Page 2 of The Lost Heiress
Sally couldn’t help but wonder—Mrs. Talbot knew this house and the people in it, their intricate histories, their dark secrets. She’d made it her job, her life’s work, to know them. But was it possible that after all these years, despite all her efforts, the house held its own secrets that even Mrs. Talbot did not know?
And if that was true, what else might it be hiding?
Part One
Chapter One
June 1982—Three Months Before Saoirse’s Disappearance
The weather that year had been brutal, starting with one of the coldest winters on record. In January, a cold front blew down from Canada, sending snow and frost as far south as Texas and freezing the citrus groves in Florida. As late as April, blizzards shrouded the Northeast in two feet of snow. In California, storms surged along the coastline, sending heavy rains and mudslides. Waves eighteen feet high sucked homes off their foundations in Malibu, bit chunks off the Santa Monica Pier, and flooded the harbor in Santa Barbara. Farther north, the Towers family home had not escaped unscathed. Ana Rojas could see it as she drove along the cliffside in her old Saab—in the east wing, which she could make out from the road, the walls had been taken down to the studs, like an open wound.
Ana had never been this far north before. She’d grown up in San Bernardino, in the dry dust of the Inland Empire. Her whole life, she’d dreamed of the ocean—of those steel-gray columns of water and salt, and the roar of the waves crashing into the sand. When she was sixteen, her cousin Rosie had taken her to the beach in Santa Monica. They’d removed their sandals, and the sand had scalded the bare flesh of their feet as they walked. They lay on the towels they’d taken from the hotel and ate fresh slices of mango sprinkled with lime and salt and chili andstared out at the water—at the broad expanse of it, how it went on and on forever, like the desert. No, bigger than the desert. There was something comforting to Ana about the thought, because sometimes she felt like the desert and the things holding her there were so big that she might never escape them.
When Ana waded into the water, she went in alone. Neither Ana nor Rosie could swim, but that would not deter her. The water took Ana’s breath away, how cold it was, like ice. She went only as far as she could touch, the sand shifting beneath her feet, until the water was up to her shoulders. She turned back toward the shoreline, searching for Rosie and their towels on the crowded beach, and so the wave surprised her. It encompassed her all at once without warning, the cold, dark wet of it. It swept her off her feet and then pitched her forward, without care, thrashing Ana’s body this way and that, like a rag doll in a washing machine. In her shock, Ana went to draw breath, but she drew in water instead. The harsh salt burned the inside of her nose, her throat, her lungs. She kicked and clawed, and the wave spat her up near the shore. She landed hard on her hands and knees in the sand and sucked in dry air as the tide pulled out, leaving her soaked and bruised and bested.
She’d learned the hard way: Never turn your back on something bigger than you. Keep your eye on the horizon, on what’s coming. Don’t let it catch you off guard.
Ana turned off the road onto Cliffhaven’s winding drive and stopped to give her name at the gate. As the gate swung open, she peered up at the giant house on the cliffside: tall and austere. The white stone facade caught the sun like it was lit up from within.
In some ways, Ana couldn’t believe her luck. When she’d seen the ad in the paper calling for a young woman, age twenty to twenty-five, to serve as a caretaker for the summer, she’d imagined pushing an elderly woman around in a wheelchair, parceling out daily medications, inhaling the putrid smell of diapers, running a sponge over wrinkled, stooped shoulders in a hot bath. But the pay—eight dollars an hour, plus room and board—had been too good to pass up. The family hadnot given their name in the ad, only the name and address of a secretary to send her résumé to, and so Ana had shown up to the interview blind as to who her potential employers might be.
The interview had taken place over tea at the Peninsula in Beverly Hills. As soon as Ana walked in, she immediately felt underdressed in her JCPenney khaki skirt and plain button-down shirt—the clothes she wore to church on Sunday with her grandmother, the nicest things she owned. Even the tables were dressed nicer than she was, with fine white china that had scalloped edges and elderflowers around the trim, and thick cloth napkins neatly folded into the shape of a rose.
“Ana Rojas,” she said at the hostess booth. “I’m here to meet Jacqueline Yates.”
The hostess smiled kindly at her and escorted her across the parquet floors to a table near the fireplace. There was a pretty young woman sitting there, thin and blond. Sitting next to her was a man, his back to Ana. The young blond woman smiled when she saw Ana and whispered to the man, “Our three o’clock is here.” The man turned, and when Ana saw his face, she forgot to breathe.
She recognized Ransom Towers immediately. He had coiffed dark hair, an angular jaw, an aquiline nose, and pensive gray eyes the color of the sky before a storm. The papers had nicknamed him “Handsome Ransom” when he made his first bid for public office. He was a congressman now, for was there anything else for a Towers man to be? The Towerses were one of the great American political dynasties, their names whispered alongside those of the Kennedys, the Roosevelts, honored and revered. Ana had read their names in her history books in school, just as she had read about their current counterparts in her glossySeventeenmagazine after school, sprawled out on her bed. The Towerses were beautiful and elegant, slinking into the backs of limousines in gorgeous silk gowns, smiling and waving at the cameras in their crisp tuxedos at fancy charity galas.
When Ana reached out to shake Ransom’s hand, she couldn’t help but recall the first time she’d ever seen him, in a picture inPeoplemagazine. The paparazzi had snapped a photo of him on the rugby practice field at Stanford shortly after his parents’ plane crash. Something about the sorrowful set of his eyes had made him look so young, like he was just a boy.
“Congressman Towers,” he said, taking her hand. “And this is my personal secretary, Jacqueline Yates.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ana,” Jacqueline said. “Please, have a seat.”
On the table between them stood blush-colored hydrangeas in a tall vase and a tiered tray piled high with cucumber-and-dill finger sandwiches, smoked salmon and capers, and currant scones. There were strawberries in a large glass bowl, topped with a dollop of fresh cream. Ana felt like she was in a daze, like she had fallen asleep and woken up in some kind of wonderland, where everything felt strange, the proportions all off.
“Let’s get you something to drink, shall we?” Jacqueline said, signaling a waiter over. “I’m sure you’re parched after your long drive.”
Ana ordered a pot of spearmint tea, the only tea she could think of offhand, the kind her grandmother drank with her breakfast every morning, though her grandmother called ithierba buenaand grew the leaves fresh in her garden.
“Now, Ana, before we get started, we have a bit of paperwork to take care of,” Jacqueline said, her tone friendly and upbeat. She slid a stapled stack of paper across the table to Ana.
Ana scanned the top of it—a confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement.
“I know this may feel very formal and strange for a job interview,” Jacqueline said, “but I’m sure you understand, with the Towerses being a very public family, there are certain private matters that may come up in our conversation that must remain private.”
Ana nodded.
Jacqueline offered her a pen, and Ana took it, her hand shaking slightly.
“Please, take all the time you need to review it,” Jacqueline said, sipping her tea. “It’s very standard for an NDA, I assure you. Basically, it precludes you from discussing any matters that may come up in this interview with anyone outside the Towers family. That includes the media, of course, but also your own friends and family members. Any breach of this contract could result in legal action.”
“Right,” Ana said. “Okay.”
She skimmed the pages quickly, feeling, not for the first time, as if she were in over her head.The Candidate agrees that the Candidate will not directly or indirectly disclose the Client Family’s Private Family Information to any person or entity who is not a member of the Client Family. Should the Candidate disclose or threaten to disclose Private Family Information, the Client Family will be entitled to seek injunctive relief and punitive damages.
Ana felt self-conscious with Jacqueline and Ransom sitting right there across the table from her as she read, so she quickly signed and dated the last page and handed it back to Jacqueline.
