Last Breath (The Good Daughter 0.5)(32)

Coin said, “To make it clear, she’s controlling her grandfather, Leroy Faulkner, a man who was crippled in a horrible accident, who used to be a hard-working man, a good man, because she, Florabama Faulkner, got her own grandfather addicted to methamphetamine, the same methamphetamine she’s got her boyfriend selling out of a panel van.”

“Yes, Ken, thank you, that was already clear.” Charlie tried to reason with them; they had obviously made a mistake. “I’ve been working with Flora on legal emancipation. She’s trying to get away.”

“From what? The good life?” Coin asked. “You’re like that mama who says, ‘My sweet baby fell in with a bad crowd.’ Listen, sweetheart, this girl here, she’s the leader of the bad crowd. She’s the one everybody’s scared of.”

Charlie said nothing. Her head was spinning from their outlandish conspiracy theories.

Roland told Flora, “Why do you want to be emancipated? You own them apartments. You can kick everybody out and have the whole place to yourself.”

“The trust owns the apartments,” Charlie guessed, but she wondered why on earth Leroy would buy the complex. If he wanted meth, there were easier ways to get it. She told Roland, “You said it yourself: Leroy controls the trust. Flora has no decision-making power.”



“You ever meet Leroy?” Roland asked. “He seem like a master financial wizard to you?”

Maude, Charlie thought. Flora’s grandmother could be pulling the financial strings. She had been driving the Porsche last month. She was the one who camped out at Shady Ray’s every night. She was the one who was beating Flora.

Then again, Oliver was driving the Porsche this afternoon.

And there were all those photographs of Flora driving the car.

And what was up with that panel van?

Coin asked, “Why do you think the court wouldn’t let Maude oversee the trust? She was bankrupt six times before her daughter died. Spent a nickel in prison for embezzling money from the Burger King she worked at.”

Roland chuckled. “That old bitch ain’t worth the toilet paper it’d take to wipe her off your shoe.”

Charlie opened her mouth to respond, but then she closed it, because everything they were saying had the sound of bullshit, but not the smell.

And God knew Charlie had smelled some bullshit in her time.

Roland seemed to sense an opening. He told Charlie, “Little Flora here, she’s pretty good at getting exactly what she wants.”

Under the table, Charlie felt Flora’s grip tighten on her hand. She looked at the girl, saw the glistening tears in her eyes, the tremble of her lips, and wondered exactly who she was dealing with.

Roland kept talking. “Like, what are you doing here, Miss Lady? How’d a hot-shit lawyer like you end up being at the diner in the right place at the right time, and now you’re here bulldogging this case for a girl you hardly know. Probably for free. Am I right?”

Charlie did not have an answer for him, but her gut was telling her that something was really wrong here.



“The trust owns a white panel van. Same kind of van that was spotted outside the school selling meth.” Roland smiled at Flora. “Only the van was reported stolen this afternoon, ten minutes after the campus resource officer walked across the street to confront the driver. Ain’t that a funny coincidence, Miss Flora?”

Flora stared back at him.

He said, “You reported the stolen van to the police.”

“She did not,” Charlie tried, but then Roland slid over a piece of paper. Charlie had seen so many police reports in her time that she could probably make a stack of her own. She skimmed the written details. At 3:15 that afternoon, Florabama Faulkner had reported that a white panel van had been stolen from outside her apartment building earlier that morning.

The same van someone was cooking meth out of. The same van that was owned by the Florabama Faulkner Trust. The same van that was selling meth to kids outside the school.

What did it take to run that kind of operation? To consistently elude the police? Customer Loyalty. Business Planning. Marketing. Financial Literacy. Top Seller.

It was Juliette Gordon Low’s dream. Every freaking skill Flora had learned in Girl Scouts had found a real-world application.

Charlie felt the slow, free-falling sensation of her heart dropping in her chest.

She was actually believing part of Roland and Coin’s story.

And if part of it was true, what about the other part?

She looked down at the girl. Flora blinked back at her, Bambi-style. The girl had rolled in her shoulders. She was trying to make herself look smaller, more delicate, in need of saving by whatever nitwit she batted her eyes at.

A string of curses filled Charlie’s head. She had to get out of here. The room was suddenly too small. She was sweating again.

Roland asked Flora, “Your fancy pro-bono lawyer know about your real estate deals?”



Charlie worked to keep her expression neutral. She couldn’t leave. She was still Flora’s attorney, and standing up and screaming What fucking real estate deals? would probably land her in front of the ethics board. She told Coin, “Any real estate purchases Leroy made on behalf of the trust had to be in keeping with the initial guidelines of the trust.”

Roland huffed a laugh. “They all moved outta that pretty house on the lake to live in that hellhole because Leroy Faulkner understands the fluctuations in the commercial real estate market?”