The Inheritance Read online

  They’d met in Monte Carlo, John told her. They’d fallen in love immediately, and they’d knocked around Europe (that phrase again) for several months (“He chased me around Europe!” Catherine interjected) before she agreed to marry him. At fifty-plus, as he put it, John had given up on the idea of ever marrying—until he met Cathy. They were wed at the George V Hotel in Paris, by a local judge. Catherine had been married before, they explained, which put a damper on their original plan, to be wed at Sainte Chapelle.

  Holly smiled and said that it all sounded terribly romantic. Of course, she’d done little else but smile at them from the moment they’d arrived here from dinner. She’d smiled all through dinner, as well.

  She studied them as they spoke, these attractive, intelligent people who were her uncle and aunt, and she wondered what she thought of them. She wasn’t sure, really. They seemed perfectly nice, perfectly pleasant. And yet, she couldn’t lose sight of the fact that, but for her, they would be much better off than they were. That was ridiculous, she supposed. Her uncle and aunt were already better off than most of the world. But there was such a thing as avarice: Holly knew that only too well. She knew what it could do to people. So, naturally, she wondered what they thought of her.…

  Catherine—Cathy—poured her another cup of coffee from the silver service on the table before them. Holly thanked her, sat back on the couch, and smiled some more.

  He’d seen the man in the drive a while ago, but now the man was back in the gatehouse. He’d been very careful that the man did not see him. The man’s name was Kevin, and he was apparently the chauffeur. Kevin had been with the mark all morning in town, and then he’d brought her back here.

  It was nearly ten-thirty. The man John Randall knew only as Ed was stationed in a grove of trees about halfway between Randall House and the front gates. He’d been on the grounds for two hours now, slowly circling the house and the outbuildings. He was very careful to remain out of sight among the trees as he moved around, getting the lay of the land. It was freezing, and he couldn’t wait to get back to his car.

  His name was not Ed, but Alec. Alec Buono. Alessandro Buonaventura, truth be told, but who the hell wanted to be saddled with a name like that? This was America, not the old country, and Alec Buono was about as much as anyone here could handle.

  As a low-ranking member of a prominent crime family, Alec had a lot of time on his hands, which was why he occasionally took freelance work. Off the books, he thought, grinning as he glanced down at the wedding ring he still wore: money his ex-wife would never know about. Not that he was on the books with the Family, but she and her lawyer could estimate his income there with unnerving exactness. His permanent employers were aware of his extracurricular activities, but they politely looked the other way. He performed an invaluable function, and what he did when he was not serving them was all right with them, as long as they were never involved in it.

  Alec liked women, and he always had a lot of them. Hell, that’s what had broken up his marriage in the first place. He still wore his wedding ring so none of the women would get any ideas. But lots of women meant lots of expenses, which was why he was here now, freezing his ass off.

  He raised his binoculars and peered through them at the two lighted windows to the left of the main entrance to the house. The curtains of one window were open, and he could see the heads of the two women on the couch. They were facing into the room, and Alec knew his employer, John Randall, was there, though he couldn’t see him. But no matter: it was the young woman with blond hair who commanded his attention. He gazed at her profile through the binoculars, sighing.

  This one wasn’t going to be easy. He’d never done a job on a woman before. And she was such a lovely young woman. He’d almost turned John Randall down cold in the diner yesterday—until he heard how much the man was offering. Hell, for that kind of money, he figured he could ignore his love of women just this once.

  But this woman, Holly Randall, certainly was beautiful. He’d stayed the night in a motel by the highway, and he’d discreetly followed her today. He’d watched her and the man, Kevin, in the drugstore, and on the waterfront with the police chief, and later in the park, when she had suddenly become upset. She had every right to be upset, he supposed: all the townspeople were staring at her. Staring and whispering.

  Now it was just a matter of learning her habits. He would give her time to settle into a new routine in her new home. He would come back next week to observe her again, and several times after that. John Randall wanted it done sometime after the new year. By then, Alec would know all he needed to know about Holly Randall.

  He would get the job done.

  The front door of Randall House opened and a woman stepped outside, closing the door behind her. As he watched, she switched on a flashlight, came down the steps, and began to walk directly toward him across the lawn.

  He felt a brief prickling of panic as he stepped back into the darkness behind a tree. Had he been seen from the house? Should he go now, get away from here and back to his car by the main road before she arrived to confront him? His right hand began to move instinctively toward the holster inside his jacket.…

  No. She wasn’t coming toward him, after all. He relaxed, expelling his breath in a long, silent sigh as the woman with the flashlight continued down the sloping lawn toward the drive. She passed by him several yards to his right, and he got a glimpse of her face. It was the housekeeper, Kevin’s mother, on her way back to the gatehouse. Because the drive curved in a wide arc before it reached the house, she was taking a shortcut across the lawn. Of course.

  He watched the beam of the flashlight move away down the road toward the lights of the gatehouse. The woman opened the front door, switched off the flashlight, and went inside. The door closed.

  He returned his attention to the main house. The lights in the library windows went off, and a few minutes later lights came on in a couple of the upstairs bedrooms in the wing to the right of the main entrance. So, everyone was going to bed for the night. Good: it was time he did the same. He’d stay at the motel tonight and drive back to the city in the morning—

  A sharp barking from somewhere very close to him made him jump. He immediately crouched down at the base of the tree, reaching again for his gun, listening. He heard a low whistle, also very near, and the barking stopped. That damn kid with the dog, he thought, the one he’d almost hit with the car earlier this evening, when he’d come here from the motel.

  He’d taken the road from town, and as he’d neared the estate he’d switched off his headlights. There was a little lane, John Randall had told him, leading to an old, abandoned farm, just before the turnoff to Randall House. He could leave his car there for reconnaissance missions on the grounds. He’d slowed, peering through the darkness in search of the lane, when two figures had suddenly loomed up almost directly in front of the car. A boy, about fifteen, walking along the road with a German shepherd. He’d slammed on the brakes. The boy and the dog had turned around, startled, and the dog had begun to bark. Then, taking the dog by the collar, the boy had moved to the side of the road to let him pass. He’d driven quickly past them, found the lane, and parked.

  Now, it seemed, the kid and the dog were roaming around these woods somewhere nearby. Kids, Alec thought with disgust. He’d have to be very careful around here. A gatehouse with a family living in it, a stable with three horses, and a kid and a dog skulking around the place. The grounds of Randall House were alive.

  He looked back up at the facade of the enormous house. The only lights that were on now were in the corner bedroom on the right. The master bedroom, her room. John Randall had described the house for him in some detail. There were alarms on all the windows and doors, but Alec knew his way around those. There wasn’t a door he couldn’t pass, an alarm system he couldn’t circumvent, once he’d put his mind to it. It was one of his special talents.

  But his biggest talent was accidents. He could make any death look like an accident.
And that was precisely what he was planning for Holly Randall.

  She sat at the vanity table in her new silk bathrobe, brushing her hair with the silver-plated brush that had belonged to her great-grandmother. Uncle John had told her at dinner that the initials engraved in the silver, ELR, stood for Ellen Louise Randall. After dinner, before going into the library, Uncle John had led her into the big living room on the other side of the foyer. There, above the massive fireplace, was a life-sized portrait of an elegant blond beauty in a blue gown. Holly had stared at the painting of Ellen Randall, noting that the woman’s coloring and features were not unlike her own. She regarded her own image in the glass as she once again raised the silver brush to her hair.

  And now, at last, she thought about Kevin Jessel. She smiled at the thought of him, coloring slightly as she remembered the moment in the car when she had leaned over to kiss him. It had been an impulse, a gesture of gratitude, but now, in retrospect, she did not regret doing it. He was certainly handsome.…

  And she was grateful to him. A shiver ran through her as she remembered that awful moment in the park, when she had stared around at all those silent figures, confronted those frosty, oddly accusing eyes. Her sudden panic, an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. And then that arm around her shoulders, that reassuring voice, that gentle touch as he led her across the grass to the car.

  With a last little smile at the memory of kissing his cheek, she put down the brush, rose, and went over to the bed. She dropped the bathrobe on a chair, slipped naked between the sheets, and reached over to turn off the lamp on the night table. Then she lay back against the soft pillows, listening to the low, steady hiss of the ancient radiator as it filled the bedroom with warmth.

  She must have fallen asleep immediately, she would later decide. Otherwise, she probably would have reacted differently to what followed.

  She was definitely dozing, in that borderland between sleep and full alertness, when she began to drift, and then to dream. It was very bright where she was, very warm, and she was holding someone’s hand. Slowly, in the way of dreams, the scene around her became clear.

  She was standing in the main quadrangle of her college campus in San Diego, surrounded by buildings. On the sidewalks in front of the buildings stood several motionless, staring people. She recognized classmates, and several professors, and Gregory Sandford III and his family. Her roommate from Palm Springs, Rhonda Metz, was there, too. Even her parents, Ben and Mary Smith. They surrounded her, staring silently from the distance. With a gradual, sickening certainty, she realized that she was naked. She looked over with mounting horror to realize that the man holding her hand was Kevin Jessel, and that he, too, was naked. Clutching his hand, she gazed wildly around at the silent, accusing faces of everyone she knew, everyone she’d ever known, feeling the cold, raw chill surge up through her exposed body as the bright California sunlight faded and the scene dissolved into another.

  They were still naked, still holding hands, but now they were on the Green in front of the bandstand. The horrible tableau from earlier today came back to vivid life, only now the townspeople were staring at their nakedness. The little boy beside his mother raised his arm and pointed directly at her, and then he began to laugh. One by one, the others joined in. They moved slowly forward toward the two figures in the center, their demented laughter rising in pitch.

  With a cry of anguish, Holly broke free of Kevin’s grasp and began to run, pushing through the enclosing mob as she fled across the grass, faster and faster. Then, somehow, her feet no longer touched the ground. She was flying, soaring down the road as the trees rushed past her and the wind whipped her nude body and the iron gates of Randall House loomed up before her. She floated through the gates and up the curving drive, aware all the time of the derisive, high-pitched laughter behind her. Through the open front door, across the Great Hall and up the carpeted marble stairs, around the gallery and down the long hallway to the master bedroom. She melted through the solid door and sailed across the darkened room to land, light as a feather, between the sheets. She pulled the covers up over her head, trying to drown out the sound of the laughter, knowing that the townspeople were even now filling the room, crowding around the bed, reaching out their bony fingers to point accusingly at her.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  She was sitting up in the bed. She listened for the laughter, but the only sound that reached her ears was the steady hissing of the radiator. As her vision focused, she saw that there was not a crowd of figures standing at the foot of the four-poster bed.

  Only one.

  It was the figure of a man. He stood at the baseboard gazing down at her, clad in what appeared to be a monk’s robe and hood. Light streamed in on him from the hallway beyond the bedroom door, which now stood open. As she peered up at him, he turned quickly away from her, in the direction of the light. She had a fleeting glimpse of his face, or, at least, half of it. A long, wrinkled face beneath a shock of white hair. But she could only see half of it, the left half. Where the right half of his face should have been there was—nothing. Darkness.

  Then the robed figure moved, as she had moved moments before, in her dream. He floated across the room, the cassock flowing out behind him, and through the door. He reached out a ghostly, skeletal hand and closed the door behind him.

  When she heard the soft, distinct metallic click, Holly came fully awake. She blinked several times, and her heart began to pound. She realized in a sudden rush of wakeful clarity that the last part of her dream had been real. There had been a man here, at the foot of her bed, seconds ago. An old man—a very old man—with only half a face. And when she’d woken to see him there, he’d silently left the room.

  She lunged for the bedside lamp and switched it on, flooding the room with light. The alarm clock next to the lamp indicated that it was one thirty-five. She already had the receiver of the bedroom telephone in her hand before she stopped, confused, staring down at the many buttons. There was a little typewritten list pasted to the side of the phone: dial 1 for the kitchen, 2 for the butler, 3 for—for what? Whom would she call? Everyone was asleep by now, including her aunt in the next room. And what could she possibly tell them that they’d believe? That an old man in a monk’s robe who had something terribly wrong with his face was wandering around the house? No, they wouldn’t believe her. They’d smile and tell her she’d been dreaming. And perhaps she had dreamed him. Perhaps she’d seen a ghost.…

  No. If he’d been incorporeal, nothing but ectoplasm, he would not have needed the door.

  In a flash, she was out of the bed. She grabbed the robe from the chair, pulling it around her as she hurried over to the door. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, and yanked the door open.

  There was no one in the hall. The light from the brass wall sconces illuminated every corner of the passage, every shadow. Nothing.

  Holly stepped out into the hallway, softly closing the door behind her. She cocked her head to one side, listening. She thought she could hear a rustling, a whisper of movement, from the darkness beyond the far end of the hallway. She moved swiftly, silently in that direction, glancing nervously over at the doors of John’s and Catherine’s rooms as she passed them, half expecting one or the other door to fly open to reveal a sleepy relative gaping at her.

  She emerged from the hallway onto the gallery that ringed the Great Hall. Here, all was in darkness. She stood at the railing, her hands resting on the cold marble, peering down into the gloom. No sound, no movement. Nothing down there. Slowly, her gaze rose to the gallery itself, and to the dark hallway of the guest wing beyond it, on the far side of the Great Hall. At that moment, from down that dark hallway, she thought she heard a soft click, identical to the sound of her bedroom door closing moments before. She held her breath, straining to hear any further sound from that direction. Nothing. Silence.

  With a sigh of relief, she turned from the railing toward the lighted hallway.

  A dark figure loomed before her,
backlit by the lights of the hall. She gasped and brought a hand up to her breast.

  “Is everything all right, miss?”

  Holly sank back against the marble balustrade, grasping it for support, and strong hands reached out to steady her.

  “Miss?”

  It was the butler, Mr.—Mr.—Mr. Something-or-other. She recognized the mellifluous West Indian accent immediately. When she caught her breath, she began to giggle.

  “Yes,” she managed to say. “I’m all right, Mr.—umm.…”

  “Wheatley, miss.”

  “Mr. Wheatley. Yes. I’m sorry. I thought—I thought I heard a—a noise.…” She waved a hand limply in the direction of the Great Hall behind her, trying mightily to control the laughter that was welling up inside her.

  Mr. Wheatley took her gently by the arm and led her forward into the light of the hallway. Now, in the light, she saw that he was wearing a beautiful red satin smoking jacket over striped pajamas. Definitely not a monk’s cassock, she thought, and she began to giggle again. Besides, he was African-American, and the man she’d seen—or thought she’d seen—was definitely Caucasian.…

  “It’s a big house, miss,” Mr. Wheatley was saying. “Sometimes, you hear things in the night. It’s usually nothing, nothing at all. Of course, I thought I heard a sound, so I came down to look—and it was you! Don’t you worry, Miss Randall. You’ll get used to this big old house soon enough. Can I get you anything? A warm drink from the kitchen?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll just go back to bed. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”