Chapter 16: Ask Me Whether I'm Staying

Max took Colby out of the lobby by the collar, and nobody tried to stop him.

Kendrick lowered himself back into his chair with his jaw locked and his face the color of paper.

Becky knelt, picked up the pastry box, and set it on his lap.

"Lawyers are upstairs," she said quietly. "Can you do this?"

"I stood up in front of the whole building," Kendrick said. "I can sit through a meeting."

The boardroom on the fortieth floor had a table for twenty and a view of the lake.

Nine men and women sat along it.

At the far end sat the uncle, with a leather folder squared in front of him.

Wendell took the chair at the head of the table and laid his cane across it.

"We're met," he said. "Go on, son. Say what you came to say."

The uncle did not look at the cane.

"Kendrick's marriage is a sham," he said.

"He met this woman in a corridor on the morning of his thirty-third birthday."

He tapped the folder.

"The county recorded the license in the last hours before the shares would have passed to me."

He turned a page.

"I ask the board to find that the marriage was made to defeat the will, and to set it aside."

A man on the left cleared his throat.

"It does look strange, Wendell."

"It looks like a romance," Wendell said. "You're short of them."

The uncle smiled, and looked at Becky.

"Mrs. Strathmore. Did you know my nephew before that morning?"

"No."

"Did you marry him for his money?"

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