Her Ruthless Possessor

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

“No! No! No!” Cera broke off her stream of denials with a frustrated curse. Okay, the only thing worse than spending the whole day looking for “Help Wanted” signs in Little Havana shop windows? Spending the whole day looking for and not finding a job, only to come home to an eviction notice.

But that was exactly what she’d found on the door of her little lime green apartment. And more “Nos” poured from her mouth as she read over the notice, informing her she had three days to pay her back rent in full or get out.

This could not be happening. This could not be happening.

She only had $113 in her bank account. And good luck finding another place in a halfway decent neighborhood that would be willing to let her move in without a significant down p*****t. Besides that, she hated the thought of moving out of the unit without paying her widowed landlady, Ms. Knarik, what she still owed her.

However, Ms. Knarik had apparently decided to give up on ever getting the money she was owed from the grad student she’d taken a chance on two years ago, despite her shitty credit situation. Boatloads of guilt crashed down on Cera as she grabbed the mail out of the box beside the door.

With a whole lot of trepidation, she tried her key in the lock…and to her relief, it still worked.

But for how long? She really, really, really needed a job, she thought as she plopped down on the couch with the stack of mail. That, and a roof over her head. But now thanks to her lack of one, it looked like she was going to lose the other.

“Cera, pick up the phone! It’s me, Dana! Pick up the phone!!!”

Her sister’s hyper twelve-year-old voice broke through Cera’s desperate thoughts of future homelessness. Dana was seventeen now and didn’t sound quite so aggressively excited these days. But she’d recorded the ringtone before Dana left for Rise Academy, a boarding school for high-functioning autistic kids, where she’d learned, among many other things, how to modulate her tone for everyday conversation.

The only reason Cera pressed accept on the call was because she needed one good thing at the end of this horrible day. And her sister was the only good thing she had left.

“Hey, honey! How’s it going?”

“It’s going great, honey,” her sister answered calmly on the other side of the phone in careful, reflective tones. Then she asked, “How are you?”

To other people, her sister’s way of talking probably sounded a little wooden and a lot rehearsed. But Cera still remembered the child who couldn’t make any friends because she’d get so hyper-focused on a topic—like the answer to “how’s it going?”—that she’d go on and on for several minutes about minute details that no one but her cared about or even noticed.

So what sounded rehearsed to others, sounded like years of socialization work paying off to Cera. And she thanked God every day for the strides her sister had made at Rise. Even if she did miss Dana terribly, now that she lived over two-thousand miles away in Montana.

“I’m good,” she answered lightly, glad Dana, who’d been trained by experts to read other people’s body language, couldn’t see her wince as she told the boldfaced lie.

“Okay…is that enough small talk? Can I tell you my good news now?”

“Yes, honey, please tell me,” Cera answered with a laugh. She could hear the excitement in Dana’s voice and could picture her little sister sitting on her bed, petting Maria Callas, her therapy dog. “I could really used some good news.”

“I got into the New Mexico Opera program!!!”

And just like that, the black cloud returned to overtake the temporary ray of sunshine.

The New Mexico Opera Program was a new summer camp for teenagers on the autism spectrum. A credit to its founder, some Russian billionaire who’d taken a sudden interest in Rise Academy a few years back, it provided summer training to promising musicians, crew, and singers like Dana. However, as generous as the program was, all the training and rehearsal space at the New Mexico Opera meant it still cost a crap ton of money.

Which was why Cera did not consider this “good news” no matter how excited her sister was.

After acceptance, the program participants were on the line for room, board, supplies, and airfare to get them from Montana, where Rise was located, to the camp in Santa Fe. Which might not be so bad for the other students at Dana’s boarding school, many of whom came from wealthy families. But unfortunately for Dana, one of her parents was dead, and the other was either dead or still a slave to the addiction that had driven her to “sell” Dana to her older half-sister for a one-time fee.

The only real family Dana had in this world was Cera. Her jobless big sister who would be homeless in three days.

“That’s great,” Cera said, her voice weak with forced enthusiasm. “Can you tell me about the program again? I just want to make sure I have the details straight.”

Also, she needed time to come up with a good argument against it that wouldn’t a) trigger a meltdown and/or b) let her sister know how close she was to complete and utter destitution.

But as Dana rattled off a list of all the specialized master classes the program would be providing with renowned opera singers, Cera couldn’t think of a single legitimate reason against Dana’s participation. It sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime.

One she unfortunately would still have to say no to. Cera’s heart sank like a stone in her chest.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she said, cutting her sister off. “Someone’s at the door. I’ve got to go.”

“But I haven’t told you where to send the check. Or about the opera we’ll be performing at the end of the program. Or about the special one we’ll be rehearsing in our workshop. It was written by two Rise students whose parents met because of them, they actually got married so Kenji and Sparkle could finish writing it together—”

“Can you email me the rest?”

“I guess, but—”

“I really have to go, honey. Sorry!”

Cera hung up before her sister could ask any more questions.

Yep, that was the way to teach your autistic sister good interpersonal skills. Cut her off, then hang up on her.

Cera sighed out loud. Well, now that she was good and depressed, she might as well go through her mail. She picked up the pile of envelopes on her lap.

Bill…bill…postcard reminding her she was now two years overdue for a dental check-up…bill…plain white envelope with no return address—wait, what?

Cera frowned at the letter. Her name was written across the front in strong, black handwriting. Maybe it was a personal letter from Ms. Knarik explaining how pissed of she was about the late rent.

Cringing, Cera opened it…only to nearly fall off the couch when she saw what was inside.

An unsigned cashier check for $15,000. Made out to her.

“What the…” she said out loud and her eyes immediately darted to the Memo line. Searching for some clue about why anyone would send her a check for this much money. Enough to pay her back rent. Enough to make sure she could do without a job until she graduated from her program in May, and hopefully started a new teaching job at Lighthouse, the private school for kids with autism where she’d done her student teacher hours. It would also be enough to pay for her sister to go to the New Mexico Opera program.

But the only thing on the Memo line was the word, “June” and the current year typed out beside it.

What did it mean? Was this a repayment of some kind? But then why would the issuer have written the current year in the Memo line? Or signed the check?

No, it seemed like—scratch that. It felt like this was some kind of p*****t for something. Something that hadn’t happened. Yet. Something she’d be expected to do, if she cashed it.

Cera dropped the check.

I can’t, she thought to herself as she watched it flutter to the ground. No, she definitely couldn’t…

Could she?