Chapter 18
"Pants trees are good.”
-Celia
Flint was quiet on the drive to Octavio’s lawyer’s office. I could see his pulse beating at the collar of his button-down shirt. I was surprised he didn’t burst the shirt at the seams with those bulging muscles. Maybe they were custom-made? Then I started thinking about the giant sequoia between his legs and wondered if his pants had to be custom-made too.
My vajayjay was working overtime to distract me.
Flint didn’t say much about the visit with the church treasurer, only that there was no way Jayden Newkirk could have done it. Arthritis crippled his hands, making it near impossible to stab someone in the chest with a pair of scissors.
One suspect down. Hundreds more to go.
We entered the offices of Golde & Associates with ten minutes to spare. It surprised me when Octavio hired Phyllis Golde to be his lawyer. He was such a chauvinist when it came to gender roles. A man should be a lawyer. A woman should be seen and not heard. That sort of crap.
But, he clicked with Phyllis right away. The woman was in her 70s and still running circles around her subordinates. I heard her cultured voice float down the hall as she ordered everyone around. The woman demanded perfection. If you couldn’t handle it, you got the heck out of her way.
She grew on you.
Like a fungus.
Her assistant tried to hide the shaking in her hands as she greeted us in the waiting area. “Ms. Golde would like for me to escort you into the will reading room.”
Flint raised his eyebrows at me.
I wasn’t surprised Phyllis had a special room devoted to the reading of wills. She did all the legal work for the Tampa moneyed set. Wills. Trusts. Surprising revelations for the family after this tycoon or another passed on - like telling the money-grubbing family everything was going to charity. Or telling them about the other family no one knew he had.
Yeah.He. Because women tycoons didn’t traditionally pull that kind of crap. They were too busy working.
The room was decorated in tones of gray and navy, the Golde & Associates corporate colors. Overstuffed leather armchairs sat in two curved rows, facing a table at the front of the room, with an aisle in-between. I briefly wondered if everything was bolted down to prevent a hulked-out trust fund baby from hurling the furniture across the room when he didn’t get his way.
The idea caused me to giggle.
A platinum head of hair turned my way. I sucked in a breath.
“Celia, darling,” Madsen Cruz Roberts purred as she stood to make her way over to me.
“Maddie,” I nodded. She swooped me into a hug and nearly knocked the breath out of my lungs. “Good to see you.”
“And you, dear,” she held me at arm’s length, her French-manicured talons digging into the backs of my arms. “Who might this tall drink of water be?”
I pulled away from her. “Madsen Roberts, this is Flint Mendota.”
“Please,” she held out her hand like she was the Queen of England, receiving her royal subjects. “Call me Maddie.”
“Ms. Maddie,” Flint shook her bent hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Maddie was Octavio’s first wife,” I explained.
Flint’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
She waved the terrible thoughts away. “Yes, yes. I was his first wife. He was my first husband. When I neared thirty, he traded me in for a younger model. Celia, here.”
Flint bit back a laugh. Smart man.
“Maddie is on her fourth husband,” I went on.
“Fifth, dear,” she pointed to an older man in the row where she had been sitting. “All of my husbands have been at least five years older than I. The new Mr. Maddie Roberts is… well, I forget. 79? 82? There’s a reason they call Florida God’s Waiting Room.”
