didn’t know he was getting rich illegally. Had I known, do you think I could have stayed with him? But it’s not like I ever saw a tax return. I didn’t have a key to a safe-deposit box or anything. I didn’t know there was a safe in his study. I guess because there was another larger and visible safe, the police never expected it, either. It was hidden behind a bookcase. Richard was not what you’d call transparent.”
Adam frowned. “Didn’t you sign the tax return?”
She shook her head. “We filed separate returns—Richard took care of it. There was a prenup, a generous prenup that would settle me with more money than I’d ever know what to do with. Of course I came to understand about his wealth, that he could afford almost anything. He never questioned what I needed.”
In vitro, Emma? What the hell. Knock yourself out.
But, Richard, you’ll have to have a few tests...
No problem. I’ll schedule us with the best doctor in the city.
“This is a whole new world,” she said. “No one is going to pity me, learning how to live on two hundred a week after nine years with a Manhattan apartment and a vacation home in the islands. But... Well. Once I get a second job or a decent first job, things should be easier.”
Adam smiled at her. “I’ll keep my eyes open,” he promised. “If you find something around here and need a strong letter of recommendation...”
“You’re going to say you’re pretty sure I’m not a bad person?” she asked.
“I’ll say I’ve known you almost my whole life and have always known you to be strong, smart, honest and reliable.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and withdrew a card. He wrote something on the back and handed it to her. “My cell number. I don’t very often find myself at the Burger Bomb in south Santa Rosa. Call anytime.”
She turned it over and saw it was a business card. Kerrigan Cleaning Services. Industrial, business, residential. Riley Kerrigan, President and CEO.
Emma looked up into his eyes with a question.
“The work is hard but she pays over minimum wage and promotes from within the company. She’s a good leader.” He shrugged. “If desperation for rent and food ever take precedence over bad feelings about the past.”
“Never gonna happen, Adam,” she said, handing back the card.
He closed his hand around hers, refusing to take it. “The first thing you’re going to have to learn about scrabbling to get back on your feet—never turn your nose up at an opportunity. Especially for pride’s sake.”
“You’re reading me all wrong,” she said. “I don’t have any pride left. But I do have to protect myself in the clinches.”
“As you should. And know this—my sister has done a lot for women, women like you who are trying to get on their feet, start over, build a functional life and their self-esteem, usually out of the ruins of divorce or being widowed.”
“You’re proud of her,” she said.
“Oh, yes. Riley amazes me. Keep the card. It has my number on the back.”
She slid it into her purse, thinking it would be a cold day in hell before she’d ask Riley Kerrigan for help.
The very next day the mean little tyrant at Burger Belch fired her.
Riley Kerrigan ran a tight ship and an efficient workplace. She kept her office in Santa Rosa, for easy access to Marin County, San Francisco, Davis, Napa Valley. It had been her goal from the start to service companies and individuals who could afford the best. The fact that this demographic was also the most difficult to please, the greatest challenge, was irrelevant to her. She was confident she had the best service providers.
There were only two full-time office staff: Riley, and her secretary, Jeanette Sutton. She had had five rooms—a spacious office for herself, a front reception area for Jeanette, an office for Brazil Johnson, the CFO and numbers woman, a conference room for meetings and a small lunchroom and restroom. Brazil was rarely in the office; she worked from home whenever she could. Riley’s director of operations, Nick Cabrini, worked in the field, but there was space for him in the office if he needed it, either in Brazil’s office or the conference room. Makenna Rice was the head housekeeper and trainer; she used the conference room occasionally.
Riley kept an office because customers responded to it, particularly business clients, although some home owners also liked to see her base of operations. It gave her credibility. Nick drove one of the company cars; he dressed sharp, carried a computer in his expensive briefcase and when he gave estimates or checked on cleaning crews he looked professional. She had two hundred employees, most of them part-time by choice. Some of her full-time employees took care of the same properties on a regular basis. She had night crews who cleaned office buildings, day crews in residences and crews on call for emergencies like fire or flood damage—regular hazmat duty. Her liability was high and well managed, her income was in the mid hundred-thousand range, her business net worth was now extremely high, her mother’s house was paid off, her retirement savings gaining strength, Maddie’s college fund nearly maxed and her state of mind—excellent.
It had been a long time coming. Many years of eighty-hour weeks.
When Riley was eighteen and a new high school graduate, she took a few classes at the community college that very summer and helped her mother with her housecleaning jobs. Back then they worked for cash, under the table, and too often they were treated like they belonged under the table, out of sight. Customers would take last-minute trips or vacations and forgo housecleaning service for a couple of weeks, not paying them. Clients complained about the cost; they added duties without making preparations in advance, without asking or offering to pay extra. “Oh, June, I have to run a couple of errands. You don’t mind keeping an eye on little Eric, do you?” or “June, I’m way behind on the laundry, can you pitch in?” and “Junie, darling, looks like it’s time for a good window washing.” And as far as Riley knew, her mother hadn’t had a raise in at least ten years.
“We have to fix this business,” Riley had said. “Even some of your oldest customers take complete advantage of your good nature.”
“I think of some of these people as my friends. I just like to help when I can,” June always said.
“Well, they don’t think of you as a friend. They treat their friends with far more respect, so don’t be fooled. And none of them are worried about your retirement. We’re going to find a better way to get it done and earn a decent living. And maybe a little security.”
Riley set up a business plan at the age of eighteen, recruited a couple of college girls who were going to school part-time just as she was, got a business license for two hundred dollars and went looking for more clients. She called her company Kerrigan’s Kleaning and had business cards printed. At first, she didn’t have any overhead except the personal time it cost to do paperwork because Riley was paying taxes, social security, salaries and issuing 1099 statements to employees. Within months Kerrigan’s Kleaning was humming along and even growing.
Then she got pregnant.
What a dark, terrifying time that was. Emma abandoned her, which
