Quentin took the bills out of his pocket and placed them between the two slices of bread, folding them small enough so no pieces of paper showed on the outside of the bread. Then he put his freshly assembled money sandwich back inside the plastic bread bag. Convinced that his hiding place was absolutely brilliant, he shoved the plastic bag into the small frost-filled freezer compartment of his refrigerator and shut the door.
Enormously pleased with himself, Quentin left the apartment, locked the door, and then walked as far as the McDonald's on the other side of the freeway. There, he splurged on breakfast. He treated himself to coffee, orange juice, and two Egg McMuffins.
Over breakfast, Quentin's worries about taking Mitch Johnson to the cave surfaced once again with a vengeance. If he had still owned his truck, it wouldn't have been a problem. He could simply have driven out to the cave well in advance and checked things out for himself. If there was a problem, he could take care of it…
The answer came to him like a bolt out of the blue. He could buy a car. One of the major roadblocks to buying a car had always been a chronic lack of money. In order to buy a car on time-in order to get a loan-it was necessary to show proof of insurance. Without it, no bank in the universe would even let him drive an uninsured car off the lot. With his driving record, car insurance was something else Quentin Walker didn't have and wasn't likely to get.
But now he had the money-as much or even more than he would need-to buy a car. And if he was paying cash for something like that, the people at the dealership probably wouldn't even blink at the thousand-dollar bills, as long as the total amount was less than the ten-thousand-dollar limit that would cause all kinds of scrutiny.
With growing excitement Quentin paged through the automotive section of an abandoned Arizona Sun he grabbed off a neighboring table. He wanted to find something that would be rugged enough to suit his needs and cheap enough to fit his budget. He circled three that seemed like possibilities-an '87 Suzuki Samurai soft-top, a rebuilt 1980 Ford Bronco, and a '77 GMC Suburban-all of them in the thirty-five-hundred range. That would just about do it-use up his little windfall, leave him some change, and get him some wheels all at the same time.
By the time he headed back to his apartment to shower, the day had taken on a whole new promise. He was finally going to have something to show for all his years of struggle. And if he ever ran into either of his so-called brothers again-Davy Ladd or Brian Fellows-he would tell them both to go piss up a rope.
Diana was lying awake in bed when she heard the side gate open and close as Lani mounted her bike and left for work. Glancing at the bedside clock, Diana was surprised by how early it was-just barely five-thirty. Why was Lani leaving for work so early when her volunteer shift didn't start until seven?
Next to her, Brandon seemed to be sleeping peacefully for a change, so Diana was careful not to wake him as she crept out of bed herself. Wrapping a robe around her, she padded silently down the tiled hallway, through the living room, and into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. She found Lani's note on the kitchen table.
Diana read it and tossed it back on the table. She didn't remember any discussion about Lani's going to a concert. That meant Lani had asked her father for permission rather than her mother. But then why wouldn't she? Despite Brandon's tough-guy act and protestations to the contrary, the girl had had him buffaloed from the very beginning.
"Being foster parents is one thing," he had told his wife the night before Clemencia Escalante was due to arrive at their house after being released from Tucson Medical Center. "Obviously the poor little kid needs help, and I don't mind pitching in. But just because Rita managed to bend the rules enough to have Clemencia placed with us on a foster child basis doesn't mean it's going to lead to a permanent adoption. It won't, you know. It'll never fly."
"But Rita wants her," Diana said.
"Regardless of what Rita wants, she's seventy years old right this minute," Brandon pointed out, taking refuge in what seemed to him to be obvious logic. "And considering it was neglect from an elderly grandparent that sent the poor little tyke to the hospital in the first place, nobody in the child welfare system is going to approve of Rita as an adoptive parent."
"I wasn't talking about Rita adopting her," Diana said quietly. "I was talking about us."
Brandon dropped his newspaper. "Us?" he echoed.
Diana nodded. "It's the only way Rita will ever be able to have her."
"But Diana," Brandon argued. "How long do you think Rita will be around? She already has health problems. In the long run, that little girl will end up being our sole responsibility."
"So?" Diana answered with a shrug. "Is that such an awful prospect?"
Brandon frowned. "That depends. With your work and my work, and with the three kids we already have, it seems to me that our lives are complicated enough. Why add another child into the mix?"
"We have yours, and we have mine," Diana returned quietly. "We don't have any that are ours-yours and mine together."
"A toddler?" Brandon said. He shook his head, but Diana could see he was weakening. "Are you sure you could stand having one of those underfoot again?"
Diana smiled. "I think I could stand it. I can tell you that I much prefer toddlers to teenagers."
"In case you haven't noticed, most toddlers turn into teenagers eventually."
"But there are a few good years before that happens."
"A few," Brandon conceded.
"And Rita says she'll handle most of the child-care duties. She really wants this little girl, Brandon. It's all she's talked about for days-about how much she could teach her. It's as though she wants to pour everything into Clemencia that she was never able to share with her own granddaughter."
"Diana, replacing one child with another doesn't work. It isn't healthy."
For the space of several minutes, Diana was silent. "Living your life with a hole in it isn't healthy, either," she said finally. "Garrison Ladd and Andrew Carlisle put that hole in Rita's life, Brandon. Maybe you don't feel any responsibility for Gina Antone's death, but I do. And now I have an opportunity to do something about it."
"And it's something you really want to do? Something you want us to do?"
"Yes."
Again there was a long period of silence. "I guess we'll have to see," he said finally. "I'll bet it doesn't matter one way or the other what we decide because I still don't think the tribal court will go for it."
"But we can try?"
"Diana," he said, "you do whatever you want. I'll back you either way."
Brandon made a point to come home from work early the next afternoon when Wanda Ortiz arrived with Clemencia. Diana went to answer the door, leaving Brandon and Rita in the living room. Brandon was sitting on the couch and Rita was in her wheelchair when Wanda carried the screaming child into the room.
"She's been crying ever since we left the hospital," Wanda said apologetically, setting the weeping child down in the middle of the room. "Too many strangers, I guess."
Clemencia Escalante looked awful. Most of her woefully thin body was covered with scabs from hundreds of ant bites. A few of those had become infected and were still bandaged. She stood in the middle of the room, sobbing, with fat tears dripping off her chin and falling onto the floor. She turned in a circle, looking from one unfamiliar face to another. When her eyes finally settled on Rita, she stopped.
" Ihab-here," Rita crooned softly, crooking her finger. "Come here, little one."
Still crying but with her attention now riveted on Rita's kind but wrinkled face, Clemencia took a tentative step forward.