The Nice Girl Gets Even novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Low Tide

"I've been a tenant here for four years," I said. "I have every check."

"I believe you, ma'am. Underwriting doesn't. Not with a letter from the landlord saying otherwise."

Then I hung up and sat down on the hall stairs, and Emmett found me there.

He crouched in front of me with his forearms on his knees.

"The bank," he said.

"Margot told them I don't exist."

He looked at the floor for a long second.

Then he looked at me.

"Do you get seasick?"

The next afternoon he picked me up in a truck that smelled like bait and coffee.

His boat was a flat little skiff at a marina on Dog River.

"This is it?" I said.

"This is the only thing I own that my father's never been on."

He handed me a life vest.

I'd worn the wrong shoes and a good coat.

He gave me his rubber boots, three sizes too big, and wore his own loafers into a puddle without blinking.

We went out under the causeway and into the bay.

The wind took my hair out of its clip in an instant, and I gave up on it.

He cut the motor out where the water went silver and quiet.

"Okay," he said. "Think out loud. Nobody can hear you out here but pelicans."

"I need six hundred and forty thousand dollars by Fat Tuesday."

"Go on."

"No bank will lend to a woman who doesn't live where she lives."

"Go on."

"Gaillard could carry the loan themselves. Seller financing."

"Margot runs leasing," he said. "She'd sooner set herself on fire."

"Investors, then."

"Who?"

"I don't know. People who love the school. People I taught to waltz." I pushed hair out of my mouth. "That's a lot of people, actually. That's half of Mobile."

"Half of Mobile owes my mother a favor."

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