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permanent sense of injustice, certain that only bad luck separated her from wealth, beauty, and opportunity. She listened to wacko radio shows as she worked, shows that proved Hillary Clinton had once eaten the flesh of a newborn child and that PBS was entirely funded by left-wing movie stars bent on giving homosexuals control of the world. Like they’d really want it.
    Arlis was so mean that Meg suspected even Birdie was a little afraid of her, although Arlis did her best to curb her more psychotic impulses when she was around her employer. But she saved Birdie money by getting the most out of a tiny housekeeping staff, so Birdie left her alone.
    “Dominga, come over here and look at this bathtub. Is that what you folks in Mexico call clean?”
    Dominga was an illegal, in no position to disagree with Arlis, and she shook her head. “No. Muy sucia. ”
    Meg hated Arlis Hoover more than she’d ever hated anyone, with the possible exception of Ted Beaudine.
    What are you paying your housekeepers, Birdie? Seven, seven-fifty an hour?
    No. Birdie paid them ten-fifty an hour, as Ted surely knew. All of them except Meg.
    Her back ached, her knees throbbed, she’d cut her thumb on a broken mirror, and she was hungry. For the past week, she’d been existing on pillow mints and the inn’s leftover breakfast muffins, smuggled to her by Carlos, the maintenance man. But those economies couldn’t make up for her mistake that first night when she’d taken a room in a cheap motel, only to wake up the next morning realizing that even cheap motels cost money, and that the one hundred dollars in her wallet had shrunk to fifty dollars overnight. She’d been sleeping in her car out by the gravel quarry ever since and waiting until Arlis left for the day before sneaking into an unoccupied room to shower.
    It was a miserable existence, but she hadn’t yet picked up the phone. She hadn’t tried to reach Dylan again, or called Clay. She hadn’t phoned Georgie, Sasha, or April. Most important, she hadn’t mentioned her situation to her parents when they’d called. She hugged that knowledge to herself every time she unclogged another fetid toilet or dug one more scummy hair plug from a bathtub drain. In a week or so, she’d be out of here. Then what? She had no idea.
    With a large family reunion scheduled to arrive soon, Arlis could only spare a few minutes to torture Meg. “Turn that mattress before you change the sheets, Miss Movie Star, and I want all the sliding doors on this floor washed. Don’t let me find one fingerprint.”
    “Afraid the FBI will discover it belongs to you?” Meg said sweetly. “What do they want you for anyway?”
    Arlis nearly went catatonic whenever Meg talked back to her, and an angry rash exploded on her veiny cheeks. “All I have to do is say one word to Birdie, and you’ll be locked behind bars.”
    Maybe, but with the inn filling up for the weekend and a shortage of housekeepers, Arlis couldn’t afford to lose her right now. Still, best not to press it.
    When Meg was finally alone, she gazed longingly at the sparkling bathtub. Last night, Arlis had stayed late to check inventory, so Meg hadn’t been able to sneak in a shower, and with the inn booked up, the prospects didn’t look much better for tonight. She reminded herself that she’d spent days on muddy trails without giving a thought to indoor plumbing. But those excursions had been recreational, not her real life, although now that she looked back, it seemed as though recreation had been her real life.
    She was struggling to flip the mattress when she sensed someone behind her. She prepared herself for another confrontation with Arlis only to see Ted Beaudine in the doorway.
    He leaned against the doorjamb with one shoulder, his ankles crossed, perfectly at home in the kingdom over which he ruled. Sweat glued her mint green polyester maid’s dress to her skin, and she dabbed her forehead against her arm. “My lucky day. A visit from the