The Burning Road to Divorce After the Fire novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Forty Thousand and a Gag
The conference room was on the ninth floor of the only tall building in Marrow Creek, and it smelled of coffee and carpet glue.
Brent sat at the head of the table in a navy suit.
His mother sat at his right hand with her pearls on.
His lawyer was a silver-haired man with a leather folder, who did not once look me in the eye.
I had a legal aid attorney beside me, a tired young woman with a bag of cough drops, who had met me in the elevator.
At the far end, in a folding chair that did not match the others, sat Melanie.
I had not expected her.
She wore a clean denim jacket, and she looked at the table.
"Melanie is here as a character witness," Brent said, smiling at me. "She's known me my whole life."
"I'm here because he asked me," Melanie said, "and I wanted to hear this."
"Of course," Brent said.
The mediator, a calm woman in a gray cardigan, opened her notebook.
"Mr. Breckenridge's counsel has a proposal."
The silver-haired man slid a folder across the table and tapped it.
"Mrs. Breckenridge receives a settlement of forty thousand dollars, and the use of the white Honda until the divorce is final."
"Ms. Stauffer," I said.
"In exchange, she signs a confidentiality agreement covering the events of the Ridgeback Fire, and she issues a short public statement that her recording was taken out of context."
I looked at my attorney.
She made a small sound in her throat that was close to a laugh.
"What about the land?" I said.
"A related matter." He turned a page. "Your late grandmother borrowed nine hundred thousand dollars from Breckenridge Air Rescue last March. She pledged the Cedar Grade parcel against it."
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