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“But I need some time to think about it,” I continue. “I’ll follow up with Mr. Kane, if that suits you?”
“Of course,” she says, smiling tightly. “I’ll wait to hear from Bradley.”
Seconds later she’s striding purposefully back across the room and out the door, and I could almost believe she wasn’t here at all.
“Thank you,” Kane says softly. “And I’m glad you took the time to listen. I know the attorneys Mrs. Whaley has hired, and they can be real barracudas. If you accept her offer, it will guarantee that you’d have half the funds—which is still a great deal of money.”
I nod, continuing with my charade. I need to play along for now so I can get what I came for.
“Why couldn’t you have told me this on the phone last night instead of putting me on the spot?”
“I wanted to give you the chance to hear her out.”
I finally take a sip of my drink, gathering my words, then set the cup down. “Since I came all this way, maybe you could at least tell me what I thought you were going to share.”
He looks confused. “And what was that?”
“I thought you were finally going to explain why Chris Whaley left the trust to me.”
Kane’s brow knits further. “As I told you the other day,Ms. Moore, I don’t know why he chose you as the beneficiary. He refused to go into it.”
“You can’t wager a guess?” I say. “You said you’d been friends.”
Kane shifts in his seat, looking uncomfortable again. “We went to the same high school, and by chance to the same college, but we’d drifted apart over the years. Plus, C.J. tended to be a very private person. I can assure you he didn’t offer me a clue. He simply said he owed you.”
My heart skips. This is new.
“Owedme? Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“I thought it was implied. After all, why would he leave you such a huge bequest if he didn’t feel indebted to you? But it seems to me that the only person who can determine the reason is you.”
“Well, I haven’t yet,” I say. “But I’m going to.”
He studies me intently for a couple of beats. “Let’s get back to the other matter. When you do you think you’ll have an answer for Mrs. Whaley?”
“Actually, I’m happy to give you the answer now,” I say, feeling my anger spike again. “Tell her I have no intention of splitting the trust with her.”
Kane flinches, but he looks resigned. “As you wish.”
I tell him I need to leave, and we exchange polite enough goodbyes, though I feel the urge to toss a handful of Splenda packets at his head before I walk out the door.
BACK HOME, AFTER AN HOUR’S WORTH OF TRAVEL BY SUBWAY ANDfoot, I take a minute to refresh Tuna’s water before starting to pace my living room, massaging my brow as I go. The more I think about Jane’s so-called proposal, the more furious I feel. She’s saying that unless I’m willing to “go halfsies” with her, she’ll sic her high-priced lawyers on me, which could possibly result in me losing the trust and having my name smeared in the process.
But as disgusted as I am by the offer, I can’t help wondering if I’ve made a mistake by not at least entertaining it. Because one million seven hundred fifty thousand dollars is a hell of a lot better than zero.
She probably won’t have any luck with the “sextortion” angle—as I’ve repeatedly assured myself, there’s not a shred of proof on that front or even anything that could be ginned up to resemble it—but if she moves on to questioning C.J.’s state of mind when he made me the beneficiary, it’s possible she could recruit enough friends and family to testify that her husband’s illness compromised his ability to think rationally. I’ve been taking comfort in Caroline’s assertion that C.J. was clear in his thinking, but Jane’s lawyers could work with the obvious: Who in his right mind leaves so much money to a one-night stand from a dozen years ago? Especially one like me. The women who end up with jackpots from rich dudes tend to be the buxom bombshell type, not lanky, small-breasted women with short brown hair and a wardrobe from Zara.
I feel even more eager to meet with the lawyer. Maybe she’ll be able to predict Jane’s odds of winning. She might even advise me to accept the offer, guaranteeing myself money in the bank rather than nothing to show for my troubles but a big old pile of legal bills.
I finally cease pacing and drift over to the table, where my collage is still sitting. The girl in the center of the paper, the long-gone girl in a flippy skirt and jean jacket, stares back at me, her lips the tiniest bit parted as if she’s about to speak.What are you trying to say?I think. Does my twenty-five-year-old self know something about that night that she’s not telling me, something that will make me understand?
I think back to the only thing I got out of Kane today, which I’ve almost forgotten in my fury. C.J. told him heowedme. Owed me for what, though? Something I said or did without knowing how significant it was?
There’s a term Mikoto used at the café the other day that’s been lingering at the back of my mind: “hush money.”
She’d been dismissive of the idea, but what if thatisthe explanation? Did C.J. leave me the trust in gratitude for my never exposing a secret he shared that night? It’s not like he’d rolled over in bed at some point and announced he’d embezzled from his company or held up a 7-Eleven as a troubled teen. Or was it for keeping the actual fact of his infidelity secret? But that doesn’t make sense—because he ended up revealing its existence himself, by leaving me the money.
I pick up my scissors and spend the next few minutes adding items to the collage, images I rip from magazines and pictures I find online: a glass of rosé, like the one I ordered at the hotel bar; lobster rolls; a cotton fisherman’s sweater, because I had a favorite one that I think I wore to the hotel that night; and a black crocodile luggage tag. I don’t recall what C.J.’s suitcase looked like, but I remember noticing the expensive-looking tag on it.
