The Invisible Heiress

by Kathleen O'Donnell

  “Sit down. I won’t bite no matter how enticing the prospect.” Jonathan shuffled papers at his desk.

  “Isabel, I—” He repositioned more crap, avoided meeting my eyes. “I’m sorry, really. I’ve never taken full responsibility for what, well, for what happened. I never imagined you’d think we’d ride off into the sunset with a baby but—”

  “What’s done is done.”

  “Obviously not or you wouldn’t bring it up all the time. So . . .”

  “So what?”

  “I didn’t think the whole thing would push you over the edge like it did. The abortion, the breakdown. I’m sorry for all of it.”

  “As long as the checks clear and I have my space here, we’re good. I’ll hold up my end. You hold up yours.”

  I didn’t want to give him an inch. I needed to take care of myself. No one else would.

  After a few-second stare into the abyss, Jonathan said, “What’s your caseload look like?”

  “Growing. Several referrals. My stint at Haven House is generating business.”

  “Who’s referring you?”

  “Word spreads,” I said. “I’ve got an infamous client. But if you must know, Judge Seward throws his delinquents my way.”

  “Because you’ve done such a bang-up job with Preston?”

  “All I know is I’ve got more business. Be happy.”

  “How’s the new beau?”

  “That again? I’m impressed. You slid that right in.”

  Jonathan hoped another man could take me off his hands. His optimism, despite years of wrangling the out-on-the-ledge unhinged, astonished me.

  “Actually,” I said, “There is a man, but I might break it off.”

  “Knew there was a man. Why dump him?”

  “Why not? Nothing special.”

  Of course, I’d never tell Jonathan about new man’s wife or the club. He’d turn judgy—big fat hypocrite.

  “Define nothing special,” Jonathan said.

  “Not that it’s your concern, but he’s, well, let’s just say he’s not what I thought.”

  “Are they ever?”

  “Touché.”

  “You’ll raise him right. He’ll be what you thought in no time.”

  “Gotta get your digs in. You give me too much credit.”

  “You’re a behavioral therapist, aren’t you? Work your magic. Can’t get him to modify his behavior? Modify yours. He’ll adjust. Never know what hit him. Trust me, he’ll fall in line, but quick.”

  “Out of the mouths of psychoanalysts. Anything else? Work related?”

  Jonathan dug around in his front pocket, lay down a wad of cash, a few aspirin, a plastic-wrapped, peppermint hard candy. “Damn it. Thought your new keys were in my pocket. Hang on.” He hurried out to his waiting room. I heard him rustle through the receptionist’s desk drawer and, just like that, I plucked half the cash off his desk, stuffed it in my purse on the floor. Planned to go to the club later. I’d replace the dough when I won.

  “One for your private entrance.” Jonathan handed me a single, loose key. “You probably noticed the construction on our separate parking lots is finished.”

  “Right, good. No end to the wife’s ideas. Six o’clock already. You heading out too?”

  “Can’t. New client coming in at six-thirty.”

  I bent over to pick up my purse, ready to go. “Okay, well. See you—”

  “Are you pulling your hair out again?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Preston

  “Hope to Christ you’re not waiting on me.” I stretched out with a bored nonchalance like a cat on the couch she wasn’t allowed on.

  “Well, I thought you might’ve come up with things to talk about,” Isabel said.

  “I’m sure you didn’t think that at all.”

  “Well, I’ve got something.”

  “You go, girl,” I said.

  “We’ve got things in common.”

  “Like?” I fluffed my pillow behind me, got comfy.

  “My mother’s rich too.”

  “Is that right?” I eyed her up and down. “Why’re you working then?”

  “Unlike yours, mine won’t part with a buck,” she said.

  “Don’t shrinks make a good living?”

  “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “If she’s loaded why won’t she share? Aren’t kids of rich parents like owed or something? I think it’s an unwritten law.”

  “Not one she’s ever heard of.” Isabel warmed to the topic. “Well, she did pay for a few things for me. Got me a car once. Paid my rent for a year, or was it two? Some small stuff here and there. But, so what? Not like she earned it anyway.”

  “Dad’s money?”

  “She won the lottery.”

  “Get out.” I straightened up, surprised. “No one wins the lottery.”

  “She did—a few years ago. Sole owner of the winning numbers—three hundred and twenty-seven million bucks—biggest in history at the time.”

  “That was your mom? I remember that for some weird reason.”

  “Big story around here for a while. In the paper, made the news. My loving mother says it’d be over her dead body before she’d give me a cent.”

  Isabel’s glossed lips pinched together, heavy-lashed eyes flickered, stuck together a little with every blink. She tapped one stiletto to a beat I couldn’t hear.

  “I don’t hire out to kill mothers, sorry Shrinky. Obviously not my skill set.”

  “Wouldn’t matter anyway. The old battle-ax got another husband. He’ll get whatever’s left. I’m SOL every which way.”

  “Stop yanking on your hair,” I said. “Making me nervous with that crap.”

  “Well, anyway, I’m telling you because I think we might feel the same way about our mothers.”

  “That’s a fucking stretch. How do I feel, Shrinky?”

  “Like killing your mother,” Isabel said. “Wish I had the nerve.”

  “Wish in one hand, shit in the other. Guess which one fills up faster?”

  “Harrison might let loose with the cash but she—anyone who’d make her daughter pose with a dead baby needs—”

  I sprang up. “Shut your flapping mouth. Cooper is off limits.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Preston

  I plopped my ass in the only chair in the small room intended to give a modicum of privacy for phone calls. I missed having my own cell phone.

  “Hope you’ve got some straight dope this time, Brendan.”

  “Some,” he said. “Don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

  “Holding my breath.”

  I yawned, hoped he could hear me though the phone.

  “Did you get in our house?” I said.

  “Yes. Well, sort of.”

  “Which is it, Brendan?”

  “I got in, but the alarm went off. Code’s changed.”

  “Fuck. Shit. Why didn’t we think of that?”

  Even though the news so far exasperated me, I liked hearing Brendan’s voice.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Someone’s definitely living there. Papers and shit all over the place. Dirty dishes, a mess.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Now what?”

  “I’ll get back in.”

  “Now you’re a decoding whiz?” I said.

  Brendan couldn’t even work our TV remote.

  “No, but I know a guy.”

  “Oh my God. Of course you do.”

  I’d forgotten how creative my scrappy Irishman could get. Buying and selling hard drugs made useful bedfellows. For a second our vibe felt like old times—my Irishman and me against the world. I listened to him breathe, the steady rhythm familiar, sensual.

  As if he’d read my mind, Brendan said, “Remember when we’d dine and dash that stupid Jewish deli on Eighth Street? The bagels and lox. What the fuck’s a lox anyway?”

  The sound of Brendan’s laugh could soothe th
e devil.

  “Shoulda let ’em haul your ass to the hoosegow,” he said.

  “Fuck you, you big dumb mick.”

  “My knees go weak when you go lovey dovey,” Brendan said, then quieter, “I wish they’d let me see you.” Then he laughed again. “They’ve got a strict policy about not letting people visit that you’ve tried to kill.”

  “They’ve let my mother in.”

  “That’s messed up, Preston.”

  Hearing my own laughter startled me. It’d been so long since anything struck me funny.

  “We should not laugh about that,” Brendan said.

  “Too soon?”

  “You’re never more beautiful than when you’re in bad taste,” he said.

  His voice could move me if I let it. Kicked up my insides. We stopped talking, lost in nostalgia.

  “Anyway,” Brendan said, all business again. “I asked my mom about your aunt’s house.”

  “Already got the skinny from my dad.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing earth-shattering. From some other shit he laid on me I think they sold it to cover my expenses. Like they’re broke now.”

  “Well, my mom had more to say than that. Cops’ wives know everything worth knowing.”

  True. I’d been in Brendan’s family long enough to know that.

  “Like?”

  “Mom said there’s lots of buzz about the sale—closed up all these years—new owners paid millions for that pile. She didn’t think your mother knew a thing about it.”

  “How could my dad sell without Mother’s consent? It’s not possible.”

  “That’s what my mom wondered. But that’s not the weirdest part.”

  “Go on.”

  “She said something like, ‘Poor James, Todd threw her over for Harrison then killed herself.’ That’s the gist of—”

  “My dad dumped Aunt James? They dated? Stop fucking with me.”

  “I know, right? Guess it’s true,” Brendan said.

  “What dunce would date my doofy dad—other than my mother?”

  “James, apparently. Mom said, ‘Poor sap dodged a bullet to throw himself on a scud missile.’”

  “Your mom’s a funny broad,” I said.

  Colleen could tell an off-color joke better than any cop.

  “Word is Harrison’s in a bad way.”

  “I could’ve told you that.”

  “Other than amnesia or whatever memory stuff, she seemed okay when she got home from the hospital, at first. Well, not okay, but okay considering. Anyway, now she roams around in a daze. Mom thinks she’s drugged.”

  “What else?”

  “Alicia retired.”

  “What the fuck?” I said.

  What bizarre corner had this conversation turned?

  “Yeah, Mom ran into her at the grocery store. Alicia told her she retired while Harrison was still hospitalized. Todd encouraged her, because she didn’t have much to do, and Harrison was expected to die.”

  “My father just told me she was taking care of my mother.”

  I thought a few seconds about my thorny conversation with my father.

  “Well, what he actually said was she was getting the best care,” I said.

  “Just not from Alicia, I guess.”

  “Alicia’s been my mother’s slave since after college.”

  “Maybe she knows something,” Brendan said.

  “What’s to know?”

  “Something inconvenient. Like maybe Todd sold James’s house for some underhanded reason.”

  “I told you my dad couldn’t unload anything without Mother’s writ of consent. Jesus, Brendan, all these years and you still don’t know how my parents work? No way.”

  “He’s drugging her I’ll bet.”

  “What the fuck for?” I said.

  “Have you met her?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Preston

  “What’s wrong with you, ding-a-ling? Why are you here?”

  “You’re funny, Preston,” Rosalie said.

  Rosalie sat next to me on the ratty sofa in front of the TV in the day room, used her plastic doll for a footstool.

  “Come on, tell me. Run out in traffic? Dingo ate your baby? Stab Daddy’s forehead with a barbecue fork?”

  “Dingo ate your baby. Dingo ate your baby.”

  “Stop that repeat shit.”

  “Okay.”

  She yanked the doll out from under her feet to stick it in my face.

  “Look,” she said.

  “So what? A doll.” I pushed it back.

  “Mom gave it to me,” Rosalie said.

  “Your mother was here?”

  “Your mother was here, your mother was here, your mother was here.” Rosalie started mimicking me when all her other annoying habits failed to incite me. Now she just skipped the run-up and went right to it. “Your mother was here, your mother was here, your—”

  “Goddammit. Shut the fuck up.” I shoved her backward, hard. She sprang right back up.

  “Your mother was here, your mother was here,” Rosalie whispered to herself, then got up with her stupid doll and walked away still murmuring.

  “Preston,” Nurse Judy padded into the day room. “Package for you.”

  She lobbed a package to me covered in wrinkled, brown wrapper, torn with a mishmash of tape in weird places. Some Johnny-on-the-spot aide probably unwrapped, then rewrapped the thing checking for any shit on the no-no list. With an uncanny nose for goings-on that didn’t concern her, Rosalie stumbled back over, doll pressed to her chest.

  “It’s your birthday,” Rosalie yelled. “Happy birthday.”

  “Where’d this come from?” I said.

  “Where’d this come from?” Rosalie mimicked. “Where’d this come from?”

  Before I could smack her sideways, Judy said, “Hush Rosalie. I’ve asked you several times to stop repeating what people say. It’s not nice.”

  “Well?” I said.

  “No idea,” Nurse Judy said. “Dropped at the front desk.”

  “By who?”

  “Didn’t see.”

  I ripped the tattered paper off.

  “Yay,” Rosalie jumped up and down. “Your thingy. Your journal thingy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Preston’s Blog

  Musings from the Dented Throne

  Not in Kansas Anymore

  I’ll level with you, my Dented Throne devotees. My recent love-fest with the Jester got me thinking. A lot. My tussle with the Queen (you know the one) prickles my brain but not to any clear result. We circled, lunged, parried. Seems I gave killing her my best shot. Details? None. No police reports list the facts, thanks to the Blair Fitzgerald stranglehold on my father-in-law lawman. The Royal She doesn’t cop to shit either. She’s a blank. No hard evidence exists. If it weren’t for the ring around the Queen’s collar I’d say I dreamt the whole nasty affair.

  I keep suspicions buried. But if you, hand to Buddha, promise not to tell, I’ll whisper them in your ear.

  One: Fuzzy on the details, I feel sure the Royal She tried to take what belonged to me. The Heiress spun around fast as a bullet train. An enthusiastic tug-o-war ensued. Which is when I must’ve slashed her. I’ve always been hard to get along with, a real solid pain in the ass but armed and dangerous? No. Why I brought a box cutter to the circle jerk is yet one more mystery. When I dwell on Mother’s attempted thievery I feel a murderous rage overtake me—again. A sweat breaks.

  Two: Killing a so far unknown person isn’t on the Heiress’s menu. Is it? How monstrous am I? Wouldn’t I recall that dastardly deed? Besides living humans fill space. If their orbit comes up empty, doesn’t anyone cry foul? Who’s missing? I’ve heard nothing, read nothing in the online newspapers I devour daily searching for answers.

  Three: Ever since the Irishman surfaced, my long-gone brother haunts my dreams. His cries sound fresh in my nightmares. Images plague me to consciousness, sheets soaked. Why does the Littlest Heir distu
rb my reflections now, when most of my life I’ve spent undeterred? Is it my sobriety? I’m no longer numb? Perhaps. What’s my husband got to do with any of it? Like me, he was a child when my brother died.

  I should let my investigating husband know what’s on my splintered mind, no?

  Take a minute before you plunge in with an answer. Know this—danger lurks. Calamitous foreboding covers me like a second skin. My finely honed intuition promises the only thing between me and sure peril is my current refuge. It should go without saying, but I know it doesn’t. I’m worried for the Irishman too. I’m protected in here. He isn’t.

  FYI: As I predicted, Shrinky’s off the deep end. I’m her therapist now.

  So sorry, fiends and followers, any revelations run contrary to my outlaw status. I’d respect your decision to unsubscribe but hope you rethink. Can’t help but wonder if you all hold the keys, know which end is fucking up. If you do, enlighten me.

  The Invisible Heiress

  Count to ten before you opine. The Heiress won’t consider any comments off the cuff.

  Comments

  Well Hung Jung

  Tell the Irishman every suspicion. The jerkoff needs more to do. And ’cause I’m an all-around good guy, I’ll pass on the advice my own dear departed dad gave me when I started chasing tail—follow the money.

  Reply: What nonsense shoots out your piehole? Money follows me. Besides, what’s cash got to do with any fucking thing?

  Well Hung Jung

  Money has to do with every fucking thing—money and pussy.

  Amy W.

  The Irishman probably doesn’t have anything to do with the Littlest Heir. Dreams are unreliable. They never mean what they appear to. BTW, what could the Queen possibly steal from you that she doesn’t already own?

  Reply: Good question. The Heiress isn’t clear, but visions come to me. I can feel it zooming clearer.

  Norma B.

  Smart to stay confined until more information comes to light. Let the Irishman help. I’m from a fairly small town. Rumors catch like fire. It’s a good bet you didn’t kill anyone. Since you got your journal back write down what you remember right away. Writing seems to spur you on.