Vivian stepped from the master bedroom into the hall and closed the door. She walked down the short length to the head of the stairs, stopped to look in her purse, and withdrew a set of keys.
“Hey, Christine,” Vivian said as she descended the stairs. “I’m going to get a few things from the local market. Want me to get you anything, anything at all?”
“No, that’s okay,” Christine said. “Thanks, anyway.”
Christine closed and locked the front door after Vivian stepped out. She turned around and stopped in mid-thought.
“Ah, just the thing I need to do,” she said to herself.
Christine nosed around the living room as she looked under sofa cushions, behind oversized pillows, in desk drawers, and in the magazine rack. She went to the wet bar and looked through everything. Sunlight streamed through the sliding glass door and gave off enough light for her to see into the liquor cabinet clearly. She tried to pry it open without success.
She worked the kitchen next and opened anything on hinges, then closed them. Her frustration grew. She bit her lower lip in thought. She tried the garage.
Nothing.
“Damn,” she said as she stomped her foot once, her fists clenched. “The bedroom. It’s gotta be in the master bedroom.” She quickly trotted up the stairs.
Open, close. Yank, slam. Lift, drop.
Christine lifted the mattress, looked under the bed, peeked behind some framed pictures which hung on the walls, opened all the dresser drawers and the bathroom drawers, the wall-mounted medicine chest, and the built-in cabinets beneath the sink.
“Damn it!” she said. “Where the hell did she hide it?”
She walked to the threshold between the master bedroom and the hall, where she stood and eyed the closed door to the sealed room in the west wing.
“Oh, man,” she said with a groan. “You can’t be serious. You did not hide the gun in there.” She walked up to the door. “Somehow, I’ve gotta get the keys.”
She went back into Vivian’s room and snooped around some more. She hoped she would somehow come across the keys to the sealed room.
It’s wishful thinking, she thought.
Christine sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. She rested her feet for a few minutes, then went to the window which overlooked the veranda and the backyard. She could see the veranda with the patio set, the Greco-Roman statues, the rose bushes and flower gardens, the large pool, and the gazebo.
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye. It looked like someone’s leg. She caught a glimpse of the back of a head with a mop of blond hair. Seen for a second, then gone.
She peered through dense bushes and trees. Any movement she detected came across as vague and hardly discernible. She decided to get a closer look.
She went downstairs, went out on the veranda, walked toward the pool, and looked beyond the gazebo.
Nothing.
She went back inside and closed the sliding glass door. When she turned around with her back to it, a blond-haired man appeared at the far end of the pool. He walked from one side to the other and disappeared behind shrubs.
Christine looked out the kitchen window.
Nothing.
After she turned away from the window, the man’s head glided by it outside.
She had walked halfway up the stairs when she heard a car door close and the ignition started.
“Vivian?” Christine called out, loudly enough so that she could be heard at the driveway. “Is that you, Viv?”
She ran down the stairs and bolted out the front door.
By the time Christine reached the end of the driveway and looked down the quiet residential street in both directions, she glimpsed the rear of a dark-blue, two-door sedan as it made a right turn onto another street. She discerned that the driver’s head was distinctively masculine with light-colored hair.
“Hi, I’m back,” Vivian said as she stepped in and closed the front door. She carried some plastic grocery bags and walked into the living room where she laid her purse and set of keys on the wet bar. “How are things, Christine?” Vivian asked as she went into the kitchen with the groceries.
“Oh, okay, I guess,” Christine said. She thought about what she might have seen out in the back beyond the swimming pool and the dark-blue car she saw as it turned right onto a street and rounded a corner at the intersection. “Interesting,” she added as an afterthought.
“That’s good,” Vivian said. “I’ll be right out in a minute. Give me a couple minutes to put this stuff away.”
“Sure. Take your time.”
Christine sat on the sofa. She glanced and sneered at Vivian’s needlepoint canvas on the coffee table. She hated looking at the image of the two roses and the fact that it made her think of that heinous hussy.
“Bitch,” Christine said under her breath, her face a nasty scowl.
Christine could hear Vivian in the kitchen as cupboard doors were opened and closed. She also heard the refrigerator door open and close, as well.
In the interim, she stared at the pre-printed canvas, drawn to it as if hypnotized. She envisioned moist droplets of blood slowly bubble up from a few rose petals and swell to fullness until they were heavy enough to drop off. She imagined blood form on more petals and fall off at the edges.
“Bleeding bi—”
“Care to join me?” Vivian asked as she came out of the kitchen. She carried a white serving tray with two tall drinking glasses and a clear pitcher of iced water with sliced lemon wedges that floated on top.
“Naw,” Christine said. “I’m gonna kick back and read a magazine, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” Vivian went out to the veranda and set the serving tray on the patio table.
Christine slyly watched Vivian settle into her seat at the table and pour water into a glass. Christine immediately went to work on getting the keys to the sealed room. She glanced at the keys lying on top of the wet bar, then turned to see Vivian get up from the chair and walk back into the house, which caught Christine off guard.
“I thought you were going to read a magazine,” Vivian said.
“Me, too,” Christine said, “but I’ll be shooting a TV commercial in a few weeks and I just can’t remember when it is. I’ll have to check my appointment book.”
“Okay.”
Christine turned and slowly walked toward the guest room. She glanced back at Vivian who went to the coffee table in the living room, picked up the needlepoint canvas, and went back out on the veranda.
Christine purposefully slowed her pace as she sneaked furtive glances behind her. With quiet stealth, she approached the wet bar, swiftly grabbed the keys, and immediately stuffed them in the front pocket of her jeans.
“Uh, listen, Viv,” Christine said as she stepped out on the veranda. “I’ve decided I’m gonna go for a drive. I’m feeling a little restless. I’ll be back in a while.”
“All right. See you when you get back.”
Christine found a nearby locksmith and had the keys duplicated, then aimlessly drove around parts of the Valley for about an hour to kill time.
“Christine, have you seen my set of keys?” Vivian asked when Christine returned.
“Excuse me?” Christine asked.
“They were on the bar. I know I put them there next to my purse when I came back from the market because that’s where I always put them.”
“Oh, man. You got a poltergeist or something?” Christine asked. “I hate when it turns out to be one of those weird, inexplicable things that you can’t explain, you know.”
“I know I didn’t misplace them,” Vivian said. “I couldn’t possibly have.”
“Well, I’d be happy to help you look for them.”
“Thanks. I would appreciate it. Oh, on second thought, I hope I didn’t leave them at the market.”
“Gee, I would hope not,” Christine said.
As Vivian went into the kitchen, Christine immediately withdrew Vivian’s keys from her pocket and quickly inserted them into the garbage disposal in the small stainless steel sink. Her tongue poked out one corner of her lips as she feigned searching for the keys.
“I found them!” Christine said.
“Oh, good,” Vivian said with a sigh of relief. “Where did you find them?”
“You’d never guess. In the garbage disposal.”
“What? How . . .?”
“Beats me,” Christine said with a shrug of indifference. “I just stuck my hand down there and took a chance. I remember putting my handbag on the bar. I have a tendency to count my money before going out. You know, the bar’s so cluttered, I most likely pushed the keys away by accident to make room for my wallet and the money”
“But, wouldn’t you have heard the keys fall?”
“If I did, I didn’t think anything of it. I was busy counting, okay?”
“But that still doesn’t answer how these keys ended up there,” Vivian said.
“Look, these things happen,” Christine said. “As I said a moment ago, the bar is such a cluttered mess, it’s a miracle this hasn’t happened before. Why don’t you do something about it, huh? Anyway, I’m gonna go read. If you need me, I’ll be in the guest room.”