The Inheritance

by Savage, Tom

  “So, what are you thinkin’,” Pete asked the boy.

  Toby reached into a pocket of his down-filled jacket and produced a pack of Bicycle playing cards. He held them up in front of him.

  Pete stifled a laugh. With that deadpan look and his constant silence, the kid was somehow disarming. If he ever went into stand-up comedy, he’d be the biggest thing since Buster Keaton. But he’d have to have the dog with him, or it wouldn’t work.

  “Okay, c’mon.” He turned around and went back into the cells. Kevin looked up from the cot. “You have a couple of visitors.” He unlocked the cell and swung the door open. Boy and dog silently trooped past him. Pete shut the door and locked them in. “You have two hours.”

  He stood outside the cell, watching the pantomime inside. Kevin sat up and nodded to Toby, who nodded back. Then the kid pointed down at the tray of food and raised his eyebrows. Kevin shook his head. Toby picked up the tray and placed it on the floor, pulled up the folding chair, sat down, and began shuffling the deck. The dog silently went to work on Ilona’s special meat loaf.

  With a final sigh, Pete went back outside. Debbie came up to him, put her arms around his neck, crushed her ample breasts against him, and kissed him on the lips.

  “Okay,” he mumbled, “so I’m a softie.”

  Debbie laughed lasciviously. “You’d never prove it by me, big boy.” And she kissed him again.

  Pete stood there kissing Debbie Dobson, thinking, What the hell is going on over at Randall House …?

  They sat up very late together, just the two of them.

  Sam Collins had provided an excellent dinner: broiled baby lamb chops and roasted potatoes and asparagus, with salad before and hot apple pie for dessert. The pie, he’d jokingly confessed, was store-bought. Then Holly got him to hold forth on his career, and he’d kept the table entertained right through dessert and coffee. She’d insisted on helping him put things away in the kitchen, and Gil loaded the dishwasher. Then—she wasn’t sure if this was the result of some secret signal—Sam had bid her good night and gone up to bed, leaving her alone once more with Gil.

  The fire had burned low, and they were on their second brandies. They had been quiet for some time, she with her new information and he with the memories she’d stirred in him. But her coming here today had not been a mistake, she was certain of it. She had done the right thing.

  It was better for her to know the truth. All of it. How else was she to decide what course was now best to take? If she’d had any sort of choice in it, she would not have chosen her true parents, either of them. But there it was, and wishing wouldn’t change it. Beggars would ride, she reminded herself. So, now she had to make a decision.

  As if reading her thoughts, Gil said, “So, what’s next for Holly Randall?”

  She actually laughed, and he joined her. Then they sipped their brandy again, but she knew he was waiting for an answer.

  “Indio,” she said at last. “I’m going back to Indio. To Ben and Mary Smith. May I use your phone again?”

  “Of course.”

  She picked up the receiver and called Directory Assistance. She got the number she requested and dialed it, aware that Gil was watching and listening. The airline representative struggled nobly to find a flight from New York to southern California, explaining that the holidays were the worst time for reservations. After much searching, she offered Holly a first-class seat on a flight from Newark to San Diego on the fourth of January, if she didn’t mind a two-hour stopover in Oklahoma. Holly made the reservation, requesting—after a glance over at Gil—that it be a round-trip ticket with the return open.

  Gil watched her hang up and waited a moment before asking, “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

  “Yes,” Holly said. “I’m sure. I—I’ll be back soon, but now I just want to get away from there for a while. I don’t like John, and what you’ve told me makes me dislike him even more. And his wife—well, his wife is insane. I want to go home.”

  “You didn’t have to call a commercial airline, Holly. You can use a NaFCorp jet anytime you want, free of charge.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want a NaFCorp jet. I want—I just want to be Holly Smith again. For a little while, anyway.”

  He nodded and reached for the brandy, and she was grateful that he asked no more questions. She would not have been able to answer them truthfully, and this lovely man deserved only the truth from her. He had jeopardized his career to enable Holly to inherit the Randall fortune. If his withheld knowledge ever came to light, he would be disbarred. But he’d been willing to do it for her. Well, for her and for the memory of James Randall. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  Gil laughed. “If you’re trying to compete with a gorgeous soap opera hunk, you’re just about the only woman I’ve ever met who might win.”

  Holly laughed, too. “Oh, you just want me for my money.”

  This, of course, set the two of them off on paroxysms of laughter.

  “My dear,” he gasped, “you have no idea how close you are to the truth!”

  They laughed some more. Then Gil stood up, and now it was his turn to lean over and kiss her cheek. “I’m so glad you came, and I hope you’ll become a regular here. Please forgive me if I don’t become a regular at Randall House, but—well.…”

  She nodded, remembering something. “I guess that’s why you refused Mrs. Randall’s invitation to my birthday party.”

  He stared, and his smile disappeared.

  “What invitation?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” she said quickly, realizing in an instant what had happened. Constance. Of course. She wouldn’t want this man, of all people, anywhere near her. Her dead husband’s lover, the man who’d taken her child away from her. A man who might very well see through the hair dye and the contact lenses and the cosmetic surgery. No, she had not invited him.

  “You may stay up as late as you want,” Gil said now, “but I’m for bed. Finish the brandy, if you like. Your room is the one on the left at the top of the stairs, next to ours. Good night, Holly.”

  “Good night,” she said.

  She watched him go upstairs. Then she poured herself one more brandy and settled back on the couch, gazing out at the darkness beyond the glass doors. She sat there for a long time, reviewing the last six weeks of her life, beginning with the moment she’d stepped off the plane to find Kevin Jessel waiting for her. Smiling at her. Holding up the placard that read, HOLLY RANDALL.

  Holly Randall, she thought for the thousandth time. I’m Holly Randall now. I’m Holly Randall, and I’m ready for anything. Whatever fate offers. Whatever it takes to survive.

  Then, with a long sigh, Holly Randall, heiress of the Randall millions, drained her glass and went up to bed. She slept well that night because she was not in Randall House, because she felt safe for the first time in days.

  Less than twenty-four hours later, she would be very close to death.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Auld Lang Syne

  The next day was New Year’s Eve, the famous New Year’s Eve you’ve all heard so much about. On that day, Holly Randall’s fate moved her swiftly, inexorably toward tragedy. The countdown began at four o’clock that afternoon, when she drove Kevin’s Land Rover through the iron gates and up the curving drive to the front of the house. Everything else was destined to follow. There is no escaping destiny.

  She arrived in the house to be told by Mr. Wheatley that dinner would be served at eight, and that after dinner the entire staff would be attending the New Year’s Eve party at the Randall Town Hall. Holly smiled and nodded. They had cleared this with her two weeks before, but she said she’d forgotten all about it. Mr. Wheatley informed her that dinner would be roast chicken and stuffing, with crème caramel for dessert. There were also two bottles of Dom Pérignon in the bar refrigerator in the library, for later. When she asked for Mr. and Mrs. Randall, he told her that they were not at home at present, that they were in the
village for the afternoon. She smiled again and thanked him.

  The servants were not in the house at the time of the incident. Mr. Wheatley would later testify that none of them told Holly of the previous day’s business with Kevin Jessel and the police, at the request of Mr. and Mrs. Randall. He was thanked by the coroner and dismissed.

  The snow had begun at about one o’clock that day, before Holly had left Gilbert Henderson’s house and driven back to Connecticut. Now it continued outside, a steady swirl of flakes buffeted by the constant, sharp wind. The snow covered everything—ground, trees, buildings—in an ever-mounting coat of white frosting. From a distance Randall House looked perfectly innocent.

  Holly didn’t get farther than the Great Hall. She didn’t even remove her white wool parka. After Mr. Wheatley left her there, she turned around and went back outside, into the snow.

  She wandered around the grounds for about half an hour, circling the main house twice. She went into the summer house and took a good look around. She went to the chapel, where she found a single candle burning before the altar as she’d found one the first time she was there. She went into the pool house, and into the storage room beside it. She wandered the fields, the orchard, and the little forest with the frozen pond. At last, her private inventory completed, she wandered back into Randall House.

  At the big desk in the office she wrote letters, including a brief thank-you note to Gil Henderson for his hospitality and a thank-you-but-good-bye letter to the MacGraws. Matthew MacGraw’s painting was lovely, but enough was enough.

  In the living room, she stood before the painting for several long minutes, gazing up at it. That beautiful woman in the blue satin gown was Holly Alicia Randall. She needed to remember that. She needed to always remember, no matter what happened to her, that she was now the woman in the portrait.

  Upstairs, she went into her big closet and began to get ready. Among other things, she found the new, medium-sized Louis Vuitton suitcase she would pack for California.

  She paused a moment with the suitcase, thinking, I won’t tell them. I’m not going to tell these people—my parents, for God’s sake!—that I’m leaving. I will simply leave on the morning of the fourth. Clean and easy.

  But nothing was ever easy. Everything had a price. She, Holly Alicia Randall, was aware of that.

  Constance Hall Randall had had enough of the Randall Police Department. She’d certainly had enough of Chief Helmer. And she’d had enough of her weak, stupid husband.

  She’d had enough of everything.

  She was perched rather primly on the uncomfortable metal chair beside John, her feet pressed together, her purse clasped on her knees. They’d been sitting here for nearly twenty minutes, but their perfectly simple message apparently hadn’t sunk in. Now she silenced her babbling husband with a stern look and leaned forward.

  “Look,” she said to the chief. “All my husband is trying to say is that we don’t want to press charges against Kevin Jessel. Let’s just—I don’t know—pretend the whole thing never happened.”

  Mr. Helmer leaned back in his chair, glancing briefly over at the rather ridiculously well-endowed redhead who sat smirking in the corner. “Mrs. Randall, I asked Kevin to explain why he attacked your husband, but he wouldn’t say a word. If you could explain it to me, I might be able to decide what’s best to do about it.”

  John leaned forward again, ready to shoot off his mouth, but her hand on his knee stopped him.

  “We have no idea why he assaulted John,” she lied. “We know he’s very upset, which is understandable. Poor Dora—it was just awful, what happened. And his father, of course, that dear man. I don’t think Kevin is quite himself. And we don’t want to bring him any more trouble than he already has, if you see what I mean, Mr. Helmer.”

  At last the man nodded as if perhaps the message was getting through.

  “Very well,” he said. “I guess I can lose this report.” With a single motion of his arm, he swept the papers on his desk over the edge into the trash can. “This never happened.”

  Constance smiled. “Good. Come on, dear. We’ve taken up enough of Chief Helmer’s time.” With that, she stood up and strode to the door, John hurrying along behind her.

  In the car on the way back to Randall House, she finally relaxed. The interview in the police station had unnerved her. Any office of authority had bad connotations for her. Hard-ass Kendall and that bitch, Naomi Jackson. But Chief Helmer’s penetrating gaze had been particularly unsettling. He wanted to know the truth. More dirty laundry, she thought. This family definitely has more than its share of that.

  She leaned back in the passenger seat and closed her eyes. God, she was tired! Tired and defeated: a dreadful combination. Her husband was a pig, the pig she’d always known he was, despite her lifelong love for him. But raping Dora Jessel! She hadn’t expected that particular bit of news. He’d had his way with the village idiot, for heaven’s sake, when the poor thing was all of seventeen years old!

  He’d told her about it last night, when she had confronted him. As she’d held the ice pack to his swollen jaw, he’d told her the whole ridiculous story. About the provocative, trusting young girl he saw around the estate whenever he came home to visit, and his growing desire for her. How he had followed her down to the beach under the cliff one afternoon in summer, shortly after her senior prom. He’d played with her and flattered her and tried to kiss her. When she’d become frightened, he’d held her down and forced her to submit to him. Afterward, he’d warned the weeping girl that she must never tell anyone what they’d done, or her parents would be fired and her family would be out on the street. She’d never said anything, but she’d meticulously recorded the story in her diary—the diary her brother had apparently found yesterday.

  The poor halfwit had spent her entire adult life in mortal fear of John. It was disgusting. He was disgusting.

  This revelation had been the final straw on an already overburdened camel. Holly had spent yesterday with Gilbert Henderson, her nemesis, that awful creature who had been Jim’s great love. God knew what he’d been telling her! And Ichabod—the appropriately named “Cousin Icky”—knew more than she or John suspected. She was certain of it.

  Oh, God, she thought, what if Icky has seen me? Recognized me? What if Gilbert Henderson has somehow figured it out? What if Holly knows who I am, and what we’re planning?

  It was all closing in on her. She didn’t want to go back to Kingston. She wouldn’t go back there. Ever.

  She glanced over at her husband, thinking, Idiot! Then she leaned back and closed her eyes again, bracing herself for the night ahead.

  She knew what she must do now.

  Holly stood at her bedroom window, watching her father and mother get out of the Mercedes. John waved vaguely toward Zeke, who waited nearby. The couple came into the house, and Zeke got in the car and drove away.

  It was six twenty-three.

  That man is my father, she thought. She remembered her foray into the Randall cemetery that day several weeks ago, in the fog. She remembered kneeling over James Randall’s grave, wondering why she couldn’t feel anything. Now she knew: she hadn’t felt anything because the man in the grave was not her father. John Randall was her father.

  She shook her head, sighing.

  It was now six twenty-seven.

  At six-thirty, Ichabod turned off his computer. He was tired of playing chess with an inanimate opponent. But there was something else wrong, as well.

  He was afraid.

  He couldn’t remember now when the feeling had begun. It seemed to have been going on all day, ever since the snow had started falling. The fear had begun as a tingling at the back of his neck, emanating outward from there until it gradually involved his entire body. His withered, useless body. His scarred body.

  With a long sigh, he went over to the shelf where he kept the scrapbooks. He pulled down the oldest one, the one that recorded the history of the Morris and Randall families, and took it ove
r to the table. He stared down at the familiar photographs of his sister and his in-laws, and immediately the tears began to flow. Emily. Jimmy. Alicia. Those wonderful people, those victims of Constance Randall.

  Oh, God, it is a sin to hate, he thought, but I hate her. I hate her I hate her I—

  The fear stabbed into his abdomen. It encompassed him now, a throbbing pain all the way out to his extremities. Something was wrong. Somewhere in this house, in the world, there was evil afoot.

  Evil.

  He knew all about that. He was eighty-seven years old, and he knew all about everything. The one advantage—or curse—of living this long was the knowledge of every emotional state on earth, good or bad. And this one was bad. Very bad.

  Evil …

  Wiping away the useless, impotent tears, he closed the scrapbook and shuddered. Something evil was in this house. Now. Tonight. And he was powerless against it.

  Then the knock came at his door. It was Holly, and he’d never seen her looking so drawn, so tense. He wondered if she felt the evil, too.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He forced a smile. “Hello. How was Long Island?”

  Holly smiled, too, but it was not a pretty sight.

  “Most informative,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it one day when you have two weeks.”

  They laughed together then, but it was not a natural laugh. Nothing today was real, he noticed, ever since the snow had begun. He thought, Perhaps nothing will ever seem real again.…

  “I’m having dinner with them soon,” Holly said. She didn’t have to tell him who “they” were.

  “Yes,” he said, watching her.

  “Then we’re going to toast the new year in the library.”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “Will you be up later?” she asked. “I could come up and have champagne with you, if you’d like.”

  He smiled. More artifice. “Oh, my dear, I’m planning on retiring early tonight. I have a sleeping pill for later. Raymond will bring me some dinner in about an hour, before he goes into town for the party. I shall toast the new year then, with him. Then I’m for bed.”