Prologue
I died on a rainy late October night when I thought the only thing standing between me and happiness was ten thousand dollars.
The rain, so typical of central New York, beat against the windows of the church where I passed my last few hours pressing the flesh, convincing people to re-elect me, Paige Alexander, to the Monroe Town Council. Ten thousand dollars was the amount needed to complete the adoption of my last chance at happiness – the baby girl from China who had just been assigned to me.
Needless to say, dying wasn’t on my agenda.
As far as I recall, my life didn’t flash before my eyes. Or maybe it did and I just didn’t look. That’s probably the case. I mean, living through deaths and divorce and shattered dreams were hard enough the first time through. Why would I want to see them again?
The timing couldn’t have been worse. It pissed me off no end that death came calling just when life was starting to smile again. My business – I’m a social worker and I do counseling from my home – was steady. My first term on the Town Board had been a success, and despite some sticky issues that had jumped up in the past few months, I was looking forward to carrying on the work I’d been doing. And the adoption …
… oh, the adoption.
I had one picture of my daughter. My friend Sue, my adoption caseworker, gave it to me three days before I died. I tucked it into my little gold sequined purse-ette and carried it all through that last church dinner, hugging it close to me whenever I saw another baby. I didn’t show it to anyone else, not even my aunt Shirley, busy serving pies. I didn’t want to jinx anything. It was already going to take a miracle to complete the adoption. See, fate and a change in Chinese policy had conspired to match me with this child months earlier than I’d expected, precisely at the time when my savings had been decimated by an exploding car engine, a dead furnace, and an uninsured flood in my basement.
Not that I was complaining. Especially when I looked at her photo, at the one-toothed grin that looked as though it had been snapped in mid-chortle, and saw the gift that had been assigned to me. My Jing Ge. The baby I would not, could not lose. Mine.
I had to do something about the money. I may have been head-over-heels in love with my new daughter, but if I didn’t come up with ten thousand dollars, fast, there was no way I’d be on that plane to China in five or six weeks as Sue had promised. My mortgage was already gulp-worthy. Aunt Shirley didn’t have any extra, not with her daughter applying to medical schools. Parents weren’t an option. My mom killed herself after my father walked out on her while I was in college, so they were both lost to me.
And the one friend I might have turned to had turned his back on me years earlier, just when I needed him most.
So I did the only thing I could: I went to my ex-husband. Not for a handout, God no, though considering Jeff had made it impossible for me to have a biological child, then left me for his pregnant girlfriend – well. That was the past.
No, all I asked from Jeff was the money he owed me from our divorce settlement. Fifteen thousand. He was supposed to pay me regularly, but as of the church supper he was six months behind. Of course he said he didn’t have the cash. I expected that. So I … well, I threatened him.
It wasn’t a “you will die in the morning” kind of threat, nothing like the strange letters I’d received during the election campaign. This was nothing. I simply told him that if he didn’t pay up by Monday, five days away, then I would tell gossip-addicted Shirley about his wiggling out of his debts. Because I knew that if I told her on Monday morning, the whole town would know by Monday afternoon. Perfect timing, since Jeff was running against me in the election. And the voters would be going to the polls on – yep – Tuesday.
So I told him to pay up or I’d talk. Not my finest hour, but a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do, right?
He tried to pretend it didn’t matter, but I guess I really scared him. Because one minute I was at the church supper, hugging my baby secret to myself and eating the slice of lemon pie Shirley had saved just for me. Then I was sicker than a dog, dashing out onto the church lawn because the ladies room was too far, falling down on the grass while the rain poured over me.
The next thing I knew, I was dead.
Wait. Let me rephrase that.
The next thing I knew, I’d been murdered.
