About This Book
Billionaire philanthropist Jennifer K. Maxwell, great-grand daughter of Texas oil baron Conrad W. Maxwell, sat in the middle of a circle of people outside a landmark farmhouse in Redbridge, Vermont. She was shivering from nerves as questions shot at her from all directions. “Jesus, this is harder than when I was defending my thesis,” she thought.
“What is the worst thing you have ever done?” a woman asked.
“I was 17 and with my father in Manhattan and we walked by a jewelry store,” she said shaking, “I saw this young couple. I could tell they were middle class but were on their way up, so to speak.”
Maxwell felt an interesting combination of nausea and freedom.
“I walked right up to man and asked him how much he paid for the ring. The woman, his fiancée, shot me a look. It was a hell of a look. The man -- I think he was so overtaken in the moment -- said with pride, ‘three-thousand-five-hundred and seventy-five dollars'. He enunciated every syllable.”
“My Dad walked in and chuckled. He had told me of this game he used to play and that he wished he had a son to carry on the tradition. I was burning with jealously and pain," she said. “I looked at the woman but talked to the man. I told him that my father would give him $15,000 right now for that ring, no questions asked. “
Maxwell gulped. She felt all the eyes of the circle burning with disapproval around her.
“My father told the man that if he accepted, he would return in 15 minutes with $15,000 cash. My life at that moment became a collage of faces: my father's lustful grin; the engaged man’s guilty smile; the jewelry store owner's apathetic gaze and the woman...her expression: I knew she could have killed me without remorse at that very moment...sometimes I wish that she did.”
Maxwell exhaled slowly. She felt the voice behind her stand up and walk to her.
“Come on Jennifer. Let's finish this.”
Jennifer K. Maxwell was never seen again.
