by Zelda Reed
The Inheritance
Vol. 4
Zelda Reed
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Copyright
First Original Edition, November 2014
Copyright © 2014 by Zelda Reed
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Sneak Preview
Acknowledgments
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The Inheritance
Vol. 4
One
On our way to Gina’s Chris passes us in his car. Alanis curses as he unknowingly cuts us off.
In the rearview mirror I make out the dull edges of my jaw, a green wash over my skin. Am I going to vomit?
“We should follow him,” I say.
Alanis glances at me sideways.
“Alright,” she says, a grin tugging at her mouth.
______
We follow Chris because I’m angry. He’s lied to me about Louis Romero and I believed him. He’s pitted me momentarily against Neal.
This is why I don’t do relationships because I’m terrible at them from the start. I can’t trust men because they’ve all revealed their true colors but Neal, though he’s lied to me before, he’s been gentle to me and kind. I love him and Chris has tried to take that away.
He parks in a lot two blocks away from Neal’s house. We stop across the street and follow him to a dog park outlined in large trees and black benches.
A small dog runs up to him, pure black with curly hair cropped close to the skin. Chris bends at the knees, scratching behind his ears, a loose smile spreading across his mouth.
“How…how are you?” someone says, shuffling slowly towards them. The dog’s tail wags. He bounces away from Chris, his ears flopping at the side of his head as he runs circles around Carl’s ankles.
I grind to a halt.
Alanis pushes us behind a tree, the pair of us hidden like spies.
This is the first time I’ve seen Carl since the incident in the bathroom. I can’t look at him without vomit slivering up my throat. The left side of his face is purple and swollen, especially around the enflamed bridge of his nose; his top lip is split and growing dramatically over his bottom. Patrons of the park openly stare as he and Chris take a seat on a bench, facing us, but I can’t bring myself to care. Not anymore.
“You’re pale,” Alanis says, barely looking at me. “Why don’t you go back to the car before you pass out.”
I will not be dismissed. “This was my idea,” I say.
Alanis times their conversation: ten minutes of Chris chatting with his arms waving and Carl giving him his careful attention. At the end, the two of them shake hands and Chris stands.
Alanis pulls me to the other side of the tree, our faces pressed towards one another as Chris passes by, his phone in hand.
He leaves Carl in the park, twisting the leash around his hands, eyeing up unsuspecting women who walk by. Is it my duty to warn them about him?
In the car she says, “We’re in luck, Carl may look menacing but he’s not dangerous.”
I push my hands beneath my thighs and feel his breath on my skin and smell his sweat. My throat closes up. Yes, he is.
______
I carry a lot of doubt. It brews in my stomach and swims in my head. I’m dizzy with it.
My head’s against the car window when I ask Alanis, “Who is Louis Romero?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“Chris told me he was Neal’s cousin.”
Alanis rolls her eyes and I know I’ve slipped up.
“Neal doesn’t have any cousins,” she says.
I believe her but it does nothing to alleviate my guilt.
“What about a Dr. Louis?”
“You know…” She’s ready to tell me off. I’ve crossed too many lines in such a short span: believing Chris over Neal, refusing to take her word. She falls silent, her fingers tapping against the steering wheel. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. She’s hiding something.
“What?” I say.
“When I was looking for people to invite to the wedding I came across a Louis Thoreau. He was a childhood friend but Neal wanted nothing to do with him. He said the last time they talked was when he dropped out of med school. Why?” Alanis says. “Who’s Louis Romero?”
I settle back against my chair. “I think he’s the man who killed my father.”
Two
I am sick with guilt as we pull up to Gina’s house. The sun’s beginning to set, the sky orange with a dash of pink. It reminds me of early morning vomit, of the illness growing in my stomach, a small tug evolving to a boil.
Alanis says, “You wanna order out?” and I bite back a gag.
My father was murdered. I know it in my bones, like a twin knows the instant their other half is dead. This is what I wanted but I can’t handle the weight of it. Someone wanted my father dead and they succeeded without so much as a police investigation.
Neal kisses me and I give him a limp smile, moving past him to plop down on Gina’s couch.
I pull my legs to my chest as Alanis catches Neal up on everything we know. She yells, “What did I tell you about him?”
Neal sinks beside me on the couch, his head in his hands. He reeks of fear and Gina’s cheap lotion. The smell of him mixes in the air like gas, surrounding me in a fog. I stand up, dizzy and disoriented.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
I don’t answer him.
I shoot upstairs, swinging open the bathroom door and drop to my knees. I vomit up my breakfast and lunch, warm liquid slicing the inside of my stomach, emptying me with every heave. I don’t stop until my knuckles turn white, clutching the porcelain toilet.
Neal waits at the threshold of the bathroom, his arms crossed, light with discomfort, as if he isn’t sure what to do with his hands. My hair threatens to fall into the bowl and Neal gathers my hair at the nape of my neck, his thumb massaging my skin.
I sit up and he pulls me towards the wall. He shuts the toilet lid and flushes it. He wets a rag and Alanis arrives with a glass of water.
Neal cleans me up, wiping my lips and my cheeks like I’m an invalid instead of a capable adult. I’m ashamed of myself and duck my head when Neal hands me the cup of water.
“Please drink this,” he says, his voice wavering.
He’s afraid for his life. I see it in his wide eyes, watering at the edges. He isn’t going to cry but there’s a part of him that wants to. There’s a part of him that wants to scream; to break out of this house and string Chris up by his ankles. The same part that drove him to break Carl’s nose.
I take the water.
Neal sits on the toilet, his knees knocking into mine, his feet on either side of me. Alanis leans against the sink, one foot out the door, the other centimeter’s away from Neal’s. Ther
e’s too many of us in this small room, suffocating it.
“Chris didn’t give you anything, did he?” Alanis asks. “When you were at the condo?”
I don’t know what she’s talking about. Then I think of the bottle of champagne, popped out of sight, poured like liquid gold in a glass.
“No,” I say. Then, “Maybe.”
Neal’s fists clench on either side of the toilet. His jaw audibly tightens as he leans closer to me. “What did he give to you?” he says.
I turn away from him. “I’m fine.”
Did Chris give me something or is my sickness a symptom of my dormant guilt?
Neal and Alanis exchange a glance. I think of Ashleigh’s forehead pressed against Chris’s shoulder, her laughter rolling from her throat, her champagne glass pinched between her fingers.
“Ashleigh,” I say. “Ashleigh had some of it too.”
“Had some of what?” Neal asks, one hand on my knee.
“Chris poured us champagne but…I think he had a drink himself too.” I can’t remember.
“Doesn’t matter,” Alanis says. “Lots of poisons have antidotes.”
A rush of warm saliva fills my throat. “Why would he want to poison me?”
Neal leans back and I stare between his legs at the lip of the toilet. I have to vomit again, I feel it in my throat.
“He’s cleaning house,” Neal says.
“What for?” says Alanis.
I lurch forward.
I paw at the toilet seat. Neal shoots to his feet and climbs over me, standing shoulder to shoulder with Alanis as I vomit.
“I’m going to check on Ashleigh,” Alanis says. “We might be in trouble.”
______
Alanis slips on her boots in the foyer and I appear by her side, my mouth rinsed out, an air of Gina’s perfume clouding around me.
On her vanity in her bedroom there’s a gold plate full of expensive perfumes with pumps. They’re all obnoxiously sweet scents, like clouds of cotton candy or maple syrup and pancakes. Smells associated with little girls and wide-eyed teenagers, neither of which describes me or Gina.
Neal watches me from the door. He doesn’t want me to go but he knows he can’t stop me. I’m not the sort of woman who responds well to demands.
“Would it take this long for my body to react to the poison?” I ask Alanis in the car.
“Sometimes,” she says. “If you alter it.”
I can’t imagine Chris in a lab, hovering over a silver table of tubes and shimmering instruments, measuring substances he’s extracted from a plant or pill. If he’s poisoned me (I don’t think he has, I feel well enough to move.) he had to have some help.
______
Alanis walks ahead of me, clasping her gun, released from the holster around her thigh.
There are four people with access to the penthouse floor: me, Ashleigh, and the two men who work the front desk. They trade shifts in the middle of the evening, handing off a ring of keys in the lobby. In emergencies they’ll let you up, or (I’m assuming this is what Suzanne did) if you flirt with them they’ll slide their key into the elevator slot, granting you access with a wink. Someone could be up here now, lurking behind the corner to the stairway, waiting with a gun of their own.
Alanis checks the hidden corners as I unlock the condo door. She rushes in front of me, arm outstretched, entering weapon first.
A man’s sitting in the living room, flipping through one of my father’s books, a burgundy hardcover on the New York Stock Exchange. It’s vintage, from the twenties or earlier, signed by the author who’s long dead. I was never allowed to touch it, the copy stowed away on the highest shelf, next to a first edition of The Old Man and the Sea.
I don’t recognize this man with his square jaw and dark hair, black-rimmed glasses falling down the slope of his nose. Alanis blocks me from approaching him, from snatching my father’s book away from his fingers, her pistol trained on the side of his head.
The man pretends not to notice us. He flips a few pages, reads a few lines. The book snaps close and Alanis releases the safety.
“Is all that really necessary?” he says, finally lifting his head. Behind his glasses his dark brown eyes shine.
“Who the fuck are you?” Alanis spits, stepping forward.
The man places the book on the coffee table and holds up his hands. “I was invited here by a friend.”
“On your feet,” Alanis says. “And you didn’t answer my fucking question.”
The man rises to his feet. He’s tall, around six feet, with dark wash jeans and a breezy denim button down. If he wasn’t an intruder I would find him attractive, but I don’t. I’m afraid of him despite his easy smile and surrendering hands.
“Who invited you?” I ask, steps behind Alanis.
He glances over his shoulder, as if he hasn’t seen me standing there. “You must be Caitlin Wheeler,” he says, flashing me a smile.
“And who the fuck are you?” Alanis says.
“I’m Louis Romero. Would either of you happen to know where Chris is?”
Three
My fear transforms into anger as Alanis and I sit across from Louis Romero. His bushy eyebrows raise in amusement as he eyes Alanis’s gun, aimed between his legs.
He makes a joke concerning the length of his cock. “You sure you have enough bullets?” His crooked smirk spreads across his mouth.
Alanis rolls her eyes.
Although he and Neal aren’t related, there are similarities in their tanned skin and build. They boast large heights, broad shoulders and full lips; lips Louis nervously licks as he glances at his watch. His leg jumps up and down as if he has somewhere to be but Alanis won’t let him leave, not until Chris shows up.
“You got anything to drink?” he asks me, leaning forward.
The fridge is full of bottled water. I picked some up the day before. “No,” I say.
His smile falters. “Can I get a glass of water, then?”
“No.”
His face collapses and he straightens his shoulders, leaning back against the chair. “I’m feeling a little bit of hostility in the room.”
“You broke into my apartment,” I say. “What did you expect?”
“I didn’t break in.” He reaches into his pocket. Alanis raises the gun towards his forehead. “Whoa, calm down, it’s just,” he pulls out a set of keys. “Chris gave me a pair of keys.”
He throws them on the coffee table. Two of the keys wear neon pink hats. Ashleigh’s copy.
I snatch them from the table and shove them into my purse. How could Ashleigh hand my keys off to a stranger?
Alanis settles her gun back between his legs. “Call him,” she says to Louis.
“Call who?” he says.
“Call Chris and see where he is. We don’t have all fucking day.”
An image of Ashleigh lights up in my brain, her wrists tied around her back, rope scratching her skin as Chris pulls a blindfold around her eyes. Soft tears slide down her cheeks as Chris digs his nose into her hair, whispering, “Everything will be alright.”
Louis puts his phone to his ear and a key slides into the front door. The three of us turn our heads.
Chris enters, Ashleigh close behind him with small, wet eyes. Her eyeliner’s run down her cheeks, a shade of black staining her skin as she kicks off her shoes and pushes her hair behind her ear.
She looks up and spots me. She stops in her tracks. She turns her head towards Louis, then to Alanis. “Caitlin,” she says. “What are you doing here?”
Chris moves behind her, a ring of keys hanging off his finger.
“Who gave you a key to my condo?” I ask.
Chris twirls his key ring, a flash of gold and silver lifting up in the air. “Ashleigh made me a copy,” he says. “Yesterday afternoon.”
Ashleigh doesn’t have the decency to duck her head. She’s too young to understand the fault in her actions. Now that I know she’s alive I want to scream, you dumb bitch, why the fuck did you g
ive him a key? Don’t you know he’s crazy?
“You’re late,” Louis says, standing.
Alanis trains the gun on his chest. A large yelp flies from Ashleigh’s throat. her shoulders jump towards her ears. She curls towards Chris, her face near his neck, desperate to bury itself there.
“Sit down,” Alanis says.
Chris steps in front of Ashleigh. “Put down the gun, Alanis.”
Alanis jerks her head and gun in his direction.
“Do you know her?” Ashleigh shrieks, both hands blocking her face.
“Yeah, I do,” he says.
Alanis stands. “You didn’t think you’d find us here, did you?”
Chris stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Of course I did. This is Caitlin’s house.”
“And yet you have a key,” I say, standing.
“So everyone else gets to stand but me,” Louis says, throwing his hands in the air.
“Shut the fuck up,” Alanis barks.
“Is this about earlier? With Lee?” Chris asks.
“No,” Alanis says, lying through her teeth. “Caitlin thinks this one killed her father.” She cocks her head in Louis’s direction. “And I’m inclined to believe her.”
“Whoa,” Louis says. “Someone’s jumping to conclusions. We just met.”
He’s speaking to me, a ridiculous grin playing at the corners of his mouth. I imagine him standing at my father’s bedside, his skin pale and covered in sweat as Louis shoots another round of mercury in his system, clear liquid draining from the syringe.
“That’s not true,” Ashleigh says, removing her hands from her face. Alanis keeps her gun trained on Chris. “He didn’t kill Julian.”
“Yesterday you didn’t even know who he was,” I say.
“She knows of him now,” Chris says. He takes a step forward and my throat tightens. I don’t want to be afraid of him, but I am. He locks eyes with Alanis as he passes her, wandering over to Louis. “I thought the two of them should meet.”