Deliver Her From Evil

By Pauline Mygrants

In a world desperate to cut its crude oil umbilical cord, Taylor Sonsara is ready to unleash the answer. While at the helm of UBIQ-Global she catches the eye of take-over king, Evan Saban, who has her company in his grip. Using unorthodox means to investigate her, Saban takes great pleasure in this astonishing find and quickly moves in to acquire both the woman and her plans for a new age city.
Bob Graham has the land Sonsara needs to launch her model new-age city. But his intentions include more than just a real estate transaction. When he threatens this asset – now belonging to Saban – the retaliation is swift and severe.
Unaware of her husband’s antics, Anneliese Graham believes they’re living the idyllic life. She’s a fun-loving believer of good and of doing good, but when Bob’s deception is revealed she’s caught in the crosshairs of Bob and Evan’s war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pauline Mygrants
• Release date: Oct 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310372520

Pauline Mygrants

About the authorPauline Mygrants focused on a career in broadcast journalism naively hoping to overhaul the negative barrage of world events brought nightly into TV living rooms and rather focus on stories about the good in people.But when her husband came along journalism was scrapped while raising a family and growing a business from scratch took priority. It’s been forty years and the kids are grown, the business sold. And although feel good journalism is still a pipe dream she now unleashes her imagination through fictional work.Deliver Her From Evil is her debut novel.

Book preview

PART I

Prologue

On a ranch in rural Oklahoma, the sound of a thousand of crickets feverishly rubbing their legs together filled the night air. This was home and the young cowboy was used to these country sounds. But when the old hooty owl screeched a warning from his lofty perch, the already nervous cowboy’s heart leapt.

Jaysus! he hissed, heart pounding, glaring up into the dark branches.

Exhaling a steadying breath, he slid the key card through the security system lock and punched in the stolen pass code. Access was instantaneous. The system silently recorded his entry at 2:13 a.m. Its memory bank whispered a hushed beep as it reset itself. The enormous building that stored feed for thousands of head of cattle at the Broken Arrow Ranch lay before him.

The wiry ranch hand strode quickly to the receiving office just to his left. He knew every inch of the cavernous building and needed only the soft security lighting to make his way. He carefully laid the duffel bag on the desk. A nervous shudder shot through his chest as his fingers fumbled with the bag’s zipper. Beads of sweat dampened his hairline. He stopped and looked up, briefly closing his eyes, not quite believing he was going through with this.

But the job paid $150,000. A new pickup truck had already been delivered as a down payment. It was hard to resist.

He had always been a petty thief, stealing gas, booking bogus overtime, skimming and stashing away what didn’t belong to him without guilt. He had to, he reasoned with himself, since his ex-wife sucked out too much of his income for child support. He still didn’t believe the kid was his.

But this job, this job went beyond petty thievery and his nerves were ragged. He wasn’t certain what was in the vials. Something to encourage growth in the cattle, he was told. The FDA wouldn’t condone its use, but ranches were using this on the sly, or so he was told.

He thought of the money. His dentures clicked as he smiled, thinking of so much fast, easy, quiet money. His ex would never know.

Screw it, he thought. Get this done, man, and get the hell outta here.

He strode over to the first aisle of neatly stacked bags of specialty feed.

Raising a dirty sleeve, he wiped his forehead; in spite of his effort, a drop of sweat rolled off his nose. He reached into the duffel bag and drew out a black leather veterinarian’s bag. Unzipping it, he laid it wide open, revealing twenty-four large hypodermic needles filled with a colorless fluid.

The instructions were simple. Inject only one-third of the needle’s content into a feed bag. Choose the bags randomly making sure that you cover all the specialty mixtures and not just one area of the building.

Cautiously pulling the first needle from the bag, the adrenaline racing through his veins made his hands shake. He bobbled the delicate syringe and fumbled to catch it, but the razor sharp needle stuck deep into his hand.

Goddamn! He lifted his hand to his mouth and sucked the sweet remnant of fluid and blood that lay across the puncture mark.

Needles gave him the creeps. He pulled on leather gloves.

In about ninety minutes, the job was done and all the needles were spent. Back in the receiving office, he yanked off the gloves and shoved them inside the duffel bag. The empty hypodermics were tossed inside the vet bag and he stashed it inside the duffel bag as well.

He was spooked and couldn’t shake it. With his cowboy hat pulled a little lower over his eyebrows, he jammed the duffel bag under his arm and rushed to the exit door. Punching in the code, the system silently recorded the time as 3:44 a.m., its hushed beep resetting itself.

The engine of his newly acquired pickup truck roared to life, and within minutes he was eastbound on Highway 51 just outside of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The night was balmy but he felt chilled nonetheless. Clouds blanketed the moon and the black night matched his mood. He made a slow loop north on I-69 then west on 412 keeping a nervous eye on the highway behind him. But this was rural Oklahoma in the middle of the night and there wasn’t another vehicle in sight.

It’s just nerves, he kept telling himself. Switching on the radio, the country song began to set the young cowboy at ease. Now smiling, he pulled a long drag from his Marlboro. He’d gotten away with it.

Across the country the phone rang and the message was delivered. Evan listened and without speaking replaced the receiver. He laid back down putting his arm over the lovely woman in his bed.

Chapter 1

Evan Saban is a grave dancer.

Recently axed CEOs whisper that expression while drowning their sorrows in booze at the country club that will soon become unaffordable. Sulking, they pepper Saban’s description with vile obscenities tacked onto words like cunning, sly, and insidious.

But Evan prefers to think of himself as a savior, which is a term at odds, since his real thrill comes with the kill, or takeover, as it’s more politely termed in his world. He snatches distressed companies from the grip of a greedy or inept board either by hostile means or, his favorite, pushing them so far into the corner that they have no choice but surrender.

Evan thinks himself to be a type of environmentalist. Cleaning up the trash, so to speak, and removing from power those who squandered their rights to sit in the CEO chair. So not a grave dancer, at all, Evan argues, but rather salvation to the shareholders.

Today, the argument raging behind him echoed his own thoughts. It was time to move in on the next sinner, a tycoon who had fallen from grace and, in Evan’s opinion, didn’t deserve to helm the company he was now running into the ground. Once removed, the wealth this new acquisition would bring was second only to Evan’s need for domination.

He stared out the panoramic windows of his penthouse office suite. Lost in his thoughts, he was unappreciative of the dramatic view of New York City that stretched before him. The object of those thoughts was his target, UBIQ-Global, which he knew was ripe for the taking. The guts of UBIQ’s financial documents, dissected by his own team, now lay naked across the cherry wood desk.

Behind Evan the heated discussion increased in volume as energetic young bucks jockeyed for attention and favor from the great Evan Saban in these hallowed offices.

The voice of Jack Mann, Evan’s principal attorney, rose above the fray demanding to bring them back to center. The man no longer listens to his board! Look, there’s trouble with top management. They are becoming a house divided.

Always certain of his next move, there was lingering doubt tripping a signal wire in Evan’s brain.

Enough. He uttered one word and the room went silent.

Evan turned away from the windows and spoke to his favored employee, Marshall, give us your input.

Kelly Marshall was technically part of Jack’s legal team, but Evan used her for detective operations that were often secret, sometimes illegal, and almost always unethical. She loved her job.

Thirty-four years old and of stocky build, her personality was of brass and tacks. She was a field soldier for Evan Saban. If anyone came within sniffing distance of him or his many corporations, Marshall would know everything about them, including boxers, briefs, or thong.

In a room she was nearly invisible, which is the way she preferred it, silently observing everyone. Today, Marshall sat alone at the wet bar eyeing the heated debate. Not masculine, but not entirely feminine, she had never been seen in a dress. The only jewelry she wore was a gift of diamond stud earrings Evan had given her after she’d dug up crucial information needed to blackmail, some would say, but Evan says oust, a particularly nasty, undeserving CEO.

Marshall slid off the bar stool and walked over to Evan, handing him a dossier containing valuable insights into UBIQ-Global, Inc.

Evan flipped it open and began to silently read it while she slowly walked around the room and began her presentation. She provided no additional copies.

"As you know, UBIQ-Global is a Sonsara company. Tony Sonsara, age sixty-nine, grabbed the reins of this company in a massive power struggle forty-seven years ago, an impressive move considering his age and supposed inexperience.

"Sonsara had vision throwing all his effort into a fledgling wireless market and succeeding. He built the corporation into the powerhouse it is today by surrounding himself with smart, young, highly educated people and he rode them hard. There’s no room for failure in Sonsara’s camp.

He’s been a widower since 1972 and never remarried but has had a harem of mistresses both before and since his wife’s death of breast cancer. Their only child, Taylor, is his heir apparent and currently his CEO…

Marshall’s oration was interrupted when Evan’s secretary entered the office.

Excuse me sir, your plane will be ready in twenty minutes.

Evan nodded then turned to Marshall, Good work.

More than a few were jealous of that rare bit of praise. To their chagrin, it seemed to always be afforded to Marshall.

Evan scanned every face in the room then latched his briefcase closed and walked purposefully to the door, We’ll meet here Monday at 7 a.m. sharp. Get the Sonsara dossier from Marshall—let’s get this thing done.

~~~~

As Evan Saban and his salvation team closed in on an unsuspecting Tony Sonsara and UBIQ-Global, thirteen hundred miles away in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Anneliese Graham prepares her resort ranch for a PGA Tour event.

Evan and Anneliese don’t know each other but that degree of separation will change dramatically as her husband, Bob, plans a coup of his own on an equally unsuspecting, Taylor Sonsara.

Chapter 2

The plans for Anneliese Graham’s involvement in the Professional Golf Association’s west coast swing were strewn across the expansive table in the center of her office. The petite fifty-two year old held a phone to her ear, laughing at the outrageous joke Zolee Naismith delivered with perfect comedic timing.

Good God, Zolee! Tears streaked her cheek and she reached for a tissue from Darrin. "I’ll remember that one! Where do you come up with this stuff? Leno? Last night? Yeah, yeah, okay teaser, you’re right, he’s on past my bedtime. But I need my beauty sleep!"

Anneliese stood, stretched out her back and looked over the open floor of office cubicles. Many staffers were busy with preparations for the golf tour event planned for her California ranch in just a few short weeks. This included Zolee, the general manager of her Cornerstone Ranch who, it was apparent, had too much caffeine today.

Okay, friend, back to business! Anneliese chuckled as she interrupted his monologue and sat back down, Eleanor will pick you up at the airport tomorrow. You emailed her your flight info? Great.

Darrin kept one ear to Anneliese’s phone conversation while he worked from his own desk. There were no secrets between them as Anneliese kept an open door office policy. Technically he was her secretary but she called him her right arm. He intuitively knew before she did what was needed and had it ready for her. She called him a godsend.

Between the guest ranches, the golf courses, the feedlot, and the real estate developments, working at HGEnterprise was never boring. Today, they put the finishing touches on the seemingly million details that went along with hosting a PGA tour event. Accommodations for the players, their families, caddies, trainers, the Tour officials, and the camera crews were now thankfully complete. The details were staggering but his boss took it all in stride actually making the entire process fun for everyone involved.

And since Anneliese’s husband now worked exclusively out of their Broken Arrow Ranch office, the pins and needles tension that trailed that man wherever he went, was gone. Darren loved his job.

He fielded another phone call from the PGA west coast tour director who insisted on holding for Anneliese. Darrin slid that message in front of her along with a bottle of orange juice.

Zolee, your ideas are marvelous! I especially like golf ball shaped chocolate fountain for the first night’s reception. What? That was Johnny’s idea? Well, tell him thank you. Listen, hon, I’ve got to grab another line. I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a great flight!

Anneliese popped the orange juice top and punched line six, Hello, Larry! Yes, every detail is coming together beautifully! This will be the best tour the Cornerstone has hosted thus far. Listen to what Zolee has planned…

Darrin picked up another call put through. Unfortunately, it was her boss’ husband.

Bob Graham barked in his ear, Darrin, where’s Annielise? I need to talk with her now, boy!

Crimson blush colored Darrin’s cheeks as he fought down his anger and coolly responded, She’s on the other line, Mr. Graham.

Tell her to call me right away! Can you handle that?

Yes, sir—

But Bob Graham cut him off and hung up. Darrin resisted the impulse to slam down the phone. He watched her repeat Zolee’s joke to the director. Tears streamed down her face again as they both enjoyed the joke. Darrin wondered yet again what his boss ever saw in the jackass she called her husband.

Larry, I’m flying out to the Cornerstone on the twenty-eighth. Can you join me? We’ll go over these details with Zolee and his staff. She tapped her pen against a mound of paperwork, Great! See you then!

Pushing away from her desk, she stepped out the double doors that led to a small balcony.

At only 5’3", Anneliese was a nonstop bundle of energy that her younger staffers marveled at. An avid sportswoman, she took up long distance running while in college where she ran in her first marathon. Even now, her goal is to run in at least one marathon a year. This year she is excited that son Luke will run with her in his first marathon.

She wears her wavy sandy-colored hair in an attractive bob hairstyle that frames her pretty face. Stepping out on the balcony a light breeze picks up wisps of her hair and lays them across her nose. She reaches up and pushes the hair away from her eyes.

It is her eyes that are thought to be her most attractive feature. Large lovely violet eyes that never waver. When one speaks with Anneliese her eyes take them in holding them in a personal contact no matter who else is present. Perhaps it is this knack, this natural kindness that makes one feel special. People are drawn to her.

On this late March day, the descending sun’s rays paint long streams of orange and gray onto the western Oklahoma horizon. Small, bright, white clouds dot the cool blue sky. The dry air held a lingering winter’s chill but Anneliese threw open her sweater.

Do you want your coat? Darrin stepped out behind her.

No, I’m having hot flashes! Anneliese smiled and turned her back to the sunset, I believe if our power company could figure a way to tap into this natural thermal heat we could probably save enough money to reduce the national debt!

Darrin smiled, Mr. Graham called. He said it was urgent.

Okay. She turned toward the gorgeous sunset, Look at that! Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s God’s paintbrush.

Agreed and hopefully spring is right around the corner. Darrin shivered. I’m going to take the batch records down to legal before they leave for the day.

I’m on my way out also, but remember the meeting at the ranch tomorrow. They walked back inside the office. We had a great day today, huh? With the record number of golfers registering for the event and all who travel with them just getting them all accommodated seemed impossible. But I thank God it all worked out.

Darrin smiled at his boss’s comment. He knew her to be an overachiever who placed her priorities in faith and ethics in her own life as well as business dealings. It causes some staffers to squirm under the high standards she set because it’s easier, after all, to cut corners. But Anneliese is not a proponent of good enough. Her motto being, There is great satisfaction in achieving your best objective. Settle for nothing less than the best.

She draws the best out of her staff and is not stingy on praising them when they succeed.

Darrin decided long ago that if being an ethical overachiever steeped in faith is what it takes to keep this huge corporation steaming ahead, then that’s fine by him.

I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early. Darrin left the office whistling with a sheath of paperwork under his arm.

Chapter 3

Evan Saban stretched out his 6’2" frame in the sumptuous leather recliner inside the spacious cabin of his private jet and awaited take-off.

Setting the Sonsara dossier on the wood grained table, he opened a bottle of cold water. The pilot informed him of a thirty minute weather delay.

At fifty-two, Evan had the physique of a much younger man. But then, not surprising, he improved with every life. Evan believed in reincarnation. Having clear memories of past lives and this life was by far the most powerful. He felt the karma, the strong pull, leading him to his purpose.

Evan’s jet black hair was giving way to flecks of white, yet instead of aging him, it made him look distinguished. He was a handsome man, which said, was just another tool he used for leverage.

It was his eyes however, that held the capacity to unnerve people with their soul penetrating intensity. So black that you couldn’t distinguish the pupil. Like wearing sunglasses one couldn’t be sure what, if any, emotion the eyes held.

Evan’s current life started out ambiguous enough for one soon to perceive a loftier calling. He was the only child of a street-walking hooker. She had no idea which john fathered him. She left him alone in their rundown apartment with television as the baby-sitter. When she came home late she’d often find her son asleep in the closet under a pile of coats.

As a teenager he hid out in the streets of Brooklyn with his friends. With them he got his real education. By the time he was sixteen he had become a master pickpocket riding on the subway. He made a living off of fellow riders. Soon he had stashed away $5,000 from his petty thefts.

He stole his first car and delivered it to a chop shop. That was the first serious money he made. He went home, packed a few belongings, grabbed his coat and walked out. His mother lit a joint, she didn’t care.

At the age of twenty he had a life changing encounter setting it on its current course.

It happened on a Friday evening in May. He dressed in a tuxedo and went to the Metropolitan Opera House with no intention of listening to opera. It was a prime place to pick pockets.

He cased the crowd at one of the lobby bars looking for single women using his movie star looks in whatever way it would benefit him. He spotted his mark and moved in.

Stepping up to the bar in a swagger, he ordered a martini and downed it taking care not to look at the fur-wearing, bejeweled woman to his left. Evan feigned he was off balance, shifted left, and leaned into her. Embarrassed and red-faced, he burped a face-to-face apology but her diamond studded tennis bracelet was now in his left pocket.

She smiled and met him eye to eye. She clamped her right hand around his left elbow and turned him away from the bar steering him to one of the only quiet corners in the gallery. Was she an undercover cop? His throat went dry. After all these years was he finally caught?

She spun him around so his back was to the wall. You’re good. She whispered.

Evan, still acting drunk, leaned forward and slurred, Madam, I have no idea what you mean or what the hh-ell you’re doing but I must get back to my martini.

Looking at him, her cool blue eyes never wavered from his as she calmly said, You’re good—but I’m better.

She held her bracelet in front of his startled face. Eye-to-eye with Sonja Davies-Masterson, he was stunned.

Are you a cop? was all his voice could squeak out.

She laughed but became serious again, No. You work alone?

With eyes wide as saucers, he slowly nodded his head yes. That’s what she hoped for. She gazed intently into his eyes and saw no ordinary thief. He had something about him, a charisma, a kindred spirit. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized who she’d discovered.

Let’s go. She said quietly leading him out of the gallery and summoning her chauffer-driven car. He climbed in the back seat, trying to gather his wits, while the chauffer quietly closed the door behind him.

From that first encounter, they spent the next ten years together. Sonja was 33 years older than he in this life. It was her eighth, she was certain. It was she who led him to discover himself as a reincarnated being and, through her careful teachings, he began to see his past lives and understand his destiny. He would become the One, the only One, the highest One. She said she felt it the moment they met. Kismet.

Sonja Davies-Masterson was a very wealthy widow and an excellent con artist in her own right. She taught him everything from real estate to Wall Street. She enjoyed teaching him. He became a kept man but he didn’t care. Life was good and everything made sense with Sonja. Evan grew in stature and confidence. Together they had chemistry. He took her places sexually that she hadn’t visited since she was a young woman. It was a gratifying relationship for both parties.

She conned for fun. Sonja was incredibly talented at this sport, as she chose to call it, and although she came close a time or two, she’d never been caught. No one in her well-heeled circle would have ever guessed that Sonja-Davies Masterson was a master thief.

But Evan Saban had developed a dark side, a karma she couldn’t read. He was a cold-hearted thief.

When she left this life ten years later she told him they would find each other again in another life. She left him everything; the wealth, the global properties, and the education into the world of high finance and theft. He was a billionaire.

He knew he’d never see Sonja again, in any life. She had been a tool positioned here to assist him to his greater calling. He moved on.

The jet engines roared into life as the pilot informed his sole passenger to ready himself as they were next in line for take off. But Evan never heard him. He was completely engrossed in Kelly Marshall's Sonsara profile.

Chapter 4

Satisfied with a long, but productive day, Anneliese repacked her briefcase, anxious to get home to her family. Her cell phone chirped its happy ring tone and she clicked it on barely saying hello when her husband interrupted. Annie, where have you been? Didn’t Darrin tell you to call me?

Yes, and hello to you, too—

He cut her off, When will you be home?

I'm leaving now, Bob. What's wrong? Her eyebrows knit together as she focused on the source of his irritation.

I see that Eleanor's working the Colorado land deal, but I’m going to take over.

What? Why? Bob, Eleanor’s worked closely with the buyer and this….this isn’t what you do anymore. We agreed, remember?

It’s what I do best, you know that. All the biggest deals came through me and I’ve been gone too long. The past is just that, and according to you, I’ve been forgiven. Isn’t that right, Preacher Lady? He’d let impatience creep into his tone and regretted that dig so he softened his approach. Annie, this is our property. It’s mine to sell. I want to get back in the game. Running this ranch is child’s work. We need me back in the game and this is the right time and property to do it. I’m going to handle the final negotiations.

This is just out of the blue, Bob. Let’s discuss this when I get home.

There’s nothing to discuss. Tell Eleanor the deal is mine. He ended the call without a goodbye.

She closed her cell phone and felt her heart sink. Not again, not now, not when things are finally getting back to normal. What had brought this on? Fear tingled through her body as she gathered her coat, briefcase and, absentmindedly, an orange juice from the office refrigerator.

Anneliese left the building amidst a chorus of goodnights from the remaining staffers who would never know, not by her smile and friendly tone, of the dread that threatened to crush her chest.

She didn’t remember shrugging off her coat, tossing it and her briefcase in the backseat of her silver Jaguar. Her thoughts tumbled around Bob’s surprising statement. She eased the beautiful machine, a gift from a reconciliatory Bob, out of their Tulsa office complex and headed southeast on the Broken Arrow Expressway. She wasn’t five minutes out of the city when brake lights began appearing on the cars ahead and all traffic began to slow.

Within moments, traffic came to a complete stop and emergency vehicle lights could be seen flashing about two miles in the distance. An accident had shut down all eastbound lanes and no one was going anywhere soon. Anneliese put her car in park and let her thoughts focus on her husband of nearly twenty-one years.

Why does he want to get back into transacting real estate deals? Why now? Why this deal? Why so abrupt? He seemed happy at the ranch.

These questions tumbled over and over as anxiety swelled in her chest. She reached for her string of worry beads fingering the smooth cherry wood balls one at a time.

Bob. As each bead rolled between her fingertips, she’d recite the object of her worry. Bob. Anneliese closed her eyes. Her thoughts drifted back to when they first met.

Ed Winter introduced his new hire, Bob Graham, to neighbor Anneliese Hanover at a family barbeque. Bob was charming, she was enchanting, and it was evident they were meant to be together. Within a few short months, they were married.

Life was great.

Bob and Anneliese were inseparable. With the combination of their personalities and business talents, they soon became a formidable power couple. Anneliese had vision and a Midas touch. Bob developed powerful contacts and used his considerable finesse to close even the most precarious deals. He helped her build HGEnterprise from scratch. They toasted to Hanover-Graham Enterprise, a joining of their names, their ideas, and their life together.

For nearly twenty years it was an ideal life, she thought. Son, Luke, was now entering his third year at the university and eager to step into the family business. Eleven year old daughter, Emily, was the apple of her parents’ eyes.

HGEnterprise had split into three separate corporations. The Cornerstone Ranch in California specialized in offering guest ranching experience along with championship golf courses, tennis, and miles of horse riding trails along the Pacific coast. It booked a year in advance.

There was the original ranch in Oklahoma, the Broken Arrow. Originally a small cattle ranch until Sam Hanover, Anneliese's father, struck oil and forever changed his family's fortune. When the oil production wound down Annie converted it back to a cattle ranch where it became one of the country’s most trusted and reliable feed-lot. The ranch annually harvested several tons of prime Angus beef.

It was Bob who added a corporate team building experience to the Broken Arrow. Some called it a dude ranch, but nonetheless it was wildly successful. Corporations from across the country sent their key management in teams to the Broken Arrow for real down in the dirt rodeo, roping, and ranching. At the end of their stay, the teams left focused and forever bonded from their cowboy experience. They learned to rely on each other. They had to. Together, if they could lead a cattle drive or rope a calf, then together they could tame Wall Street. It was Bob’s pride and joy.

The third arm of HGEnterprise was their real estate development corporation. With Bob’s keen eye and negotiating talent, both he and Eleanor Thomason closed landmark deals that brought in some very serious money. It also almost completely ruined them.

Anneliese nervously tapped the empty plastic orange juice bottle on her steering wheel. Bob wants to get back into the game, he says.

And it was a game to him, one that he was very good at. But the onslaught of so much money changed him, seduced him, just as it had her mother when her father struck oil.

Bob began to spend big money as fast as he was making big money. He loved living large and he loved rolling with the important people, as he called them. It was nothing for him to take a politician’s call, or any wealthy power broker for that matter. Money changed him and all that it brought was intoxicating.

But Annie was fully involved in her ranches and the golf courses and the children. She stuck with her Midwestern values preferring the family table to a political fund-raiser. Bob nicknamed her small town. Their close knit marriage began to feel distant. It was barely noticeable at first. They were just busy that’s all, Anneliese would convince herself. Bob was spending a lot of time away, yet when he returned home it was as though his mind was elsewhere. But Annie reasoned it was only because the deals were so much more involved and complicated.

Bob basked in the influence that their status afforded them. The confession spilled out of him later when he admitted to craving more than just small town. He’d crafted a double life that was increasingly difficult to keep concealed. It began to unfold when Eleanor questioned the financial transfers from one of Bob’s land deals.

He two-stepped her questions hiding the reasons needed to move money from one venture to fund another. Secretly, he and his lover were about to transact the sweetest deal of a lifetime and he only needed the cash for a short time. It would be a quick in and out and he’d have gotten away with it again if Eleanor hadn’t gone sniffing around.

Bob found out too late that he was being conned by world class thieves. A husband and wife team who marked him and set him up to clean him out. Anneliese recalled that Bob thought it ironic that his secret lover, the wonder woman with the killer body and savvy business brains, was married. Anneliese was disgusted.

Money, Anneliese thought as she watched the ambulances streak away from the accident scene, it's not money that's evil. No, it's greed. It's never being satisfied with enough. Money makes their hands tingle when they touch it. The power that big money brings can become an addiction that few people handle well, like Bob and mom.

She fingered another bead. The memories from just two short years ago were vivid. A call from an emergency room nurse in Connecticut told her the unthinkable. Her husband had been shot. Yes, he was alive but was in surgery, his condition critical. The woman found with him, the nurse said, was dead.

What woman? Anneliese, stunned, asked the nurse.

The police investigation determined that Bob shot the woman in self defense. There had been a struggle, he said. She tried to kill him, he claimed. Then the gun went off and she fell into his arms. It was a setup, Bob said. Her husband broke down their door and screamed at the sight of his wife crumpled in a pool of blood. He picked up her gun and shot Bob at point blank range. The doctors said Bob was a miracle case. A millimeter to the right would’ve made it fatal.

The very public profile that Bob had carefully developed and enjoyed was the two-edged sword that caused the unfolding of their private tragedy to become very public. It was embarrassing. And the amount of money that Bob had spent or funneled away from HGEnterprise nearly ruined them.

Their marriage wasn’t over but clung for survival by a thin thread. Everything she thought they were as a couple, as a family, shattered into shards all around them.

She held his hand in the hospital. They had long talks and he tried to explain how it came to this. She’d never understand but she looked deep into her husband’s eyes and saw the man she knew coming back to her. He was sorry, he said, so, so sorry.

For better or for worse, the minister had said. Anneliese and Bob Graham vowed to each other that they would get through this together.

Bob continued his recuperation at the ranch. He said he wanted to get back to ranching and leave the real estate business. That was fine with Eleanor. She didn’t trust Bob and was not as forgiving as Anneliese.

Some people called Annie religious. Bob called her Preacher Lady. But she wasn’t either. She had nursed her husband through his trauma, but while he mended at their ranch, she began to feel the affects of the ordeal he’d put her through. An emotional delayed reaction, her doctor said, of her night sweats and nightmares. He gave her a prescription for pills but she never filled it. Splashing a little vodka in her orange juice seemed to relieve the anxiety that swelled in her chest.

The splash became a shot glass, then two in her orange juice. Having a cocktail or two at lunch became necessary to stifle her anxiety. Of course, all feeling went away. Anneliese began to feel numb.

It was Ed who had given her the string of worry beads. She accepted the cherry wood beads from him, but said she had so many worries that there weren’t enough balls on the string. Ed laughed.

It’s not for you to remember your worries, he said, but rather as you finger each bead, you say what your worry is and then give it to God. Just say it out loud and then give it to Him. It’s liberating. You’ll see.

Later, she took the beads and her vodka with the splash of juice and found her old Bible buried in a bureau drawer. She felt a distinct difference in her chest as she read. It was a healing balm. Tears poured out of her. She read of love and compassion and of healing. She poured the vodka down the drain. The book, her new best find, stayed at her bedside and she read some every night, even when her husband mocked her.

The well-worn beads turned over and over in her hand as she sat in traffic. Finally, the emergency crews cleared a path from the overturned tractor-trailer rig, and hundreds of drivers were eager to get moving again. Car horns blared impatiently and Anneliese put her car in drive, edging forward with the rest. As she now cruised along, just minutes from home, she thought, Why this deal? He seemed happy running the ranch from the home office.

Chapter 5

Evan engrossed himself in the details of the lives of the Sonsara family. Knowing intimate elements of a mark’s life, the kind that never saw the light of day, was key to Evan as he moved in.

UBIQ-Global, Inc. was a company heavily investing in the wireless industry boon. Tony Sonsara had vision years ago that this industry would do what the dotcoms failed to do a decade earlier. He sought after the brilliant young talent, heavily recruiting them fresh from their university graduations.

He had been right on the mark. The wireless industry exploded affecting every aspect of the consumer market. There was serious money to be made and Sonsara had gotten in on the ground floor. UBIQ-Global was now flush with cash and had the lion’s share of the wireless market.

Marshall’s report revealed there was trouble between daddy and daughter causing confusion in the upper management at UBIQ-Global. Tony, at age sixty-nine, wanted to hand over the reins to daughter, Taylor, whom he had been grooming for this role for ten years. He wanted her to stay the course, allowing the company to continue to reap the benefits of Tony’s wireless vision.

But forty-one year old Taylor wanted to use the deep assets to take the company in a new direction. An MIT master’s graduate, Taylor was a visionary in her own right. Rumors spread about her real estate acquisitions and the building of futuristic cities. But Daddy was having none of it. If father and