“So you say. I think you knew what that bastard was doing, and you took your cut.”
“Say that to anyone else, and I’ll be the one suing for slander.”
“Fuck you, Dobson,” Samuels said as he slammed down the phone.
Horace Dobson leaned back, closed his eyes, and muttered, “Fucking Bobby,” over and over.
“The coast guard found Bobby’s boat covered in blood, but no one’s found his body, so he could still be alive,” Claire Madison told her lawyer as soon as he took her call. “How does this affect a divorce?”
“If you want to get a divorce, you have to notify your spouse. Usually, you serve him with divorce papers. You can’t do that if he’s missing.”
“I knew it. The son of a bitch is doing this deliberately because I exposed him as Mysterioso.”
“There’s a procedure called ‘divorce by publication’ you can use if you can’t find your spouse, but it will cost you, and it takes a while.”
“What do I have to do?”
“You have to convince a judge, based on a sworn affidavit, that you’ve done everything in your power to find the missing spouse and you still can’t locate him.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Several months. I can send you a copy of the affidavit of diligent search. It will tell you what you have to do. But let me ask you a few questions. Who has more money, you or Mr. Chesterfield?”
“Me.”
“Do you have a prenup?”
“No.”
“Do you have a serious boyfriend?”
Claire hesitated. “I am with someone.”
“Do you want to marry him once you’re divorced?”
“God no. I’m done with marriage.”
“Okay. Then a divorce is the last thing you want. If you divorce Mr. Chesterfield, there’s a possibility that you might have to share your estate with him. If he stays missing for five years, you can have him declared legally dead. Then you don’t need a divorce.”
“So missing is good?”
“Very good.”
PART FOUR
RESURRECTION
2020
CHAPTER TWENTY
This is the true story of how Jimmy O’Learyreallyfound God.
Shortly after Jimmy was sentenced to ten years in the Oregon State Penitentiary, he decided that he didn’t like being in prison. Jimmy wasn’t afraid of being beaten up or raped in the shower, since he was bigger, stronger, and meaner than almost every other con at OSP. Jimmy’s problem was that he loved women, hunting, and fishing, and there were no females, trout, or deer where he was living.
As soon as Jimmy decided that he had to get out of prison he decided that he needed a plan, but that created another problem. Jimmy was big and strong, but he wasn’t very bright, so he had no luck devising a plan. Then he met Omar Sykes while he was pumping iron in the yard. Omar was serving life without the possibility of parole and was feared by the other inmates because he was crazy and crafty and had nothing to lose. Omar liked to recruit dumb, strong, mean inmates like Jimmy to his team so he could control the prison drug trade.
“If you want to get out of OSP, you got to find God,” Omar advised.