Heavenly Heirs Read online

  Heavenly Heirs

  By

  Fox Brison

  Bold Fox Publishing

  First Edition: December 2016

  This is a work of fiction. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the author’s express permission. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  Prologue Andrew Gideon

  Chapter 1 Celeste

  Chapter 2 Devon

  Chapter 3 Devon

  Chapter 4 Rachel

  Chapter 5 Devon

  Chapter 6 Rachel

  Chapter 7 Devon

  Chapter 8 Rachel

  Chapter 9 Devon

  Chapter 10 Devon

  Chapter 11 Rachel

  Chapter 12 Rachel

  Chapter 13 Devon

  Chapter 14 Rachel

  Chapter 15 Devon

  Chapter 16 Devon

  Chapter 17 Rachel

  Chapter 18 Devon

  Chapter 19 Rachel

  Chapter 20 Devon

  Chapter 21 Devon

  Chapter 22 Rachel

  Chapter 23 Hannah

  Chapter 24 Rachel

  Chapter 25 Devon

  Chapter 26 Rachel

  Chapter 27 Devon

  Chapter 28 Devon

  Chapter 29 Devon

  Chapter 30 Rachel

  Chapter 31 Rachel

  Chapter 32 Devon

  Chapter 33 Rachel

  Chapter 34 Rachel

  Chapter 35 Devon

  Chapter 36 Rachel

  Epilogue Devon

  Other Books by Fox Brison

  Synopsis

  Do the meek really inherit the Earth?

  Rachel McTavers is a waitress struggling to make the two ends of nothing meet. She rarely accepts charity, yet is always the first to offer it. Besieged by the Ghost of Christmas Past, will pride stand in her way of finding true happiness?

  Devon Williams appears to have it all, yet appearances can be deceiving. When she looks at her reflection in the mirror, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come stares back at her.

  And she is terrified by what she sees.

  Confronted with the Ghost of Christmas Present both women are faced with some tough choices…will they make the right ones?

  Prologue

  Andrew Gideon

  December 23rd in the year of our Lord, 1766.

  I picked up the white quill my love, Celeste, had given me only last week, and continued writing. The yellowing parchment crinkled beneath the pressure the opaque white nib put upon it, the black ink footsteps in the sand tracing my past, leading to the future…

  Dear Diary,

  Finally, I have finished my last will and testament. It took much longer than I envisaged, but I must ensure the family fortune remains intact and away from those who would use it for…

  The hacking cough interrupted my writing once again. My diary was several pages longer, filled not with what I had done, but with what I wished I’d had the time to do, had pleurisy not stopped me in my tracks. I was no longer certain I would have enough time, nor energy, to continue my forefathers’ legacy but my heir, or one of them, at least would be able. Building better housing, improving sanitation and providing healthcare for the factory workers under our auspices were but a few of the good works my family pioneered.

  But it would all be for naught should the wrong person inherit our fortune.

  “Andrew?” Celeste’s soft voice cut through my melancholy.

  “I’m finished. The will is watertight.”

  “Are you certain? David and Frederick will surely challenge it when they learn they gain nothing from your coffers but good will.”

  “I am confident the Gideon money will only go to someone who deserves it, someone who will carry on the family’s philanthropic efforts, not to the likes of Frederick who has already begun sliding down the slippery slope of debauchery and licentious liaisons. That poor maid he forced himself upon is a prime example. I have added several codicils to that effect, and asked Josiah Flood and Samuel Williams to oversee both the money and your efforts to uncover a righteous heir.” As one of the best barristers of the day, I knew my words were steel clad vows that could not be torn asunder in a court of law. “The investment firm they run may be small, but it is run ethically and morally.”

  “You do realise it may take years, maybe even a lifetime.”

  “I have allowed two hundred and fifty years.”

  Celeste still held reservations. “The criteria you left, charitable, stout heart, kind to children and beasts, benevolent…” she put the paper down and picked up another, “thinks of others before self… these are not only quite specific, but will be incredibly difficult to fulfil.”

  “Indeed, Celeste, but it is the only way of ensuring the money will ultimately be used for good.”

  “And who should decide if the heir meets the standards set in your tablet of stone?”

  “I believe that shall be the easy part, that my righteous heir’s actions will be all the proof needed. However, should there be any doubt then the executors, Josiah and Samuel, may object. If this should come to pass, it will become a matter for a court of law where twelve men good and true will have the final say.”

  Chapter 1

  Celeste

  Monday November 21st, 2016.

  The tinny chimes on my computer woke me from my daydream. Well it wasn’t exactly my daydream, it was someone else’s daydream I guess. Someone who was slightly lonely, incredibly frustrated and wished there was something she could do to help not only herself and her daughter, but others who needed a hand up rather than a shove down into the gutter.

  Fair enough, apart from the presence of the child it could have been my dream.

  I glanced at the instant message blinking in the corner. Ah, an email from my boss, the big man himself. Or woman. I’d never met them, the only communication I had with the head honcho was through email. I felt like a Charlie’s Angel but without the big hair and immaculate make-up – it was, after all, five thirty in the morning not 1978.

  Rachel McTavers.

  The name meant nothing to me, yet at the same time meant everything. There was a brief file attachment containing a photograph, life résumé, that sort of thing, so I hunkered down to read it.

  Three seconds later I was finished.

  Huh?

  I usually got more than this. There was not nearly enough to go on, not if Heavenly Heirs was to find it’s perfect match.

  Now I know what you’re thinking, but no we’re not a dating agency. Well, not a traditional one.

  We are heir hunters.

  You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who die intestate with no discernible heirs, and it was our job to find them before any unclaimed monies passed to the treasury, who had more than enough socked away, in my humble opinion. So lost money, meet deserving people.

  I looked at the file again.

  Name: Rachel McTavers.

  Occupation: Waitress

  Status: Single

  Children: Ruth

  I scowled; seriously I could have found more on anti-social media.

  Inheritance: The Gideon Fund

  The Gideon Fund? I re-read the last four words several times but they remained the same. The Gideon Fund. The Holy Grail of heir hunters the length and breadth of the country. Rachel McTavers, waitress. I’d better call Hannah…

  The computer chimed again.

  What now?

  Devon Williams? Oh no. No, no, no, no, no!

  Chapter 2<
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  Devon

  Monday, November 21st, 2016

  It was Monday morning; not my favourite day of the week, but then neither was Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday was usually twice as bad and Friday generally sucked. Hurrah for the weekend?

  Nope, even the weekends tried my patience right now.

  This Monday morning was a particularly awful one because it was my thirty-fifth birthday, a time for reflection as I reached the half way point of my three score and ten. I didn’t particularly like what I saw in the mirror of my life.

  My head throbbed. I’d drank an awful lot of wine the night before to help me sleep, which was becoming something of a habit. It never worked, I still tossed and turned. Last night was one of the worst. I lay in bed at three am and wondered if it was worth it. My life I mean. I had a job I hated and a family who had no qualms about standing on the shoulders of smaller men to get what they wanted, not caring how many backs they broke in the process.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d thought this, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. But as I watched the red light on my alarm clock flicker from one minute to the next, I struggled to find an ounce of good in my life, a speck of meaning…

  …a sliver of hope.

  Under the covers in the cloak of darkness, all of my fears and worries magnified, I allowed myself to cry.

  Then finally I fell asleep.

  I rarely dream. In fact, I can probably count on one hand the amount of dreams I’ve had that I could accurately recount the following morning. This was one of them. It had been a weird montage of Christmas pasts. Marta, our housekeeper teaching me how to make stollen whilst she stuffed the perfect turkey; Thomas, drunk as a skunk, telling me he’d met the love of his life; musical chairs with my best friend, Eve Monroe, at our boarding school, complete with paper hats and sugar rush; last Christmas, Adam, my brother, in my fiancée’s office, his trousers around his ankles, Amanda bent over her desk…

  I woke up and that’s when the nightmare really began in earnest.

  I caught a lone white feather which had somehow drifted into my flat. I turned it over in my hands, before placing it carefully beside my treasured Keurig. Leaning against the kitchen counter, I sipped on an espresso and listened to the dulcet tones of Shane McGowan and Kirsty McCall battling to drown out the rain and wind that was hammering the windows in a violent tattoo. Christ, Christmas songs on the radio already? I really hate Christmas.

  I shook my head.

  Bah humbug.

  My two thousand square foot St Katherine’s Dock flat did little to lift my depression. It was stark and sterile, all shiny chrome counters and polished concrete floors, white walls and spine stiffening sofas. Even the ridiculously expensive lighting system failed to brighten my mood or soften the harshness of my surroundings; if anything it added to the oppressive nature, creating shadows and coldness where there should be light and warmth.

  A hospital operating theatre would have been warmer and more welcoming.

  Three espressos and the fear of the unknown were the only things that got me out of bed anymore. My job certainly didn’t. An incestuous snake pit of an organisation, I should have handed in my resignation twelve months earlier when I discovered ‘the indiscretion’ as my mother called Amanda and Adam’s affair. My father talked me out if it, or rather, his threats made me think twice. He held my cousin Thomas up as an example of what happened when you walked out on Flood and Williams.

  In retrospect, living in exile in Australia didn’t seem such a bad thing.

  I stared out of the window, but all I saw was the rain dribbling down my reflection looking remarkably like tears, tears I wouldn’t let fall in the harsh light of day.

  Tears I couldn’t let fall or they would break me.

  I chuckled wryly. No, I couldn’t act as impetuously as my cousin, I wasn’t the least bit sporty and hated beer, so Australia was a no go I’m afraid. I wiped a smudge from my cheek, a wet smudge, and I regretfully acknowledged in the daylight what came easier through the midnight hours. The journey to hell would continue apace the minute I crossed the threshold of Flood and William’s corporate headquarters, unless, of course, I was prepared to do something to stop the march. I picked up the white feather and tucked it into my briefcase like some sort of good luck talisman. I stared at the two folders on my counter, one red, one yellow. My hand stretched for the red one but something made me stop. Maybe it was the lingering dream, maybe it was the feather, but I chose the yellow file. This innocuous looking piece of stationery was possibly the most important thing in my life.

  Galloway and Sons, Master Builders.

  Please, God, let this work.

  ***

  My Range Rover went into auto pilot as I turned left, then right, got stuck in a couple of jams, before finally pulling into my personal parking spot at the offices of Flood and Williams. The building, not a particularly tall high rise, dominated my world. The shadow it cast stretched further and further each day, the parasitic tendrils edging silently over the corporate world.

  For a building made of glass, there was an awful lot of darkness inside.

  I hurried past the receptionist, ignored colleagues milling by the coffee station, and went straight to my office to prepare for my eleven am briefing with the board – or rather with my uncle, father, brothers and male cousins.

  Testosterone overload.

  The sleek design of the outside continued throughout the interior, miles of glazing broken only by slender aluminium frames. Strategically placed plants and object d’art added panache, and the deep navy carpet implied richness and luxury. Everything was planned to radiate opulence.

  But it was all an intricate façade.

  In reality, the offices were a diseased bee hive, workers slaving to provide their queen, or in this case two kings, with enough nectar to fill their combs with money, I mean honey. If you examined the lawyers, hedge fund managers and accountants hiding in their glass cells closely enough they would all look as tormented as me. At least, the ones who still possessed a conscience would look as tormented as me. Others, like my brothers and cousins, simply looked like corpulent toads waiting on their lily pad for the next delicacy to stray too close to their greedy tongues.

  ***

  “Finally, Galloway and Sons. Where are we on this one?” Marcus Flood, chairman of the board and my uncle, addressed me for the first time that morning.

  So here goes plan A, my preferred plan. “I’ve put together a rescue package. They need thee hundred and eight thousand and a few pounds loose change to bring them back into the black long enough to ensure the three conversions in Bethnal Green are completed within the next month. I have a contract prepared for the Galloways to sign when they come in this afternoon giving us a thirty percent interest in their company should they agree to our terms. This would then revert back to them when they fulfil first the repayment of the previous two loans, and secondly a further payment of 1.3 million due on the 1st of June.” I had calculated all the variables and knew this was an offer Galloway and Sons could easily live with. There was silence in the room and then…

  “Good one, Devon.” The stunned silence evaporated and my cousin Robert began laughing, which quickly spread throughout the room. “You really had us going there.”

  “I wasn’t joking, Rob.”

  “Yes, you were,” my father said in his quiet, yet deadly tones. “You will foreclose on the loans today.” I turned when Carol, his secretary, knocked on the glass doors.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Sir Eric, but Morris Miller is here for your twelve o’clock appointment.”

  “Offer him coffee, I will be with you shortly.” She left and he turned back to me. “Now, where were we, Devon? Ah yes. Galloway and Sons will be foreclosed on this afternoon. Am I clear.”

  “Crystal, Father,” I replied, humiliated by the dismissive nature of my father towards my proposal.

  ***

  “You really are a heartless bitch,” Jeremy Gallow
ay leapt to his feet.

  “Son-”

  “No, Dad. She really is. She’s had her say, so now I’m going to have mine. What sort of monster are you? Christmas is less than a month away and you’re willing to make seventy-nine men and women redundant because you, what? You can’t afford to extend our loan for another six weeks? You’re buying… no wait… appropriating our property portfolio, splitting it into small sections, selling the land, selling the houses… putting several charities, including one that helps the homeless, onto the street so that you can make a fast buck. Monster.” He stormed out of the room followed by his father and sister. Mentally I slumped, but in reality kept my back ramrod straight; I would not give my brother Adam the satisfaction of seeing just how much Jeremy’s words crushed me.

  Jeremy Galloway wasn’t far wrong when he called me a monster, but I truly didn’t want to be.

  “Well done, sis,” Adam placed his hand on my shoulder and I shrugged him off. “We’re going to make a tidy sum once we sell off their holdings. Nice one.” His words made me sick. We could have saved their jobs, could have invested a few hundred thousand to tide them over until they were able to finish a couple of their projects, but no, that was not doable, not with Morris Miller waiting in the wings.

  “I have a meeting in five minutes, Adam. Is there anything else?”

  “No, Father just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page. He was a little surprised when you suggested extending the Galloway loan. Thought you might be losing your nerve.”

  “He needn’t have worried. I did my job as usual like a good little girl.”

  “Good little girl? I suppose you do generally toe the party line.” He couldn’t seem to let it go at that, he had to push, had to prod. “G…g… give Amanda my love,” he sneered, mimicking my childhood speech impediment.

  “Leave, Adam, now.” I ignored both the piss taking and reference to his affair with my fiancée and examined my calendar closely. There were very few empty spaces in the next few weeks, and lots of red underlining. Important clients needing more people shafted, needing more bucks in their already fat bank accounts.