Alarmed, Petie took the end of her long braid and protectively pulled it over her shoulder. “I style my hair so it’s easy!”
Tziamara laughed, a light chime of amusement. “Miss, this is not a style.” She closed and stacked the bamboo baskets. “I promise, when I am finished with you, it will be easy.”
“When you wish to follow us, we have set up our stations in the sitting room. They await only your presence.” Matella hurried to open the door for Tziamara.
Astonished, Petie turned to Jeen.
Jeen chuckled at her expression. “I know. It’s an odd thing, to have your true self revealed and, at the same time, to have the commonplace occur.”
“Cutting my hair is not commonplace!”
“Obviously not.” Jeen looked down, collected her thoughts, then looked up again. “Until you said that, as a child, you had visited China, I thought you must be Barbara Husvich.”
Another name from so long ago. Jeen knew everything. How? “Barb Husvich didn’t survive. I almost didn’t survive. You really didn’t know me?” Petie begged for reassurance. “The software didn’t recognize me?”
“In that instance, you have little to worry about.” She paused. “But in the matter of Bradley Copeland, you are not so lucky. He is brilliant, vindictive and he hates you. He blames you.”
“That salmon would have won him the bet. It was easily forty pounds.”
“Then I’m glad he lost it.” Miss Lee spoke in a slow, even tone. “I regret to inform you, but you have won yourself a dangerous enemy.”
“I know. But what can he do to me? I’ve already lost everything. I’m already condemned to exile.”
With a swift, efficient movement, Jeen slapped a bug in midair. She showed Petie the smear of black and red that stained her palm. “Creatures like Copeland can always find a way to do harm.” She stood. “The chill of nighttime grows in the air, the mosquitoes have come out, and we should go in.”
Petie gazed longingly at the gate that would allow her to escape from the inevitable and traumatic remembrance of her past. But Jeen—and the truth—waited, and she knew the time had come at last.
She stood and walked ahead of Jeen into the cabin.
PART TWO
EVIE
THE BEST GIRL FOR THE JOB
San Jose, California
February, ten years ago
EVIE SAT BEHIND HER counselor’s desk, took several long breaths, then picked up the old cordless phone and dialed the number she’d been sent.
“Hello?” The man’s voice was deep, warm, kind, reassuring.
“Hello, this is Evelyn Jones. I’m calling for Donald White?” To her horror, her voice wobbled.
“This is Donald White.”
“Um.” Not um. Sound sure, like her counselor told her. “I’ve called to interview for your position of bookkeeper?”
“Right, Evelyn.” She heard a keyboard tapping. “I’ve brought up your résumé. According to this, you have no experience.”
“No experience, but a week ago, I graduated from bookkeeping school. I was top of the class. I tested top in analytical statistics, process and computer programming. I’m qualified to do whatever you require of me.”
“I know you can. I’ve reviewed your scores, your profile. But frankly, I’m reclusive, and in addition, it’s winter and I live in a small town in Alaska. You’re a young woman from sunny California. I’m more worried about whether you can survive the isolation, the cold, the dark, the storms.”
“I can. San Jose is not all that. Parts of it are not so good.” The streets at night, the gangs, the knives, the parts the tech people never saw and pretended not to know about. “To go somewhere and start fresh is a dream of mine.”
“You’re young to be talking like that. Eighteen years old, right?”
“Next week, and I, um...” She didn’t have to say this. It wasn’t on her record. Her counselor told her not to say a word. But she wanted to make a fresh start. An honest start. “I’ve had lots of time to study. I’m currently in a juvenile detention center.”
Silence.
“I was involved in a drive-by shooting, a fatality. I wasn’t the gunman—” the gunman had been Ramous, cold, indifferent to the suffering he’d caused “—or the driver, but I was considered an accessory to the crime. I’ve been here for a couple of years.” She cleared her throat. “Actually, four years.”
More silence.
Her counselor was right. She shouldn’t have said anything. “I guess I don’t get the job, huh?”
“Since you’re going to be handling big sums of my money, your honesty is to be admired. Where before I only knew how good your grades were and that you understood the basics of finance, now I feel as if I can trust you. Thank you. That made my decision for me.”
What did that mean?
“What’s your full, legal name?”
Why was he asking for her full name? “Evelyn Angelina Jones.”
“Do you have legal identification? A driver’s license?”
Why did he want legal identification? “I’m taking my driving test the day I get out. Next, um, Friday.”
“Perfect. You’ll fly into Anchorage. Can I buy your plane ticket for Sunday? Or is that too soon?”
“Sunday is great.” Evie began to feel exaltation—and terror—bubble in her veins.
She had the job.
She had the job!
“Don’t you want to visit your family for a few days before you fly up?”
“My family doesn’t live here anymore.” She bit down hard on her tongue before she babbled out more information. Evie wasn’t taking any more chances, and besides—she didn’t want to talk about her mother and her younger sister, and how they’d moved to Rockin, Alaska, and left her here, and how much Evie missed them.
“Tell me your address. I’ll send a car to take you to the San Jose airport.”
“Okay.” A car. Like...what? A cab? A limo?
“On the other end, I’ll pick you up at the Anchorage airport. We’ll come right back to Rockin. I’m sorry to tell you, I’m going to require a lot of work from you right from the get-go.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work.” She wasn’t. She wanted a new life, she wanted to be part of her mother and sister’s life again, and she’d do whatever was needed to get it.