The Invisible Heiress Read online

  I think if I could ask, and she was honest, my mother would admit she wasn’t referring to my brother dying but to me living.

  The Invisible Heiress

  The Heiress loves to hear what you have to say so she can ignore any and all good advice. By all means, advise.

  Comments

  Masked Man

  Your life is so sad. Wish I could do something for you. Hey, maybe we could hook up. I’ve got ten inches of shock therapy with your name on it.

  Reply: You wish. Get a life, freak.

  Maggie May

  Hugs 2 you, Heiress. What a terrible thing 2 live thru. Can’t imagine how you coped. You’re such an inspiration. Hope you’re getting all the help you need.

  Reply: All the help I need doesn’t exist.

  Scribbler

  I just stumbled across your blog. After reading this latest offering, I’m relieved to know it’s all a fiction. I mean really, you should write a novel. What an imagination. You’re not going to keep up the ruse that this is real, are you? I mean, how stupid do you think we are?

  Reply: How much time do you have?

  Jack

  My sister made me read your blog. Super weird. I’d love to talk to you about a film project. Got an email?

  Reply: [email protected]

  Chapter Nine

  Preston

  “Give me the fucking remote.” I yanked the clicker out of Rosalie’s hand. “Doesn’t your doll need a diaper change?”

  Nurse Judy kept her head down, studied the crossword puzzle she struggled over, the tip of her purplish tongue poked out the corner of her mouth. I took liberties during her distractions.

  “I want to watch The Life of Kylie,” Rosalie said. Only a smudge of the marinara we’d eaten for lunch smeared her tunic.

  I surfed the channels while Rosalie pouted.

  “Hey,” she said. “Your dad. Purse Bramson.”

  “What? Where? Purse Bramson?”

  “Double-oh whatchacallit. Spy guy.”

  “Oh brother. James Bond? Pierce Brosnan? My father is not Pierce Brosnan.”

  I pressed the back arrow. Rosalie’s new drug regimen stirred up whatever brain cells she could still rouse. District Attorney Dad filled the screen, surrounded by aides, reporters, and spectators on the courthouse steps. 007 huh? I guess he was handsome. I squinted. From afar, he did look younger with his new hair and all. Plopped my butt on a folding chair in front of the console, scooted closer to the screen. Dad’s charisma leapt off the TV. Female reporters scrambled to get near him. He could work a crowd for sure.

  “Can’t hear,” Rosalie scooted along with me.

  I flicked up the sound.

  Rosalie banged on her doll’s head.

  “Mama mia,” she said a few decibels louder.

  “Huh?” I scanned the gathering around DA Dad. “You really are a nutter, that’s a reporter, not my mother,” I said.

  Rosalie dropped her baby, jumped to the screen, her eyeballs an inch away. “That’s your M-O-M.” Backed into her chair again.

  “Fuck me, that is my mom.”

  Nurse must’ve upped Rosalie’s meds. There she was, in the back, barely caught on screen. Mother never showed up ever, let alone behind DA Dad in a non-election year. Her mingling with the great unwashed jarred me into high alert. Something didn’t make sense. Mother never did anything nonsensical.

  “What’s she doing there?” I said out loud.

  “Maybe it’s a surprise,” Rosalie rocked her doll back and forth. “Daddy’s birthday.”

  “No, it’s not but you’re onto something.”

  Mom lingered, hair loose, unkempt, not the immaculate coif of norm. Unkempt and Harrison Blair didn’t belong in the same sentence. I sat straighter, leaned closer. “Dad didn’t know,” I said. “That makes sense. Mom showed up unannounced, but for what?”

  “It’s her birthday,” Rosalie said. “Duh.”

  “Hush. No, it’s not,” I said. “Is she wearing Lilly Pulitzer?”

  “No,” Rosalie said. “Larry.”

  “Shut up,” I elbowed her. “She didn’t know about the press conference. No way.”

  My mother never wore Lilly Pulitzer outside her garden, to bark loud slow orders to the landscapers. Only the working class wore cheerful prints in public.

  “Look out, she’s a runner,” Rosalie ponged up and down.

  Sure enough, Mom bolted stage right, but the surging crowd ensnared her. The camera followed her, not my father, who yammered on and on several rows of people in front of where Mother tried to dodge her way through. Press probably hoped for a sleazy story, but I doubt anyone recognized her in such a state. Probably thought some lunatic was trying to cause a commotion or shoot someone. They’d recognize her later. I felt sure. Payoffs would follow if history held. Suddenly, she froze, like somebody zapped her with a stun gun. I half stood to watch, glued.

  Her expression gripped me. So foreign, it took a few seconds before I could name it. Panic. The camera shifted farther into the jostling crowd, giving me a better view. A matador without a cape, she stepped to one side, then the other, forward and back, the pulsating pack didn’t stand down, kept growing. With one hand at her serrated throat, she stopped short.

  “The constitution prevails in Virginia,” DA Dad droned, unaware of the drama at the rear. If he half turned, he’d see, but the camera’s siren song kept him fixed. Questions ricocheted, cameras clicked, people shoved—Dad oblivious.

  The volume hadn’t changed, but I’d gone deaf, stared like a sniper. Mother stared right back. I imagined shooting her between the eyes, dropping her like a peony-covered bag of bricks. She crumpled, staggered back a few steps, as if I’d done the deed for real. Then as quick, before anyone could notice, Mom righted herself, pushed through the morass and ran.

  “She’s off,” Rosalie said, like she’d bet a thousand dollars on the twenty to one at Churchill Downs.

  I stretched to my full height to take in the spectacle. District Attorney Fitzgerald, handsome in Armani, charmed whoever held a microphone. In his element, Dad played a flawless statesman, mouthing platitudes on TV. Didn’t look sad in the slightest. You’d never know his only child studied him from a place where the fixtures, furniture, and clothing were designed so she couldn’t kill herself using any of them. Or that his wife, seconds before, fled the scene like a penitentiary escapee.

  “Preston,” Nurse Judy called. “Your husband’s here.”

  Chapter Ten

  Isabel

  “That’s the last one for me.” Jonathan scratched off the remaining item on his agenda. “Your turn.”

  Missus Jonathan’s assault on the conference room walls still distracted me. Paint fumes mashed up with a hint of ash assailed my senses. Before I could refer to my list, his lips started moving.

  “Hope you’ve given up that home repair nonsense,” he said. “Bruises gone.”

  “Learned my lesson,” I said. “No more DIY or shaky ladders for me.”

  Note to self—use a stronger safe word next time. Yell. Don’t whisper the damn thing.

  “Got a decent haircut too,” Jonathan said. “Don King wasn’t a good look on you.”

  I tucked a coiffed, strategically placed extension behind my ear.

  “You need to look professional, Isabel, not like a fugitive. Not a fan of those fashionable lashes, but what do I know about trends?”

  “Not that again.” I scratched an item off my list to make it shorter.

  “Thought it might have something to do with your new man.”

  “What?” I scratched a second one.

  “Saw you and your fella last weekend. Well, you and the back of his head. Didn’t see me I guess.”

  “Where?”

  “That dive on Sixty-Eighth Street.”

  “You’re the one not feeling up to snuff,” I said. “Haven’t been there since we—”

  “Coulda swore it—”

  “Don’t have a fella.” I picked up my chops
tick to poke inside the carton of almond chicken from the Chinese dump down the street. “What were you doing there? Wife out of town?”

  A pinkish stain spread up his neck, across his face. “Oh, well, I just—”

  “I know just what you do. Hope you do it with a condom this time.”

  “Isabel, come on.”

  “Never mind. Preston Blair’s set to get out of Haven House.”

  “Already?”

  Jonathan tossed his chopsticks in one of the empty takeout containers, his face a study in relief for the subject change.

  “Time flies when you’re making no progress,” I said. “One month left of a twelve-month recommended stint.”

  “Is she ready? I mean cutting her mother’s throat . . .”

  “Dad paid for a new wing means she’s ready.”

  Jonathan whistled. “What about Harrison? Thought she set everybody straight on Preston ever getting out.”

  “She might not know. Harrison spent months in the hospital. Lots of complications, I heard. No memory. She doesn’t even remember what happened to her, much less minutia like dates. Like to be a fly on the wall when the old broad hears this spoiler.”

  “What about family therapy?”

  “A bust.”

  “What’s Judge Seward say?”

  “Nothing. Never responds to my reports.”

  “Par.” Jonathan made origami with his napkin.

  “Preston’s voiced no threats,” I said. “That’s the litmus test. Indulges in the occasional tantrum, nothing that can’t be dealt with as an outpatient. The guard Todd hired to dampen Preston’s tomfooleries Haven House already got the boot, all systems go.”

  “So Preston’s still a therapeutic zero?”

  “She makes listening sounds, still insulting, obnoxious,” I said. “Too bad if you want to know the truth. Preston’s intelligent, good-looking, witty. She could make a real life for herself if she tried.”

  “You’re getting soft. Sounds like you’ve warmed to her.”

  “Calling it like I see it. Preston grew up with everything and nothing all at the same time. Told me about her brother but since then, nothing useful.”

  “I checked that out,” Jonathan said. “You?”

  “Better believe it. Cooper Fitzgerald Blair born, then died, sixteen months later. Short illness was all I found. No details.”

  “Do you really think Mom and Dad forced Preston to hold her dead baby brother for a photo op? It could certainly explain a lot about her.” He made a face. “And them.”

  “I’m certain she’s lying,” I said. “Actually, I’m on the fence. Humans are capable of all kinds of atrocities.”

  “Indeed.” Jonathan capped his pen, closed his folder, pointed to my list. “Anything?”

  “Think we just covered most of mine.” I’d scratched through all my items but one. “Before we call it a day—”

  “What?”

  “I need money.”

  Jonathan flopped backward in his seat. “Speaking of atrocities. Jesus Christ. I knew you’d do this. I gave you the money we’d agreed on.”

  “I’ve got this thing—an emergency.”

  “What emergency? You get free office space. Pay no expenses—all courtesy of me. Your whole life’s an emergency you greedy, crazy—”

  “I’m sure I can work out alternative arrangements with your wife.”

  The skin around his mouth tightened. “For a minute there I thought you’d grown a heart. Should’ve known where this was headed when you brought up condoms. A threat.”

  “You need threats?”

  Too bad our la-di-da meeting turned sour. Didn’t intend to piss him off or renege on our deal, but this couldn’t be helped. Despite his wandering dick, Jonathan wasn’t a bad guy, but too bad for him. I needed more cash. Dodging creditors took up more time than my job. Jonathan beat the conference table with a closed fist.

  “You’re gonna blackmail me into eternity,” he said.

  “Probably.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Preston

  “How’d you find me, Brendan?”

  “Wasn’t easy,” my husband said. “What kind of place is this? Jesus Christ, what happened?”

  “Now you want to know?”

  Brendan reached for his man bun with delicate, paint-stained hands, held aloft by a skinny paint-by-numbers type paintbrush, uncoiled the long auburn hair, rewound it.

  “No phones here? You couldn’t call?” he said, after he’d anchored his hair.

  “Call where?” I said. “The teepee? No one knew where you’d gone. Besides,” I waved an arm around. “Been otherwise engaged.”

  “I took my cell phone,” he said.

  “Shoulda used it to call me then. You’re the one who left.”

  That stumped him. We stared across the table at each other a while.

  “I know your mom isn’t exactly Carol Brady,” Brendan said. “But still. Jesus Christ, Preston.”

  “You know what I’m like.”

  “Yeah, I do. You were headed for the cliff before I left, but slitting Harrison’s throat is over the top even for you.”

  “Think again.”

  “Your mom must’ve pulled one hell of a boner for you to—how nuts are you?”

  “Judge said I was exactly nuts enough. So none of it’s my fault.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “Says the out-of-work artist who used my family’s money to fund his year-plus globe trot. Don’t try to sell your crazy to me. I got that in spades. What do you want?”

  “I want to hear what happened, from you.” He flicked lint off his black jeans, torn in that hipster way, too cool to make an effort or money.

  “Ask your dad.”

  “Did already. Big, bad, dad, chief of police said what I’d heard through the rumor mill. You got in yet one more bitch fight with Harrison, but this time slit her throat because you were drunk and high. She should’ve died but didn’t. Your mother doesn’t remember a damn thing. Far as he’s concerned it’s a private family matter. Bless his cold, dead, bought and paid for heart. Not a real crime.”

  Brendan tilted back, balanced on two legs of the four-legged chair.

  “He’s still pissed at me about the drugs. About everything, but he’s forever loyal to your father, fucking lap dog.”

  “Nothing more to tell,” I said. “Same ole, same ole. I got high, drunk, my mother came to the house. We fought.”

  “You fought over what?”

  I felt the room turn upside down. Brendan sounded far away, he’d faded out, the air around his body waved, murky. I blinked for focus. “Something bad for sure. I gave her what she deserved.”

  He reached across the table to take my hand. I jerked it back. I feared his touch as if his skin would loose my dormant devils. Memories rushed me—good ones, shitty ones, most from our kick-the-hornet-nest early years, huge gaps where more recent ones should’ve been.

  “Leave me alone, Brendan. You need money?” As soon as I asked, I knew I was worried he didn’t have any.

  “What the hell, Preston? Shit no. I got sober, sold some paintings.” He pulled a thick chain out from under his T-shirt with a disc hanging from it. I leaned in to read it—six months.

  “Good for you.”

  I could see his accomplishment meant a lot to him, even though he worked to edit his face so he wouldn’t smile. I knew every gesture so well. I’d studied them my whole life.

  “I mean that, Bren. Good for you.”

  “You’re sober too. Right?”

  “Yes. But by force, not choice.”

  His deep-as-the-ocean blue eyes stretched bigger. Hopeful.

  “Couldn’t we try again?”

  Yes threatened.

  “Why would we do that?” I said.

  “Because we—”

  “Don’t. Please don’t say a thing about love.”

  Weariness settled on me. Our short but difficult marriage had taken the oomph out of both of us. He mig
ht not want to remember it that way, but I did.

  “You took off in the middle of the night without a word,” I said. “I didn’t lift a finger to find you. Trying again implies we tried the first time.”

  “I know but—”

  “I’ll tell Daddy Warbucks to write you a check.”

  I lost interest in reminiscing. I pushed away from the table, aimed to leave. Took a few steps to the door. My feet felt trapped in concrete shoes.

  “Send me divorce papers,” I said. “I’ll sign.”

  I looked back at him sitting there, worry written all over his face. Made me remember why I’d once loved him.

  “You should be free of me so you can get on with your life,” I said. “Start fresh.”

  “Who died?”

  I stopped, hand on the knob. “What are you talking about?”

  He’d followed behind me. I felt his breath. “I know people too, born and bred here, they talk. Somebody died.” His words wet my neck.

  Rage started a slow march up my spine.

  “You don’t know shit. No one does,” I said, still not facing him.

  “Someone’s dead, just not your mother.”

  His voice didn’t sound harsh enough for the message he delivered.

  “You should get your delusions checked out while you’re here,” I said to the door.

  “I don’t know what’s going on Preston, or who did what to who, but I’ll find out, that’s a promise.”

  Before he got away from me, I spun, stood eye to eye with him, grabbed his stupid six months chip on a chain and pulled it tight across his Adam’s apple. His head jerked back, fingers clawed at mine to break my grip. I held fast. Brendan kicked the door, made gurgling sounds, tried to shake me off before I choked the life out of the bastard.

  Chapter Twelve

  Isabel

  “I suppose you felt certain your poor husband wouldn’t press charges,” I said.

  “Charges?” Preston made a face. “My parents’ll shovel up a load of cash to squelch any nonsense like that.” She reclined on the bed like Lady Gaga on a litter. “Asshole should thank me for reopening the flood gates. Idiot said he doesn’t need money, but no such thing as too much money.”