Chapter 1
LUCK HAD NOT BEEN A LADY to Zona Hartman’s ex and now luck was really out to get Zona.
And here was her friend and real estate agent, Gracie, using the nasty L word. “It was a real stroke of luck that your buyer waived the inspection and came through with such a high bid. And cash. It really sped up the process,” she enthused as they sampled the champagne she’d ordered for them.
Luck. A certain word that rhymed with it came to mind.
Don’t say it.
Zona didn’t. She may have lost everything she owned, but she still had her dignity. Instead, she set down her glass and scowled. “Let’s not use that word.”
June was brand-new and it was a beautiful sunny day, like most days in Southern California. Gracie was treating Zona to lunch at Luca Bella, a high-end restaurant in Glendora, not far from Azusa where Zona lived.
Correction: had lived. Someone else would be living in Zona’s four-bedroom Spanish revival home in Rosedale with its view of the mountains and the city lights, the outdoor barbecue and the orange tree in the backyard, and the large kitchen she’d planned on updating with new appliances but now never would.
Someone else was also driving the Tesla Gary had bought for her. That had been replaced with a fifteen-year-old Toyota.
Gracie blushed.
Way to go. Make your friend who sold your house feel bad. What had happened to Zona wasn’t Gracie’s fault.
“I sound like a bitter ingrate. Sorry,” Zona said.
“No, I’m sorry. That was thoughtless of me.”
“But you’re right. I’m glad I got such a good offer and that the deal went through so fast. I need to be grateful for that. I just wish I was able to keep some of the money.”
“Gary is an overflowing septic tank of a human,” Gracie said, frowning.
“Yes, he is.”
He didn’t look like one. Gary looked like the quintessential nice guy, complete with a broad smile that reached all the way to those baby blue eyes that he hid behind glasses with trendy frames.
Those glasses gave the illusion that he was smart.
It turned out he wasn’t as smart as she’d once thought.
“And he didn’t deserve you.”
“No, he didn’t.”
He had started out as a wonderful husband.
So encouraging, so fun, so sweet, so good at handling their money.
He was a solid businessman, dedicated husband and father.
In those early years there was money growing in the bank accounts.
They discussed what they wanted to spend that money on and they enjoyed spending it.
Those dollars were always where they were supposed to be.
Until he’d taken a sledgehammer to both their finances and her trust.
“At least you’re out of debt now,” said Gracie.
Thanks to the sky-high value of California real estate.
Although when you had a second mortgage on your house and debt coming out of your ears, you didn’t exactly walk away from a sale with a profit.
Zona may have been out of debt technically speaking, but she owed her daughter big-time thanks to the mess Gary had created. And Zona was completely broke.
“I appreciate you helping me get through this,” she said.
Gracie had been a good friend, providing a listening ear and therapeutic doses of chocolate on a regular basis as Zona processed her husband’s financial infidelity, cried through their divorce, and tried to be strong as the house she’d pretty much raised her daughter in went up for sale.
Gracie’s life was like a Jane Austen novel, with everything turning out as it should.
Good husband, two great kids, successful real estate career. Jane would have approved.
Zona’s life, on the other hand, had been more Dickens than Austen.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
One of the best being when she’d met her first husband, Luke.
When she’d had her daughter Bree. Then came the worst when she found out Luke had been cheating on her while she was pregnant.
Then came divorce number one and the struggles of being a single parent.
More worst times when her gift shop went under.
But then came . . . the best: Gary, the solid businessman who wined and dined her, who loved her daughter.
They bought their dream house, Zona got a secure job with the department of licensing, issuing drivers licenses—boring but steady work.
Double income, dinners out. Yep, best of times.
Then halfway down the yellow brick road, Gary developed this problem.
Which eventually turned into epic disaster.
And now it was the worst of times again.
Zona was divorced and flat broke. Nothing in savings, the nest egg broken and scrambled, Bree’s money for nursing school gone.
And Zona’s share of the profits from the house sale would all go to pay off the last few stones from the mountain of debt that Gary’s gambling addiction and financial infidelity had built.
His debts had become her debts. Community property was a rip.
“Sometimes I still can’t believe this happened,” she said. “Gary seemed so solid. I thought we were solid. I thought our life was solid.”
Gracie shrugged. “Some people hide who they really are. Or they have, I don’t know, a little crack in their foundation, and with time, if they don’t do anything, the crack gets bigger.”
“Gary was definitely cracked,” Zona said.
It made her grind her teeth every time she thought about what had happened to them. If only she’d caught those early warning signs that Gary’s gambling hobby was becoming an addiction. But she hadn’t. He’d hidden it, like pornography.
Then came the day she went to make a deposit to the savings set aside for Bree’s nursing school and discovered it had been drained. And that was only the beginning.
“I was going to put it back,” Gary had insisted as if he actually had a plan, as if he could be trusted ever again.
“I swear, if I could have gotten away with it—” Zona began.
“Aack! Don’t finish that sentence,” said Gracie. “I know where you’re going.”
Zona frowned. “I’m just fantasizing here.”
Anyway, murder was too good for Gary. He should have to suffer. Work on a chain gang in the blazing sun with no water to drink. Nobody did chain gangs anymore. Too cruel. But how cruel was it to ruin your family’s finances and your marriage? To steal your stepdaughter’s future?
“Stick to romance novel fantasizing,” Gracie advised.
“That’s probably what got me in trouble in the first place,” Zona muttered. “I’m never reading another romance novel again, and there’s nothing com about rom.”
Gracie shrugged. “Don’t blame fiction. Your problem was with real life. Your mom brainwashed you. She had you convinced that every man was like your dad.”
“Yours is,” Zona pointed out.
“I got lucky.”
“Aaargh, that word again.”
“Sorry,” said Gracie, and tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear.
Thanks to her new budget, Zona’s once blond ’do had gone from trendy shadow roots to desperate for sunlight. Total disaster. Like her life.
She frowned at the salad remaining on her plate. “How could I have been so oblivious to what was going on?” It wasn’t the first time she’d asked it. Probably wouldn’t be the last. It was a song on constant replay.
“Because at first it was too small to take any notice of. Like when something’s going wrong with your insides, but you can’t see it until your intestines explode.”
That effectively killed whatever appetite Zona had left. She shoved away her plate.
“And you trusted him,” said Gracie.
“He’d been trustworthy. Once. Before . .
.” Her hand fisted, strangling her napkin.
“All those times he needed to take extra money from savings for the business. Needed to stock new appliances in the store or get new office equipment. Had to cover for a supplier. Instead, he was covering for himself.” Discovering his raid on the college money opened a financial Pandora’s box filled with credit card advances and payday loans.
He’d even used up the line of credit on the house, which had been reserved for that upcoming kitchen remodel that never happened.
If she’d only known what lay ahead, she wouldn’t have signed off on that HELOC when he’d first suggested it.
“We probably won’t even use it,” he’d said when she worried about adding that to the second mortgage they’d taken out three years earlier to expand the business.
“But better safe than sorry.” She wound up unsafe and very sorry.
“Gambling is like any addiction. It takes over and you end up doing things you would never have done if you weren’t hooked,” said Gracie.
“That last huge withdrawal. I didn’t know until it was too late.” Zona sighed. She would have sobbed, but she was too emotionally exhausted.
“I know. But you’re rid of him now. You can make a new start.”
“Back to square one,” Zona said bitterly, examining her chipped nail polish.
She was lousy at giving herself manicures. But she’d have to get better. Visits to the nail salon were now a thing of the past.
She’d had money in her account after the house sale for about two breaths and now, two years after discovering Gary’s betrayal, all she had left after two marriages was her dishes, her clothes, and her “new” Toyota with a hundred and fifty thousand miles on it.
And her Wolfgang Puck pots and pans, ghosts left from better times.
She’d sold her furniture. All except Grandma’s brass bed, which had been in the guest room.
Which maybe someday she’d use if she ever in her lifetime could afford a house again.
She didn’t need the California king she and Gary had slept in anymore.
She had no one to share it with. All she had was plenty of nothing thanks to Gary. The human septic tank.
“At least you’ve got a roof over your head,” Gracie pointed out.
“Who moves in with her mom at forty-two?”
“Someone who needs to get money back in her bank account. You’ll be okay. It’s a place to live, and you’ve still got a job.”