The Invisible Heiress

by Kathleen O'Donnell

  “Don’t look at me. Your phone.” Smiley pointed at my new cell phone on the marble breakfast bar. I scrambled to answer.

  “You at home or what? Haven House said you’d left. Can’t believe your old cell number still works,” Brendan said in my ear.

  “Oh my God. Where are you?” I said. “Yes, of course. I’m here.”

  “I’m on my way up the lane right now.”

  I dropped the receiver back in its cradle. “Brendan’s on his way,” I said to Smiley with what I’m sure was a doofus smile.

  I ran out, left Smiley to his own devices, stumbled through the cavernous entry hall, shoved open the front doors. Brendan’s Tesla zipped up the lane, slowed to avoid taking the circular driveway on two wheels, slammed to a stop several yards away, like the cable guy not sure how close to the grand manse he could park. I flew out the front doors sprinted across the wraparound porch, started down the steps. Got a split-second glimpse of the chopstick-anchored man bun on Brendan’s head, when a battering mass of air knocked me to the ground. I almost missed seeing the world go up in flames before my head hit the concrete.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Isabel

  “Hope you’re not dragging your feet,” I said, “more.”

  “No, no. I’m straightening things out so we can, well, we can start clean,” Sherman said.

  “You’ve been saying that for weeks.” I fought the urge to either beg or hang up. “I’m starting to look pregnant, not just fat.”

  I’d changed into sweatpants as soon as I got home—only things that fit, barely. “You still haven’t given me any reasonable explanation as to why I heard a woman’s voice the last time I called,” I said. “You live alone now.”

  “How many times can I say there’s no other woman—only your overworked imagination? I’ve moved out. I’m getting divorced. Patience. You know what’s—”

  A second call rang through. I held up my phone so I could see the screen. “Gotta take this call.” I couldn’t bear Sherman’s host of new, or old, excuses.

  “Jonathan? What?”

  “Whole place is bugged. Bugs all over the place.”

  “What? What place?”

  “Our offices.”

  “How do you know?” I felt nauseous. Not the pregnancy kind either.

  “I stooped down to pick my pen up off the floor and I saw a weird, a microphone-type thingy stuck under the conference table.”

  The problem with being me is when something bad is going on, I can always assume it has to do with me. I looked around the room for something to barf in, just in case.

  “Now what?” I hate to ask.

  “Tricky. Cops want a client list. Can’t give them one.”

  “You called the cops?”

  “Of course,” Jonathan said. “What else could I do?”

  Try to find out what’s going on yourself first, jackass?

  “Right. So we’re gonna do what then?”

  “They’ll investigate, but no one’s sent threats, or made blackmail calls, or anything of the sort, right?”

  “You think I wouldn’t tell you if someone did?”

  Of course I wouldn’t.

  “Honestly, who knows with you?” he said. “Knew I should’ve fired sticky fingered Rhonda a lot sooner.”

  “The old receptionist? Thought you hired her for her boobs, not her brain. Rhonda couldn’t pull off anything more complicated than her lip wax.”

  “Cops said whoever installed the devices was no genius. The more sophisticated would’ve tapped the phones too.”

  “Seems over the top for someone like Rhonda to do.”

  “Probably. I passed on her name nonetheless. Gave them the security cameras tapes too.”

  “Security cameras?”

  “Only hooked up in the parking lots, thanks to all the interior decorating the ones inside aren’t up anymore. Whoever planted the bugs probably drove here.”

  Now I felt faint. I needed to get off the phone.

  “Well, keep me posted,” I said. “Not much we can do but wait.” I tried to sound like an innocent, reasonable person.

  “Wait, Jesus, with the bugs I almost forgot,” Jonathan said. “Have you seen the local news?”

  “No.” Like I had time for that.

  “Brendan Finney got blown up. Murdered.”

  ****

  Brendan Finney was out of his league when he married into the clan. Even though I’d only seen him for a few minutes, I knew he didn’t have a prayer in that family. Whatever shitstorm arose, the Blair Fitzgerald machine would handle it. Already plagued by scandal, they wouldn’t want to associate with more. But how far would they go? Not this far. Much as they might’ve delighted in Brendan’s absence, his spectacular death would only stir up more unwanted attention.

  Oh well, the hullabaloo would die down quick enough if they paid the right people—and they always did.

  Preston might actually feel something about her husband dying. My hand went to my bulging belly, a reflex I didn’t know I had. No matter how heartless Preston could be she’d take Brendan’s death hard. If I let myself I’d feel a little sad for her.

  No time for that. I needed to think about those bugs. I put Brendan Finney out of my head like yesterday’s trash.

  Didn’t think it’d take an overpriced psychologist to figure out the most likely perp. Jonathan wasn’t always quick on the uptake. Always suspected his wife (what was that woman’s name?) wasn’t as dumb as he wished. I drummed my memory for any incriminating conversations I might’ve undertaken in my office. Thank God I hadn’t spent much time there over the past several months. Still. When’s a bugged office not a sign of big trouble?

  Why didn’t I know about the security cameras? The moisture collecting under my arms wasn’t nausea related. Shitting bricks broke me into a sweat. Poured myself a few measly fingers of Jameson, mulled over my dud strategy, which paid out as well as last night’s losing spin of the roulette wheel.

  Security cameras. Goddammit. I’d never committed any questionable acts in the parking lots, had I? If they’d been on in the office that might be a different story. I forced that unpleasant idea down. My scotch sloshed up the back of my throat. Who cared anyway? Jonathan’s old lady knew the worst about Jonathan and me if she’d listened in. That’s all she’d care about. If she knew, my cash flow would suffer big time. I could feel the pulse at my neck jolt.

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” my mother always said.

  Tapped out numbers on my phone. The ancient clang of my mother’s landline jangled in my ear. No answer. A voice-mail-is-full message was all I’d gotten for days. No wedding date to gloat over anyway. Well, I’d show her. Tightwad lush thought I’d never bag Mister Big.

  Sherman better step the fuck up. If the fop thought I’d idly dawdle while he straightened things out, he didn’t know me very well. In fairness, he didn’t know me for crap, how could he? Kept my schemes secret.

  Obviously, I knew Sherman’s sex perversions, which didn’t alarm me. But everything else I knew about him certainly wasn’t good. Well, my mama didn’t raise no fool, especially not a deaf one. I know I heard a woman at his new place. I poured myself a hair more scotch, mulled over what might be afoot. Maybe he’d dump me. That’d always been a possibility, in fact a likelihood. I wouldn’t have cared before. Before I invested so much, got preggers. Now, what?

  I bolted up like I’d gotten a cattle prod to the ass.

  I’d felt completely dialed in where my masked man was concerned, but I really didn’t know him any better than he knew me.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Preston

  “You look better than the last time I saw you.” Smiley settled at the edge of my ginormous canopied bed, new housekeeper shut the door behind her. “Skipped out of the hospital already?”

  “No more hospitals. Can’t sleep there.”

  “Construction workers humping out front. Can you sleep through that?”

  “At least they go home bef
ore nightfall. Gotta fix the damage. I can’t stand looking at the rubble. Thank God the house is brick.”

  I touched the swollen, painful, stitched-up cut across my forehead. Gabfest ran out of steam. We sat, me simmering in guilt and grief, not sure what Smiley simmered in.

  “Bodies heal pretty quick, hearts not so much.”

  He broke through the quiet. Smiley’s lack of guile brought me to tears. He let me cry for a few long moments.

  “I wrote out everything we talked about at the hospital, everything I could remember, like you asked.” I wiped my face, steeled myself.

  “Great, thanks.”

  I remembered all right. Spewed like a blender with the top off soon as I regained consciousness. I might’ve told Detective Smiley everything.

  “Listen—about that blackmail letter sent to your mother—you were right. Nothing came of it, obviously a crank. No truth to it.”

  “How do you know?” I said.

  “Cooper’s medical records. Subpoenaed them, remember? Your brother died of a rare form of childhood leukemia.”

  “What?”

  All the blood rushed to my head wound. Pounded the crap out of it. I killed my baby. I killed my baby. Mother said so herself. I saw those very words.

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “I normally don’t joke about babies with cancer.”

  “I don’t believe you. Why, she, I . . .”

  For the first time in my verbally incontinent life, I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I knew the truth, I could’ve sworn. That confession. We’d fought about it almost to the death. Didn’t we? No disease felled my brother. Did it?

  “Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t know. Certainly, your parents would’ve talked to you about it?”

  I tried to bring up memories of the day my brother died, the short time he’d lived. My forehead felt like it might explode. I couldn’t recall a thing about any disease.

  “You’d be surprised what we don’t talk about in my family,” I finally said.

  “So whatever Brendan knew, if he knew anything seedy at all, probably didn’t involve Cooper,” Smiley said.

  “Right. Uh-huh.” Medical records or not, I wasn’t ready to let go of what I’d thought was true about my mother and brother. I wasn’t sure I could trust Smiley. Not yet.

  “So now what?”

  “The investigation goes forward in one direction,” he said. “Brendan’s murder.”

  My fist went to my mouth. I knew that’s exactly what happened, but hearing it clocked me. I felt the searing blast, heard the sky-splitting roar, saw the crime-scene photos. But the tiny part of my brain where I allowed myself a sliver of hope clung to denial. How could Brendan die before we got the chance to get to know each other, minus all our bullshit? Maybe we’d have fallen in love for real. Maybe we—I squeezed my eyes shut to stop the waterworks.

  “Brendan must’ve found someone, something, proof,” I said to myself, but Smiley heard.

  “Proof of what?”

  “I don’t know. Something someone didn’t like.”

  My stitches throbbed so hard I thought they’d pop. Smiley had never seen that horrible photo of Cooper and me. Illness or not, that postmortem picture was all sorts of wrong, perhaps criminal in itself. I’d consider unveiling it only if Smiley proved himself. What proving himself would look like, I hadn’t decided.

  “They’re hiding something,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “My parents. Brendan found stuff about them. He’s dead.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you this today, but our search of Brendan’s apartment turned up a cornucopia of pharmaceuticals. Looked like he was dealing again.”

  I didn’t know anything about Brendan’s apartment, just that he’d had one, thought he’d stopped with the drugs. But that was before I knew about Marcella. A vision of his sober chip on a chain, me pulling the damned thing hard as I could around his delicate neck, clouded my already clotted thoughts. I knew selling didn’t mean he used. My husband’s dealing could’ve finally got the better of him though. I couldn’t deny that. In fact, I suspected it while I was still confined. Now that he’d died, I didn’t want to feel that way about him, and I sure as hell didn’t want this interloper cop to either.

  Smiley kept swinging. “Marv thinks drugs were involved in his death, if that means anything,”

  “He’s been wrong about him before, could be again,” I said.

  Actually, I couldn’t think of a time Marv had been wrong.

  “Have the Finneys been to see you?” Smiley looked concerned. Like he worried no one would visit the psychotic mother killer in her hour of need.

  “No. They hate me. Always have. Marv loves my father, can’t stand me, or my mother.”

  Smiley’s hand covered mine for a nanosecond before he pulled it away, as if he’d momentarily forgotten his role in my life. In cop mode again he turned up a photo he must’ve kept in his coat with the bottomless pockets.

  “Seen her before?”

  There sat Brendan, with a Shakira-type hottie, thigh to thigh on what looked like a park bench. Chatting it up over Starbucks. Who could’ve blamed him? Even in a grainy picture Chica looked easy to love.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “Security camera from the café across from Brendan’s place. You know her?”

  “No,” I said, satisfied I wasn’t exactly lying. If I’d ever seen Marcella I didn’t remember. Didn’t need to recognize her face to know she was Alicia’s daughter. Who else could she be?

  “Marcella Montoya—a nurse,” Smiley said. “Been investigated for prescription improprieties, but nothing stuck. Got an uncle in the drug trade, couple of cousins too.” He pulled another pic out of his bag of tricks. Bitch looked hunka-hunka-burnin’ love even in her mug shot. “Rumored gang ties. We’re trying to locate Ms. Montoya. So far no luck.”

  I could still feel Smiley’s hand on mine even though it’d been there so briefly. His knee-jerk reaction to comfort me went a long way toward proving himself trustworthy.

  “Brendan thought she knew something,” I said. “I think he was on his way to tell me what he’d found out when he, you know, when, well, you were there.”

  Smiley didn’t comment. He sat close to me, relaxed, like he had all day to sit on my bed—the best listener ever.

  “I think Brendan and Marcella were dealing together. Like the old days,” I said. “Much as I hate to admit it that’s what probably killed him.” Then, in a quieter tone, “Doesn’t mean he didn’t find out something, I don’t know—sinister—about my family.”

  “Interesting.” Smiley wrote something in his little notepad. “Certainly not a stretch that Brendan’s death was the result of a drug deal gone wrong. But you’re right. He might’ve looked under the wrong rock. More than one thing can be true at a time. Drug dealing’s only one theory.”

  “You’ve got another?”

  “Let’s just say I’m open-minded. We’ll go where the evidence leads us.”

  I wondered. Marv might be hands-off on my end, but he’d never let anything untoward go down around my parents. Or would he? His only son died. If that didn’t break the mold nothing would.

  “I posted a cop at the end of your lane, plus one near the front door, until the investigation’s concluded,” Smiley said.

  “Why? Thought I wasn’t a target.”

  “Don’t think you were, but from what I can tell, if anyone could benefit from a little supervision, it’s you.”

  “Whatever blows your whistle.”

  “Some free advice—fix the gate at the end of the lane, pronto. Hire a twenty-four-hour guard service. The guardhouse is already there. Most of your neighbors have them. I’ll recommend a private security company, retired cops, so you can hire guards. Hell, I’ll hire them for you if you’d like. Media’s all over out there.” Smiley stood, brushed off the front of his pants, like he’d eaten something crumbly.

  “Seen your parents?” he sai
d.

  “Does it matter?”

  “To the investigation? No. To you? I’d say yes.”

  Another reason I left the hospital. Despite whatever tenderness I’d felt for him, off and on in the past, I couldn’t stand Dad’s fawning or his insistence I set aside my differences with Mom, like she’d be willing (as if attempted murder was on par with borrowing her sweater without asking) and move home for a while. To my shock, Mother had come too, later, without Dad, of course. She smoothed my bandaged brow, pulled up my covers. We didn’t speak. I faked sleep until she trundled out again, borne up by her faithful driver.

  “Oh, did you check the security camera film from my house?”

  “No cameras,” Smiley said. “Looked like there used to be some. What happened to them? Do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything anymore. Probably never did.”

  “Well, if you think of anything.” Smiley tossed a key on my lap. “CSI’s finished working Brendan’s apartment. If there’s anything there you want, landlord said place is all yours ’til the rent’s due.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Preston

  Against doctor’s orders, I decided to drive into town, determined to make funeral arrangements for Brendan. A scandalous amount of time had passed since his death. Whatever etiquette applied to date of death and the consequential burial, I’d spurned. Surprised I didn’t hear from his parents about any of it but not a peep. I could’ve called them but didn’t.

  Devil may care, I rolled by the cop parked near my front door, the winding-down construction crew, putt-putted down the lane until I reached the newly occupied guardhouse. Got a quick look at the milling press stationed across the road when a string of vehicles sped by, blocked the view.

  I lowered the driver’s side window to introduce myself to the uniformed guard, to keep him apprised of my comings and goings like Smiley instructed. Big mistake. Soon as the road cleared the media swarmed my Range Rover like a SWAT team.