Last Breath (The Good Daughter 0.5)(33)

“You think Flora does?” Charlie grasped at straws. “Why would a slum be worth more than a house on the lake? There are twelve apartments, total. They can’t be bringing in more than three hundred a month each. You think trading down for an income of less than four thou a month, less maintenance, less whatever mortgage they’re carrying—”

“She’s got Patterson landlocked,” Coin provided. “Mark’s got all his money tied up in sixty acres of undeveloped land, got this supermarket and all these restaurants interested in building, but he’s got no highway access without her parcel.”

“It’s not the apartments,” Roland said. “It’s the direct access that makes that land valuable.”

Charlie worked to keep her mouth from dropping open in surprise. She had grown up in Pikeville, seen the influx of builders from the city, even listened to Jo Patterson wax poetic on Olive Garden and Red Lobster, but it had never occurred to her that the Ponderosa was worth anything.

Coin said, “Leona Helmsley over there talked old Mrs. Piper into selling her the land without going through a broker.”

Charlie rolled her eyes, but she could feel the last crumbs of disbelief falling away.

Roland provided, “Hoodwinked the widow out of two million bucks’ worth of highway access. Tell her what you paid, Flora-girl.”

Flora did not answer, but a smile teased up the corners of her mouth.



Coin told Charlie, “She played on the old lady’s heart strings, said she had a moral obligation to keep that kind of land in the Pikeville family, stop those greedy developers from ruining the town.”

Roland took back over. “And then Little Miss Girl Scout turned around and parlayed it into blackmail for one of the greedy developers.” He asked Flora, “You pay the widow in Thin Mints or Tagalongs?”

Flora tittered at the joke.

Charlie wanted to shake her like a Polaroid.

The smell of bullshit permeated her nostrils.

Roland said, “Flora knew Mrs. Piper from her cookie-selling route. Talked the widow into selling her land for less than half a million bucks.”

“Three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars, to be exact.” Coin slid over a stack of pages. The deed for the Ponderosa was on top. He asked Flora, “They give out a badge for swindling old ladies?”

Roland suggested, “Something with a kid yanking out an old lady’s walker right from under her, for instance?”

Coin said, “You gonna answer or just keep sitting there like the cat got the canary?”

Flora’s eyebrow raised. She slowly turned her head toward Charlie, that familiar angelic expression on her face as she waited for her hot-shot idiot lawyer to talk her out of this mess.

“Jesus,” was the only word that Charlie could push out of her mouth.

There was a flash of white teeth from Flora before she got her smile under control.

Coin asked, “What’s that, Charlotte? You need a moment to talk to Jesus?”

Roland snorted a laugh. “More like she just had a come to Jesus moment with herself.”



Charlie felt hot and cold at the same time. She tried to swallow but ended up coughing instead. Her throat had gone dry. There was a weird ringing in her ears.

“Charlotte?” Coin said, feigning concern.

“I need … I should look …” Charlie held up a finger, asking for a moment. She pretended to read the closing documents from the Ponderosa. The number kept mumping into her line of vision: three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars, roughly what she and Ben owed in student loans. Invested in a dinky piece of land on a desolate strip of highway that might one day turn into a thoroughfare through which half the county traveled.

Charlie got to the last page. She studied Leroy Faulkner’s shaky signature.

She finally made herself accept the facts that Ken and Roland had laid out in front of her: Leroy controlled the money, but he was also an addict. Flora trafficked in the drug to which Leroy was addicted. You didn’t need to be a world-class economist to figure out supply and demand. Leroy did whatever Flora demanded so long as she kept him supplied. Which meant that Charlie had spent the majority of her day chasing her own tail on behalf of a budding psychopath.

And still, Charlie had an obligation to defend the little asshole.

She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “According to your own paperwork, the Widow Piper sold the land to the trust, not to Flora Faulkner.”

Coin smiled. “That’s how you wanna play it?”

“It’s not a game, and I’m not playing,” Charlie told him, because he knew as well as she did that she couldn’t simply get up and walk away from Flora. Now that they were here, she had a professional obligation to at least see the interview through. “You have no proof that my client had anything to do with this transaction or anything else. Flora is a minor. She cannot legally enter into any agreements, real estate or otherwise. Her name is not on any of these documents.” She let the papers flutter back together. “Leroy Faulkner signed off on everything. The only other signatures are the notrary, the director of trust relations at the bank, and Mrs. Edna Piper. I don’t see Flora’s name anywhere.”



“Here.” Coin jammed his finger on the top of the front page where it read PURCHASER: THE FLORABAMA FAULKNER TRUST.