Chapter 20: Straw Man

I pushed the screen door open.

The porch boards were freezing under my bare feet.

Jubal put the phone in his pocket.

"That was Brantley," he said.

"I heard."

"You heard half."

"I heard sure."

He held out his coffee. I didn't take it.

"He can't bid," Jubal said. "The judge said so. If he sends his lawyer or his mother, the whole room knows."

"So he needs somebody who buys a unit every month. Somebody nobody looks at twice."

"You."

"Two hundred thousand. Fifty now, in cash. The rest when I hand him everything in that unit, before the papers go to the tenant."

"He knows about us. He has a photo."

"He said so."

Jubal's mouth went flat.

"He said that's exactly why it's me. He said you'd never see it coming."

"He said every man has a price, and mine's probably a lot lower than two hundred thousand."

The field was white with frost. A truck went by on the road, far off.

I'd trusted a man for six years and signed where he told me.

"Why did you say sure?"

"Because if I say no, he finds somebody else. Somebody I don't know. And that box goes in a fire."

He set the mug down on the porch rail.

"If I say sure, he hands me fifty thousand dollars in cash to break a judge's order. I don't spend a dime of it."

"And Saturday?"

"Saturday I bid my own money. If I win, I open that door in front of the whole floor."

"Everything goes where the law says. And his envelope goes to whoever you want."

"What if I say no? What if I don't want you anywhere near it?"

"Then I call him back right now and tell him no."

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Chose Mistress, I Chose Empire from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.