She cried without making a sound. The guard, who’d been standing dutifully behind her, handed her a Kleenex. She thanked him and blew her nose.
“Do you know why?” she asked.
Her lawyer leaned forward, smiling. “The governor wouldn’t tell me. I know a woman who works in his office, and asked her. She said a consultant named Tony Valentine struck a deal with him. Valentine got him to do it.”
She leaned back in her chair, the Kleenex clutched in her hand. “Tony Valentine did this for me?”
Bronson lifted her eyebrows and nodded.
“That’s so wonderful,” she said.
With her lawyer by her side, she went to the jail’s booking area, and signed a stack of papers that she didn’t bother to read. The man behind the desk flashed her a smile and said, “Well, I guess then you’d like your things back. Full name, please.”
“Karen Farmer,” she said.
The man got a plastic bag with her things and dumped them on the desk. It was all there — jewelry, purse, belt, shoelaces — and Karen quickly collected the items, then went into a small room, and changed out of her prison jumpsuit into the clothes she’d been wearing the day she’d been arrested. Then, she followed her lawyer outside the Washoe County jail and into the sunshine. The day had gotten more beautiful, the desert colors bleeding through like paint on a canvas. Her lawyer pointed at a Subaru parked nearby.
“Can I give you a lift somewhere?”
Karen hesitated. Bronson had gone the extra mile for her. She didn’t want to take advantage of her any further, and said, “Are you sure it’s no problem?”
“Of course. Where are you going?”
“To the Cal Neva lodge,” Karen said. “My car is still parked in the hotel valet.”
“You going back to Sacramento?” her lawyer asked.
“It’s the only home I’ve got,” Karen replied.
The drive to the Cal Neva was straight uphill, and her lawyer spent more time maneuvering her Subaru than talking. Karen enjoyed the silence, and watched the scenery with a sliver of fresh air blowing in her face. Forty minutes later, her lawyer pulled into the Cal Neva’s winding entrance and braked at the main entrance.
“Well, here you go. Good luck.”
Karen reached over and squeezed her lawyer’s hand. “You’ve been awfully good to me. Thank you.” Then, she climbed out of the car and walked over to the valet. As the Subaru pulled out, she turned and waved. Her lawyer was already on her cell phone.
Karen give her stub to the valet.
“You checking out, ma’am?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Any luggage?”
She felt a catch in her throat. Her clothes and toiletries and wedding dress were probably still somewhere inside the hotel, waiting to be claimed. And so were Bo’s things, his tux and work clothes and the funny tee shirts he liked to wear to bed.
“No,” she said.
She was soon on the road. The sun was blinding, and she dropped her visor and saw something fall into her lap. It was the size of a parking ticket, and she didn’t look at it until she was sitting at a traffic light a short while later. It was a snapshot of Bo taken at a neighbor’s backyard barbecue a few months ago. She stifled a sharp cry.
“Oh, baby,” she said.
In the snapshot, Bo was smiling like the cat who’d just eaten the canary. The devilish look on his face said he’d just done something, and was just daring her to find out what. It was the look that had made her fall in love, and now she was falling in love with him all over again.
She pulled into a gas station and parked in a shady spot. For ten minutes she cried her heart out. When she’d run out of tears, she kissed the photograph and tucked it into her purse. God, she was going to miss him.
Then, she got back on the road, and drove the three hundred twisting miles back to Sacramento, all the while dreaming about the life she might have lived.
Author’s Note:
In 1998, a computer regulator with the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s Electronic Surveillance Division was arrested for stealing hundreds of jackpots from Nevada’s casinos. This novel is loosely based upon that story.