Free Trace (TraceWorld Book 1) by Letitia L. Moffitt Page A

continuing to try to get Emma Lantri out of her own head and into the world. When her father did it, Nola felt more at liberty to act out. “Dad. Complete sentences maybe? Ones that make sense?”
    Acting out didn’t always work, of course. “Scobie. Graham Greene, Heart of the Matter . Most depressing book ever written. Goddamned Catholics.”
    Nola was also used to her father’s cursing out the Catholics despite the fact that he was one, or at least had been raised one, as she had been up until the year her parents divorced. “I somehow missed reading that one, Dad. Enlighten me?”
    “Scobie was a good guy. Heart of gold. Tried to help everyone and ended up screwing everything up. Bryant isn’t a screw-up—you don’t get to be richer than God by screwing up—but your friend has a point about Bryant wanting to do right by people. He’s a lot less of a son of a bitch than most of those rich assholes. Though he did screw up that new housing project.”
    Nola looked up. “What do you mean? How’d he screw that up?”
    “Wasn’t his fault directly, but someone somewhere screwed up, and he’s the big boss, so it’s his mess in the end. He’d made this big damn deal about how they were going to use top-quality materials and the best contractors and all that. Somewhere along the line, that all got pitched. Those houses are shit.”
    “Is this a known thing, or is it something only you and your pals would know?”
    “Most people don’t know, because most people don’t pay attention. You can’t hide a whole subdivision. Anybody could go out there and look at those houses, but only ‘me and my pals’ would know from looking at them—and what we’ve heard—that they’re crap. But folks are going to find out eventually, and then golden boy Bryant will be fucked.”
    Nola figured her father had it about right. Investors would think they’d been deceived, and people who’d wanted to buy the homes might have second thoughts. More significant, if Bryant had budgeted for high-priced materials and hadn’t ended up following through, where had the extra money gone?
    “What do you know about Vincent Kirke?” she asked abruptly.
    Her father made a sound like he was spitting. “That SOB? He’d be nothing without Bryant. He’d be working for me . And I’d fire him!” He laughed for nearly a whole minute and then stopped and picked up the paper again.
    “Um, why? Why’s he an SOB, Dad?”
    He bent down a corner of the paper and peered at her as if trying to remember they’d been having a conversation. “I’ve never met him. That’s why he’s an SOB. He’s nobody from nowhere, but because he hangs with Bryant, he doesn’t bother with the likes of me.”
    “Would he . . . do you think he would double-cross Bryant if there was enough money in it?”
    “Wouldn’t put it past him.”
    This was becoming a very useful visit after all. She decided to push her luck. “What about Mrs. Bryant? You ever met her?”
    Her father shrugged. “Saw her once with Bryant. Nice-looking gal.”
    That he had so little to say about Culver’s wife struck Nola as being significant in itself. Her father was a man who always had something to say about any given person, male or female. How was it Maureen Bryant had left so little impression on him when he could go on and on at length about her husband and Vincent Kirke? He didn’t know any of the three people particularly well, but lack of formal acquaintance had never stopped him from forming a judgment about someone before. What’s more, Nola considered him a fairly good judge of character and prided herself on having some of that judgment, or at least hoped she’d inherited or learned it from him. Even his questionable choice of companion, Nola’s mother, was not a lapse in this regard. Nola could recall his grinning affectionately at his wife and teasing her, “Earth to Planet Emma!” and then pulling her close and whispering something Nola wasn’t meant to hear.