Page 32 of The Endowment Effect

Birdie wokeup in the rental car in front of the city building, hours later than expected thanks to a canceled flight, a delayed flight, and then a flat tire halfway between Savannah and Wayward.

In a rainstorm.

Mia was still not answering her phone, which made her beyond furious. Her daughter’s punishment leveling up to bleeding the carcass and butchering the meat prior to preparation.

She ventured a look in the rearview mirror and cringed. Her hair resembled something you’d find clogging your shower drain and her clothes were filthy from her misguided assumption she was a AAA roadside service tech and could change the tire herself, instead of waiting the quoted three hours for the rental company to come to her rescue.

Needless to say, she was back on the road three and a half hours later with a couple of hours of driving time to go.

Her off-white St. John boucle dress, that had fit her like a glove at the beginning of her journey, was now damp and clinging to her skin, the look teetering between indecent and impoverished. Covering one side of the dress was a large, brackish splash of God knew what—the result of a welcome-to-the-South gesture from an eighteen-wheeler—who failed to notice her flashing emergency lights while she was bent over the trunk, searching for a lug wrench.

However, he did give her a complimentary blow of his horn.

Over the years she had kept tabs on Lucas Santos. Following the mantra, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

So she knew he was the mayor of Wayward.

What she didn’t know was where he lived, but she knew where he worked. Even though it was a Saturday, she’d bet the contents of her steamer trunks he was working this morning.

He had always been a self-righteous do-gooder, attention hog, and overall pompous ass.

Therefore his foray into politics was no surprise.

She entered the massive oak doors, the elaborate, familiar surroundings bringing back memories of coming to this very building to get her driver’s license, and later, to pay her speeding tickets.

The building smelled of decades rife with governmental affairs and political activity. In other words, an equal measure of duplicity and delusion.

Being married to Marshall, who owned one of the largest construction firms in the country and owning her own company, she eventually resigned herself to the necessary evil of aligning with local politicians in order to get a deal done.

That was the one part of her life she was happy to be forced to walk away from.

She found the familiar velvet corrugated board with the metal letters stuck between the folds, telling her the mayor’s office was on the second level.

Of course, there weren’t any elevators.

Why would there be when her toes were bludgeoned and held hostage in her expensive shoes?

Moving past the pain, she skipped up the steps, cringing, as her wet heels made squeaky noises of the bodily variety.

Walking through the door with his name stenciled on the window… such antiquated and pompous signage…Totally him.

She found a small woman, likely his personal admin/gatekeeper/minion sitting at a desk typing on her keyboard.

“Hello.”

The woman glanced up. “Yes, may I help you?” And then squinched her face. Confirming what Birdie suspected which was that she smelled of day-old roadkill.

“I need to see Mr. Lucas Santos, please.”

Birdie glanced at the clock on the wall, doubtful she arrived before Mia.

The woman straightened her back, her hair in a perfect bob and her linen dress covered in ruffles, making her look more adolescent than innocent.

Although, she clearly was in no position to judge.

“TheMayorisn’t in today.”

Of course he wasn’t, it was a Saturday. Was Mia living on the street? Or had she found him? Subjected to his interrogation skills… questioning everything that came out of her mouth and assuming the worst of her.

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