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.”
Charlie could not argue the point. Being lost in the Pikeville foster system was tantamount to being lost in a black hole. Things could be especially bad for teenagers like Flora. There were already hundreds of older kids warehoused in substandard living conditions all over the county because no one else was willing or able to take them in.
Still, she told Flora, “We can take this one step at a time. I can talk to—”
Flora said nothing, but two tears rolled down her cheeks.
“It’s not a lost cause,” Charlie tried, but if she wasn’t willing to go after her grandparents for fraud, there weren’t many remaining options. “It’s only two more years. Maybe I could talk to them, and explain—”
“No.” The tears were coming in earnest now. “It’s okay, Miss Quinn. I put up with it this long. I can take it for a couple’a more years.”
Charlie felt like she had swallowed a rock. As usual, there was something she was missing. She was used to being lied to; helping criminals was not its own reward. But Charlie had lived with the distinct feeling all day that there was an important detail, or perhaps many details, that Flora was holding back.
She asked the girl point-blank. “What do you mean? You can take what for two more years?”
Flora wiped her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Flora.” Charlie stood in front of her. She gripped the girl’s narrow shoulders. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s nothing.” She shook her head so hard that her tears flew from her eyes.
“Flora—”
She sniffed. She kept her gaze on the floor. “Do you remember with your mama, the way you’d have a really bad day, or something awful would happen, or you would just be really sad, and you’d put your head in her lap and she’d stroke your hair and everything, no matter how bad it was, just got better?”
Charlie could not swallow past the lump in her throat.
“You just kind of feel it in your body, every muscle letting go, because you know that when you got your head in her lap, you’re safe.” Flora wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Aint’ nobody can do that for you except your mama, you know?”
Charlie could only nod.
“I miss that so much sometimes. More than her smell. More than her singing. Just that feeling of being safe.”
“I know.” Charlie also knew if she followed the girl down that sad, lonely road, she would end up sobbing on the floor.
She stroked back Flora’s hair. “Baby, tell me what’s really going on between you and your grandparents.”
“I’m okay.”
“You’re clearly not okay.” Charlie smoothed back another strand of hair. Flora’s skin felt hot. Her face was red and splotchy. “Tell me what’s going on.” She waited, but Flora said nothing. Charlie asked the same question she had asked this morning, the same question that had troubled her from that moment on. “Is Paw hurting you, Flora?”
Her throat worked. She looked away.
“Flora, I can help you, but—”
“It’s Meemaw.” Flora blinked, trying to clear her eyes. “It’s nothing I can’t take.”
Charlie was momentarily too stunned to speak. Never in a million years had she suspected Maude of abusing her granddaughter.
She finally asked Flora, “What’s she doing to you?”
Flora’s throat worked again. She was clearly reluctant, but she eventually gave in. She untucked her shirt and rolled up the hem. She pulled down the waist of her jeans. There was a black bruise on her hip, roughly the shape of a small fist.
Charlie wanted to put her hand over the bruise and somehow magically absorb the pain into her own body. Instead, she asked, “Maude did this to you?”
Flora rolled up the short sleeve of her shirt. There were oval bruises on her bicep where someone had dug in their fingers.
“Oh, Flora,” Charlie breathed.
“I just want to get away.” Her voice was small, quiet in the tiny room. “I don’t want anybody mad at me. All I want is to be safe.”
Charlie thought about all the things that she should say—that as an officer of the court, she had an obligation to report the abuse, that they would go to the police station this minute and file a restraining order, that she would move heaven and earth to get Flora out of that shitty, cinder-block apartment—but every single solution had one horrible, underlying problem: where would Flora go?
Not to the Pattersons. They would probably slam the door in her face.
Not into the system. Someone as gentle and naïve as Flora would likely disappear into the miasma of neglect—or worse.
Especially if the other kids found out about her trust fund.
“Flora—”
The door opened. Nancy poked her head into the bathroom.
Flora straightened quickly, putting a smile on her face, pretending like everything was okay, probably the same way she pretended every day of her life when someone asked her about her godawful grandparents. “What’s up?”
Nancy told Flora, “Oliver’s leaving, if you want to say goodbye.”
Flora started to go. Charlie grabbed her arm, then winced at the perceived pain because how many times had Flora been grabbed by Maude? Thrown around the room? Punched in the stomach?
�
�It’s okay, Miss Quinn,” Flora said. “I’ll figure a way out of this. You take care of your family.”
“No,” Charlie tried. “I want to help you. I can help you.”
Flora nodded, but she did not seem convinced. “Lemme go say goodbye to Ollie.”
“Then come back,” Charlie said. “Come right back and we’ll talk this out, okay?”
Flora hesitated, but she nodded again before leaving.
Charlie swallowed, trying to clear the lump in her throat. The bruise on Flora’s hip was awful, a kind of sucker punch that Charlie felt on her own body. Who would do that to someone as kind and sweet as Flora? Who could physically abuse a child?
Especially another woman. A mother. A grandmother.
It made Charlie feel sick.
She was going to help this kid. She was going to find a way to do right by her, because that’s what adults were supposed to do. People like Flora Faulkner were why Charlie had moved back to Pikeville instead of using her very expensive law degree to make a zillion dollars at a white-shoe firm in Atlanta or New York. She wanted to help normal, everyday people who found themselves in bad places and didn’t have anyone else qualified enough or smart enough or someone who just plain damn cared enough to get them out of trouble.
Charlie pushed open the bathroom door, a determined set to her mouth, a smile picking at the corners, because she was doing the one thing that her mother had always told her to do: be useful.
Charlie flattened her palm to her belly again. She had in her mind the image of Scarlett O’Hara being flushed down the toilet.
Tomorrow was not just another day.
Tomorrow, everything would be different, because tonight, within the next few hours, Charlie was going to go to the drugstore and buy a test that would change everything for the rest of her life.
She was seized by the urgent need to talk to her husband. Charlie never kept things from Ben, at least not important things. And this was an important thing, the kind of moment that they would both remember for the rest of their lives. She would have to do it right. Everything would have to be perfect.
Charlie sat down at the counter. She went over the plan in more detail: First, she would talk to Flora and figure out what came next. The girl was being abused. Immediate action had to be taken to ensure her safety.
Once Flora was settled, Charlie would swing by the drugstore off I-15 on her way home. She’d buy the test. She’d pee on the stick. She’d see the plus sign, or the smiley face, or whatever it was. She wouldn’t ambush Ben in the driveway. She would wait until he had changed into his sweatpants, then sit him down on the couch—no, in the bedroom. She would follow him upstairs when he went to change out of his work clothes. Or she would already be in the bedroom wearing something slinky and sexy, laid out like an Orion slave girl waiting for Captain Kirk, and then she would show him the test.
Charlie closed her eyes for a few seconds, then she cleared the image from her mind, because none of that could happen until she figured out how to help Flora.
There was no way Charlie could let the girl return to an abusive environment. Charlie didn’t only have a legal obligation to report Maude Faulkner; she had a moral one. Which meant that Flora would not be sleeping at the cinder-block apartments tonight.
So, where could Flora go?
Charlie and Ben taking her in was not an option. Even if Charlie wanted to, there was a clear line she could not cross as the girl’s lawyer. Maybe there was someone at the school who would volunteer to take Flora into their home while the courts worked things out. Maybe Leroy Faulkner really would get his act together. If a teacher or administrator could look after Flora while he was in detox, then when he was sober, when he was out of treatment, Leroy could move away from Maude and take proper care of his granddaughter.
Charlie took a deep, calming breath. That was the solution: don’t think long term. Think short term. If someone from the school did not step up, surely the Pattersons could be persuaded, or cajoled, or even threatened if it came to that, to take in Flora without a monetary inducement if it was only for a few months while Leroy got his shit together.
Charlie felt a grin tighten her cheeks. She was always happier when there was a plan to implement. She looked past the kitchen, wondering what was taking Flora so long. She was probably relaying to Oliver the conversation in the bathroom. Maybe Oliver, such as he was, would be some kind of ally in making sure Flora had a place to stay while Leroy was in treatment. If the Pattersons still wanted money, Charlie could find a way to pay them. The dilapidated house wouldn’t pass the strict safety rules enforced by the foster care system, but maybe Charlie could get a temporary placement, a guarantee of funds, before a social worker had time to inspect the living situation.
Barring that, she could come up with the money on her own. Surely there was a stone lying around that she hadn’t yet gotten blood from.
Charlie took another deep breath. She was inexplicably giddy. Everything was falling into place. She should call Ben now. Not to tell him what was going on inside of her body, but to hear his voice. To let him hear the happiness in her voice. A kind of foreshadowing for what was to come. She looked inside her purse. Her phone was in the car.
Charlie got up from the counter. She had her hand on the door to leave when she saw Dexter Black walking across the parking lot.
“Unbelievable,” Charlie muttered, her former giddiness slipping from her grasp. This asshole had been killing her mood all day. How had he tracked her down?
She pushed open the door, ready to confront him, but Dexter kept walking toward the side of the restaurant.
Lest Charlie should think he hadn’t noticed her, he gave her a sly wink.
“What the—” Charlie felt her brow wrinkle. She looked at her car, then she looked back at Dexter, then she looked at the plumber’s van in the parking lot, then she turned back around and looked at the empty diner.
The plumber with the butt crack was gone from the stool, so why was the van still there? And why were all the van windows tinted black? And why was there a giant CB antenna coming off the back bumper?
“Shit,” she mumbled. Maude said that Oliver already had a record. There were very few illegal things that nineteen-year-olds got caught up in that did not involve drugs. Flora’s boyfriend was probably the idiot Dexter was hoping to trade for his freedom. Charlie had crafted such a perfect, happy plan and now it was going sideways because of her most annoying client. All Flora needed was to get caught up in the little jerk’s bullshit.
Charlie turned back around. She walked briskly across the restaurant, mindful that the cops were probably watching her, too.
“Ma’am?” Nancy was sitting on a stool behind the cash register.
“Can you call for Flora?”
“She ain’t got a phone.”
“No, go down the hallway and call for her out the back door. But don’t go outside.”
“Why can’t I go outside?”
“Because you don’t need to put yourself into the middle of what’s going on out there.”
“Is Oliver being a jerk?”
“Jesus.” Charlie was wasting her time. She walked down the hallway. The door was still propped open. She could hear the distant mumble of voices, likely a transaction going down between Dexter Black and Oliver the skeevy boyfriend.
Flora would be caught right in the middle.
Instead of going outside, Charlie pushed open the bathroom door in an attempt at plausible deniability. She was an officer of the court. She couldn’t interfere with a police operation. She could, however, stand in the hallway and try to keep the girl out of trouble.
She called toward the open back door, “Flora?”
Charlie waited, her heart pounding loud enough to hurt. How many girls were in prison because their stupid boyfriends told them to hold onto the drugs because the courts would go lighter on them? How many times had Charlie heard the same damn story from a woman facing the next decade of her life behind bars?
“Flora?” She tried a third time, “Flora? Can you come here for a minute? I need your help.”
Charlie waited again. And waited.
She took a step down the hall. Another step.
She heard car tires screeching.
A girl screamed.
Cops yelled, “Get on the ground! Get on the ground!”
Charlie jogged down the hallway, her heart in her throat. She skidded to a stop outside the back door. Cops swarmed like hornets, rifles pointing red lasers, their black SWAT uniforms and Kevlar vests making them look like they were hunting Osama bin Laden.
More screaming. More yelling. More tires screeching.
Dexter Black was slammed over the hood of the police car. Oliver Patterson was thrown against the wall. Yet another person was already pinned to the ground, spread-eagled, legs and arms restrained by four different cops.
One of the cops leaned back on his heels. Charlie saw a flash of Girl Scout green as he clicked the mic on his shoulder, telling his bosses, “We’ve got the suspect in custody.”
“Suspect?” Charlie whispered.
That was no suspect.
That was Flora.
6
Charlie paced the interview room as she waited for Flora to be processed through booking. Back at the diner, as the girl was being manhandled into a squad car, Charlie had screamed at the top of her lungs for Flora to keep her mouth shut, but she was terrified her instruction had fallen on deaf ears. Flora was smart, but she was fifteen, and way too helpful for her own good. She likely would not understand that the nice policeman was trying to trick her into prison time.
The only saving grace was that Charlie had witnessed the SWAT team turning out the girl’s pockets. They had found a folded stack of ones from Flora’s tips, a pack of gum and her learner’s permit. When someone had suggested they search the diner for her purse, Charlie had suggested they get a search warrant. And then she had pretended not to notice the look exchanged between Flora and Nancy when one of the cops had said they would have the warrant before sundown. Charlie was a lawyer. She could not allow herself to be party to the concealment or destruction of evidence.
Last Breath Page 8
