course, Lee had it coming. He was weak and killing off the weak was Nature’s way.

Guys were kneecapped by nature with hormones that turned them into children. This was especially true of guys who had just come into a lot of money. They were weak and more vulnerable than anyone else. She could walk into a bar and see it within seconds. Once they had picked themselves up off the floor, the middle class guys would look at her and dream, but they knew there were limits to their ability to live those dreams: mortgages, car payments, kids in college. Guys who had a lot of experience with money were more careful. They were patient, reluctant to rush into things. They knew they had options and they could and would negotiate to keep those options open. It was the newly rich that were the easiest to manipulate. They knew they had options too, but they wanted to exercise them all at once; they were the least likely to have any self-control and could be talked into almost anything.

So far, there were no “Alphas”, men with assets of $100 million or more. It was hard to break into the social circle that would give her access to those kinds of men, though dating or being married to the right man, one with wealthier friends, would do just that. Once she was in the right spot, she was absolutely certain that she could land an Alpha. The jackpot, of course, would be to pull an Anna Nicole and marry one on death’s door. She would just need enough time to separate him from his family (by that time he was sure to have a dozen grown children who had to be removed from the will.)

But Nature also produced cunning losers, posers, impostors to be avoided at all costs. It was her first major error in a long line of successes. Lee was supposed to put her over the top to meet goal number one. She found him in an upscale bar in town. A good prospect. Heavy drinker, very lonely, very male, very proud. Nice cars. Nice clothes. At least the appearance of money. He’d led her to believe that his landscaping business was thriving, and that there was family money besides. An enormous home, an estate really. A beach house.

The original plan was premised on the assumption that he was worth millions and that she could take her time. Her twenty-third birthday was coming up soon, but she didn’t stress about it since the goal was in sight. It was only after they were married that she found out everything was in hock twice over. He was worse than broke and it appeared that he would go under by year’s end. She needed to cut her losses and move quickly.

She already had offers on the house and the business. The rest of his possessions, like his toys, she would need to sell as quickly as possible, all for cash. If she were lucky, and she almost always was, she could clear another three hundred thousand and then disappear, leaving his debts, her name, and this abominable accent behind before anyone was the wiser. It would also be nice to get rid of this dark hair. In six months, it would be long and blond again, as nature had intended.

The baby was a bigger concern. This hick state had only a handful of providers, and she would have to go all the way up to Jackson to get rid of it. She could wait until she got to LA, where it would be far easier to deal with the problem. But it would be several weeks before she could go, and besides, she wanted to arrive at her next destination with a clean slate.