Rose shook her head.
"And he's a looker, too," Teresa added. "Just like the other guy."
Latoya's eyes lit up. "What other guy?"
EMERSON'S voice ricocheted from the walls of his small office, filling Rose's head with ringing. "You think you can just miss the morning, and I won't know about it?"
Rose held her temper in check and faced Emerson. A slight man of average height, he was balding and doe-eyed. Emerson came from an old local family. His grandfather sold insurance, his father had expanded the business, his younger brother still ran it, but Emerson had failed to make his mark. He was arrogant, condescending, and lost his temper easily, which made him a terrible salesman. When people bought insurance, they wanted to be reassured, and the only thing Emerson reassured them of was his own inflated ego.
He had called in a snarling rage about two hours after they left Burger King and demanded Latoya bring her back to his office at the end of the shift. Apparently so he could cause permanent damage to her hearing.
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
"There was some trouble at Amy Haire's house . . ."
"I don't give a fuck." He stared at her for a long moment, his nostrils flaring. "I'm not paying you for this week."
"Emerson!"
"What? Are you going to tell me it's illegal and I can't do it? Well, guess what. I just did."
Rose clenched her teeth. Emerson was always an ass, but this was going too far. "I haven't missed a day of work in two years!"
Emerson laughed. "You know what, I changed my mind. You're fired."
"Fired? What for?"
"For absenteeism. You want to complain? You go right ahead. Who the fuck will listen to you? You're an illegal, and I can do whatever the hell I want with you."
Her face grew hot. He opened his mouth to rant some more, saw the look in her eyes, and clamped his jaw shut.
"You do whatever lets you sleep at night, Emerson," she said evenly. "But don't ever come to the Edge when I can find out about it."
She turned, left the office, and kept walking through the hallway to the outside. Latoya was nowhere in sight, frightened off by Emerson's hysterics. Such was the Edge way: every family for themselves. Friend or not, Latoya wasn't about to let her own job go down in flames.
Rose paused on the curb, staring at Emerson's red Honda SUV with a vanity plate that read BOSSMAN. Bossman. What a joke.
She was numb. It hadn't hit her yet, she decided. It would eventually, and then she'd probably hide and cry somewhere.
Rose shouldered her bag and started walking.
Chapter 10
TWO hours later, Rose sank onto the porch steps, her phone next to her. Her feet ached. She used the time it took her to cover four miles from the Clean-n-Bright office to her house to search for a new job. She had exhausted every lead and called in every favor. Nobody was hiring. Nobody expected to hire anytime soon.
Rose experienced her first pang of fear. She had no way to provide for the children.
She had always worked. Ever since Dad left and even before that, she had always provided for them. They weren't rich, but the kids never went hungry. What could she do now? She had no reserve. What little jewelry Mom had was long gone - it went into the truck. First, the transmission went, then the muffler, then the belts . . . There was always something wrong with it, something requiring another injection of cash.
The junk in the attic would bring them nothing. She had tried to sell it before, at a swap meet and at a yard sale, but hardly anyone bought a thing. She'd made a total of seven dollars and twelve cents.
There was a spot in town in front of a small fried chicken joint, where a truck stopped every morning to pick up laborers. They were paid cash. She drove past them on her way to work: men, mostly Latino, chatting in Spanish. Before she had this job, she even tried waiting with them, but the truck driver explained to her that they didn't want women. They wanted men, who could clear away the brush and do construction.
The only reason Emerson had hired her in the first place was because he and her father had been buddies when they were young. But now with Dad gone . . .
She still had the doubloon. By now the news of her firing would have spread, and Max Taylor would know she was desperate. He'd charge her an arm and a leg to convert the doubloon into cash. Her chances might be better with Peter at Parallel Universe. He charged a steeper fee, but he never haggled and never tried to pull a fast one. The doubloon would bring in enough money for a couple of weeks. She'd just have to borrow the money for gas, drive out there, and hope she could work it out with one of them.
And then what?
Maybe she could just leave. Take the kids, use what money she made off Declan's gold, and just go. The Edge was narrow but long: it wrapped the junction of the two worlds like a ribbon. There were other settlements, bigger than East Laporte. There had to be jobs there. But at least here she had the house. Anywhere else, she'd have to pay rent . . .
The sound of approaching footsteps tore her from her thoughts. A long-legged, lanky man strode down the path. The sun played on his reddish hair. She would've known that red anywhere. Rob Simoen. His father had hired Brad to kidnap her all those years ago, so she could marry Rob and make a brood of powerful babies for the Simoens.
Rob came up and stopped at the ward stones. He had a bit of power. He flashed green, which wasn't too shabby for an Edger. He was older than she by three years and well off. He was also a first-rate asshole.
"Hi, Rose," he said.
She just looked at him.
"I heard you've lost your job."
Well, that was fast. "Came to gloat?"
He smiled. "Yeah, a bit. Did you hear? We at Simoen Chevrolet just got ourselves a new cleaning crew. Our offices will be all clean and bright."
Rose blinked as the picture snapped together in her head. "Your dad paid off Emerson to fire me."
"Something like that."
She frowned. "It's been four years. Why do you even care what I do?"
"Word is, you got a boyfriend, who's good with his fists. Actions have consequences, Rose. You see, Brad works for us. Odd jobs, mostly. We like to look after our people."
"How nice of you." She'd known Brad's beating would come to haunt her, but she'd no idea it would be this fast. They hit her where it hurt the most. Magic clung to her. Too bad Rob was too smart to start something.
"Getting Brad beat up wasn't a good move."
"I didn't get him beat up. Brad managed that all by his lonesome. So what does he do for you anyway? Brad isn't much good aside from his fists . . ." Rose didn't even try to keep her mouth from curving. "You use him as enforcer, don't you? To collect and repo your cars. I saw him calling on his cell right after he got his ass handed to him. Was that to you? Tell me, was his voice slurring a little? Because the last I saw him, your precious enforcer was curled up on the pavement in his own vomit, looking for his mommy. He must've jumped on that phone the second he could talk." She laughed. "Oh, that didn't look good for your dad, did it?"