Missing Heiress (A Jackie Harlan Mystery Book 2)

  Missing Heiress

  (A Jackie Harlan Mystery)

  By

  Marti Talbott

  -

  © 2011 All Rights Reserved

  Editor: Frankie Sutton

  Table of Contents

  More Marti Talbott Books

  The Harlan Detective Agency was the best there was when it came to finding missing people. They were also the most expensive, so it was no coincidence that they were hired to find the heir to a fortune totaling over 1.6 billion dollars.

  Nicholas Gladstone left everything to a granddaughter he didn't know he had until a week before he died, but which one was it - the maid secretly working in the parent's home, an office worker, or the young woman tragically killed in a car accident?

  All of Marti Talbott’s Books are suitable for ages 14 and above.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was no accident that Teresa Gregory secured a position as maid to Mathew and Laura Connelly – she planned it that way. She asked around, found out which temp agency the Connellys used, signed with that agency, and then waited her turn. Word was that Laura Connelly went through maids like water, and Teresa didn’t expect it to be very long before the agency sent her there. The American wealthy favored pretty girls with British accents, and she was certainly all that. As it turned out, she was not offered the position until two weeks before she was due to return to England.

  The agency carefully explained the Connelly situation to her, and it soon became clear – the reason the Connellys couldn’t keep a maid was because Laura was a drunk and Mathew was a letch. The position required fulfilling Mrs. Connelly’s needs, doing laundry, cleaning, serving meals, answering the phone, and keeping the Connelly’s social calendar up-to-date.

  The agency didn’t say anything about fulfilling Mr. Connelly’s needs.

  It was early morning when Teresa arrived at the wealthy gated community on Chester Street in Denver. She got out of the taxi at the gate, was let in by the security guards, and walked up the street. There were several houses facing the circular drive, but according to the internet map, the sprawling, two-story, Federation style mansion in the middle belonged to the Connellys. It had a four-car garage and a limousine, complete with a driver, waiting in the wide driveway. The expansive lawn was well cared for, and was bordered with rose bushes that gave off their sweet aroma.

  Carrying a small bag, she walked up the drive to the front door, nodded to the waiting driver, rang the bell, and was let in by a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Eleanor.

  “I am the cook, and my husband, Mark, does odds and ends, and drives the Connellys’ limo,” Eleanor explained, as she led Teresa to a bedroom located on the bottom floor just beyond the indoor swimming pool. “Mark and I have the room next to yours. You can knock on the wall if you need help.”

  “Will I need help?” Teresa asked.

  “I hope not. Mr. Connelly ain’t here much, and when he is, you best just stay out of his way.”

  “I see.” Teresa set her bag on the bed and looked around. It was a comfortable enough room, especially for her purposes. It had a bed, an easy chair, a table, and a television on a stand. The door, she noticed, had a deadbolt on the inside.

  “There’s an elevator for when Mrs. Connelly can’t make it up the stairs.” Eleanor took hold of the doorknob. “You hungry? The Connellys don’t eat breakfast, but I’d be pleased to make you up something.”

  “No, thank you, I’ve already eaten.” She smiled as Eleanor closed the door and then she took a deep breath.

  She was in…at long last.

  *

  A tall woman, with long dark hair and blue eyes, twenty-two-year old Teresa was dressed in the required gingham, short sleeved, French style uniform. It was blue with trim on the sleeves that matched her white half apron. Her first glimpse of the Connellys was a brief one. Mathew hurried his wife out the door and climbed into the back of the limo beside her. They didn’t say where they were going and Teresa didn’t ask.

  Once they were gone, she took her time becoming familiar with the place. Oddly, the furnishings and the decor in the eight-bedroom, ten-bathroom house clearly had not been updated for at least twenty years. Most of the rooms hadn’t seen much use either. Yet, there was plenty of work to keep a small staff busy and then some.

  Teresa decided to ignore the other rooms for now, made the beds in the separate bedrooms the Connellys apparently occupied, and located several places to hide…should the need arise.

  When the Connellys came home later that afternoon, Teresa was in the dining room dusting the tall china cupboard. Laura immediately headed for the liquor cabinet in the living room to make herself a drink, while Mathew watched. Neither of them seemed to care who might be listening, so Teresa moved a little closer to the arched doorway between the two rooms.

  Mathew glared at his wife. “She told me she called you. What did you tell her, Laura?” A little too thin for his height, Mathew’s tailored, dark blue suit fit him well enough. He was an unusually handsome man with slightly graying sideburns. His dark hair was fashionably short, and he had intense blue eyes.

  “I told her the same thing I told all the others,” Laura answered.

  It was obvious Laura had once been quite a beauty, but the alcohol she consumed over the years made her face puffy and her cheeks red. Even so, she still had a girlish figure, dark hair, pretty blue eyes, and a nice smile – although her smile was disingenuous just now.

  “Laura, I need to know exactly what you said.”

  “Why? Is she the one you truly love these days?” She finished pouring her drink, took a long swallow, and then headed up the mahogany staircase.

  Mathew soon followed. “I don’t love her, but I do need her.”

  Drink in hand, Laura stopped halfway up and turned around to face him. “I can’t imagine what for. Darling, don’t you have someplace to go? Why don’t you just run along? You know you want to.”

  “There was a time when you wanted me to stay home.”

  “There was a time when…” Laura stopped in midsentence and continued up the stairs.

  He watched her disappear around the corner, closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. When he turned to go back down, he spotted Teresa standing in the archway. “See that she doesn’t hurt herself, and remember to make sure she takes her medicine every morning.”

  “Yes, Mr. Connelly, I’ll remember.”

  As soon as he reached the bottom step, he stopped, looked at her for a long moment, and started to say something. He changed his mind, and instead, walked out the front door, letting it slam behind him.

  Teresa went to the window, moved the curtain aside and watched. One of the garage doors opened, Mathew backed out, and then drove his red Ferrari around the curved driveway toward the gate. After he was gone, she let the curtain close and went upstairs to see about Laura.

  *

  The next morning, Teresa stood beside the bed, opened her palm and offered a pill to Mrs. Connelly.

  Laura Connelly’s enormous bedroom on the second floor was decorated in outdated pastel mauve and blue. The room held a dressing table, a sofa and loveseat with a matching reading chair, a reading lamp, a magazine rack and a coffee table. Her walk-in closet was bigger than most bedrooms, held three dressers and more clothes than any one woman had a right to own. Teresa expected to spend an entire week just organizing it.

  “I don’t want that, take it away,” Laura moaned. In her king-size bed, complete with a lace trimmed mauve canopy, she turned her back to the maid and buried the side of her face in a pillow.

  “Mr. Connelly gave me specific instructions to see th
at you take your blood pressure medicine.”

  “Of course he did, he wants me alive, not dead…at least not yet.”

  “You wish to die?”

  Laura turned back over. “No I don’t. I can’t die now; I would miss all the fun.”

  “What fun is that?”

  Laura sat up and then held her head as her hangover pain began. She waited for it to subside, took the pill, put it in her mouth, and then washed it down with the glass of water Teresa handed her. “The inheritance, my dear, we have to go to court to settle the matter of my inheritance.”

  “Is that why you were gone yesterday?”

  Laura wrinkled her brow. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “I’m new, remember?”

  Laura thought about that for a moment. “Of course you are. We are contesting the will, you see, and I…what day is this?”

  “Tuesday, the ninth.”

  “Tuesday? I guess I must be in court again today. What shall I wear? Black would be proper in honor of my father, I suppose.”

  Teresa set the glass of water on the nightstand, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. “I think your red suit will do nicely.”

  Laura moaned a second time. “I hate red.”

  “Yes, Mum, but it brings out the color of your hair. Do you not want to please your husband?”

  “Please him, no; taunt him, yes. Come to think of it, I might enjoy reminding him of what he is missing. Red it is.” Laura struggled to throw the covers back. “Who am I fooling? He hasn’t been tempted in years. We don’t even sleep in the same bed, and not even the same house most of the time. Crumbs, that’s all he ever gave me. I truly hate the man, but Connie, I still long for his crumbs sometimes.”

  “Teresa.”

  “Oh yes, Teresa.”

  The maid held out a silk robe while Laura stood up and slipped her arms in the sleeves. “Come along, it is time for your shower.”

  Laura followed her to the bathroom, and then leaned against the doorjamb while Teresa tested the temperature of the water. “You know, it is almost spooky.”

  “What is?”

  “How much you remind me of me when I was your age.”

  *

  “Nicole just fired Colleen,” Jim whispered as he walked past Maggie’s small office cubical. She stood up, made certain Nicole was not around, and followed him to the break room. She liked her dark hair long, but not long enough to reach the middle of her back as it did now. Sadly, a hairdresser was something she could not afford. Her wages were scandalously low, but considering her circumstances, she was happy to find any position with a Human Resources Department that didn’t require American references.

  The Gallaher Superior Telephone Service office building in downtown Denver once housed over 500 people. With the failing economy and so many improvements that GSTS couldn’t match, the number of employees had dwindled to one-hundred-twenty-six. In Maggie’s department, that left only five.

  Maggie Jackson was an Account Cancellation Specialist for a phone company. Simply put, it meant she cancelled accounts, generated a final invoice and refunded deposits. The more their customers moved on to other providers and cancelled their GSTS accounts, the more secure Maggie’s job was.

  For three years, she watched fellow employees come and go, most of who were good workers and didn’t deserve to be fired. Unfortunately, there was more going on than met the eye, and some didn’t figure that out until it was too late.

  As she hoped, Jim was the only one in the break room and he was at the vending machine getting a candy bar when she walked in. Dressed in jeans and a summer blouse, she sat down at one of the tables and waited for him to join her.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Jim whispered, as he chose a chair across the table from her. Wearing casual clothes as well, he had a stout build, curly red hair, and pleasant green eyes.

  “She got fired on a Wednesday morning? I thought Americans liked to do their firing on Friday afternoon.”

  “Normally, they do. Issuing a last check for a full week is easier than trying to figure out the hours in the middle of the week.”

  Maggie adored Jim McMorrow. Her first day there, he took her under his wing and taught her how to use the complicated, nightmarish software. When she spoke, she lowered her blue eyes, as well as her voice. “Did you have to issue her final paycheck?”

  Jim peeled the wrapper back on his candy bar and took a bite. “That’s the part I hate most about this job. Nicole should do it herself, but she always has me do it. I am the first to know when someone is getting fired and I truly, truly hate it. I can’t even look some people in the eye.”

  “Why did Colleen get fired?”

  Jim puffed his cheeks. “Since when does Nicole need a good reason?”

  “Never. Whose toes do you suppose Colleen stepped on?”

  “Nicole’s probably. I don’t know the details yet.”

  Maggie pushed a wayward strand of hair away from her face, and remembered to keep her voice down. “Another one bites the dust, as you Americans say. I thought Colleen was doing her job well.”

  “Yeah, but when has a department manager ever lasted more than six months?”

  “Not since I’ve been here.”

  Jim broke off a piece of his candy bar and offered it to her. When she shook her head, he put it in his mouth. “I’ve got a feeling she’ll offer the job to me and I don’t want it.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He took another bite and glanced at the empty doorway just to make sure no one was coming. “Last time she fired a manager, she combined both our departments and put Colleen over all of us. That’s a lot of work for one person and I don’t know who else is qualified.”

  Maggie dropped her gaze and thought about that. “You and I have been here the longest and we know the computer system the best.”

  “That’s why I’m worried. If we had half a brain, we’d go job hunting tomorrow.”

  “It is not that easy to find something else. I was one step away from being homeless when I found this job.”

  “You started here as a temp, right?” he asked.

  “Right, and for two years, they wouldn’t give me a raise because they had to pay the temp agency fee to get me.”

  Jim shook his head in disgust. “They punished you for that? Now I’ve heard everything.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.”

  “I can see why. Did you protest?”

  “I was afraid they would fire me if I complained, and this is my only American reference,” Maggie admitted.

  “All the more reason to get out before we get fired. You could always go back to that temp agency, right?”

  “Right.” Maggie went to the soda machine, dug some change out of her pocket, and made her choice. By the time she returned to the table, Jim was finished with his candy bar. He wadded up the wrapper and pretended to shoot it like a ball into the basket. When it went in, he smiled.

  “Are all American companies like this one?” she asked, taking a drink of her soda.

  “This is the worst one I’ve ever seen, but then, other companies don’t let people like Nicole run them. They are scared of getting sued.”

  “No one sues this company?”

  “Maybe they do, but we’ll never hear about it. The owner’s lawyer is his daughter and she doesn’t talk to anyone but Nicole.”

  Maggie leaned forward. “Nicole actually brags about not celebrating American holidays. If she hates it here so much, why doesn’t she go back to Germany?”

  Jim reeled back. “You’ve been here for three years and you don’t know? I’m shocked.”

  “Know what?”

  “She lost custody of her daughter to her American husband.”

  Maggie’s mouth dropped. “She lost custody? What did she do wrong?”

  “Well, if you dress like a hooker, and walk like a hooker, I guess you’re a hooker.”

  “That can’t be true…is it? She talks about her boyfrie
nd constantly.”

  When Susan walked into the room and went to the candy machine, both of them stopped talking. Jim finally said, “Nice weather we’re having.”

  “A bit too hot to suit me,” Maggie returned. “When do you think the air-conditioning will be fixed?”

  “I have no…” Jim noticed Susan’s glare as she walked out, and as soon as she was gone, he chuckled. “She probably thinks we were talking about her,” he said, loud enough for Susan to hear, just in case she paused in the hall to listen.

  Maggie got up, went to the door, peeked out, and then came back. “She’s gone. What about Nicole’s boyfriend?”

  “Which one? Boyfriends don’t last long either; they can’t keep up with her. Some guys like sex to be their idea.”

  Maggie tipped her head to the side. “You’re making that up, right?”

  “Nope.” This time Jim talked just above a whisper. “If you only knew how many times Nicole has propositioned me…and every other man in the company, you would be mortified.”

  “Really? Isn’t that sexual harassment?”

  “It is in my book.”

  “Why doesn’t someone say something?”

  “You mean file charges?”

  “Yes,” said Maggie.

  “Well, she is an attractive woman and some guys fall for it. Others don’t want the hassle of having to stand up in court and testify. I know I don’t. Besides, the owner of the company likes her, and who knows what he would do to the guy who complains. We all need our jobs.”

  Maggie frowned. “I don’t like Mr. Gallaher either. There is something about him that makes me...”

  “Yeah, well, if he ever offers you a way to make extra money, turn him down.”

  “Why?”

  “Harold Gallaher runs a phone sex business on the side.”

  She slumped in her chair. “So that part is true. At least he doesn’t bring that business into the phone company.”

  “Who says he doesn’t? If you own a small phone company, then it is easy to set up as many phone-sex lines as you want without having to answer too many questions.”