“Oh, and the mail came,” Brook told her dad as she opened a large brown envelope containing the kind of application forms that never provide enough space for address and Social Security. The top of the documents had the name of a local college whose campus sat between a pain clinic and a liquor store in a nearby strip mall. The two businesses next to the college had an unusually high overlap in clientele. Oh, well, at least the move to Florida and her mom’s modest life insurance policy would allow her to resume classes. Brook was a ferocious student. Under the best of circumstances, there was at least a year left of credits toward a degree, which meant Brook would be taking her bar exam in six months.
She opened another envelope and called to her dad again. “Looks like you got your replacement credit card.”
Ronald walked into the kitchen and grabbed a banana. “You mean for the one someone used to buy ten plasma TVs in San Diego?”
“At least the card company’s fraud-alert system caught it. You’re not responsible for a penny.”
“But how is that even possible when the card was still in my wallet in Florida.”
“They steal the digital data and replicate the magnetic strips.”
“What?”
“It’s computers, Dad.”
He shrugged and headed into the other room to check the phone message.
A wrinkled, almost pink index finger pressed a button. The message began to play.
Brook was making neat rows of Jell-O boxes in the cupboard when her father returned. She looked over at him with a smile. “Hey, Dad—” Her smile vanished. “Dad, what’s the matter? You’re white as a ghost!”
A half-eaten banana hit the floor. Ronald’s legs began to betray him. He pulled out a chair and grabbed the edge of the kitchen table as he eased himself down.
Brook ran over and sat next to him. She leaned in with a hand on his shoulder. “Dad, what is it? What’s going on?”
Speechless. He just pointed into the other room.
Brook dashed over to the answering machine. She pressed the button to replay the last message.
Brook spun around at the message’s conclusion. “Dad, there has to be some kind of mistake.”
He tried to stand. “I need some water.”
“I’ll get it.” She raced to the sink.
Ronald’s hands shook as he took a few timid sips.
Her hand on his shoulder again. “Don’t worry. They’ve gotten something wrong somewhere.”
“But I’ve had a lot of prescriptions over that time. My knees, a colonoscopy, root canal. It was all legitimate.”
“Except these are from new doctors,” said Brook. “Not like the ones back in New York that you’d been going to for years. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned about medical corruption in South Florida.”
“What are you saying?” asked Ronald.
“That you didn’t do anything wrong,” said Brook. “It must have been a doctor. Maybe his license lapsed. Or maybe your prescriptions were on the level, but he was over-prescribing for other patients and your name accidentally got lumped in.”
He began standing again. “Then I’ll call the agent back and straighten this whole thing out.”
Her hand tightened on his shoulder. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“I only work for tax attorneys, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you never respond to this kind of inquiry without counsel.”
“But I don’t have a lawyer.”
She pulled a cell from her purse. “You’ll soon have one of the best.”
For the next half hour, she paced and burned through Verizon minutes, working her way down a list of referrals until she had one of the most expensive criminal defense firms on the line . . .
ORANGE BLOSSOM TRAIL
“I absolutely love Gatorland! But what to do first?” Serge ran back and forth over the same five feet of pavement. “A hundred and ten family-owned acres of real Florida nature exhibits, not the bogus indoor air-conditioned ones where they lure gators out of the water with heat lamps from gas-station fried-chicken counters.” His head jerked back and forth. “There’s so much true wildness I’m suffocating from selection shock. What’s the most natural thing here? . . . Ooo, over there!”
Coleman followed Serge as he dashed across a boardwalk and skidded to a stop. They peered down inside a glass dome.
“What is it?” asked Coleman.
