J. Jance - Left for Dead

“How’s the selection process coming along?” he asked, unloading the tray and depressing the plunger in the French press. Leland came from a class-conscious English background. It had taken more than a little persuading on Ali’s part to convince him to join her for an occasional cup of morning coffee. Leland was of the opinion that “familiarity” constituted a serious breach of employee/employer etiquette, but as Ali had pointed out, he wasn’t in Kansas anymore, and he wasn’t in Kensington Gardens, either.

Ali pushed the two finalists’ folders over toward the spot where Leland had deposited his cup and saucer.

“I’ve narrowed it down to these two,” Ali said. “Olivia McFarland and Autumn Rusk.”

Leland nodded. “Excellent choices,” he said. “They would have been mine, too.”

During the previous months, as the nominations arrived, Ali had deputized Leland to be her “feet on the ground” and to discreetly gather “intel” on the nominees. Leland had been an unobtrusive presence in Verde Valley communities for many years, and his sleuthing had unearthed quite a few things about the various girls’ backgrounds and family situations that were absent from the official school records.

For instance, Olivia’s 3.5 GPA at Mingus Mountain High School was solid enough, but it might have been much higher if Olivia hadn’t been charged with caring for her three younger siblings-two brothers and a baby sister-while their widowed mother worked two jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.

Ali also couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to the younger children if Olivia were given a scholarship that took her away from home. Would receiving the award, a positive for Olivia, turn into a negative in the lives of her younger siblings? For that matter, would she even accept it?

Autumn Rusk also came from a single-parent home. In the economic downturn, her once prosperous family life had disappeared right along with her father’s job. After the job was gone, the house went next, and after the house, the marriage. Autumn and her mother had moved from their upscale home in Sedona to a modest rental in Cornville, where Autumn’s mother had resumed her long-abandoned career as a hairdresser.

The chaos in their lives had impacted Autumn’s schoolwork, especially during her junior year, when she moved from Sedona High to Mingus. As a senior, she was back hitting the books and making headway in raising her GPA to its former level, but it was a tough road.

Three years before, faced with two equally deserving girls, Ali had opted to choose them both. Those two girls, Marissa Dvorak and Haley Marsh, were now juniors, attending the University of Arizona in Tucson and doing well academically and personally. In Ali’s wallet, right along with photos of her own twin grandkids, she carried a school picture of Haley’s bright-eyed son, Liam, grinning a five-year-old grin that was already minus one front tooth.

Giving someone an Askins scholarship meant a multiyear commitment from the endowment. The economic downturn that had cost Anthony Rusk his job had adversely affected the scholarship fund as well. And though it had received two recent generous donations that made up some of the investment shortfall, Ali wasn’t sure she could justify giving two scholarships this year.

Leland poured the coffee and took a seat. “I don’t envy your having to make the decision,” he said, as though reading her mind. “But if you’re thinking of awarding two scholarships, perhaps it’s time to consider doing some kind of fund-raising effort.”

“Long-term, you’re probably right,” Ali agreed, “but for right now I need to settle this so the girls and their families can make plans of their own.”

When coffee was over, Ali returned to the file folders. By lunchtime she had made up her mind. She would invite both girls to the traditional tea but would meet with them separately. The scholarship for Autumn, who was interested in nursing, would be to any four-year institution of higher learning within the state of Arizona, renewable annually provided she maintained an acceptable GPA.

Olivia’s, on the other hand, would pay in-state tuition, books, and some living expenses for her to attend Yavapai College in Sedona and in Prescott. It would also include a small stipend for child care for her siblings during study or school hours. Upon graduation, assuming she had maintained a suitable GPA, her scholarship could be extended for two more years if she transferred to a BA program at a school inside Arizona. That meant that Olivia’s family would benefit from having her at home with them during those first two years of college, but she’d also be getting a start on her education.

Having made her decision, Ali set about writing the required notes with a happy heart. She was confident that those seemingly trivial invitations to tea would change the course of at least two young lives, just as Anne Marie Ashcroft’s much earlier invitation had transformed the future for Alison Larson Reynolds.

As she sat there on her sunlit patio, Ali took pleasure in a life that seemed placid and orderly, and she relished every moment of it.

3:00 P.M., Friday, April 9

Fountain Hills, Arizona

Breeze Domingo awakened alone in a windowless room where the walls and ceiling looked as though they had been covered with egg cartons. The black dress was gone. So were the silky black underwear and the high heels. She was naked and cold and lying on a hard metal table with thick leather bands restraining her arms and legs.

Fighting her way through the fog, she tried to remember where she was or what had happened. She remembered Chico dropping her off at the gate and riding up the hill in the golf cart. She remembered walking into the book-lined room where the ugly old man had been waiting for her. And then she seemed to remember being given something to drink. After that the world became fuzzy. She recalled the sensation of being thrown over someone’s shoulder and carried, fireman-style, down a seemingly endless staircase, but that was all. She had no idea how much time had passed or even if she was still in the house in Fountain Hills. Where was Chico? He had said he would come back for her, but he hadn’t. Why not? And what was going to happen to her? The possible answers to that question filled her with dread. Whatever it was she knew, it wouldn’t be good.

An invisible door-also covered with what looked like egg cartons-opened, and the ugly man walked into the room. He was wearing a bathrobe. He looked at her and smiled. “It’s about time you woke up,” he said. “Nap’s over. The two of us will have some fun.”

“Where’s Chico?” she asked.

“Don’t hold your breath waiting for him to come back,” the man said. “I guess he didn’t tell you. Chico owed me money. Quite a bit of money, and I agreed to take it out in trade. I tore up his IOU, and now you belong to me.”

He paused long enough to light a cigarette and then stood over her, studying her naked body. “That’s quite a tattoo you have there. Very pretty.”

That was the one part of her fifteenth-birthday present that Jimmy Fox hadn’t been able to cancel, because he hadn’t known about it. Some girls begged to have their ears pierced. Rose Ventana had begged her mother for a tattoo from the time she understood what Connie did for a living. Her mother had always told her that, if she still wanted one, she could have one for her fifteenth birthday. That promise had been made long before Jimmy Fox appeared on the scene, and both Rose and her mother understood how much he would disapprove.

One day while Jimmy was at work, her mother picked Rose up early from school and took her downtown to the tattoo parlor to do the job. The pattern Rose chose was one to match her name, a bright red rose that was tucked out of sight on the inside of her right breast. Connie had positioned it in such a way that it wouldn’t show, even under the low-cut neckline of Rose’s formal-the one she had never worn; the one Jimmy had returned.