Bernadette lay in the dark psychologically preparing for the next day when they were going to put Ken Oliver to rest.
(Down the road, in the late nineties, when she was outselling every other real estate agent in her office, she would shrug her shoulders and tell the other agents she was just lucky. But luck had only the smallest part to do with it; Bernadette had a system. She ran the scenarios in her head time and time again, until she felt prepared for any and every eventuality. Of course, one couldn’t be prepared for any and every eventuality, but nine times out of ten Bernadette closed the deal, and she had the Million Dollar Club membership to prove it.)
Because times were so hard, tomorrow when she smiled she had to make certain it reached her eyes. She had to keep eye contact an
