slaughtered—her parents, her grandparents, her brothers and sisters. Of all those people, she was the only one to survive. More than survive, she had thrived. She had been adopted by an older couple from America, Sam and Lola Cunningham. Lola had wanted a daughter. Sam had wanted something else, but that had been her ticket to the American dream, one she had made her own.
She had been working as a minimum wage server for a caterer at what turned out to be the memorial reception for Mark Blaylock’s first wife, Christine. Mina had seen Mark looking broken-hearted and handsome and needy—to say nothing of rich—and had sought him out like a heat-seeking missile. She had managed to put herself in his way, and he had taken the bait. They had been married now for seven years.
Somewhere along the line Mark had been given what was supposedly an inside track on getting a military contract for guidance systems on a particular class of UAVs. It had the potential of turning into a financial gold mine. Mark had mortgaged everything they owned to buy Rutherford International. They had put Mina at the helm of the new entity so it would qualify as a woman-owned company in terms of government contracts. Had they managed to get the drone contract, they would have been millionaires several times over, but the drone contract had gone away completely, and now they were broke.
One thing was certain, however. Ermina Vlasic Cunningham Blaylock was nothing if not resourceful. She was pretty sure she’d be able to bring Richard Lowensdale to heel just as she had Mark Blaylock and Enrique Gallegos. Instead of heading directly to the airport, she drove east past the Palm Springs exits, toward Indio. With the bag of money safely in her trunk, she turned south on California 86.
She had changed clothes at the office, slipping out of her work clothes and into a golf shirt, jeans, and sandals. Dressed like any other weekender, she drove to Mark’s cabin. She was glad to be coming from the north. That meant she could turn off toward the cabin miles before the Border Patrol checkpoint. The cash was most likely in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. She knew, however, that far too many of those bills might have come into contact with the drug trade in one guise or another. She didn’t need a drug-sniffing dog to point out the cash.
The property on the outskirts of Salton City had been in Mark’s family for generations. The cabin was a stout clapboard affair that decades after being built still somehow managed to hold together and remain upright in the face of howling desert winds and scorching dust. Nothing if not austere, it included a single multipurpose room that was kitchen, dining room, and living room combined, a tiny bedroom with a minuscule closet, and a bathroom that was functional but definitely not deluxe. When the AC was on, the place was comfortable enough. There was running water, but the brownish stuff that came out of the taps tasted and smelled like dirt—salty dirt. There was no real furniture, only a collection of odd mismatched outdoor chairs and lounges that were stored inside and then dragged outside and to the sandy beach as needed.
Mina knew how much Mark had appreciated the fact that she understood his need to hang on to the derelict old wreck. It had escaped being mortgaged along with everything else, because the lending officer from the bank had claimed it was essentially worthless.
Sometime earlier—during that terrible year the fish in the Salton Sea all died for no apparent reason—there had been a period of months when almost no one had been able to use their cabins owing to the fierce odor of dead fish. While the owners were mostly absent, someone had broken into Mark’s cabin and most of the others and vandalized them all. As a consequence and at great expense, Mark had insisted on installing a system of roll-down metal shutters that covered the cabin’s windows and doors.
It had been an expensive process, not
She had been working as a minimum wage server for a caterer at what turned out to be the memorial reception for Mark Blaylock’s first wife, Christine. Mina had seen Mark looking broken-hearted and handsome and needy—to say nothing of rich—and had sought him out like a heat-seeking missile. She had managed to put herself in his way, and he had taken the bait. They had been married now for seven years.
Somewhere along the line Mark had been given what was supposedly an inside track on getting a military contract for guidance systems on a particular class of UAVs. It had the potential of turning into a financial gold mine. Mark had mortgaged everything they owned to buy Rutherford International. They had put Mina at the helm of the new entity so it would qualify as a woman-owned company in terms of government contracts. Had they managed to get the drone contract, they would have been millionaires several times over, but the drone contract had gone away completely, and now they were broke.
One thing was certain, however. Ermina Vlasic Cunningham Blaylock was nothing if not resourceful. She was pretty sure she’d be able to bring Richard Lowensdale to heel just as she had Mark Blaylock and Enrique Gallegos. Instead of heading directly to the airport, she drove east past the Palm Springs exits, toward Indio. With the bag of money safely in her trunk, she turned south on California 86.
She had changed clothes at the office, slipping out of her work clothes and into a golf shirt, jeans, and sandals. Dressed like any other weekender, she drove to Mark’s cabin. She was glad to be coming from the north. That meant she could turn off toward the cabin miles before the Border Patrol checkpoint. The cash was most likely in unmarked hundred-dollar bills. She knew, however, that far too many of those bills might have come into contact with the drug trade in one guise or another. She didn’t need a drug-sniffing dog to point out the cash.
The property on the outskirts of Salton City had been in Mark’s family for generations. The cabin was a stout clapboard affair that decades after being built still somehow managed to hold together and remain upright in the face of howling desert winds and scorching dust. Nothing if not austere, it included a single multipurpose room that was kitchen, dining room, and living room combined, a tiny bedroom with a minuscule closet, and a bathroom that was functional but definitely not deluxe. When the AC was on, the place was comfortable enough. There was running water, but the brownish stuff that came out of the taps tasted and smelled like dirt—salty dirt. There was no real furniture, only a collection of odd mismatched outdoor chairs and lounges that were stored inside and then dragged outside and to the sandy beach as needed.
Mina knew how much Mark had appreciated the fact that she understood his need to hang on to the derelict old wreck. It had escaped being mortgaged along with everything else, because the lending officer from the bank had claimed it was essentially worthless.
Sometime earlier—during that terrible year the fish in the Salton Sea all died for no apparent reason—there had been a period of months when almost no one had been able to use their cabins owing to the fierce odor of dead fish. While the owners were mostly absent, someone had broken into Mark’s cabin and most of the others and vandalized them all. As a consequence and at great expense, Mark had insisted on installing a system of roll-down metal shutters that covered the cabin’s windows and doors.
It had been an expensive process, not
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