The Inheritance (Volume Three) (7 page)

He’s lied to me. Again.

“Thank you,” I say, spitting out the words.

“Caitlin,” Martin says again, my thumb reaching to end the call. “It took your father years to trust me. Please don’t make the same mistake.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t.” He shifts in his seat, the leather squeaking beneath him. “But try to listen to me. Be careful Miss Wheeler. Be careful.”

I barely say anything to Neal when I leave. He presses his hand against my back and kisses me in the foyer but I don’t react. My mouth remains in a straight line, my hands hanging limp at my sides.

He asks, “What’s wrong?”

A wave of sickness settles in my stomach.

For the first time since my return to Chicago, I walk. With my arms crossed over my chest I bypass the train station and continue South, passing liquor stores with crowded windows, trendy Indian restaurants hiding beneath red awnings, clusters of college students chatting loudly about their off-campus apartments, and bars.

There are more bars than I remember and they run the gamut from inexpensive with sticky floors to joints with pricy craft oxygen cocktails. The sort of place my father would take his friends, the group of them surrounding a table in the corner, buying bottles without asking the price, covering the bills of young, beautiful women, in hopes they’ll invite them home.

I can’t imagine Detective McManus meeting my father this way. I can’t imagine her in a dress. She’s a beautiful cop, a woman who pales next to all the others. A woman like my mother. A woman with personality.

Alanis has the best of both worlds. She’s gorgeous and mouthy and who I wanted to be, once. She commands attention but more importantly, she commands respect. She’s not the sort of woman you lie to, for fear of her hands around your throat. That’s probably the real reason she and Neal didn’t work out. He couldn’t play his games with her. She wouldn’t stand for it.

But I will. I
am
.

I’m allowing Neal to kiss me with his lies spread across his mouth; my eyes wide and oblivious, like Ashleigh’s. I’m willingly, silently, looking away, refusing to question the man who may have answers about my father’s death.

It kills me to admit this but I wish my father was alive. He’s the only person who can answer the question: who the hell can I really trust?

If I were more like Ashleigh I could find a quiet place – a park bench or a table in the library – and pray to him. I could ask him to send me some sort of sign, something to help me out. But even if I believed in all that, knowing my father, my words would go into one spiritual ear and out the other.

______

My limbs are jelly by the time I make it back to the condo. I collapse on my bed and curl beneath the covers, exhaustion pulling me to sleep.

I wake up a few hours later. The sky’s black, the moon sprinkling light through my window. The front door slams shut. Two voices fill the living room. It’s Ashleigh and Chris again, the pair of them cackling like drunk hyenas.

Their laughter slows before it dies down. With one ear to the ceiling I make out the sound of lips smacking together, tongues licking at the corner of mouths. They’re kissing, Ashleigh wrapped up in his arms as Chris holds her impossibly close.

I trap my breath in my chest and count the length of the sound. One, two,
seventy-eight seconds
until Chris (I assume) breaks away.

His voice is low, barely above a whisper. “Let me take you to bed.”

I almost gag.
Take you to bed?
Has he been stealing lines from Jane Austen novels?

“We can’t,” Ashleigh says. I can almost see her ducking her head, a light blush crawling up her cheeks.

“We
can
,” Chris says.

“No. Not in there,” she says. A pair of feet shuffle against the floor. The couch sighs beneath a weight. “Not in our room.”

In the darkness of my bedroom, my imagination runs with the soft sounds they emit. Like cats they mewl between kisses, they scratch at each other’s skin, they tear at their clothing, nip at their necks, lick at their wounds, and arch their backs. In truth, I can only hear the occasional whimper, embarrassingly loud and quickly hushed, but when I close my eyes the sounds amplify to a deafening noise.

Ashleigh sinks down onto Chris’s cock and rides him in my father’s living room, fucks him on my father’s couch.

I bet it’s liberating, fucking someone between the four walls my father used to pin up other women. Officer McManus in the hallway towards his room, his office assistant against the windows leading towards the bar. Despite her guilt, I bet my father’s face pops up in her mind and she tilts her head back and smiles. Grinning towards the heavens.
Take that, you asshole.

Her moans grow louder and the sound twists in my stomach. Does she know I’m home or is she past that point of ecstasy; the marker where you no longer care about the rest of the world, it’s only you and the person beneath you.

Chris is quiet. The occasional groan escapes his chest but I imagine he’s focused on watching Ashleigh move atop him, her hips swinging in a slow circle, her breasts heaving beneath her dress.

Her breath quickens, small squeaks popping out of her throat like a deflating blow-up doll. She’s close but Chris finishes first, a three-second groan drawing out of his stomach. Ashleigh follows behind him, her moan light and airy like her voice.

Seconds tick by like minutes, silence stretching between the two of them as they collect their breaths.

Chris shatters it. He says, “Hey…Don’t…What’s wrong?”

The guilt in my stomach grows towards my mouth, a small smile tugging at the corners.

Straddling Chris’s lap, Ashleigh bends forward and sobs against his shoulder.

Alanis calls at eight a.m. “Did you sort everything out with the property?”

“Sort of,” I say, stretching in bed. I’m used to being functional at this hour, but during the summertime I force myself to sleep in.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“The property doesn’t belong to me. My father gave it to Neal.”

Alanis is silent for a moment. Then, “Are you sure?”

“Yes. That’s what Martin told me.”

She curses beneath her breath. “Alright. This is a good thing. I’m going to get the papers from Neal and then come and get you. Be ready by one.”

I feel young for fretting over what I should wear, like a teenage girl deciding on an outfit for her first date. I push sixteen-year-old-Caitlin’s clothes to the right, focusing on the outfits I brought to Chicago. The ones washed in dark colors and long fabric. Respectable clothes that make me look several years older than I am.

I choose the black dress I wore to my father’s funeral, plucking the same pair of shoes from my suitcase.

In the bathroom I have a moment of hysteria, thinking of how fitting this all is. Lee Geon is dangerous. He could kill me without a second thought. There I would lay, on the dingy floor of the Chinese restaurant, dressed in the perfect funeral garb, the midnight fabric soaking up my blood.

Ashleigh and Chris are nowhere to be found. The condo’s empty, silence stretching from one end to the other, the living room cleaned up from last night’s antics.

I have breakfast in the kitchen and try not to think about Neal in his boxers, slaving over a pan of eggs, on the morning I knew I loved him.

Neal Dietrich.

The man who does nothing but lie to me.

______

Around one there’s a knock at the door. A knot grows in my throat as I grab my purse from my bedroom and slip on my shoes in the foyer.

It’s time to face Lee Geon but I’m not yet ready.

I pass the mirror by the door and instantly pick up on my fleeting confidence. My shoulders are rounded forward, my lips quivering nervously. My fingers curl into my palm to stop the shaking.

I can’t face Lee in this condition. I’ll vomit all over his shoes.

“I can’t do this,” I say, whipping open the front door.

Suzanne is standing on the other side, her blonde hair pulled into a loose bun, held together by sparkling chopsticks. She plasters on a wide grin when our eyes meet.

“You can’t do what?” she says, voice cheery as she pushes the door open and steps inside.

She smells like peppermint and Chanel No. 5, a perfume she first bought when we were fifteen and obsessed with silver-aged starlets. She throws me a look over her shoulder, balancing her purse between the curve of her elbow, her wrist flicked back.

“Don’t just stand there,” she says. “Close the door.”

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

Suzanne gingerly bends at the knees, setting her purse on the floor before she extends her arms out. Her grin drops from her lips and is replaced with a calculated frown.

“I heard what happened to Neal,” she says, pouting.

She wraps her arms around me without warning, our chests pressing together, her chunky necklace cool against my skin. She buries her nose in my neck, nuzzles it there like my mother.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

Maybe because we haven’t been friends for years.
“I don’t know,” I say, pulling away from her.

Her hands curl around my shoulders, her pout extending from the top of my head to my shoes.

“You look terrible,” she says. “You poor thing.”

Against my better judgment I catch another glance of myself in the mirror. I look fine.

“Justin sends his condolences,” she says, pushing a strand of loose hair behind her ear, shamelessly flashing her ring. “He wanted to come along but there was an emergency at one of the breweries and he had to drive all the way to Wisconsin.” Suzanne turns on her spiked black heels, venturing into the living room. “I was thinking we could spend the day together. The way we used to before you decided to go to
college
.”

“I actually --”

She holds up a finger. “We could go shopping, buy you a new,” her smile spreads thin across her lips, “dress. Then we can get lunch, grab a pitcher of mimosas, take a walk in the park, clear your head of all this tragedy.”

Suzanne leans against the arm of the couch and turns down the corners of her eyes, trying her best to emote sympathy but there’s a manipulative flame that grows inside of her. I, like a moth, recognize it. She’s a leech, desperate to sink her teeth into me and feed off my sadness to build herself up.
I’m sorry your boyfriend is probably dead but my husband and I are thinking about having kids, isn’t that great?
She’s carried this trait since we were teenagers, though she’s gotten better at hiding it.

“I can’t,” I say, forcing a smile. “I have plans.”

Her shoulders straighten. “Plans to do what?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

Suzanne cocks her head to the side. “You don’t have to be rude,” she says, spitting out a laugh. “I was just asking a question.”

She steps forward, her heels sliding across the wooden floor.

“I haven’t seen you in so long —”

“You saw me last week.”

Another laugh flies from Suzanne’s throat. “You were always so funny,” she says, her words cutting against her teeth. “That’s what Justin liked about you.” The corners of her mouth pinches into a smirk.

The front door knob rattles before there’s a rapt at the door. Suzanne raises her eyebrow.

Alanis is on the other side, one hand curved around the outline of her gun, poking out of her dress. This one’s navy blue and flows past her knees, thick like the black leather boots on her feet.

She glances over my shoulder and spots Suzanne. “You ready to go?” she asks.

“Hi,” Suzanne says, marching towards the door. Her extended hand reaches to the side of me. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Alanis plasters on a tight smile. “You must be Ashleigh,” she says, ignoring her hand.

Suzanne’s fingers curl into her palm. “No. I’m not.”

“Oh,” Alanis says. She looks to me. “Who the hell is she?”

Suzanne spits an indignant noise from the back of her throat. “I’m her best friend,” she says.

Alanis rolls her eyes and taps the gun at her thigh. I imagined her pulling the gun on Suzanne, her blue eyes growing wide as she stares down the barrel.

“Let’s go,” she says, turning on her heels and heading down the hall.

“I’m sorry,” I say to Suzanne, grabbing my purse and stepping into the hall.

She stares at me, mouth dropped open. “But I cleared my whole afternoon for this.”

“Maybe some other time,” I say, waving my hands.
Get the fuck out.

A sharp noise grows in the back of her throat, matching the pitch of her heels against the floor. The elevator doors
ding
open. Alanis steps inside. I lock the condo door and rush to meet her, Suzanne hot on my heels.

“Some other time,” Suzanne says, testing the words on her tongue. “You know, I’m very busy, Caitlin. I can’t just drop everything for you.”

“Aren’t you a blogger?” I ask, stepping inside the elevator. “Don’t you set your own schedule?”

“Yes,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear, flashing her ring for Alanis to see. “But Justin springs plans on me all the time and you know I can’t tell him ‘no’.” Her fingers tighten around the strap of her bag as she looks Alanis up and down. “I’ll tell you what, why don’t I come with the two of you?”

“No,” Alanis says.

Suzanne smiles tightly. “I wasn’t asking you,” she says. Then to me, “What do you think?”

The elevator doors slide open at the lobby. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

A wave of anger flashes across Suzanne’s face. I remember that look. The bratty teenage pout, the flicker of a threat in her eyes and the small sliver of fear that used to run through me. I’m too old for that now, to quiver beneath her lipstick covered mouth and mascaraed eyes.

“Fine,” she says, following us to the revolving door. “But don’t come crying to me when they find your boyfriend’s body washed up on the beach.”

“Just follow my lead.” Alanis tells me this as she parks the car across the street from Yo Jin’s Chinese Restaurant.