Chapter 20: The Price

On Sunday morning Constance came to breakfast with a lawyer and a folder of her own.

She sat at the head of the table, in the chair Godfrey hadn't taken, and poured her tea.

Godfrey sat at the far end. He hadn't slept, and he looked at the tablecloth.

Dad had stayed the night in the guest room. He sat beside me with a roll he wasn't eating.

"I'd like to be brief," Constance said.

The lawyer, a thin man in a navy suit, slid a paper across to me.

"My grandmother started Prescott Holdings, and I run it," she said. "I signed a contract on Friday."

I read the first line.

"It's a sale of 41 Alder Street," I said.

"To a developer in Dayton. One hundred and ninety thousand dollars. The closing is tomorrow at ten."

"What are they building?"

"A parking structure."

Dad put the roll down.

"The duplex comes down in sixty days," Constance said. "Mr. Tanner will have thirty days' notice."

She turned her cup a quarter turn on its saucer.

"You have cost this family a great deal, Emmeline. I'm only returning the favor."

The notice came, and I ignored it.

[Emotional pressure detected. Expected response: begging. Reward available: $31,000. Host's Actual Emotion: arithmetic.]

I opened the green bag.

"I'd like to buy it," I said.

"With what?"

"Seventy-two thousand, four hundred and eighty-six dollars and forty cents."

The lawyer almost smiled. "Miss Tanner, the contract is for one hundred ninety."

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fake Sister Cried on Cue, So I Billed Her for the Tissues from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.