The Book of James (36 page)

control. My father advised him that the easiest way to circumvent 298

ELLEN J. GREEN

that was to marry. You and Nick were friends at the time, and my

father . . . encouraged him to start a relationship. Marriage takes precedence. That, and he got a solid will into place.”

“He married me because of his mother?”

“I’m sure that’s not the only reason.” He said it fast. It didn’t matter how he said it. The truth was the truth. The final slap in my face. Once my tears started, I couldn’t stop. It was like I was coming to terms with the whole thing at once. I put my head against

his chest and cried. Dylan didn’t say anything. He just rubbed my back until I was finished.

I pushed myself back, wiped my face with my hand, and picked

up the file again. The rest of it contained all the personal information on Nick that his mother would ever need. Our home address,

his work address, our phone number, basic personal information

on both of us. She knew who I was and where I worked. I felt sick.

When I’d written her that note, she’d known who I was all along,

and she probably knew exactly how Nick had died.

I took the coin out and handed it to him. He turned it over in

his hand and then dropped it on the coffee table. He pulled a sheaf of papers from the bottom of the file and opened them up. They

had been folded in thirds and looked worn with time. I wiped my

face and looked at him.

“What is it?”

He continued to read, turning pages as he went. “Wil s.

Bradford’s and Edward Monroe’s.”

“Anything interesting?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. I got up and went to the kitchen to make

coffee. Fifteen minutes later I returned with two mugs and put one in front of him. He was still reading, and now his face was flushed.

“What is it?” I asked.

Dylan stopped abruptly and took a sip from his mug. “This

is crazy,” he said. “This will was done in two parts. The first part was dated 1969. Before her marriage. Edward’s will stipulates that THE BOOK
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a grandson had to be conceived as a product of the union between

Cora and Bradford for the will to be valid and probated.”

“And what if there were no children?”

“The business holdings would be turned over to a William

Atkins. He was the CEO and held the second majority of the stock

in the Monroe-Whitfield company at that time. The personal hold-

ings would be dispersed between two cousins on Edward’s father’s

side. The house and contents would be sold and the money left to

his mother’s sister’s children.” He looked up at me.

“And Cora would be out?”

“Literal y out. She’d have no money, no house, nothing. But

given that this condition was met, Cora’s father left all the joint family business holdings to Bradford alone. The bulk of his personal holdings were to be held in trust for the grandchildren. The second part was added in 1983.”

“After both children were born?”

Dylan nodded. He studied the papers in front of him. “All the

bil s from the property were paid by the trust, but Cora had no

direct access to it.”

“But—”

He held up his hand. “There’s more. The holdings were to be

divided between Edward’s two grandchildren and the trust dis-

solved when they reached the age of thirty-five—but not evenly.

He wanted James to get a full eighty-five percent.”

“And Nick would only get fifteen percent?”

Dylan nodded. “Unless something happened to one of them,

then the other would inherit one hundred percent.”

“And again, he cut Cora out completely?”

“She got an allowance. And the house. Like I said before, he

left all his business interests to Bradford, but his personal assets minus the house were estimated to be approximately three hundred million dol ars at the time this was done. The allowance was a percentage of the interest on that, but she had no access to the 300

ELLEN J. GREEN

estate itself. You have to remember, she had no bil s either. No

mortgage, taxes, upkeep, nothing. Everything was covered by the

estate, so she only had to pay personal expenses.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but poor Cora. Imagine the pres-

sure to conceive a child under those conditions. Or she’d lose

everything. And what if she only had girls? Where would she have

gone? And then she
does
exactly what her father wanted her to do and he still leaves her out?”

“She obviously never had her own attorney look at this. Parts

of it are completely invalid. You can’t use a will to force certain life decisions, like marriage and children, on someone. It isn’t legal.

Her father knew this, I’m sure, but counted on the fact that Cora was unsophisticated and wouldn’t challenge him. This will was just a way to blackmail her.”

“So she followed his wishes, marrying Bradford, never know-

ing she would have gotten the money anyway? That’s horrible.”

“Yes, very manipulative. I’m sure there was an actual, valid will probated after his death that Cora didn’t know about. There had

to be. Something similar that left his money in trust for the two grandchildren. Business interests to Bradford, if I had to guess.”

“But why didn’t Edward Monroe want his grandchildren to

inherit evenly?”

“That’s the question. He put in the appropriate legalese. It says, and I quote, ‘This is not because of lack of love or affection but because Nicholas will be amply compensated and will stand to

inherit from his parents upon their passing.’ End quote. If the two grandchildren had both lived, Nick might have had a harder time

trying to contest this. It’s hard to say.”

“What does that mean?”

“When you make out a will that distributes assets unevenly

like this, you have to give some sort of reason, whatever it is. It makes it much harder to contest. What Edward Monroe was trying to say, it seems, is that he felt Nicholas would be compensated THE BOOK
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by his parents’ estate. He would get the house and contents or

business interests after Bradford and Cora died. At least, that’s the reason he put in writing.” We were both quiet for a few minutes,

drinking our coffee.

“Maybe he was trying to make up for how differently Cora

treated them?” I said.

Dylan shrugged. “Nick would have inherited everything. In

only a few years.” He looked at me. “Hundreds and hundreds of

millions of dol ars. That money his father left to him would be

nothing.”

I laughed. “That’s what Klara Heinz said: it was crumbs.” I had

a thought. “Klara Heinz told me that Cora was real y upset when

Bradford’s will was probated because he left that money to Nick.

But Nick was getting all his grandfather’s money, so why would it bother her?”

“Bradford’s money bought him seventeen years of freedom.”

“What?”

Dylan dropped the papers on the coffee table and turned to

me. “Don’t you see? He wouldn’t get his grandfather’s money until he turned thirty-five. But his father gave him access to the money when he turned eighteen. That’s seventeen years that Nick wouldn’t have to worry about money. It would have held him until he got

the rest of it. His father was giving him his freedom.”

I chewed on my finger. “So who gets all the trust money now?”

“Cora, by process of elimination. If no grandchildren remained,

it would go to their offspring.” He glanced at me. “If you and Nick had had any children, it would be held in trust for them until they reached the age of majority.” I swallowed and looked down. “But

since that isn’t the case . . . you’re not pregnant?”

I looked up and laughed. “Um, no. I’m not.”

“With no offspring, it would go to Bradford, then Cora.”

“It kind of makes it suspect that James disappeared, doesn’t it?

He was supposed to get most of the money, for whatever reason,

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and he disappears only a year after his grandfather dies.” I glanced over at Dylan.

“So what are you going to do now?” he asked.

“Get me a Bible. King James Version?”

“Assuming I have one. Let me look.” He got up and went

upstairs. He came down ten minutes later, book in hand. “New

King James Version? Shocking, I know.”

I flipped through to the Book of James and read the first pas-

sage that Nick had underlined.
Then, when desire has conceived, it
gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

I read it out loud. “What do you think it means?”

“You’re asking me to interpret the Bible?”

“Maybe when Nick underlined these passages, they were

referring to something else. It’s the Epistle of James. He was locked down in the tunnels with the Bible, maybe he was trying to say

something about his brother.”

“Or maybe he was a Bible nut like his mother.”

“Uh-uh. He wasn’t. And it was only the Epistle of James that

was marked this way. Don’t you think it’s strange? You should have seen it; every teeny bit of space in that chapter was marked and

doodled.”

“What’s the next one?”

“If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and
one of you says to them, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and fil ed,’ but
you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what
does it profit?”

That was the entire passage. Parts of it had been scratched out

in Nick’s Bible. We looked at each other.

“Go on, read the next one.”

I flipped through the pages. “
Your riches are corrupted, and

your garments are moth-eaten.
And I can testify to the moth-eaten part, after spending hours in the damned closet.”

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Dylan’s fingertips were pressed together. “I hate to hear the

next one, but go on.”

“Wait, I have to find chapter five, verse six. Nick had destroyed it in his book.” My finger scanned down the page and stopped.
“You
have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.”

Neither of us said anything. The words blurred in front of

me. “Five-six.
James five six.
It was written on that card I found in Nick’s things. In an envelope. He was going to mail it to someone.”

I jabbed the page. “It makes sense now. He was using shorthand. A message he was going to mail to his mother?”

Dylan’s eyes were large. “You’re not going back to that house.

We’ll go get your stuff now. You can stay here with me until you’re ready to go back to Maine.”

I stood up and went into the bathroom. The tears started

again, and I needed to be alone for a few minutes. When I came

out, I prepared myself for a fight.

“Sleep in Samantha’s room if you don’t want to stay in the same

room with me, that’s fine, but there’s no reason on earth for you to go back there.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. That has nothing to

do with it. But I need to go back.” I reached out to put my arms

around him, but he pushed me back.

“Don’t do that. You’re trying to confuse the issue.”

“There’s a few things I want to do, and I need to be in the

house.”

“You keep saying that. You need to be there for how long?”

“Do you understand that if I walk away now, I’ll never have

answers? All of this will have been for nothing.”

“And what do you propose to do to get answers?”

I couldn’t look him in the eye. “Find James’s room, maybe look

in the files again—I have a key now. Go back to the cemetery.”

“Alone? What happened to distracting Cora? You’re just going

to start looking around by yourself? It’s enough, Mackenzie.”

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I didn’t answer him. I had my hands on my hips, and I chewed

the corner of my mouth. He waited for me to back down, but I

couldn’t. Final y he turned around and went upstairs and slammed

the bedroom door.

I went out back and sat on the glider. It was cold out and I had

no coat on. I hugged myself and tried to think clearly. After half an hour, when my bottom felt like it was frozen to the seat, I got up and went inside. I went down the hall and opened Samantha’s

door. She was sound asleep. Hesitating slightly outside Dylan’s

door, I took a breath and opened it. He was standing at the window and didn’t turn around. I walked up behind him and put my arms

around him and pressed my face against his shoulder blades. We

just stood like that for what felt like ten minutes before he turned around to face me.

“Don’t fight with me, Dylan.”

“Stay here with me tonight. Go back tomorrow during the day

if you want.”

I wanted to say no, to leave and hope that we could make up

the next day, but I couldn’t. Before I could say anything, he kissed me, and within thirty seconds I had changed my mind. We stayed

up most of the night and scavenged cold chicken and beer from

the refrigerator somewhere around three. We didn’t fall asleep

until light started coming in the window.

It was difficult leaving Dylan’s. He didn’t want me to go. Samantha didn’t want me to go. It’s not easy to stand up to two people who have joined forces. Samantha even tried to use her injuries as

leverage in the argument, but it didn’t work. I had to finish what I started. My concession was that I would be back before midnight.

Dylan wanted to come with me, but I refused that too. It

would be hard enough for one person to sneak around the house,

let alone two. Too conspicuous. She’d know something was up if