One night in the mansion filled with deadly secrets will unmask every lie—and every heart.

 

Fatal Inheritance

“Oh, why did you have to leave us so soon?” wailed a plump woman on the left, sobbing and wiping her tears with one hand while expertly spearing three slices of sausage with her fork.

Anna shot the woman a look of distaste. Why all the performance? She’d barely known Polina, yet she was bawling as if she’d lost her own mother.

Anna’s gaze swept over the memorial table — about a dozen and a half strangers with mournful faces. What did any of them care about her dead sister? Strangers, all of them, drawn here by the scent of tragedy like crows to carrion.

Aunt Galya, the only one who’d really been close to Polina, wasn’t crying anymore. She’d already wept herself dry and now sat like stone, clutching Polina’s handkerchief in her hands.

Anna sighed. Everything felt awfully wrong. Her own sister was dead, yet she couldn’t feel real grief. But how could she, when they’d grown up separately, in different families?

After the car crash that killed their parents, their relatives had split the girls. The elder one, Polina, nine at the time, stayed with Aunt Galya in Makeevka village not far from Moscow. The younger, six-year-old Anna, was sent to their father’s brother in Kyiv.

Twenty years had passed since then. They’d seen each other maybe four or six times — at rare family gatherings like weddings or funerals. Whether it was the distance or simply their different temperaments, the sisters, so alike in appearance, had never really grown close — not even after Anna moved to Moscow two years ago. Makeevka village was only a couple of hours away by commuter train, but the girls mostly just called each other now and then, usually on holidays.

Anna reflected sadly on the brief life her sister had lived. Beautiful, enviable Polina had married straight out of high school to the jealousy of all her girlfriends. Her husband was a very wealthy businessman, and Polina soon settled into the carefree life of a rich housewife — spending most of the year in world capitals and seaside resorts, and visiting her native Makeevka only occasionally, though with surprising regularity.

The businessman, about thirty years her senior, seemed to have fallen in love with the place himself. He built a large mansion on the edge of the village, where the couple stayed during their short visits.

Her bright cloudless life ended in an instant when her husband died suddenly of a heart attack. In the days that followed, it emerged that there were no savings, the property was mortgaged to the hilt, and Polina was left with nothing but the mansion — the same house where she finally made her home.

There had been no children from the marriage, and Polina remained in that great, empty house entirely on her own.

It seemed that her marriage to the businessman, and all the misfortunes that followed his death, had stripped her of any wish to face the world beyond her gate. She lived on in the mansion at the edge of the village, a recluse in her own home. Only Aunt Galya and her husband, Grigory Andreyevich, the village policeman, came by to help with the house. It seemed the businessman had left Polina some means of income after all, for she never needed to work. She spent her days contenting herself by growing cucumbers on what had once been a neatly trimmed English lawn — her chosen pastime over the past two years.

And now she’d been murdered.
For what? Why? Such senseless cruelty — especially since, as it turned out, nothing had even been stolen from the house.

Anna shivered, remembering the phone call from two days ago.

Aunt Galya had been sobbing and moaning into the phone, unable to explain what had happened, until at last her husband put an end to her anguish. He took the phone from her and, in the flat, official tone of a policeman, delivered the terrible news: her sister, Polina Solyanskaya, had been found dead in her own home.

“Death was caused by obstruction of the airways,” he said.

Then he fell silent for a moment and, in response to Anna’s frightened cries, added quietly:

“She was murdered. Strangled. With bare hands. The funeral’s tomorrow.”

Anna shifted her gaze from the howling neighbor to Grigory Andreyevich. Aunt Galya’s husband was solemnly and with great diligence gnawing on a chicken leg. He approached everything in life that way — solemnly and with great diligence. When the new village policeman appeared in Makeevka a couple of years ago, he took a measured, thoughtful approach to the matter of marriage. Rather than bringing flowers, he presented his bride-to-be with beef cuts and other practical delicacies — which, most likely, was how he conquered Aunt Galya’s heart. When Galya, shy and hesitant, announced over the phone that she was getting married, Anna was sincerely glad for her. Her aunt had endured fifteen miserable years with her first husband, a hopeless drunk, before he finally died — and now, such unexpected fortune: a sober, industrious man.

Anna suddenly realized that when she’d come for her aunt’s wedding a year ago, it had been the last time she saw her sister alive.

Now, listening to the wailing of the plump neighbor on her left, a fresh wave of grief and bewilderment swept over her.
Why? For what? What had Polina done to deserve such a terrible end?

Anna looked hopefully at her aunt’s husband. He would find the killer — he had to.

Anna clenched her fists and hurried out of the house. The summer evening breathed cool air against her face.

Pity I quit smoking, she thought wearily. A cigarette would’ve been just right now.

Behind her, a door slammed softly. Aunt Galya, her eyes swollen but dry, draped a knitted cardigan over Anna’s shoulders.

“It gets chilly in the evenings — you’ll catch a cold,” the woman said sadly, looking off into the distance.

Anna followed her aunt’s gaze and saw Polina’s mansion gleaming faintly through the apple trees. A sharp pang of guilt pierced her. How distant they’d been from each other — unbearably distant.
Maybe if she’d come here more often, this tragedy wouldn’t have happened?

Moved by a sudden impulse, Anna caught her aunt’s hand and tugged gently.

“Let’s go there. Please, let’s just go.”

Galya nodded weakly, jingled the keys in her pocket, and began to shuffle slowly down the path toward the gate.
Anna hurried to keep up beside her.

The mansion stood at the very edge of the village. Just beyond its fence began a sparse birch grove that soon thickened into a dark fir forest. Somewhere in the apple trees, a bird chattered loudly and irritably as the two women walked along the path and climbed the veranda steps.

Polina had never kept dogs, but she fed all the neighborhood cats, and now two of the four-legged beggars flashed their eyes at the visitors before darting off into the garden.

With a familiar motion, Aunt Galya switched on the light in the living room, rustled toward the fireplace in her small, weary steps, and sank into an armchair.

“W-where did they find her?” Anna whispered, her eyes sweeping the room.

She stopped on the threshold, unable to take another step. Her heart was pounding against her ribs in a wild drumbeat; her ears rang, and her legs felt weak and hollow.

“In the maroon bedroom. I was the one who found her…” the woman answered in a lifeless voice. “She was lying on the bed as if asleep, only her head was twisted in a strange way… I called out — no answer. Then I came closer, and her neck was all black, her eyes almost bulging… Grisha told the medical examiner she’d been strangled by hand — maybe there were fingerprints, but who knows…”

She spoke as if to herself, her eyes half-closed, her head swaying gently, the fingers of her right hand endlessly worrying the edge of her dress.

A shiver ran through Anna. She knew exactly where the maroon bedroom was — she’d slept there herself the last time she’d come for her aunt’s wedding.

Now, knowing what had happened in that room, she’d have to summon her courage before she could even look inside.

As if hearing her thoughts, her aunt said quietly:

“It’s locked. Grisha and the men from the district office sealed it off… Told us no one’s to go in.”

“Aunt Galya, did Polina have a…?” Anna faltered, searching for the right word. “A friend?”

The woman sighed.

“She did, my dear, she did. I told the police already — I don’t know who he was.”

“Oh, come on, Aunt Galya! In a village like this, everyone knows everything about everyone,” Anna said skeptically.

She moved closer, knelt on the carpet beside her aunt, and gently took her trembling fingers in her own. At the touch, Galya seemed to soften all at once, and tears began to spill from her eyes again.

“About everyone, yes — but not about Polina… You know what she’s like—” Galya stopped, swallowed, and corrected herself softly. “Was. You know what she was like.” She gave a shaky sniff. “You couldn’t get a word out of her.”

She waved a hand in front of her eyes as if to brush away a memory, wiped her tears, and went on, almost calmly:

“About two months ago, someone started coming here. To see her. You can tell — the house is right on the edge of the village, and no one notices who comes from that side. I’m not blind: two glasses in the sink, twice as many cigarette butts — and who knows what else. I’d ask her, and she’d just smile and say nothing. ‘Mind your own business, old woman! Go on, tidy up and be quick about it!’”

Her aunt’s words vividly brought Polina back to Anna’s mind — standing by the fireplace with a cigarette in hand, giving orders to Galya, who was busy mopping the floor.

Polina was never one to mince words, and with her aunt she spoke as if to a servant, though it was Galya who had raised her. Perhaps that was one more reason the sisters had never really connected — neither in childhood nor later on.

They couldn’t have been more different: domineering, rough-edged Polina and gentle, even-tempered Anna. Yet the resemblance between them left no doubt they were sisters.

“I’ll sleep in the study tonight, Aunt Galya, all right? They didn’t seal that one, did they?”

Only now did Anna realize how tired she was. All she wanted was to reach the sofa and stretch out her legs.

“All right, my dear. Just lock everything up, will you? Aren’t you afraid to stay here alone? Maybe you’d better spend the night with us?”

Anna wasn’t afraid. She was far too tired for that. Funerals were exhausting things.
And really, what could happen to her behind locked doors and barred windows? Anna knew that Polina’s husband had once spared no expense on locks and an alarm system — her sister had shown and explained everything to her in detail. She assured her aunt she could manage on her own.

She was so terribly sleepy.

Galya didn’t insist any further. Resting her cheek on her fist, she asked softly, with pity in her voice:

“Will you stay, or are you leaving again? The house is yours now. Polina left it to you in her will.”

Anna almost gaped in astonishment. Polina had left her this house? Completely absurd! Her sister had never said a single word about anything of the sort.

What would she even do with it? She didn’t need a house — she didn’t need anything.

All she wanted was to get back to Moscow, to her ordinary life, and forget these wretched funerals as quickly as possible.

“You’ll sell it, I suppose,” her aunt sighed sadly, giving voice to Anna’s own thoughts. “But don’t you go forgetting me, old as I am, all right?”

“Oh, Aunt Galya, don’t be silly,” Anna said, wrapping her arms around her and pressing her face against the valerian-scented kerchief on her chest.

They both cried, and afterward, each felt a little lighter.

After her aunt left, Anna barely found the strength to lock all the doors and bolts before dragging herself off to bed.

As she passed the door to the maroon bedroom, her hand brushed thoughtfully over the paper seal the police had stuck there. The poorly glued edge had come loose, and the strip now hung askew, leaving the room unsealed.

Anna glanced around furtively, as if someone might be watching, and gently pushed the door open.

The bedroom looked just as it always had — except that the bed was unmade, and a crumpled coverlet lay on the floor.

Anna bit her lip. Her unruly imagination began to conjure up scenes of strangling, each more horrific than the last.

She shut the door quickly, pressed the paper seal carefully back into place, and almost ran down the hall to the study. Locking the door behind her, she collapsed onto the sofa and slipped instantly into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She didn’t hear the creak of the back door, nor the soft footsteps crossing the tiled floor of the kitchen.
A cat — gray, like everything else in the darkness — slipped in after the intruder and leapt onto the kitchen table as if it owned the place.

The shadowy figure moved silently up the stairs and paused before the locked door of the study.

Meanwhile, the gray cat, finding nothing of interest on the table, decided to explore the rest of the kitchen.
She leapt down, brushing her tail against an empty beer can. The can clattered to the floor and went rolling noisily across the tiles.

Startled, the cat let out a sound that was anything but “meow” and bolted out into the night.

Anna turned over in her sleep and groaned softly.

The dark figure froze at the door, listening to the strange noises from downstairs. Then, just as swiftly and silently, it descended to the kitchen and looked around.

Finding nothing suspicious, the intruder hesitated for a moment, then slipped outside, locked the kitchen door from the outside, and vanished into the night.

***