The Book of James (41 page)

“Stop what?”

“Our relationship.” He was silent for a few moments, waiting

for me to understand the full implication.

“Oh.”

“It was a way for us to get back at her father. He could tell her whom to marry, where to live. But he couldn’t stop us from being

together.”

“And he never knew?”

“No . . . Wel , probably at the end.”

“Do you think you should be telling me all this?”

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The penlight played on the opposite wall as he shifted. “Why

not? I’ve been walking around with this for years. I could never

tell anyone—but you’re different.” He shined the light in my eyes.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

I could feel the corners of my eyes burning. He was my last,

best hope. He had to let me go. “No. I don’t want to hear it.”

“I had finished medical school,” he said, ignoring me, “and was

doing my residency. It wasn’t the best of circumstances, but I was busy. Every so often Cora and I would talk about running away,

but of course it never happened. Then Cora got pregnant.”

I sat straight up. One of those moments in life when all the

pieces of a complex puzzle fall into place. “Nick?”

“Yes. Nick. I was upset, but Cora was so happy. I didn’t want

another man raising my son, but to Cora it was the perfect thing

to get back at her father.” He laughed. “You see, her father would never know that he wasn’t Bradford’s. And Nick would inherit all

of it.” “And how do you know he wasn’t Bradford’s? You had blood

tests done? DNA?”

The laugh died in his throat. “Blood tests wouldn’t have

helped. Bradford and I had the same blood type. O positive. And

DNA wasn’t available like it is now. But Cora knew. She just knew.

She’d timed things careful y with Bradford. She had to have some

relations with him.”

“You’ve based your entire life on something as unpredictable

as the rhythm method? And you’re a doctor?” Men amazed me.

“Nick was
mine
.” He scowled. “Like I said, Cora and I were together all the time. Do you think I’m an idiot?” The penlight

bounced more furiously. “After Nick was born, I asked Cora to

leave Bradford for me, once and for al , to give that life up, but she refused.”

It was all starting to make sense. That’s why Cora kept saying

Nick was a Monroe and belonged here and not with Bradford. He

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real y had no blood ties to the Whitfields at al . That’s what all of this was about. Money, inheritance, family name.

“I met this woman at the hospital, and I decided to make a real

life for myself. I had that right. I gave Cora a chance for us to be a real family, and she made her choice. I decided to cut off all contact with her and got married.”

I thought about what he was saying. Ginny told me that Cora

had had a breakdown when Nick was a year and a half old. When

Harrison final y left her for good?

I sat up. “Where is she now?”

“She died fifteen years ago. Cancer.”

“So how did Cora take that? When you got married, I mean.”

“Not wel . We moved out to Chadds Ford, and I tried to put

it all behind me. Cora fell apart. She wouldn’t let Nick out of her sight; she holed herself up in her room with that boy, she started talking to herself, living in her own world, but there was nothing I could do. If I went back, I knew I’d never have the strength to leave. Margaret, my wife, deserved better than that. And then Cora got pregnant again.”

“James. He was Bradford’s?” It made sense.

“She was horrified. She tried to get rid of the baby, but it didn’t work. That baby ruined all her plans.” He was shaking his head.

“She only needed one son, and she had one. She hated her father so much—and passing Nick off as Bradford’s was such sweet revenge.”

“Her father figured it out, didn’t he?”

Harrison looked over at me quickly. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he left the bulk of his assets to James. There had to be a reason.” I swilled the water around in the bottle.

“You saw the wil .”

“Yes.”

“Edward wasn’t a stupid man. Cora treated them so differently,

he knew there had to be a reason. Her father asked her outright,

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ELLEN J. GREEN

but of course she denied it, and there was no way to prove it, so what could he do?”

“I guess Cora was pretty upset when she saw the wil .”

He ran his hands through his hair. “More than upset. She

was . . . inconsolable. Ranting, throwing things. It took both Bradford and me to hold her down physical y. She was trying to

go after James.” His head dropped. “Cora lost what little control she had.”

“And then what?” Curiosity had taken over.

Harrison laughed. “Eventual y she pulled herself together. It

took some time, but she calmed down and came to see—”

I stood up to stretch my legs. “That if James were eliminated,

Nick would get all the money. Is that why she beat James and eventual y killed him?”

I was standing over him. If I moved quickly, I could make it to

the door and through the tunnel before he could catch me. I didn’t care if I was in my underwear. I had no idea if it was day or night out, but it didn’t matter.

I’d taken only a single small step in that direction when the

door opened. My heart sank.

Harrison jumped up. Cora walked in, shut the door behind her,

and stood for a second looking at us. The blanket was just draped over my shoulders, because I had been prepared to shed it and run.

Cora crossed her arms in front of her. “What are you doing,

Harrison?” She had a big flashlight that il uminated the entire

room.

“Bringing her a blanket. I knew it was going to get cold, and I

didn’t want her to freeze to death before—”

“And you stayed to chat? What is she doing in her underwear?

Are you trying to charm your way out of here by using your body?”

She stared at me.

“I was cold. You poured that water over my head. I had to get

out of my clothes.”

“Something you do very wel , from what I’ve seen. Harrison?”

He jumped at the sound of her voice, and I knew in that instant

that he’d never let me go on his own. Not because he was afraid I’d tell someone what I knew, but because they had an unbreakable

bond.“Let’s go,” she barked.

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ELLEN J. GREEN

“Wait! Don’t leave me in here. Please, Cora. Just let me go back

to Maine. I don’t care about any of it. It’s not my business, and I don’t even want the money. I’ll give it to you. I don’t want anything.

You can have it al , even Nick’s body if you want. Just please don’t leave me here.”

She stared at me. Her expression was empty. “Oh, I’ll get Nick’s

body if that’s what I want, but I’m not letting you go.”

I stumbled forward. I was starving and thirsty, despite the

water Harrison had given me. The longer I was down here, the

weaker I’d get. “Please. I never knew anything about Nick’s life

before I met him. He never told me. It wasn’t my fault.”

Harrison had backed up to the door. He had no intention of

pleading my case. I was on my own.

“And was it your fault for taking off your wedding ring and

tossing it aside onto the ground? Was it your fault for letting that McBride boy kiss you and touch you? Were you thinking about

anyone but yourself? I was watching you.” She walked over to me.

“And for that alone you should die.” She reached out and grabbed

the blanket from my shoulders. “Harrison is kind, but it won’t happen again.”

She took the blanket, and the two of them left the room

together. I heard the key turn in the old lock, sealing my fate and leaving me in utter darkness. Pounding on the door was useless,

I knew, but I did it anyway. I screamed as loud as I could and

pounded with every ounce of strength I had left in me. I was cold.

I was hungry, and I had, at best, a quarter of a bottle of water on the floor in the corner. Cora hadn’t seen it, or she would have taken that too. Harrison probably wouldn’t return alone; my days of hoping for charity were over.

I was so tired already. I just wanted to sleep. Not even the cold could keep me from doing that. I still had my burlap and plastic, so all was not lost. I had to fight to keep my eyes open, because I feared that sleep would only render me more helpless, weaker, and THE BOOK
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unable to think my way out of this. I dropped to the floor with my back to the door and thought about my options.

The big secret Cora had been hiding all this time was that Nick

was Harrison’s biological child. She had had a child with the man she loved and ensured that the child would inherit everything.

How had things gone so wrong? Nick inherited none of the real

money and refused to take what he had been given. Life, in its

usual twists and turns, had spoiled her careful y laid plan. That’s why she wanted Nick back here so badly that she tracked him

down. He had destroyed it all for her. She kept him alive by pin-

ning up his pictures in her room, by keeping his room untouched

so that he could wander right back in where he left off. So sick.

And the
big
big secret had to be that she’d killed her second child, either by accident or on purpose, and disposed of his body somehow. Who would have been around to witness it? The property was so secluded. His death had been fortuitous in that Nick

would stand to inherit all the Monroe money and all the Whitfield money. He wouldn’t have to share any with a little brother. A little half-brother who was more entitled to it than he was. If James had lived, the secret might have eventual y come out in any number

of ways. Cora had killed him and eliminated that possibility from ever happening.

My clothes lay in a heap where I had discarded them. Maybe

they had dried while I slept. Doubtful but possible. I found them by crawling on my hands and knees until I felt them with my fingers. They were still damp but not completely wet. I stood up and shook them out. They would dry faster on my body. I heard the

clanking of metal as something fell on the floor. I squatted and felt around me.

Ginny’s keys.

Newfound energy surged through my body. Everything became

clearer. More focused. Ginny said her keys fit almost every lock in the house. That had to include one of these. I felt along the door until I found the hole of the lock. It was too dark to read the labels, so I tried each key, muttering under my breath.

Despite the fact that it was about fifty-five degrees in the store-room, sweat broke out around my hairline. I tried to calm myself

with rational self-talk, but it had the opposite effect. I stopped at one point and leaned against the wall to catch my breath. The

slightest exertion wore me out. I went through the ring twice.

None of the keys fit. I threw them across the room in frustration.

I started to whimper—pathetic, but I couldn’t help myself. I was

going to die.

I was bending down to get my water bottle when I saw the

small penlight, discarded where Harrison had been sitting. Left

here on purpose or forgotten, it made no difference. I had light. I turned it on and shined it around me. The light hit my hand. I was a mangy old animal. My hands and arms were caked with dirt and

blood.

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I sipped some water and inspected my prison closely. I had

less than a quarter of a bottle of water, one set of keys, two post-hole diggers, one rusted shovel, an assortment of plastic sheets in different sizes, one piece of burlap, a section of an old hose that was cracked and split, one small metal can that held oil or gas, and four bags of peat. Now if only I were MacGyver, I’d be out of here in no time.

I thought about all the useless crap I had learned in twelve

years of school, four years of college, and two years of graduate school. I could tell you anything you wanted to know about Freud, Jung, or Adler. I was pretty well versed in twentieth-century history and could speak French well enough to carry a basic conver-

sation. It was all useless. I was sitting in this fucking basement, and none of it was going to get me any closer to the outside.

I picked up the keys from the corner where they’d landed.

Suddenly I had an idea. Maybe one of the keys fit the lock to the other door. It had been used at one time by the gardener to get in and out.

The door had the same kind of lock as the other one. I started

at the beginning of the ring and tried each key in the rusted mechanism while holding the penlight in my teeth. When I got almost

to the end of the ring, I was surprised when one seemed to fit. It went in—but wouldn’t turn. Afraid that the key would bend or

break if I tried to force it, I went back to the corner and picked up the oilcan and shook it. I sniffed at the top; it smelled like oil, but I wasn’t sure. The can was more than half-ful , but the fluid had thickened with time. I held the key with trembling fingers and shook the can violently over it. Oil oozed out, thick and black.

The tarry substance seemed to have the right effect on the tum-

bler; the key turned in the rusted metal. I pulled the key out again and tilted the lip of the can to the lock, my eyes trained on the other door. If Cora came in right now, I’d be caught and subjected to torture the likes of which I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

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I reinserted the key and wriggled it back and forth until it

turned. The lock was open—but the door was another story. It