“Thank you for meeting me so early,” Finch said. He slid into the booth across the table from Zoe Morgan.
“You’re getting to be my favorite customer, Harold,” she answered with an easy smile. “Where’s your friend?”
“Chasing a young woman around Central Park, I imagine.”
“Lucky girl. She should run slow.” Zoe brought out her tablet and turned it on. “So you want to talk about the Carson family. You’re either going to have to narrow it down or buy me lunch and dinner, too, because if we try to cover all of them we’ll be here all day.”
Finch smiled gently. “There are quite a lot of them, aren’t there? But I’m specifically interested in Julie.”
“Ahh, the missing princess. Excellent choice. She’s one of my favorites.”
“She’s missing?”
“Not really. She lives in Europe. Comes home a couple times a year, for private visits, but she hasn’t been at a big public event with the family in years. And she hasn’t been photographed with them since … here.” She scrolled through her pre-loaded photos and slid the tablet over to him. The photo was taken from a distance, in a cemetery; the young lady and everyone else were dressed in black.
Finch zoomed the view in and studied the girl. She was younger and her hair was brunette, but it was definitely their subject. “Whose funeral?”
“The grandmother’s. She was a hundred years old, so it wasn’t really tragic. But she and Julie were tight.” She took the tablet back, scrolled again. Then she scowled and scooted around the booth so she was sitting next to Finch and they could look at the tablet together. The first picture was of an older woman with a tiny infant in her arms. The baby was practically invisible in acres of white lace, clearly a baptismal gown. “This is Angela Smith Carson,” Zoe said, pointing to the woman. “She was the matriarch of the clan.”
“And baby Julie?”
“Yes.” Zoe scrolled through the next few pictures slowly. There were posed family photos and more casual snapshots. In the first there was a brown-eyed toddler holding Angela’s hand. In the last there was a smiling teenager in a graduation gown, with her arm around her grandmother’s shoulder. “Every single family picture I found, if they’re both there, they’re joined at the hip.”
Finch nodded. He went back to the funeral photo. The people in the cemetery wore various expressions, from bored to sad. But Julie was simply blank, expressionless. And though she was surrounded by family members, she seemed somehow separate from them.
“The grandmother’s death. Is that when she became estranged from the family?”
“No. That happened a couple years before, when her father dis-inherited her. She’s the only one, by the way, that they’ve ever cut off from her trust fund. That’s why I like her.”
Finch sat back, frowned. Of all the members of the Carson family, he thought, leave it to Will to pick the biggest trouble-maker. If she’d been raised wealthy and entitled and then lost her privileges, could that explain her fascination with the young man? Did he represent a chance to get her hooks back into some money “ and real money, enough to rub her family’s nose in? But he was speculating, getting ahead of himself. “Why was she cut off?”
“For love,” Zoe replied, with a deep and sardonic sigh. “And it came within about an hour of being a huge family scandal.”
“How so?”
She brought up another picture. Finch had seen it before; it was Corporal Essex, in his military ID photo. “This is the guy she married. His name is Paul Essex. He’s a Marine. Was, rather. He’s dead.”
“And his death is the source of the scandal?” Finch ventured.
“No. The marriage was the source of the scandal. Or, rather, the family’s response to it.” She hesitated. “You’re going to need the back story for this.”
“Yes, please. If you have time.”
“I have time.” She sipped her coffee, sat back. “The original Carson fortune was made by Joseph Carson. Great grandpa. He was a rum-runner during Prohibition, and then he reportedly ran guns. And probably other things. In any case, he made a lot of money, and most of it was dirty.
“Joseph only had one child, a son named Robert. Robert inherited everything, and he used the money to go into the weapons trade during the world wars.”
“Which was also very profitable.”
“Very,” Zoe confirmed. “But Robert decided that money wasn’t enough for him. He also wanted respectability. So he married Angela Smith. Angela had family money of her own, but more importantly, she had a line of ancestors that went straight back to Captain John Smith.”
Finch raised an eyebrow. “Of the Mayflower?”
“Exactly. Robert was just a rich guy. But his kids …”
“Had social standing.” Finch nodded to himself. He’s known men like Carson. Many of them.
“Robert and Angela had four children, three boys and a girl. The girl married into money; the boys were all very successful in their own fields. Especially the oldest, Robert Junior, who is the Carson everyone talks about.”
“He’s Julie’s father.”
Zoe nodded. “When Senior died, most of his money went into a giant trust fund for current and future grandchildren. Twenty-five millions dollars each. And the only conditions were that none of them could access their share of the trust until they turned twenty-five.”
“Their parents were the trustees?” Finch asked.
“Yes. Some of the older kids were hell-raisers. A couple of them blew through the money in a year or so. And there was a lot of drinking, drugs, car crashes “ the usual entitled rich kid stuff.” She shook her head. “By the time the younger ones started to inherit, things had settled down. The parents seem to have gotten a grip on them. Or at least on keeping them out of the press.”
Finch took up the tablet and scrolled through the pictures again. There were multiple newspaper articles about the antics of the various Carson children. It was a miracle none of them had been killed. And Zoe was right: It was all typical entitled rich kid behavior. He and Nathan had tried to keep Will away from it, with varying degrees of success.
“There are twenty-nine grandchildren in that generation,” Zoe said. “Fourteen of those are Robert Junior’s kids. Julie’s the youngest of his, and the youngest of all the grandchildren. There was almost nothing about her growing up.” She gestured to the tablet. “She showed up at family events, some charity things, but never by herself and never anything even remotely scandalous. Her older brothers got arrested, got named in paternity suits “ Julie didn’t do anything notable.
“Then she went off to college. Seven Sisters, naturally. Majored in international studies, with an emphasis on business. Minored in linguistics. Still nothing on anybody’s radar. Her senior year, she took an extra-curricular assignment as a language tutor for the military. Teaching guys who are about to be deployed how to talk to the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“And that’s where she met Corporal Essex.”
“They dated, they fell in love. Julie graduated from college. At her graduation party Essex asked her father for her hand in marriage. Robert bounced him out on his ear.”
“What was unacceptable about him?”
“No one’s exactly clear about that. But he wasn’t rich. He wasn’t Catholic. And he wasn’t willing to leave the Marines.” Zoe shrugged. “Whatever it was, Mom and Dad weren’t having him for their baby. They told Julie that if she married him she’d never inherit her chunk of the trust fund.”
“And she married him anyhow.”
“The next day. And yes, they cut her off.”
Finch frowned again. “That’s troubling, but surely it doesn’t rise to the level of scandalous.”
“That part doesn’t. But how the family responded was. I don’t know if they just didn’t expect this level of rebellion from the good girl or if there was more to the story that never surfaced, but they went completely off the rails. Mom, especially “ Stephanie. She’s a serious control freak. She tried to get the marriage annulled. She accused Essex of kidnapping the girl, of brainwashing her, of statutory rape …”
“Julie was in her twenties then?”
“Twenty-two. None of it stuck. None of it had any merit. They tried to say Julie had stolen a car, but it was in her name. That Essex had stolen items from the mansion. And then they tried to have him thrown out of the Marine Corp. Stephanie even went to Washington, tried to get her senator involved.” She paused. “You know that the Carsons make a huge amount of their money from defense contracts, right?”
“I know.”
“So you can see how this would go. They sell all these weapons to the boys in uniform, make a fortune on the backs of the troops, but one of those boys isn’t good enough for their little girl? It would have been massively ugly.” Zoe shook her head. “I wouldn’t have touched it. It was a no-win from the gate.”
“Especially if the photogenic young lovers had spoken out.”
“Exactly.”
“But none of this ever got out,” Finch said. “How was the situation defused?”
“Grandma Angela stepped in. She’d been away at a senior retreat “ that’s code for retirement village for old folks “ but she came back and met with the kids. Then she met with Robert and his wife, and apparently she dropped the hammer on them, because neither of them ever said another word about it. The charges were dropped and everything went away. End of story.”
“Grandmother gave them her blessing,” Finch mused.
“Sounds like. Julie and Essex went to live on a base in Germany, and then he was deployed to Afghanistan, where he promptly got himself blown up. Grandma Angela died the next day, here in New York. Julie came home and buried them both, and then she went back to Europe. That was six, seven years ago. And like I said, we haven’t seen much of her since.”
“She’s not precisely estranged from the family,” Finch said, “but she’s certainly distant.”
“Can you blame her?”
“No.” He looked at the picture of Essex again. “After her husband died, did Robert restore the trust fund?”
“Not that I ever heard. But it may not matter.”
“Twenty-five million dollars may not matter?”
Zoe hesitated. “This part is purely rumor. I haven’t been able to verify it, and neither has anyone else.”
“Understood.”
“Remember that Grandma Angela came from money, too? The rumor is that her entire estate went, or will go, to Julie.”
Finch sat back. “And how big is that estate?”
“Big. She was an only child of a family with money, and she never touched a dime of it in probably eighty years. It could be a very big number.”
“It certainly could.”
“But like I said, that’s all rumor.”
“If the rumors are true,” Finch mused, “would any of the other family … how many of the other family members would be resentful of Julie’s good fortune?”
“All of them. The Carsons are massively competitive with each other.”
“How many would be resentful enough to try to kill her?”
Zoe blinked at him. “Seriously? You think the Carsons are trying to kill each other?”
“No. I’m just … speculating, at this point.”
“Julie Carson is the woman John’s chasing around the Park?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“Huh.” She thought for a long moment. “A couple years back, two of her brothers got into financial trouble. The oldest two, Matthew and David. But as far as I know that’s been resolved.”
“I’ll take a look.”
“And one of the cousins. Thomas.” She shook her head. “But even if they managed to kill her, the money’s probably in a trust. There’s no guarantee that they’d be able to get their hands on it, unless they’re named as Julie’s successors.” She thought further. “You need to get a look at Angela’s will.”
“I do,” Finch realized. “And I’ll look into the boys. Thank you, Miss Morgan. You’re been extremely helpful, as always”
As he moved to stand up, she put her hand firmly on his forearm. “You’re going to tell me what’s going on, right?”
It was a fair question, Finch reflected. It just wasn’t one that he could answer. “At the moment, we’re still trying to sort that out.”
“When you’ve sorted it,” she insisted. “These are power players, Harold. If there’s information to be had, you owe it to me.”
We saved your life, Finch thought. Isn’t that payment enough? But he knew it wasn’t, in her mind. Zoe was only doing what Zoe did; he couldn’t blame her for that. “When the situation is resolved,” he said, “I’ll tell you everything that I’m at liberty to tell you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She released his arm. “Nice talking to you, Harold. I hope we get together again soon.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Joe Kemp took his agent to an unremarkable office building. Reese watched them go inside, but he didn’t follow. There was too much chance of being seen by Julie, or by some other sharp-eyed civil servant who dutifully reviewed their federal BOLOs. Besides, he could hear every word she said. It was not exciting.
Kemp said he hadn’t gotten anything from her phone picture of the blond man. From his tone, Reese doubted that he’d even tried. Julie didn’t sound surprised.
Once she was settled in, Reese got a small duffle bag out of the trunk of his car and found a coffee shop. He ordered a big breakfast, then went to the men’s room, did a quick sink wash, and changed his clothes. By the time he got back to the table his breakfast was ready.
“More coffee?” the waitress offered.
“Please, and keep it coming.”
She smiled at him. “Long night?”
“And likely to be a long day.”
“I’ll put a fresh pot on for you.”
Reese heard Julie’s phone ring. After the second ring, the call went to voicemail. Her voice announced simply, “It’s Julie. Can’t answer. Leave a message.”
She was busy with paperwork and probably ignoring the call. Or else she’d checked her caller ID. The person calling was Will Ingram. The young man sighed heavily. “Hey, Jules, it’s, um … it’s Will. Will Ingram. I … look, I was a total jerk yesterday, and I’m really sorry and, um … if you’re still in town, I’d really like to apologize in person. Just ….” He sighed again, floundering. “Give me a call, okay? Please?”
The call went dead.
Reese rubbed his eyes. He’d been expecting something like this, actually. Ingram didn’t seem like he was capable of sustaining anger for very long. It would have been better if he had. He hoped Julie had the sense to ignore the call; if she spoke to Will now, it only made things worse for both of them.
It was hard enough trying to catch bad guys and save lives with only the sketchy hints Finch’s Machine provided about them. He was pretty sure dispensing romantic advice to field operatives and their targets was not in his job description.
Just as he finished his last bite of toast, and his fifth cup of coffee, his phone beeped. He answered the handset, gestured for his check. “Hey, Finch. How was breakfast with Zoe?”
“Miss Morgan was extremely knowledgeable, as always. There is an unconfirmed but highly plausible rumor that Ms. Essex either has or will inherit a significant amount of money from her grandmother.”
“Significant even for a Carson?”
“Apparently.” There was familiar keyboard noise in the background; evidently Finch was back at the library. “Aside from the large account we located last night, I didn’t find excessive funds in any account linked to her name, so I must assume it’s in a trust somewhere.”
“State would make her put it in a blind trust,” Reese provided. He glanced at the check the waitress slid to him, left enough cash for a fifty percent tip just because she’d been quick with the coffee, and went out to the street.
“This could get very complicated, financially,” Finch muttered, mostly to himself. “If she’s already inherited, then whoever is named in Julie’s will is an obvious suspect. If she hasn’t, or if there are additional contingencies in the grandmother’s will, then it could be someone quite different.”
“We need to know what’s in both wills, Finch.”
“Obviously.” There was another spate of typing. Reese waited, looked casually up and down the street. Nothing incurred his focus. “There’s a digital copy of Ms. Essex’s will is on file with the State Department, in her personnel file. It’s secured, of course, but … ahh.”
“You scare me sometimes, Finch.”
“After all this time?” Finch sounded vaguely pleased about that. “Interesting. The will was updated six months ago. It’s remarkable straightforward. She leaves a hundred thousand dollars to her handler, Mr. Kemp. The remainder of her assets is to be shared equally among four charities. Including Doctors Without Borders.”
“Kemp’s wife had cancer,” Reese mused. “They probably have a ton of medical bills. What about Grandma’s will?”
There’s nothing online, or at least nothing helpful. But I do have means to access the original document.”
“What sort of means?”
He could hear the smile in Finch’s voice. “The sort of means I excel in, Mr. Reese.”
“Something devious and under a false identity?”
“Exactly. I’ll let you know what I find out.” He sighed; it sounded like he was moving. “But first, I have to make a brief stop.”
Reese had a pretty good guess where he headed. “Good luck with that.”
“Thank you so much.”
_____________________________________________________________________________
Finch rapped firmly on the door. There was a bit of scrambling behind it, a muttered, “Hang on, hang on.” Then Will opened the door, without even asking who was there. He was pulling down his shirt with one hand, running the other through his hair in a speedy attempt to look put together. It wasn’t at all successful.
His face fell when he saw Harold. “I … uh …”
“I’m not who you were expecting,” Finch said gently.
“No, I … yes. I mean …” The boy shook his head, stepped back and gestured. “Come on in.”
Harold went in and closed the door behind him. “I woke you. I’m sorry.”
“No, I was up. I just … I was …” Will rubbed his eyes, shook his head again as if to clear the cobwebs. “Let me try that one more time.” He straightened up. “Good morning, Uncle Harold. It’s nice to see you.”
Harold chuckled. “Much better. But I didn’t mean to bother you.”
“Wasn’t doing anything. Nice suit.”
“I’m on my way to a business meeting,” Finch confirmed. He was wearing his black suit, the power suit, for a reason. “But I had a little time. I thought I’d bring you some breakfast.” He held out a white paper bag in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other.
“How come every time I see you lately you try to feed me?”
Finch put the parcels on the side table. “Give me your hand. Either one.”
Frowning, Will held out a hand. Finch took it in one of his, held up his other hand with his fingers splayed. “I have stubby fingers, Will. I shouldn’t be able to do this.” He wrapped his free hand around the boy’s wrist. His thumb and pinky finger overlapped so much that his thumbnail was completely covered. “Every time you go overseas you come home skin and bones. So I try to fatten you up while I have the chance.”
Will smiled ruefully. “Fair enough.” He sat on the couch, opened the bag. “It’s not like that’s going to be a problem anymore, anyhow. They’re not going to let me leave the country. It’s too dangerous.”
“There are lots of places in this country that need doctors, Will.”
The boy shrugged.
“Have you even looked? I saw some of these free health clinics on the news last year where there were thousands of people lined up for care.”
“It just pisses me off that they think they can just tell me where I can and can’t go.”
He was, as Julie had predicted, about to figure out how readily his wealth could circumvent that obstacle. Finch wanted to stall him, at least for a while. “Are you angry about the government now, and not the woman?”
Will glared at him. Then he looked away. “Tell me the truth, Uncle Harold. Was I as big of a jerk as I think I was yesterday? To Julie?”
“Ahhhh … yes. I’m afraid you were.”
“Damn.”
“But she didn’t take it personally,” Finch continued. “She understood your reasons, and she considered it a hazard of the job.” The boy had stopped unpacking the breakfast, so he did it for him.
“She said that?”
“She said … that you needed to hate her for a while. That that was the best way for you to get past this whole incident.”
Will was silent for a moment. “She thinks I hate her?”
Finch looked up. There was so much pain in the boy’s voice, and in his face, that he immediately regretted his choice of words. “Will …”
“She saved my life, Uncle Harold. If she hadn’t been there I would have …” He shook his head. “I would have done something stupid. I probably would have gotten myself shot. And she was …” He looked up, not at Harold but at a point over his shoulder. “I think I love her. I’m sure I love her.” And then, “I’ve got to find her.”
“Finch,” Reese said in his ear, “head him off. Absolutely nothing good will come from their seeing each other again.”
Harold nodded, as if to himself. “Will, listen to me. You’ve have a great deal of emotional upheaval this week. You were kidnapped and held at gunpoint. By your own admission you nearly died. Don’t you think it’s possible that what you feel for this woman is … something other than what you think it is?”
Will looked at him. “You think I don’t know what I’m feeling?”
“I think,” Finch answered carefully, “that you must have learned about transference somewhere in medical school.”
“Transference. That’s what you think this is.”
“I think it’s a possibility.”
The young man’s voice started to rise. “I’m not a little kid any more, Uncle Harold. I’m old enough to know what I feel. And this is not transference. I love her!”
“Will, you’re shouting.”
“No, I’m not!” Will popped to his feet. Then he looked around. “Fine. I’m shouting.” He sat back down.
“Will,” Harold said soothingly, “I can’t know what you’re feeling. But I know what I’ve seen. Two days ago you were captured by gunmen, and you couldn’t wait for me to meet this woman. Yesterday you never wanted to see her again. Today you love her. Don’t you think you should at least see how you feel tomorrow before you take any action?”
The boy looked sideways at the floor for a long while. “I tried to call her,” he finally said. “She won’t even answer my calls.”
Finch nodded to himself. “Will, next week, or the week after, Julie Essex will be on a new assignment. Maybe halfway around the world, maybe following someone new “ I don’t know. But she will move on, because she has to. And you need to do the same.”
She’ll move on, Finch thought, if we manage to find out who’s trying to kill her and stop it. He shook his head, shook the thought away. They’d find a way to save her.
The boy looked up at him bleakly. “You’re trying to tell me that she doesn’t feel the same way.”
“That may be a real possibility, yes. I’m sorry.”
“I was just an assignment to her.”
Finch leaned forward. “She seemed to genuinely like you, Will, and to respect the work you were doing. That’s why she was there, so that you could continue that work. But that doesn’t mean she loved you. In the end … it was her job.”
Will took the lid off the coffee and took a long drink. “I still love her,” he said bleakly.
Finch’s own heart ached for the boy. He wanted to comfort him, to tell him that he understood, that of course Will should go after her. But he could hear Reese’s disapproval in his silence, and he knew his partner was right. “Will, you don’t know her.”
“I know …”
“You know who she pretended to be. But everything about that persona was calculated to get close to you. She knew what kind of music you liked, what kind of food “ everything about you. And she used it.”
“But …” The young man sat back, slumped against the couch cushions. “I don’t know, Uncle Harold. I was so sure … if you could have seen her … the way she was with those babies …” He sat up suddenly. “That’s it. The babies.”
“The babies?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out … all morning, I’ve been thinking about her, about what it was that I fell for. Trying to figure out if that part was real? And it was the babies.” He glanced at Harold, launched into an explanation. “Right after Julie started at the clinic, this woman came in with twin girls, five months old. They both had raging ear infections. We put them on antibiotics, but until they kicked in, every time she put one of them down to nurse the other one, the first one would just scream. They were miserable. The mother wasn’t more than fifteen or sixteen herself, and none of her family came with her because the babies were girls … and she would just cry. Try to nurse one baby and just sob for the other one being so miserable.
“All medical personnel had their hands full with other patients. But Julie … she was our clerk, she kept the charts and the records and things like that. Coordinated. But she heard this baby and she just went and picked her up. And kept her. Carried her around, did her charts with one hand and just … and when the first baby was fed, she’d go swap them and carry the other baby around. I mean, there was nothing the babies needed medically except their meds, they just wanted to be upright to keep the pressure off their eardrums. And Julie sat up all night, slept in a chair with one of them over her shoulder. She carried those babies around for four days.”
“That was very lovely on her part, I’m sure, but …”
“Don’t you get it, Uncle Harold? That wasn’t about me. That wasn’t about getting close to me or protecting me. That was Julie. That was Julie being kind, being useful. Helping that woman and her babies just because they needed someone to help them. What’s that old quote, about how you treat people who can never do anything for you? That’s what I know about her. The real her. That’s who she is. That’s who I fell in love with.”
“Will …”
“And she thinks I hate her. And I don’t have any way to tell her that I don’t.” The boy was absolutely heartbroken.
“Be careful, Finch,” Reese said quietly in his ear.
“Write her a letter,” Harold said suddenly.
Will blinked at him. “What, like an e-mail?”
“Yes, like an e-mail, but with actual ink on actual paper. Write her a letter and send it care of the State Department. Wherever she is, I’m sure they’ll get to her.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Careful, careful,” Reese repeated. “This needs to be an end, Harold.”
“Be careful,” Finch repeated. “Assume that someone other than her may read the letter. But tell her that you’re sorry, tell her that you understand why she did what she did. Tell her … tell her thank you.”
Will stared at him. “I don’t know if I can.”
“The beauty of pen and paper,” Finch promised him, “is that you can always tear it up and start over. As often as you like.”
“I wish real life was like that,” the boy said.
Harold nodded. “I’m with you there, believe me.”
“If I’m never going to see her again …” his voice trailed off as he considered that very real possibility, “…I just wish it hadn’t ended the way it did. With me throwing a stupid tantrum in an airport.”
“Then let it end with this letter,” Finch said. “She’ll understand, believe me.”
The young man thought about it for a long moment. “If I get stuck, will you help me?”
“I don’t really know how much help I’ll be. I can proofread for you.”
Will almost laughed. “I think I might need more help than that.”
“I’ll try.” Finch glanced at his watch and stood up. “But right now I have to go. Eat your breakfast. Maybe it will give you some inspiration.”
“I don’t know how I’d work eggs into this letter,” Will answered. He got up and walked him to the door.
“Maybe something about how you would have gotten yourself scrambled without her?”
“Or how I would have been toast.” Will shook his head, but he was half-smiling. He threw his arms around Harold. “Thank you, Uncle Harold. I can’t say I really feel better, but … maybe a little.”
“Give yourself some time, Will,” Harold told him. “You’ve been through an awful lot.” He gave him a final squeeze. “Now, seriously, go eat something.”
The boy gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Uncle Harold,” he said dutifully.
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