The Heiresses

by Shepard, Sara

  On a whim, she went back to around five years ago, to the summer when Poppy was named president and Steven died. Her gaze caught on a transaction record, the liquidation of a huge number of stock shares. Aster paused. It was the same transaction she’d seen on her dad’s computer the other day.

  She clicked on the e-­mail; it listed a few transaction details, but nothing about where the money had gone. What had Mason done with all that cash? Then Aster saw a second transaction receipt from the same day, this one for $1 million. There was nothing listed about the bank account except the initials GSB. Who was that? Aster racked her brain, but she had no idea.

  Hands shaking, she returned to the in-­box and typed in Poppy’s name. Still nothing. Think, Aster. On a whim, she checked the Deleted folder—­and an e-­mail thread appeared. Lying was the first word she saw.

  We need to come clean with this, Poppy wrote. Especially the money. I’m tired of lying.

  Over my dead body. Or yours, Mason had replied. Seriously, Poppy, stop pushing or you’ll be sorry.

  Aster looked up, straight into the eyes of the elephant. Come clean about what? And what money? Whatever it was, it sounded like something Mason had done—­not Poppy. So maybe it wasn’t about the missing jewels at all. Maybe it was something bigger. What was Poppy trying to push Mason to tell? And to what lengths had Mason gone, to keep her quiet?

  Her thoughts tumbled like dominoes. She stood up, feeling dizzy. No. She was overreacting. Elizabeth couldn’t be right. Aster shut her eyes, not wanting to consider the possibility.

  Her mind returned once more to that night on the beach with Steven. The warm breeze kissing her bare skin, the sounds of the party in the distance, and the way Aster’s heart had thumped when she’d turned around and saw her father staring. Steven had shot into the bushes to pull on his clothes; he might have been listening, but Aster didn’t care. “If you can screw my friend, then I can screw yours,” she’d snapped.

  Mason’s face had clouded with confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?” he barked.

  “Don’t play dumb.” Aster’s voice rose over the sound of the waves. “I saw you and Danielle together. I know what you’re doing.”

  Mason’s face paled. He glanced in the direction Steven had gone, then grabbed Aster’s wrist, hard. “That’s none of your business,” he said into her ear.

  “Yes, it is. She’s my best friend. How could you?”

  She tried to wrench away, but Mason squeezed her wrist harder. Aster felt her pulse throb under the skin. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll turn around, go back to the party, and say nothing,” her father said in a chillingly calm voice. “If you utter even a word of this to anyone, you’ll be sorry.”

  “I’m not scared of you,” Aster warned him.

  Mason’s eyes blazed. “Well, you should be.”

  He gave her a shove. Aster yelped, wheeling across the sand. Her heel got stuck in a divot and flew right off her foot, but she lay where she was, waiting for her father to help her up and apologize profusely. When she turned back around, though, he was gone.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that Aster heard the screams.

  “Aster,” Corinne said, appearing at her door. Aster blinked at the clock; it was barely six AM. “Come quick.” She didn’t even bother to put on a bra, just ran downstairs in her Black Dog T-­shirt and oversize boy shorts, following Corinne toward the marina. Her parents, Poppy, and several other guests and staff members were already down there, gathered around where the big boats docked at the slips.

  “Stand back,” Uncle Jonathan was saying, trying to manage the crowd. In the gray dawn light, the aftermath of the party showed in all its ugliness—­the white tents sadly deflated, the ground littered with scattered paper napkins that had turned to mush in the dewy grass. Everyone was standing in a clump at the edge of the water, but Aster managed to shove her way through. When she saw what they were looking at, she screamed.

  A body lay facedown in the water. Waves lapped over his head, and his arms were splayed out at his sides. Aster recognized his pink oxford and his white linen pants, which were now translucent, revealing the white boxers beneath.

  It was Steven.

  Aster had started crying from the shock of it. He’d been so alive just hours before. She felt her cousins’ presence around her, Poppy and Rowan and Corinne’s faces blurring in her vision. Mason stood angrily on the sidelines, speaking in clipped, hushed tones into his cell. Aster looked away, stricken by a sudden and terrible thought: her father had done this. He was so furious that Steven had slept with her that he’d killed him.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d held on to that notion—­a few hours at the most, because by that afternoon, the police had questioned everyone. Apparently no one had been near the docks that night. But one thing remained clear: Aster had found it conceivable that her father was a murderer. Some ­people didn’t have it in them to kill, but she had felt deep within her gut that Mason did.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Aster’s father stood in the doorway. He was still in a trench coat, and was clutching a briefcase in his hands in such a way that it seemed he might throw it at her. His shoulders were stiff with rage.

  Aster shot up fast, logging out of his Gmail. “Um, my iPhone wasn’t working, and there was a work emergency. Elizabeth is such a bitch,” she added for good measure, skirting around him. She was so frantic to escape that she bumped her foot hard against the doorjamb. Wincing, she kept going, down the hall and past the dining room. Danielle and Penelope stopped eating, their eyes wide. “Aster?” Penelope called out, but Aster didn’t answer her.

  She hurried out of the town house as fast as she could. As soon as she was on the sidewalk, she fumbled to dial Corinne’s number. Blessedly, her sister answered on the second ring. “Where have you been?” Aster cried.

  “Just . . . around.” Corinne’s voice caught.

  “Can you meet me on the steps of the FBI field office in half an hour?” Aster said quickly. “I’m going to call Rowan—­she needs to be there. I think I’ve figured something out.”

  “I’ll be there,” Corinne answered. “I have something to tell you too.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  ....................................

  24

  A half hour later Rowan stood with her hands on her hips on the steps of the FBI field office in lower Manhattan. It was almost seven thirty, and the streets were clogged with ­people heading home from work, their briefcases swinging, cell phones glued to their ears. Every sound made Rowan’s heart jump: the grumbling subway beneath her feet, the whoosh of the city bus as it passed, a snippet of a salsa song spilling from the open window of a passing car. She looked frantically for her cousins, hoping they’d arrive soon. Now that she knew what James had done, she wanted to tell Agent Foley before something else terrible happened.

  Aster and Corinne arrived at almost the same time from two different directions. “I know who killed Poppy,” Aster said as soon as they were all together.

  Corinne blinked at her. “I do too.”

  Aster’s jaw dropped. “You know Dad did it?”

  “Mason?” Rowan cried, looking back and forth between them.

  Aster nodded grimly. “I think he was trying to cover something up—­Poppy knew about it and wanted him to come clean. He wanted Poppy out of the company, and he pushed her out—­literally.”

  Corinne wrinkled her nose. “Cover up what?”

  “I don’t know. Something about money and work.”

  Corinne frowned. “Dad would never do that.”

  Aster looked conflicted. “You don’t really know him, Corinne. Because Dad . . . well, he had an affair with Danielle Gilchrist years ago. I saw them.”

  “Wait, what?” Rowan exploded.
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br />   “Danielle Gilchrist?” Corinne repeated, her skin turning pale.

  Aster quietly recounted exactly what she had seen all those years ago—­and then what she’d found in Mason’s e-­mail. Rowan stared at Aster, not quite comprehending. Corinne’s face grew paler and paler. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered.

  “I’m so sorry,” Aster said, peeking guiltily at Corinne. “I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to ruin your image of our family.”

  Corinne tucked her chin into her chest. “Does Mom know?”

  Aster lowered her gaze. “I couldn’t bear to tell her.”

  A few pigeons landed near a piece of discarded soft pretzel and began to fight over it. Corinne sniffled, then took a deep breath. “Despite all that, I’m not sure Dad did it,” she said faintly after Aster had finished. “I think it was Will.”

  Aster squinted at her. “The guy you . . .” She trailed off. “Why?”

  Now it was Corinne’s turned to look tormented. “I didn’t tell you everything about my time with Will all those years ago.” She swallowed hard, and then explained the real reason she’d disappeared mysteriously for so many months that following year. When she uttered the words pregnancy and hiding out, Rowan felt her brain might burst. And then when she explained that she’d put the baby up for adoption, Rowan’s heart broke. Corinne had a child, a daughter.

  Corinne rushed on. “I think Poppy told Will the truth about what happened . . . and Will was furious,” Corinne explained. “You know Poppy—­she probably framed it like she made the decision to send me away, to save my reputation. Maybe he blamed her.”

  Tears ran down Corinne’s cheeks. She glanced at Aster, who stood on the sidewalk, looking equally stunned. Corinne let out a sniff, her hands wrapped tightly around her waist. Rowan walked over to Corinne and gently hugged her shoulders.

  “I hate that you went through that alone.” Her throat tightened as she thought of her younger cousin hiding herself away for so many months, telling no one her secret for years. The weight of it must have been unbearable.

  After a moment, Aster ran to her sister and hugged her too. “You’ll be all right,” she said gently. “I promise.”

  When they broke apart, Rowan looked at them. “I was going to tell Foley that James did it.”

  Corinne wiped away her tears. “But James was at your house when it happened.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Rowan said, explaining that the doorman had seen him leaving while she was in the coffee line. “I’ve never asked James where he was. So I really have no idea.”

  And she certainly wasn’t asking him now, either. Ever since the incident in her office earlier today, she’d been on high alert, half expecting him to grab her when she got off the elevator at Saybrook’s or be waiting for her when she went home. Which was why she hadn’t gone home.

  She placed her hands on her hips and watched the traffic. A boy pedaling a rickshaw trundled up the avenue. Two overwhelmed-­looking tourists sat in the back. Then Aster turned and faced the building. “Let’s go. Maybe Foley is already onto one of these guys as it is.”

  They hurried up the steps. After quickly sending their purses through the metal detector and holding their arms out for the scanners, the three of them boarded the elevator to Foley’s floor. The office still hummed with activity despite the late hour—­phones ringing, ­people rushing back and forth, a printer spitting out papers into a large, organized stack.

  The receptionist looked surprised to see three Saybrooks in the lobby. She made a call to Foley’s office and then announced, “She’s still here. She’ll see you now.”

  Everyone marched down a long gray hall and into an office where Foley sat behind a cluttered desk, squinting at something on a computer screen. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, her eyes looked tired, and her lipstick was slightly smudged. When she saw the three of them, she stood. “Come on in,” she said hurriedly, gesturing them inside.

  The three women filed in and sat down on a tweed couch. The room was decorated with flowers and quirky art prints. A pair of pink-­painted deer antlers hung from a high wall. Generic, depressing metal blinds had been swapped out for wood ones, as if they were in a Mexican hacienda.

  Finally Aster cleared her throat. “We each have thoughts on who killed Poppy.”

  Foley folded her hands on her desk. “Is this more about Steven Barnett?”

  They shook their heads and, one by one, told her their theories. As Rowan listened to her cousins speak, her hands trembled. Their suspects seemed as plausible as James was. It was hard to believe that three separate ­people might have wanted to kill Poppy. And she found herself frustrated with Poppy once again for the vast, deep secrets she’d kept. For the fact that she felt she could never come to them with anything. She was supposed to be Rowan’s best friend. That Poppy hadn’t turned to anyone, that she’d kept so many secrets, that she’d suffered through all this alone, was unfathomable.

  Foley’s brow was knotted by the time they finished. “Do you think this has anything to do with the person who hit us in Meriweather?” Aster asked, turning to her cousins.

  “I don’t know,” Rowan said, not having considered this. She tried to imagine James running all of them down, and her eyes burned with unshed tears.

  Foley spun in her chair to face a tiny window overlooking a cluster of gray buildings. “Well, nothing you’ve told me is useful, unfortunately. I’ve interviewed all of those ­people, and they all have solid alibis.”

  Corinne dug her fingernails into the couch. “Will? How did you know to interview him?”

  There was a trace of a smirk on Foley’s face. “Because I’m an FBI agent, Corinne. I do my homework. I’ve had you followed. I know you’ve been spending time with him. I didn’t know how that pertained to Poppy, but I did know that he used to live in Meriweather, and I thought there might be a connection. I spoke to Mr. Coolidge myself; dozens of ­people can vouch that he was at the Union Square market that morning.”

  Corinne’s face paled. “You were following me?”

  “I had to. It’s my job to keep you safe.”

  “Does anyone else in the family know about . . . him?”

  Foley straightened some papers. “No. Though I have to say, I’m getting a little tired of covering things up for you ­people.” She glanced at Rowan.

  Rowan felt a discomforting gust of emotion that she couldn’t quite identify, at Foley’s tone of voice. She leaned forward. “But what about James? I spoke to my doorman. James left just after I did the morning Poppy died—­he could have reached the office and pushed Poppy in time.”

  “I spoke to James too,” Foley said, shaking her head. “He also has an alibi for that morning.”

  “Yeah, my apartment.”

  Foley frowned. “Actually, not your apartment. He was somewhere else.”

  “Where?” Rowan demanded.

  Foley didn’t say anything for a moment, looking around at all three of them. Finally, she sighed. “He was with a woman named Amelia Morrow.”

  Rowan’s brain felt scattered. She knew that name . . . why? Then it came to her: Poppy’s daughter’s birthday party. The mom whose daughter had called biathletes “bisexuals.”

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, clapping a hand to her mouth. He’d gone from one woman’s bed right to another’s? Had Poppy known?

  Foley looked at Aster. “And before you even say it, your father didn’t kill Poppy either. He was prepping for the Singapore call that morning, and dozens of ­people saw him there. I don’t know what that e-­mail between Mason and Poppy meant—­that’s their business. Nor do I know about that transaction. That’s for an auditor to figure out.” She leaned back in her chair and stared at them hard. “I appreciate how much you care, ladies, but from now on, leave the police work to me, okay?”

  Then she rose, which seemed like a clear signal
for the others to leave. Rowan opened and closed her mouth, feeling slighted and patronized, but she didn’t know what else to say. She strode numbly and quietly down the hall like a reprimanded dog.

  Foley walked them all the way to the elevator, phone in hand. As she pressed the down button, Rowan cleared her throat. “If it’s not any of the ­people we thought, do you know who it might be?” she asked desperately. “Any inkling at all?”

  Foley’s gaze didn’t lift from her phone. “When I know something, you’ll know something.”

  “Does that mean you don’t know anything?” Aster cried. “What about Natasha? Have you found anything out about where she was that morning?”

  “Have you even been interviewing ­people?” Rowan demanded. “Danielle Gilchrist told me you never contacted her.”

  “I spoke to Danielle on the phone. She didn’t know anything helpful,” Foley answered in a surly tone. “Seriously, guys, just let us do our jobs.” There was a ding, and the cars swished open. Foley practically shoved them all inside.

  They rode down in silence. Aster scowled at the closed doors. “She didn’t have to be so rude.”

  Corinne tugged at her collar. “I can’t believe they were following me.”

  “They’ve probably been following all of us,” Rowan said bleakly. Her face burned at the thought of agents watching her steal into James’s apartment or pretend to be a mother to James’s children. They’d probably seen her find out about Evan too—­in fact, they’d probably known about Evan long before she did. It felt like even more of an invasion than the reporters or the gossipmongers on the Blessed and the Cursed, probably because Foley was supposed to be on their side.

  A garbage truck passed, bringing with it the foul odor of everyone’s mingled trash. “Well, I guess we’re back to square one,” Rowan said bleakly, turning back to her cousins.

  Corinne and Aster nodded. And then they parted ways, Rowan sliding into her town car. “Take me home,” she mumbled to the driver. She supposed there was no risk now of James lying in wait for her. He was a cheater, not a killer.