Last Breath (The Good Daughter 0.5)(24)

“Meemaw called. She’s really mad at you.”

“She made that clear when I saw her.” Charlie couldn’t pretend that things had not changed since the last time Flora had caught her puking in a public restroom. She told the girl, “I spoke with the Pattersons, too.”

Flora leaned back against the wall. She crossed her arms. She waited.

“You know that they want money from you, right?”

Flora looked down at the ground.

Charlie put the lipstick back in her purse. “I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”

“I was honest,” Flora insisted. “I need to get away from Meemaw and Paw. They’re going to burn through my trust and—”

“Do you have some sort of arrangement with the Pattersons?”

Flora did not respond.

“I need to know the truth, Flora.”

The girl gave in with a slow nod.

“Honey, the Pattersons are not good people. They’re scamming you.”

“You can’t be scammed if you know what’s happening.”

“That’s not altogether true.” Charlie crossed her arms, too. “What happens in a year from now when they want more money?”

“I won’t give it to them.”

“And they’ll kick you out, and then what?”

“Then I’ll live somewhere else.”

“Flora—” Charlie didn’t want to get into the minutiae, so she kept it simple “As a lawyer, I can’t put someone on the stand to testify if I know that they are going to lie.”

Flora looked dubious. “How can anybody prove what you know and what you don’t know?”

“I’ll know.” Charlie let out a long sigh at the girl’s confused expression. “This might be hard to believe, but lawyers are held to a code of professional responsibility. I could lose my license to practice if I violate the code.”



Flora was unmoved. “You some kind of chicken?”

Charlie wasn’t going to give a child a child’s answer. “I’m sorry, but I think I am.”

Her eyes flashed with anger. “Your daddy ain’t no chicken.”

“No, but he taught me a very hard lesson about how your choices have consequences.” Charlie could see that the girl still wasn’t getting it. “My father made some decisions as far as how he was going to be a lawyer that had a lot of negative ramifications for his family.” She didn’t know how to be any clearer. “Our house was burned down.”

Flora looked surprised. She had grown up in Pikeville, so she obviously knew about the shooting. The fact that the house had been firebombed just over a week prior tended to get overshadowed by the cold-blooded murder.

Charlie said, “Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the front window of our house.”

“What’s a Molotov cocktail?”

“In our case, it was a glass bottle of gasoline with a rag hanging out of it.”

Flora looked confused. “It just exploded when it hit the house?”

“No, they lit the rag on fire before they threw the bottle through the front window. The bottle broke, the gas spread everywhere, the burning rag ignited the gasoline and by the time the fire department showed up, the house was nothing but a smoldering black pit.”

“Holy crap.” Flora did not look as horrified as Charlie had expected. “Like in Endless Love.”

“No, nothing like Endless Love. More like endless hell.” She had forgotten what it was like to be Flora’s age. Everything was either tragic or romantic. Charlie said, “Fortunately, we weren’t home. The fire spread so fast that the house was gone in less than ten minutes.”



Flora pressed together her lips. “I’m real sorry that happened to you, Miss Quinn. That sounds hard.”

Not as hard as what had happened eight days later. “Flora, I feel for you, and I want to help you, but the decisions I make as a lawyer, how I defend my clients, what lines I’m willing or not willing to cross, can have far-reaching ramifications. My family depends on me. Especially now.” Charlie looked down. Without thinking, she had pressed her palm flat to her stomach. “There’s more going on with me than you know about.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Quinn. Is there anything I can do?”

Charlie’s heart broke at the girl’s persistent eagerness to help. “Thank you, but you and I are not out of options. I’m not going to make any promises, but if you’re willing to speak up, I’m certain I can work with a judge to appoint a new executor to your trust. Your Meemaw and Paw are gaming the system, and we can put a stop to that. It won’t return the money that’s been lost, but it will stop the bleeding.”

“You’d have to tell the judge why, though.” Flora had immediately spotted the problem with the strategy. “I can’t do that, Miss Quinn. I’d have to expose them to the law, and then they’d go to prison, and then I’d be put in a home. I’d be better off paying Mark and Jo.”

Charlie wasn’t so sure the Pattersons would welcome Flora without her money. “That doesn’t seem like a good option.”

Flora said, “If I don’t live with them, then where do I go? To a home?” She shook her head vehemently. “There’s some kids at school in foster care. They show up with their heads knocked sideways, lice in their hair, half starved, and sometimes worse. I’d be better off staying at home, losing all my money, than having to sleep with a knife under my pillow every night. If I even get a pillow.”