by Mary Monroe
“The state?”
“You didn’t report your interest income to the state either.”
“So I’m getting fucked in the ass, huh?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t use wording like that. However, you might—”
I didn’t even let Monty finish his sentence. “SHIT!” After all the plotting and planning and scheming I had done to stash away a small fortune of Kenneth’s money, it had backfired. “What about Kenneth’s will? I know he left me something!”
Monty gave me a pitiful look. I knew what was coming next was bad by the way he shook his head and sighed. “Yes, he did. I’ll get to the will momentarily. But, uh, I’m afraid you’re not going to benefit much.”
“Why the hell not? Kenneth was not the one that got shot! He died of natural causes and I’m still his wife and in this state what’s his is half mine. I don’t expect to get any of the money he had before he met me, but he made millions more after we got married and I want my share!” I was groping for words and trying not to scream my head off. I was too afraid to ask the one question that had almost burned a hole in my brain: Had Kenneth modified his will so that I would get less than I deserved? Well, as long as I got a comfortable amount of money, I’d be somewhat satisfied. “The prenup I signed states that I will receive limited funds IF Kenneth and I get divorced! And what about his life insurance policy?”
“Yes, Mr. Lomax had a sizeable insurance policy as well,” Monty said with a gentle sigh. “Another three million dollars to go to his beneficiary.”
“And I’m the beneficiary! That and the money he left me in his will—I want it! I need it!”
Monty shook his head again. “I’ll get to the insurance in a minute. But let’s discuss another item first.” He paused and pulled a three-page document out of his briefcase. He gave me a sad look as he cleared his throat and looked at the document. “This is a copy of your prenuptial agreement with your signature. Did you read it before you signed?” he asked, waving it in my face.
“Well, most of it. After I read the part about me getting some money, I just skimmed the rest.”
“But you signed it?”
“Yes, I signed it! Dammit! You have the damn thing in your hand and you can see that I signed it.”
“You should have read the whole thing. Your signature confirms that you accepted the terms of this agreement as stated. Such as, despite this being a community property state, you gave up your rights to half of Kenneth’s earnings by signing.”
“Do you mean to tell me I’m getting screwed because I didn’t read some damn fine print?”
“There was no fine print, Mrs. Lomax. Would you like to go over the prenup you signed?” Monty waved that damn prenup in my face again. By now it was as disgusting as used toilet paper.
I shook my head. “No,” I replied in a very small voice. My heart was beating so hard, I was surprised I was still conscious. The only thing that kept me breathing was the fact that Monty had told me I would still get some money. I was going to need it whenever I got out of jail. If they sentenced me to only seven or eight years, I’d be in my seventies by then. And even if I still looked good, even I didn’t think I’d be able to snag another rich husband.
“Now about the insurance . . .”
My heart was beating so hard I could hear it. I was on the edge of my seat, holding my breath waiting for Monty to continue.
“Vera, I hate to tell you this, but your husband had recently modified his insurance policy,” Monty said. The look on his face told me he had something else to say that I wasn’t going to like.
Maybe I was going to have to split the three million with that bitch-ass Sarah! All I wanted to know was how much I’d get. I didn’t even have to ask him my next question. Monty answered it right away.
“Kenneth’s daughter is the sole beneficiary.”
“I won’t get any of it?”
Monty shook his head.
“Shit!” I covered my face with my hands and sobbed for about a minute. Then I blinked back my tears, wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, and continued. “Okay,” I said with a sigh of defeat. “I guess I’ll have to be happy with just whatever he left me in his will. I put up with him for a lot of years, so I hope he took that under consideration. You said he left me something but that I won’t benefit much? What did he leave me? Was it the mansion, the cabin, or the Davis Street condo . . . or just a couple million bucks?” I was frantic. I had never felt so alone and helpless in my life. “And please don’t tell me the court is going to freeze that too!”
“Not . . . exactly.” Monty paused. For an excruciatingly long moment I thought he was going to laugh because of the way his lips were quivering. He cleared his throat and scratched his neck. I couldn’t imagine why he was squirming in his seat when I was the one getting screwed. “Your late husband left you two dollars. He clearly indicated, only enough to cover the bus fare for you to visit Ricky Tate, your current lover. It would have been more if there had been a fare increase at the time of Mr. Lomax’s passing. But as of today, the bus fare on the local city bus is two dollars.”
If somebody had cracked open my head with a sledgehammer, I wouldn’t have felt more pain. My brain felt like it was trying to bust out of my skull. “What? He knew about my affair with Ricky. . . .”
“The investigator he had hired was very thorough. I’m so sorry.”
“He had me followed. That son of a bitch!” I hissed. I let out a loud breath and looked at Monty.
“You orchestrated a very serious crime in which your late husband’s only child was almost murdered. And you’ve admitted your guilt. Even if your husband had left you more than, uh, the two dollars, his daughter and his attorneys, and the court probably would have prevented you from profiting from that too.”
“I can’t believe what’s happening to me. I . . . I feel so alone.” My own sisters had not even come to see me yet. Nor had any of my lovers. And I had a feeling none of them would. My head wasn’t the only thing spinning now. It seemed like the whole room was. I was so dizzy I was seeing double. “Thank you for all your help, Monty,” I mumbled, blinking hard at the two images of my lawyer sitting across from me.
“If it’s any consolation, I won’t be charging you for my services. Kenneth was a dear friend of mine, and it’s the least I can do in his memory. Now, is there anything else you’d like to discuss today?” Monty asked. He slid the prenuptial agreement back into his briefcase and snapped it shut before I could even respond.
I shook my head.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said quickly, glancing at his watch. Then he waved to the husky female guard to escort me back to my cell.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until I felt the salty tears sliding down the sides of my face and onto my lips.
EPILOGUE
SARAH
Six weeks later
CURTIS WAS RELEASED FROM THE HOSPITAL YESTERDAY, THE SAME DAY that Obama won the election for the second time. I was ecstatic about both.
My man was going to live as normal a life as possible for a person with one eye. His mother made a big fuss when he moved into the Davis Street condo I’d inherited, the same one that my daddy had moved me and my grandmother into when he started taking care of us. But after a few weeks when Mrs. Thompson realized that her ranting and raving was only causing more tension between her and Curtis, she gradually accepted me.
“I just hope you make my boy happy,” she told me, eagerly lapping up the wine I had just handed her. “You being rich and all, you’ll be able to help me out a little, too, I hope.”
“Mrs. Thompson, you won’t ever have to worry about money again,” I assured her. “And neither will Curtis.”
My daddy had left me everything, all of his millions, his business, and every piece of property he owned. I sold the mansion right away. It held too many bad memories for me and I knew that Curtis would not have been willing to live in it.
I didn’t know the first thing about running a business,
but Daddy had a lot of competent, trustworthy advisors on his payroll. They had all assured me that they would keep things afloat. So with their help and Curtis doing the same job that Bo had done, I knew everything was going to be just fine.
Vera, the mastermind of this stupid crime that had affected so many people, had been sent to a women’s facility near Vacaville. The press described it as a glorified dollhouse. A retired model who had fed her husband a fatal dose of Jell-O laced with antifreeze resided in the same prison. And from what I had seen on a TV report about that place, the inmates walked around smiling and all made up like they had just come from a beauty parlor. Vera would be right at home. And it was going to be “home” to her for a minimum of twelve years.
Daddy’s faithful servants, Delia and her meek husband, Costa, worked for me now. Delia did the cooking and cleaning and Costa drove us around when we didn’t feel like driving. Curtis’s mother loved being chauffeured to her bingo games and her favorite thrift shops two or three times a week. She lived with her new boyfriend now, but she visited us several times a week. Once I got to know her, she didn’t seem so mean.
I had purchased a two-bedroom unit for my servants in the same building, directly below the one Curtis and I occupied. Delia went to visit Vera yesterday and I didn’t have a problem with that. She was the kind of person who would never turn her back on someone who had been as nice to her as Vera. The report Delia gave to me when she got back to the condo was very bleak.
“Senora Lomax, she is so very sad. Jesus must be weeping,” Delia told me, wiping her tears with the tail of her apron. I had just joined her in the kitchen where she was preparing dinner—barbecued ribs and baked beans. “I must pray for her. She looks like strange woman, hair no longer pretty blond but with gray roots now and stringy like one of my mops. She don’t do nothing to make herself look good no more. And other than me and Costa, nobody else visits her so far. Not the young boyfriend who tell police she make him get her the gun or even her family. She in a very deep hole now. Ay caramba!”
Yes, Vera was in a very deep hole now—one she’d dug herself. I was sorry that I couldn’t cover her up in that hole with horse manure! And except for the two dollars my daddy left her in his will, she was broke too. Everything she owned of value, including her jewelry and wardrobe and the new Mercedes she’d purchased a week before the shooting, would be sold. The proceeds would be held in a special account until Curtis settled his lawsuit against her. There was no need for me to sue her, too, since Curtis’s lawyer was going to pick her clean enough for me. All Bo and Cash had were a few thousand dollars in the bank, but Curtis decided to be a nice guy and not go after them too. But since Bo’s SUV was in my daddy’s name, I sold it and all of Bo’s possessions and donated the money to the church I used to go to. Vera’s possessions are in storage, pending the outcome of the civil lawsuit.
A lot of people said that Cash was the lucky one because he had received the lightest sentence. Because Bo had been the aggressor in the attack, the district attorney had only charged Cash with being an accessory and criminal conspiracy, one of the same charges Bo and Vera got hit with. He had a huge fine to pay, some community service to perform, and an eight-year sentence in a maximum-security facility a few miles west of Sacramento. I was sure that Cash didn’t feel like “the lucky one.”
In addition to the conspiracy charge, they charged Bo with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and home invasion. He received a sentence of twelve to sixteen years in Corcoran, the same prison that housed the mass murderer Charles Manson.
As far as I was able to determine, Collette had nothing to do with the conspiracy. And I was surprised that she didn’t even call to check on me or visit me in the hospital. When I returned to the house after the hospital released me, she had packed up everything she owned and fled. I heard from the girl who used to braid her hair that she was somewhere in Mexico using an alias.
I will be using a different name myself in a few months. As soon as my divorce from Bo is finalized, I will become Mrs. Sarah Thompson. I hope to be Curtis’s wife until the day I die—by natural causes, I hope.
Our first child will be born next year in August. If it’s a boy, I’m going to name him after my daddy.
READING GROUP GUIDE
FAMILY OF LIES
Mary Monroe
ABOUT THIS GUIDE
The suggested questions that follow are included to enhance
your group’s reading of this book.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Vera was a gold digger to the bone. Do you think women who set out to marry men for their money even know what true love is?
Kenneth was a wealthy man who used his money to buy his women’s affections. Do you think he got what he deserved by marrying a woman like Vera?
A lot of older women get involved in relationships with much younger men. Is this something you would consider doing? Would you do it out in the open or only behind closed doors?
If you were wealthy, would you spend money on a young lover as freely as Vera did? If so, why?
Do you think that if Bo had spent more time with Sarah, she would not have fallen in love with Curtis?
Sarah’s friends in the hood expected her to share her newfound wealth with them. She did just that for years until she realized they were using her. If you suddenly came into a lot of money, would you keep the same friends? If so, would you give them money every time they asked?
Vera spent Kenneth’s money like it was going out of style. If you had a chance to marry a very wealthy man, would you be as extravagant?
Kenneth was a smart man, but he was rather naïve when it came to Vera. When he found out she was having an affair with a man young enough to be her grandson, he was devastated. But since he’d had numerous affairs, did you feel sorry for him?
Tony, Andre, Ricky, and all the rest of the young men Vera had affairs with used her for her money. But Vera didn’t seem to mind. Would you get involved with a younger man knowing up front that he expected you to be his sugar mama?
Vera often warned Sarah that one of her “hood rat” friends might set her up to be kidnapped and held for ransom. Vera’s young lovers were somewhat thuggish. Do you think she should have been concerned about one of them setting her up too?
Sarah was willing to die to be with Curtis. Have you ever loved a man so much that you’d consider making such an extreme sacrifice?
Vera goaded Bo and Cash to kill Curtis. Did you think that they were going to get away with murder?
After all the plotting and planning to get the bulk of Kenneth’s money, Vera ended up with two dollars to her name and a twelve-year prison sentence. Do you think she got what she had coming or was her punishment too severe?
DAFINA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 by Mary Monroe
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Dafina and the Dafina logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2013920826
ISBN: 978-0-7582-7474-8
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: June 2014
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9471-5
eISBN-10: 0-7582-9471-9
First Kensington Electronic Edition: June 2014