Inheritance (24 page)

Sick. Under pressure. Coercion.

With a surge of energy he went through the papers on top of the desk and pulled everything out of the drawers, searching diem for phrases, sentences, odd words that would show a mind unhinged. And then, in the midst of his frantic reading, both hands fiill of papers and envelopes, he heard the front door open, and voices from below: Rosa, loud and pleased, then Laura, then Paul. He couldn't make out their words; they were two floors below. What the hell were they doing here? Why weren't they fucking in bed?

He shoved the papers into the top drawer, stuffing them to the back so he could close it. No, damn it, some of them had been on top. Neat piles. He remembered. Pulling out papers at random, he put them squarely on the desktop and forced the drawer shut. Something was janmied at the back, and he gave a final push as Rosa's voice reached the other side of the closed door. "—got here about an hour ago; he said he'd be in his father's study."

There was a knock at the door. "Felix," Paul said, but Felix was moving silently into his father's adjoining bedroom. He heard the door from the hall open. "Sorry to bother you, but Laura needs— " There was a pause, and Felix heard him say, "He's not here."

"My goodness," Rosa said. "And I never heard him leave. I must be getting old. Though Felix always was very big on creeping about and surprising people. Well, we won't be bothering him, that's clear. Can I help you find something, Laura?"

*No thank you," Laura said, her voice almost inaudible.

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"We just came for a few of my things; I'm going to stay at PauPs for a few days."

Felix crept into the hallway from the bedroom and then down the carpeted stairs. Creeping about. That stupid woman would be hred as soon as he could manage it. He eased open the front door and closed it quietly behind him. Staying at Paul's, she said. There would be plenty of time tomorrow to come back for the letter and anything else he could find.

Unless that was what she'd come back for.

He cursed himself. He could have taken it instead of shoving it back into the drawer; what in God's name had gotten into him? He stood beside his car, torn between getting away before they saw him or waiting until the house was daiic and then going back to find out for sure. He had his own key; he*d never used it but this was the time.

He waited. He had to know.

Half an hour later, he saw Laura and Paul leave. It took another two hours for Rosa's light to go out. And then he waited another hour before returning to the house and using the key he had had made after Owen's heart attack four years earlier.

He felt his way in the darkness up the two flights of stairs and into the study, closing the door quietly behind him before turning on the same lamp he had used hours earlier. And then he opened the drawer and runmiaged through it, looking for the letter.

Which wasn't there.

He yanked the drawer out of the desk and turned it upside down, but only a single invoice was still in it, caught in a crack on the side. He went through the papers on top of the desk. Not here, not here, not here. She took it. The bitch took it. Conned a sick old man, then stole papers from his desk.

She didn't con him. The letter proves it.

Rage flooded him; his throat was filled with bile. He stood beside the desk, breathing in ragged gasps, trying to think.

He had to get it back. She'd use it to prove the old man wasn't sick and coerced, to show he knew what he was doing and did it on his own. Have to get it back, he thought; have to find it. Not let that bitch and that old man make a fool of me in front of my family and the whole world.

Judith Michael

Have to think of something. And I will. I'm not the kind who panics and makes mistakes. I'll think of something; I'll figure this out the way I always do.

I can take care of myself.

At the will reading, he attacked. He had thought of nothing new, and so he charged forward, as if the letter did not exist. Everyone in the family was talking at once and he stood up, to take charge. He stood behind the heavy library table with his hand on Paiidnson's shoulder to keep him silent. When he had his family's attention, he spoke to Laura, who was standing in front of a window with Paul's arm around her. His voice was flat

**He didn't know what he wanted. He was a sick old man who was manipulated and terrorized by a greedy, conniving witch, and for the entire month after his stroke— **

**Felix!" Paul's deep voice cut across his uncle's raspy one. •*Wbat the hell are you talking about?"

•*You fucking bastard!" Clay bellowed, riding over Paul's words. "Who the fuck do you— "

**Keep your mouth shut," Felix snq>ped and went on, never breaking stride. *'—entire month after his stroke was a helpless invalid who could neither move nor speak— **

"Felix!" Paul said again.

"He could speak!" Laura said. "He talked to me—we talked—"

"—neither move nor speak intelligibly, and it was obvious to everyone that he had lost his ability to think clearly. And that obvious fact was taken advantage of by this girl, who was only one of his whims until she wormed 1^ way into his life and then, when he was dying, kept the nurses out of his room so she could be alone with him and manipulate him into dianging his will— "

"That's enough," Paul said furiously. "God damn it, Felix, you're mad; what the hell has gotten into you? This is a goddam pack of Ues— **

"Owen didn't want the nurses!" Laura cried. "He told me to keep tbem out!" Her tears had dried in streaks on her cheeks. He didn't want strangers; he wanted me!"

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"He didn't know what he wanted—^" Felix began for the third time.

"Shut up!" Paul roared. "Let Elwin finish reading! And by God you'll explain this to me later; you'll apologize to Laura and to the whole family—"

Ignoring Paul, Felix put his head back, looked down his thin nose, and flung his voice at Laura. "He didn't know anything, did he? He didn't know that you're a criminal with a record, that you have a criminal for a brother, and that you lied to him—you lied to all of us—for four years while we took you in and gave you everything."

Her gasp ripped across the room and he knew she would lose.

"Four years," he repeated, hammering at her. "And we all know that four years ago, the summer you and your brother appeared at our door, our house was robbed of an irreplaceable collection of jewehy and—"

"We didn't have anything to do with that!" Clay shouted.

Everyone was talking at once, turning to each other in alarm, calling out to Felix to explain what he meant. But Felix spoke directly to Laura. "You don't think we'd believe that! From the evidence I now possess, I have concluded that you came here for one purpose only—to rob us—and then decided to stay when you saw you could wrap your tentacles around my father, just as you'd done once before with another old man who left you a fortune before he died, and then!"—he shouted above his family's rising clamor, with a glance at Paul—"then you wrappeid yourself around a young man of wealth, because professional fortune hunters never miss a chance, do they Miss Fairchild?"

"I'm not! I loved Owen!" Laura flared, but she sounded breathless. "I love Paul. You have no right to lie—^"

"Don't you talk to me of rightl You came to us with lies; you came to entrap, to ensnare; you wormed your way into our household . . . and you robbed us of my wife's jewels and almost killed my father!"

"It's a goddam lie!" Qay shouted. "We didn't do that job; we changed our—^"

Triumph flashed through Felix. He saw Paul's arm drop

Judith Michael

fix)m Laura's shoulder, saw Leni's look of disbelief, and saw Allison's shocked, angry stare. Good. Let her try to bring up her letter now; it was too late. He had her.

He looked at Laura with contempt. "You changed nothing. You're a couple of common criminals; you've never been anything else; and I'm going to see to it that everyone knows it. Fm going to break that codicil in court; I'm going to see to it that you don't get a penny of my father's fortune. You'll leave the way you came, with nothing; you'll leave now, and you'll never have anything to do with any of us again!"

In the cacophony of the room he saw Laura put a hand against the windowpane; he watched her look up as Paul moved away, putting distance between them. And then he saw her eyes change, as if she remembered—

**Wait! Wait a minute!" she cried. "Owen wrote a letter . . . before his stroke . . . before he was sick! He told me about it—about what it said. I didn't force him to do anything—^I can prove it—!" She turned and almost ran to the docM*.

**F11 come with you," Paul said. His eyes were dark with doubt, but he followed her and slammed the door behind them. "Will you tell me what the hell is going on?"

**I can't talk about it," Laura said. He isn't sure; he thinks Felix might be telling the truth. How can he think that if he loves me? "I just want to prove that I didn't force Owen to love me. He really did love me, God damn it, and I can prove it! And then I'll get out of here so no one—"

**Why?" He was keeping up with her as she sped up the stairs to the third floor. "If everything Felix says is a lie—^"

Laura yanked open the door of Owen's study and ran to the desk.

"Is it all a lie?" Paul demanded.

She pulled the drawer toward her and sucked in her breath at the (^sorder within. "It never looked like this . . . I'll have to look through everything ..." Sitting down, she pulled out all the papers and put them in her lap. The room was quiet. And when she finally looked up, Paul saw in her eyes bewilderment and then despair. "It's not here."

He looked at her, wanting to go to her but holding back, remembering.

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Laura mimicking Jules. A superb actress.

Laura climbing, like a cat. "I used to climb on the rocks up the Hudson."

Her job as assistant concierge. "It's something I can talk about and not hide."

Her refusal to handle merchandise in department stores. As if someone might accuse her of trying to steal.

Her collection of ten perfect first editions worth forty-five thousand dollars. Left her by an old man in his will.

"I asked him to keep it; I didn't want it," Laura was saying, almost to herself. "I didn't want to be reminded that he'd die, so I asked him to keep it and he said he would, and he put it in this drawer. I saw him."

"What did it say?"

"I didn't read it. He said it was an outline of all the plans we'd been making—plans for his hotels, the ones he owns separate from all tfie others."

"The hotels he left you."

"Yes but I didn't know he was going to leave them to me."

"You had a letter from Owen and you didn't read it."

"I didn't need to. Don't you understand? It was only in case he . . . died. . . ."

"Was Felix lying about the rest?"

"Damn you!" Laura leaped to her feet. "Danm you, danm you, how can you ask me tfiat? You saw me with Owen—you know how I was with you— I loved you and I loved him! Everything I did—everything you saw for a whole year—I did with love. And you know it! You're not a fool—you know what you saw, what you heard, what you felt . . . You know what you felt! It wasn't a lie! Was it? Were we lying—a whole year together— were we lying?"

"I wasn't." He was frowning as he looked at her, and Laura knew that for the first time he was listening to her as if there might be a double meaning in her words.

She held her head high and looked straight at him. "Owen beUeved in me. I gave him my love and my trust and he was proud to have them and he gave me ... he gave me the same ... so much I could never thank . . ." She swallowed hard. But her voice was husky. "He loved me, he believed in

Judith Michael

me, and damn you— damn you —for making me believe in your love as much as I believed in his and then not trusting me when Felix— *'

She turned away. She was cold inside, and numb, and her eyes were dry. / won't cry. I'll never let anyone make me cry again, not through love, not through pain. Her back to Paul, she said, ''Every day the woiid seemed new and wonderful because of you . . . and I thought you felt the same. But you pulled away from me, you cut us apart as soon as he started talking. You didn't believe in me enough to wait until we could talk . . . until we could sort it out. You didn't beUeve in our love ... or in anything. Not even in your own feelings. Or yourself."

They stood without moving in the heavy silence. Laura's hands lifted slightly, then fell. Her back straight, her head high, she walked to die door.

"Was he telling the truth?" Paul asked.

**Yes," she said and left the room.

The family's voices stopped abruptly as she opened the library door. She saw Felix look at her hands and wondered > why his eyebrows shot up. Why did he still pretend? He knew || she wouldn't find the letter; he'd taken it the night Rosa said I he was here. She looked around the room, her eyes moving impassively over Allison's bewildered, angry face, Leni's bleak sadness, Barbara Janssen's puzzled eyes, the confusion among all the others in the Salinger family. Her look reached Clay's scowl. "We're leaving," she said.

Rosa would send her clothes; she'd stay in Philadelphia, with Clay, until they decided what to do next. She had to find a lawyer, to see if they had any chance against Felix. But there's probably not a hope in hell, she thought. What judge would believe Laura Fairchild, who had a police record in New Yoik, against Felix Salinger, president of Salinger Hotels Incorporated and a prominent member of Boston society? She had to try, but it wasn't something to count on.

No one had spoken. She looked at Felix, and their eyes held for a long moment. I'm going to do everything / can to ruin you. However long it takes, whatever I have to do, I'll make you pay for lying about Owen, and about me, and for

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taking those hotels and this house away from me when he wanted me to have them — and died thinking I would.

Without looking back she and Clay walked out of the library, and out of fie house, into the heavy heat of the August sun. Laura turned to look once more at the house, gazing at the red brick, the dark green shutters, Owen*s windows on the third floor. Dearest Owen . . . dearest friend. Godspeed. God bless you. I love you.