The Inheritance
Page 1
Praise for The Inheritance
“A mesmerizing suspense tale which should keep you guessing, breathless, and fearful. This is a classic Gothic type of tale, written with elegant prose, graceful style, and wonderful characterizations.”
—Sullivan County Democrat
“Gothic romance meets suspense thriller in this taut, diabolically clever story. A gripping read in the style of du Maurier.”
—Booklist
“Writing with fierce energy, Savage gives us an extremely clever and gripping novel, marvelously plotted and thoroughly spellbinding.”
—Tulsa World
“Tom Savage has proved himself the master of the surprise plot twist. It’s all crackling good fun.”
—The Pilot (Southern Pines, NC)
“[A] Gothic to end all Gothics, with an unusual twist at the end.”
—BookNews
“Tom Savage continues to demonstrate the wonderfully honed sense of plot pacing which is the hallmark of his writing.”
—Mystery Lovers Bookshop
Valentine
“Suspense with a twist.”
—James Patterson
“Genuinely shocking.”
—Booklist
“Effective … a truly surprising twist.… A stylish suspense novel.”
—Washington Post Book World
“A thriller with a heart. Savage writes with fierce energy, piercing holes into the shredding fabric of our society, where no one else is safe, no one is free from harm.”
—Lorenzo Carcaterra
“A well-crafted tale of madness … spine-chilling.”
—Naples Daily News
“A pleasurable crafty yarn … truly awesome.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[A] pulse-pounding thriller.… It’s the kind of psychological tale that burns its way right into the reader’s mind.”
—Abilene Reporter-News
Precipice
“An extremely clever and gripping novel, marvelously plotted, and thoroughly spellbinding … as good and surprising as anything I’ve read in years. Do not peek at the last page.”
—Nelson DeMille
“A subtle, well-crafted tale of deceit and madness among the rich.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A story on the edge … A twisty, quick plummet, a sunny landscape in which nothing—and no one—is what it seems.”
—Donald Westlake
“A stylish and accomplished novel with a terrific sense of place and a wonderfully complex plot.”
—Jonathan Kellerman
“Unexpected twists. Readers’ expectations may be blown to bits by the clifftop denouement.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A cool, smart, and stylish first thriller … that features a major twist in nearly every one of its tightly woven chapters.… Surprise piles on surprise … a finely wrought, unusually clever literary debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Other books by Tom Savage
Precipice
Valentine
Writing as T. J. Phillips
Dance of the Mongoose
Woman in the Dark
THE
INHERITANCE
TOM SAVAGE
The Inheritance
Copyright © 1998, 2013 by Tom Savage
eISBN: 978-0-9891491-0-5
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information, address Writers House LLC at 21 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10010.
for Uris
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Prologue: Washing Away the Dream
Part One: Holly Smith
Chapter One: “You’re Holly Randall Now.”
Chapter Two: The Legacy
Chapter Three: Arriving
Part Two: Holly and the Ivy
Chapter Four: First Impressions
Chapter Five: The Burial Ground
Chapter Six: A Game of Chess
Chapter Seven: The Watchers
Chapter Eight: The Prisoner
Chapter Nine: Happy Birthday
Part Three: Holly Randall
Chapter Ten: The Funeral
Chapter Eleven: The Island
Chapter Twelve: Auld Lang Syne
Chapter Thirteen: Breaking the Silence
Chapter Fourteen: Departing
Epilogue: Holly Randall Now
About the Author
I would like to thank my family, my friends, and my colleagues at Murder Ink for their encouragement and support. I particularly thank my mother, Lesley Savage, and the Friday Night Club: John Douglas, Jennifer Jaffee, Tina Meyerhoff, Larry Pontillo, Ann Romeo, and S. J. (Shira) Rozan.
Abby Adams graciously allowed me to use her marvelous observation as my epigraph. The quote is often attributed to her husband, Donald E. Westlake, but it was Abby who actually said it.
My editor, Danielle Perez, and her associates at Dutton have worked long and hard on my behalf, for which I am very grateful.
My agent, Stuart Krichevsky, has done more for me than I can possibly acknowledge.
Here is a roughly chronological list of several favorite authors who unwittingly contributed to this novel, and to my lifelong love of Gothic stories: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Henry James, Mary Roberts Rinehart, D. H. Lawrence, Shirley Jackson, Phyllis A. Whitney, Mary Stewart, John Fowles, Ruth Rendell, Stephen King, and Mary Higgins Clark.
And, now and forever, Dame Daphne du Maurier.
A Gothic is a story about a girl who gets a house.
Abby Adams Westlake
PROLOGUE
Washing Away the Dream
From a distance Randall House looks perfectly innocent, but you should never be deceived by appearances. There’s nothing innocent about it.
I suppose I’ve been studying the mansion on the Connecticut coast all my life, and I’ve always suspected that it held secrets. Oh, it may have started out innocent enough, when old John Randall built it a hundred years ago. But then the old man died and his son, the first James Randall, took over things, and it hasn’t been the same since. The first James brought the first scandal into the house, but not the last.
From a distance is an excellent way to view it. If you stand at the main road looking through the big wrought iron gates, you can see, beyond the gatehouse and the stables, the graceful curve of the drive as it stretches off to the right among the trees that accentuate the vast lawns, then around in a wide arc and up to the gravel circle in front of the main entrance. The big house stands against the skyline at the top of the rise on the headland, surrounded by the lawns that end in thick forest at the back and sides. From your vantage place outside the gates, the gatehouse blocks your view of the sheer cliff that is off to your right, and the rocky cove some seventy feet directly below it. The facade of Randall House faces the cliff and the Sound, and Long Island on the other side of it. It is a beautiful view. If you happen to catch a glimpse of one or more of the people who live there through the iron bars, you might assume that we are gracious, gentle people, and that our bounty is well-deserved.
As I’ve said, you should never be deceived by appearances. But I suppose you know that. Everybody knows what happened at Randall House. You know all about our most recent scandal, or you think you do.
I’m back here now after several long periods away, and being here again reminds me of the promise I once made to myself. I’ve been planning to write it all down for quite some time. I know the whole story now, I suppose, or as much of it as will ever be known. I was here then, and I was part of it. I saw and heard—and did—many things, and my presence often went unnoticed. I guess you could say I was the perfect witness, because I had no real ties to these people, and no stake in what became of them. Or so it was believed at the time.
This is my story. It may not mean much to you, but to me it is everything. It plays over and over in my mind, like a song.
Here is how it always begins for me, in a bedroom in Randall House on a morning in August, near the end of summer, several years ago:
“Good morning, Mrs. Wainwright.”
It was the first sound she always heard, and the first image she inevitably saw when she opened her eyes was the smiling face of the upstairs maid hovering above her. The pretty face would change from time to time, but the office was as old as the house itself. Her grandmother had been awakened thus. The current pretty face was named Martha, so she summoned a weak smile and bade Martha good morning.
The bedroom windows faced east, and she always closed her eyes again as the girl went over to pull open the drapes at the casement and the pure sunlight came streaming in. Then she performed the not unpleasant little ritual of blinking several times to clear her vision as she sat up in the bed. When she could see again, she looked over at the bedside table. Yes, the big, plain, heavy stoneware mug of strong Earl Grey was waiting there, as ever. No delicate, translucent Royal Doulton cups and saucers for her, thank you very much. Alicia Randall Wainwright’s day began with a good, solid, sensible mug of tea.
She took a sip of the hot, sweet drink and put the mug down. Then she maneuvered her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her cane. She only needed it first thing in the morning. Once she was up and about, her circulation flowing, she discarded the loathsome implement. It was a symbol of weakness for her, a state to which she would never succumb however the advancing years assailed her. She stood up from the bed, thinking, There won’t be any more advancing years.
She was going to die soon. Roger Bell, the family doctor and nearly as old as she, had already informed her of the fact, and she had no reason not to believe him. She knew it herself, really. Her heart was giving out. There had been the attack last February, followed by weeks in bed that she hated more than the pain itself. Her first act on rising from that almost fatal episode was a brisk ride through the estate on Lightning, her champion stallion. But now it was August, nearly the end of summer, and she would take advantage of the perfect morning weather with her other favorite activity.
“I shall swim before breakfast, Martha,” she told the girl who waited in the doorway for instructions. “Please tell Mrs. Jessel to hold off on the toast until I return.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Martha said. With a wide smile and a little bob of a curtsy, she disappeared.
Alicia threw aside the cane, removed her nightgown, and donned her black bathing suit. The terry robe went over it, and she stepped into her well-worn rubber sandals. A swim, she thought as she picked up the mug again, to wake me up and invigorate me, and to wash away the dream.
She finished the tea and made her way over to the door. She paused there, leaning forward to press her ear against the wood. No, nothing. No sounds from the other side. If her nephew, John, and his wife were up and about, they weren’t presently in the hallway here in the family wing. Good. She had never been fond of her brother’s younger son, and Catherine, his wife, was what Alicia’s mother would have called a simp. Her mother had been gone these many years, resting in presumed peace beside her husband in the little graveyard next to the chapel on the grounds of the estate. Nearly all of the Randalls were there now.…
But not all, she mused, boldly pulling the door open and stepping out into the cool, shadowy hallway. The velvet curtains of the big window here at the end of the hall were closed. She glanced around at the doors to the three other bedrooms, the two across the hall and the one next door to hers. Nothing. Her nephew and his wife had the two bedrooms across from each other closest to the center of the house, which had once belonged to Alicia’s brothers. John and Catherine were either still asleep or downstairs in the dining room. With any luck, she would avoid them entirely.
The other door at this end of the hall, across from hers, was the master bedroom. She glanced at that door again. Then, with a swift look down the hall to be certain she was not observed, she crossed over to it, opened the door, and peered inside.
It was cool and dark in the big bedroom, and the first thing she noticed was the gleam on the deep brown mahogany baseboard and columns of the enormous four-poster bed. The creamy white canopy and the matching quilt had been recently cleaned, as had the closed, heavy white curtains on the windows that faced the front drive and the east lawn. The silver combs and brushes that had been her mother’s were neatly aligned on the vanity table between the two front windows. She drew in a long breath. Yes, the lavender sachets in drawers and closets, the lovely scent she always associated with her mother, had been replaced with new ones. Martha and the other maids had been busy here, and now the room was ready, waiting for its new occupant.
Its new occupant. A slow, wicked smile came to her lips. She couldn’t wait to see her worthless nephew’s reaction when that new occupant arrived at last and took rightful ownership of the master bedroom. Oh, how she had waited for that!
With this thought, she closed the door on the room and hurried down the hallway. It opened at the end onto the second-floor gallery that ringed the Great Hall, the massive rotunda at the center of the house. She paused again at the marble gallery balustrade, looking down at the ocean of black and white marble squares, the checkerboard-patterned floor of the Great Hall that had been her grandfather’s pride and joy. She and her two brothers had once knelt here long after their bedtime, peering through the balusters at the glittering room below, watching their parents and thirty or forty guests dancing after dinner. This house had once been the site of frequent parties, and long weekends when all four bedrooms in the guest wing and the two in the pool house had been occupied by boisterous, laughing men and women. There had been no such gatherings here in many years.
No one was moving about down there now. Alicia raised her gaze to the balcony above her. Nothing: the third story would be empty by now, with the servants already performing morning chores in the kitchen and elsewhere on the grounds. The big chandeliers suspended from the domed ceiling at the top of the house above the Great Hall sparkled in the morning light.
Quickening her pace, she moved around the gallery to the grand staircase and descended, her hand sliding down the smooth, cold marble banister, her rubber-sandaled feet making no sound on the red carpeting. She arrived at the bottom of the wide staircase in the center of the Great Hall. Looking quickly around to be sure the big double doors to the various downstairs rooms were all closed, she walked to the entry hall.
The table against the wall next to the door to the library held a large vase of fresh summer flowers, but the silver tray beside it was empty. Either Mrs. Jessel had not brought the mail from the box beside the gatehouse, or there was no mail for her. Perhaps it hadn’t been delivered yet …? No. It was well after ten o’clock now. Mr. Braeden always came at ten.
She looked up into the big, brass-framed mirror on the wall behind the table. The clear, intelligent blue eyes in the handsome, lined face below her close-cropped white hair stared back at her, filled with anxiety.
No mail, she thought. No letter today. Oh, well, perhaps tomorrow.…
With a sigh and a little shake of her head, Alicia went out through the big front door into the bright sunlight, and down the steps to the circular gravel drive. The sky and Long Island Sound were clear today, deep shades of blue shimmering in the distance beyond the bright green of the sloping fron
t lawn and the forest at the edges of the estate. Long Island was plainly visible beyond the sailboats, a dark green line far away at the horizon. The salty sea breeze flowed past her, carrying with it the scent of the recently mown grass. She headed across the east lawn, past the summer house in the direction of the trees.
It would be the lake, as always. She’d never had much use for the big swimming pool behind the main house, and the little cove among the rocks at the edge of the point would involve a hundred stone steps from the cliff to the beach. From childhood, she had loved swimming in the little lake in the tiny clearing among the trees beyond the east lawn, at the easternmost perimeter of the property. Her parents had always admonished her and her two brothers, warning that the lake was really just a pond, filled with goldfish and frogs and turtles that did not welcome visitors. But Alicia and Jimmy and Billy had preferred it to the pool and the Sound. The three children had spent many happy hours there, laughing and splashing and playing tag with the big orange fish. What they had loved most about the spot was that it couldn’t be seen from the house: it had been their own private domain. And now, with Jimmy and Billy gone, it belonged to her alone.
She made her way through the trees to the little clearing. She dropped her terry bathrobe on the big rock beside the pond and sat down on it, drinking in the rich green smell of the place and feeling the warmth of the dappled sunlight through the leaves above her.
Jimmy and Billy. She found herself thinking about her brothers more and more lately. Billy, the reckless, grinning youngest, who had never had a chance at adulthood. He’d been shot down over the Philippines more than fifty years ago, at the age of twenty-one. She’s lost him and her young husband, Charles Wainwright, in the war, within a year of each other. And her older brother, James—well, he had been gone for fifteen years now, and his wife had died seven years before that. Early graves, all of them. But a life lost in wartime was reasonably understandable. James and his wife, lovely Emily, had simply ceased to live, not long after the murder of their older son. Their younger son, now comfortably ensconced here in the family home with his new wife, had never been a source of pleasure for his parents.