Page 62 of When The Noise Stops

"Does the time frame matter? I got you a shop."

She turned the laptop toward me, showing me pictures. There were three service bays. An office. A fenced lot. A lot more square footage than Mercer Auto, and from the pictures the lifts were still in place.

"What the fuck is this?"

"One of my properties."

"Your what?"

"My property."

"You own an auto shop?"

"I own a strip mall that has an auto shop attached to it. Up in Palm Harbor, about forty-five minutes from here. Trader Joe's is close. Honky-tonk down the street. You can do a little two-step after work, release some stress."

I looked around her kitchen, then at her, then back at the screen. None of it lined up. Why was she living in a duplex next to mine if she owned a strip mall?

"You sell cupcakes."

"Seven-dollar cupcakes."

I stared at her.

"Each. And I sell a good two hundred of them bitches a day," she added.

"That does not explain a fucking strip mall."

She sighed and wrapped both hands around her mug.

"My husband was rich. I'm rich. Did you not notice I drive a brand-new Land Rover? Did you not notice the RV still in the backyard?"

She drank her coffee as if we were talking about the weather and kept going.

"I lived on Davis Island. Went on month-long vacations so our friends and family wouldn't see the Black eyes and bloody lips. I also have a law degree, like Ronny. Just never took the bar."

I sat back, head cocked. The muffin was already going cold.

"Huh. And you live here?"

"Because I like it here. I hated that life, Grizz. Imagine going from nothing to everything, but you have to take ass-whoopings on the walk there," she chuckled.

"I'm multifaceted. But back to the subject at hand. The shop."

"I can't take it."

"I'm not giving it to you."

"What does that mean?"

"You'll be paying for it. Two thousand a month, however long it takes you to pay a hundred thousand. Half of that I'll donate to women's shelters and abuse victims, same as the rest of the income I get from his spoils. Might as well do some good with the part of his life I kept."

She pushed her glasses up and waited.

I looked at the pictures again. The bays. The lot.

"This is worth way more than a hundred grand."

"You an appraiser now?"