Last Breath (The Good Daughter 0.5)(7)

Charlie hadn’t been teased, she had been threatened, and her mother had been murdered, because her father made a living out of keeping bad men out of prison. “Anything else about the grandfather?”



“That’s all I’ve got.” Belinda was checking her make-up in the mirror again. Charlie didn’t want to think in platitudes, like that her friend was glowing, but Belinda was a different person when she was pregnant. Her skin cleared up. There was always color in her cheeks. For all of her prickliness, she had stopped obsessing about the small things. Like she didn’t seem to care that her watermelon-sized stomach was pressed against the counter, wicking water into her dress. Or that her navel poked out like the stem on an apple.

Charlie would look like that one day. She would grow her husband’s child in her belly. She would be a mother—hopefully a mother like her own mother, who was interested in her kids, who pushed them to be intelligent, useful women.

One day.

Eventually.

They had talked about this before, Charlie and her husband. They would have a baby as soon as they had a handle on their student loans. As soon as her practice was steady. As soon as their cars were paid off. As soon as her nerdy husband was ready to give up the spare bedroom where he kept his mildly expensive Star Trek collection.

Charlie tried to do a running tally of how much the Emancipation of Florabama Faulkner would cost. Filing fees. Motions. Court appearances. Not to mention hours of Charlie’s time. She could not in good conscience take funds from Flora’s trust, no matter how much money was left in it.

If Dexter Black paid his bill, that might almost cover the expenses.

She heard her father’s voice in her head—

And if frogs had wings, they wouldn’t bump their tails hopping.

Belinda said, “Why are you asking all these questions?”



“Because I think Flora needs my help.”

“Wait, is this like that John Grisham movie where the kid gives Susan Sarandon a dollar to be his lawyer?”

“No,” Charlie said. “This is like that movie where the stupid lawyer goes bankrupt because she never gets paid.”





2

Charlie kicked the vending machine in the basement of the courthouse. The glass rattled in the frame. She kicked it again. The bright yellow pack of Starburst shook on the metal spiral, but did not drop down.

Her shoe was already scuffed from puking in the bathroom. She raised her foot for another kick.

“That’s government property.”

She turned around. Ben Bernard, one of the lawyers from the district attorney’s office, trundled down the stairs. The collar of his dress shirt was frayed. His tie was askew. He studied the stuck Starbursts. A large sticker on the glass warned that shaking the machine could result in fines and possible imprisonment.

He asked, “How badly do you want this?”

“Bad enough to go down on you in the supply closet if you get it for me.”

Ben grabbed the machine with both arms and gave it a violent shake. Her husband was no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he was clearly motivated. It only took two attempts. The Starburst dropped into the hopper. He reached down and pulled out the yellow pack with a flourish.

Charlie was game, but she warned, “I should probably confess that I had my head in a toilet twenty minutes ago.”



“They put a lock on the door after the last time, anyway.” He pressed his hand to her forehead. “You feeling okay?”

“I think it’s PMS.” She bit open the pack of candy. “Listen, I need to run a name past you.”

Ben’s mouth moved as he chewed at the tip of his tongue. They had been doing their respective jobs for four years, but he was a prosecutor and she was a defense attorney; they still hadn’t quite worked out how to help each other while still maintaining their professional sides.

“It’s not a criminal case,” she assured him. “At least, not my part in it. I’ve got a girl who wants to be emancipated from her guardians.”

He sucked air between his teeth.

“Yeah, it’s not a great situation.” Charlie tried to peel the wrapper off a red Starburst. “I was upstairs filling out a document request on a structured trust. The guardians are her grandparents. It sounds like they’re into some bad things.”

He took over for her on the candy wrapper. “What bad things?”

“Pills, I gather. And alcohol. And money from the trust. It sounds like they’re going to milk it dry before she’s of age.”

“So, she can pay you?”

“Ehn.” Charlie shrugged, giving what she hoped was a winning smile.

Ben said, “Dexter Black.”

“Not my client.”

“Yeah, I noticed that when Carter Grail brought him into the office for a talk. Any idea when he’s going to pay you?”

“Babe, if my clients paid me, we’d probably end up taking a long vacation to somewhere like Costa Rica, and you would get really sunburned, which raises your risk for melanoma, which is the deadliest form of skin cancer, and then I would have to kill myself because I can’t live without you.”

“Okay, that makes a lot of sense.”



Charlie could see that he was trying. “I’m not one hundred percent certain that she’s not being abused.”