Deconstructing Lila (Entangled Select) by Shannon Leigh Read Free Book Online

peered at the notice taped to the inside of the window. Posted June 19. Twenty-nine days ago. Before she ever made into Hannington.
    Lila’s blood pressure escalated and her skin went tight all over. This was total BS. According to Granny, the notice just went up. And they were claiming the waiting period was expiring?
    The fate of the building would be decided today, but not by some out-of-touch city bureaucrat. It was local. And it was personal.
    She spun around, facing the knobby limestone facade of the county courthouse. Marching across the street, she dodged the few cars crawling down Main during the early afternoon and pushed through the heavy oak doors of the courthouse. Lila skidded across the waxed marble floor of the entry in her haste, nearly losing her footing in the thin strappy sandals she’d chosen in place of her more sophisticated summer heels.
    “Ma’am, you take care now. Enough people’ve fallen there who wasn’t paying attention.”
    Standing straight again on two firmly planted feet, she caught the concerned gaze of an elderly black man on a high-backed stool. The shine on top of his bald head rivaled the sheen on the marble under her feet. He sat behind a low-slung security desk, which was nothing more than a folding table with some change trays laid out for personal items.
    She hurried over to the table, her sandals slapping the floor and sending an echo up into the dome-shaped vestibule. “I need to track down the owner of the Goodwin building across the street. Where can I find deed records?”
    He smiled, causing the wrinkles in his weathered face to sink deeper. “Oh, yeah. That Goodwin building been up for sale forever. You want to register a complaint with the city about the owner?”
    “Why on earth would I want to do that?”
    “Many people don’t like that building. Don’t matter if it was a candy store at some point.” He placed heavy emphasis on the word candy, like it was an idea worthy of scorn. “People figure time’s come to tear the thing down once and for all. Put something decent up in its place.” He grunted, folding his arms over the rounded belly straining against the sky-blue cotton of his uniform.
    Wait a minute . She put her satchel on the table, leaning in closer to the man, one hand on her hip. She felt the hurried beat of her heart beneath her cotton top.
    “Why don’t the people in Hannington like it?”
    He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a gnarled index finger. “Young lady, you ain’t from around here, are you?”
    She shook her head, letting the man believe she was an out-of-towner.
    “Well, lemme just say that it had an indecent beginning. Lots of illegal activities, if you know what I mean. Some old gal ran, uh, an escort service out of there back before the turn of the century.”
    Despite her need to get to the records room, Lila had to ask. She had to know: “What happened to the woman? And her business?”
    He unfolded his arms, placing his hands flat on the table in front of him. Glancing toward the open doors of the vital statistics room in an obvious effort to be discreet, he licked his lips and met her eyes.
    Oh, yes. He had a story to share.
    “After operating there for some years, and it’s my understanding the mayor condoned her business and her gals, a new sheriff was elected and she got run out of town shortly thereafter.
    “She didn’t go peacefully. Oh, no. Way my daddy used to tell it, she got run out at the end of a double-barreled shotgun with the town hot on her heels. She had a man here in town, a regular customer who liked her, but he wadn’t here to help her.”
    Lila listened, dying to know the outcome of what surely were Miss Pru’s last days in the town of Hannington.
    “What happened then?”
    The old man shifted his body back onto the stool, the springs in the seat creaking with his weight. “Nothing really. Most of her girls were already gone by then. The rest got run out with her. Boardinghouse