Free A Bad Day for Mercy by Sophie Littlefield Page B

then.”
    “That’s where he got that number?” Stella asked. “The thirty thousand?”
    “That’s what he said. What with the lawyer he got to help them get the K-1 visa, and all the flights back and forth, and the wedding itself and all the—”
    “No, no, I understand, it adds up.” Stella’s clients’ tales of woe occasionally included visits to attorneys they didn’t stand a chance of affording, attorneys whose hourly rate could feed their kids for a week or buy a set of tires. “What I don’t understand is, why couldn’t you just marry her right quick? She leaves him, gets a divorce, bam, next day she marries you. With no downtime, she wouldn’t really have a chance to get illegal again, at least not for very long, would she?”
    Chip’s murderous scowl deepened. “Well, you’d think that, wouldn’t you. Problem is, Benton had such a bug up his ass he wasn’t gonna let that happen. He was going to see this one old golf pal of his, a judge down at the county seat, and withdraw his residency petition and have them come after Natalya before we could do a damn thing about it.”
    “I have friend, Yuliya, from home,” Natalya said wistfully. “This happen to her. She and I join LovelyBrides at same time, she is meeting man from Oklahoma. In six month time passing, husband divorce her. Lawyer tell her, she can file petition to stay here while pursue permanent status, but—” Natalya made a slicing motion across her neck—presumably to indicate deportation and not something worse.
    “So your girlfriend’s ex wanted cash?” Stella turned to Chip. “I assume from what you’re saying that your, uh, financial position hasn’t improved any?”
    “I’m not gambling, if that’s what you mean,” Chip said, rooting in his pocket and producing a key chain. He flipped it over to expose a circular bronze medallion stamped with a telltale triangle design, which he proudly showed Stella. “Six months in recovery, I go to meetings.”
    “Well, that’s, uh, marvelous,” Stella said. “Seriously, Chip, big props to you on that. Still, I’m guessing it’s been a little difficult to build up the old bank account with the, ah, entry-level employment…”
    Chip nodded. “I had to work my way up. Got on at St. Olaf’s doing janitorial, but I been there almost a year now and I got promoted twice, and now I work in the Boberg Clinic.”
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, like an extension program they run up here at the hospital. They got a bunch of specialty residencies they do up here. Like, if you’re a med student who wants to go into plastic surgery, once you’re done with your regular surgical residency, you can come up here and put in a couple of years at the Plastic and Reconstructive Clinic.”
    “That’s where you work?”
    “Yup. What my job is, is I clean and stock all the surgical labs, and one of them is where they do the cadaver practice. Which is how I got the ear and—” Chip stopped midsentence, holding up a hand for silence. “Did you hear that?”
    Natalya sniffed the air like a bloodhound, her brow knit anxiously.
    “I didn’t hear nothing,” Stella said. “What-all are you worried about?”
    “I don’t know, just jumpy, I guess,” Chip said. “Thought I heard something out front, probably just a car going by. I wish I could just keep chattin’ and all, Stella, but I really think I ought to wrap this up.”
    But Stella was already headed for the front door, gun in hand. Todd was out there. She’d locked the truck, sure, but the idea of a killer roaming around outside—even if it was only a pansy-assed medical student, as Chip said—didn’t sit well with her.
    She burst out of the house and the profanity died on her lips as she saw that the truck’s passenger window had been shattered, the door standing open on a pile of glass that sparkled in the first golden rays of dawn.

 
    Chapter Eight
    “Shit, shit,