Chapter 6 - The Broken Promise
Boyd leaned forward, his brow furrowing. "What did Trudy do?"
Roz paused, looking around the nearly empty diner before reaching into her purse. She pulled out a small, worn leather-bound bank ledger and laid it on the Formica table between their coffee cups.
"Two years ago, Clay wanted to open an automotive repair shop," Roz explained, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "He had spent six months completely clean. He worked sixty hours a week. He applied for a small business loan, but he needed ten thousand dollars in collateral. His grandfather had left him a trust fund when he passed—fifteen thousand dollars meant for Clay's future."
Boyd looked down at the ledger, his eyes narrowing as he recognized the handwritten deposits and withdrawals. "Trudy was the executor."
"Yes," Roz said. "Clay went to the First National Bank in Dothan to withdraw the collateral. The teller told him the account had been emptied six months earlier."
Boyd frowned. "Where did the money go?"
Roz swallowed hard, the memory visibly causing her physical pain. "Trudy had a gambling problem, Mr. Gaines. A bad one. She spent every weekend across the state line at the casinos in Biloxi. She didn't just lose Clay's trust fund. She took out a second mortgage on her house, maxed out three credit cards in Clay's name, and owed sixty thousand dollars to people who don't send polite letters in the mail."
Boyd stared at the ledger, completely stunned. Trudy Odum—the church-going, casserole-baking pillar of the Dothan community—was a secret compulsive gambler.
"Clay was shattered," Roz continued, her voice trembling. "He didn't scream. He didn't break things. He just went completely silent. He came home that night and found out the loan was denied, his credit was destroyed, and his mother had stolen his entire future. He confronted her at her house."
"And what did Trudy do?"
"She lied to his face," Roz said bitterly. "She told him it was an investment that went south. And when he wouldn't accept that, she looked him dead in the eye and told him he was an ungrateful drunk who would have died in the gutter if she hadn't sacrificed her life for him. She said he would never amount to anything with or without that repair shop."
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Roz took a shuddering breath, pressing her palms against the table to stop them from shaking.
"That was the night he broke. He came back to our house, grabbed a bottle of bourbon from the high cabinet, and took the keys. I stood in the driveway in my bare feet, begging him to give me the keys. I threw myself across the hood of his truck. He shoved me off, told me he loved me too much to drag me down with his ruined family, and drove into the dark. An hour later, the state troopers knocked on my door."
