“For cryin’ out loud, do we got a family reunion here or what?” Christine said through clenched teeth. She glanced at Hope. “Who is she? What is she doing here?”
“This is Hope,” Vivian said. She walked up to Hope from behind and placed her hands gently on Hope’s shoulders. “Hope Windom, the sister we never knew we had.”
“Half-sister,” Hope said.
Christine scrutinized Hope’s facial features and noticed some resemblance between Hope, Vivian, Rose, and herself. Her eyes were daggers when she turned to glare at Rose.
“Another well-kept secret, huh?” Christine said. “Another sister we never knew we had?” Then it suddenly dawned on her. “So, that was what was meant by giving the child hope or some such stoopid thing!”
“What are you going to do about it?” Rose asked.
Christine’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. She reached in her handbag, pulled out her gun and pointed it at Rose.
Hope gasped and took several steps away.
“Damn it, Christine, no guns!” Vivian said. “Put that thing down now!”
Christine whipped the pistol around and brandished it in Vivian’s face.
“Get over there,” Christine said to Vivian as she flicked the gun to one side. “Go on. Over there. Atta girl. That’s a good girl.” She glared at Vivian. “You make me sick! Always wanting to know this, always wanting to know that! So damned nosy, aren’t ya? Still nosy for the truth about what happened to Blaine? Well, how about this? Back in New Jersey, several months before coming to Los Angeles, I went to a gun show where I applied for a permit, which I received about two months later.
“From there, I purchased a handgun at a local gun dealership. Shortly before I left New Jersey, I stopped by Blaine’s house to say good-bye. He said he would stop at an ATM at the local bank to get some cash to treat me and his wife to some Chinese for lunch. He explained that he’d rather not use his card at the take-out joint. ‘Can’t trust anyone these days, even those who work the cashier behind the counter,’ he had said, then asked if I wanted anything. I told him I wasn’t hungry and that I’d be on my way to Los Angeles soon and pick up something then. I thanked him anyway.
“Moments after Blaine left, I stealthily followed him from a distance. When he parked his car and went to the ATM, I drove by and shot him twice in the back, then drove all the way to LA. I didn’t want him to know I was coming here to settle the score with the old Jezebel. He would’ve stopped me if he’d known.”
This revelation with regard to Blaine’s murder astounded and shocked Vivian.
“Oh, but there’s more,” Christine said. “All that stuff about my acting, auditions for TV commercials, and modeling shoots was a load of bull. I put on a bunch of pretense. All those things are actually on the back burner. My real reason for coming here, as you have already gathered, was to get back at her.” Christine jabbed the gun in Rose’s direction. “Also, I had three friends staying with me at the hotel the whole time I was there. You remember Jimmy, Dougie, and Tawny. I mentioned them to you one night during dinner. You had asked if Jimmy was my boyfriend, and I had said no. Well, now he’s officially my boyfriend but that’s irrelevant.”
Christine turned to face Rose.
“You . . .” Christine said. The muscles in her jaws pulsed. “You . . . I hate you. I’ve always hated you. Here are a few examples of how so very much I hate you. Your cursed house, for one. Kaboom! Oopsie! Hadn’t meant to set off a firestorm in the process.
“Oh, and that big, blond dude who slaved for you—Whoosh! Kapow! That was my good friend, Little Johnny Rocket. That’s why I had some friends come out and stay with me. To help me with the plans I had against you. I certainly couldn’t do it on my own.
“I even went out of my way to pay you a surprise visit at the hospital on that stoopid little island in the Caribbean, but you were dead asleep. You should’ve just been plain dead.
“Oh, better yet, before your doomed domain went up in smoke, I had my friends help me break into your house and take every single gem you’ve had, all the jewels, all the gold bars, all the important papers, all the millions of dollars and—I saved the best for last—I took all the diaries . . . your personally handwritten diaries and your photo albums, and I compiled them into a tell-all book.”
“No wonder my calls were not answered by my servants!” Rose said. “You are the one responsible for murdering them, including Dolph!”
“Who the frickin’ hell is Dolph?” Christine asked. “The better question is: do I even care?”
“He was the ‘big, blond dude’ whom you just mentioned a minute ago.”
“So he was one of your slovenly slaves. Who gives a—”
“He was my personal handyman, the one whom I had favored above the other servants—until you killed him! He was my son!”
“Excusez moi? You mean to tell me I killed my own brother—or half-brother, if even that?”
Vivian glared hard at Rose, her eyes orbs of seething anger and unbridled hatred.
“You mean you had your ‘personal handyman’ kill my husband and your movie producer?”
“Yeah, by ‘fixing’ their cars,” Christine said as she eyed Rose, “and blacklisting and killing your screenwriter and making it look like suicide, and helping to get some ‘blonde Adonis’ deported back to Germany, and shoving our father down the stairs.”
Rose stood silent, tight-lipped.
“Dolph was my son by another man,” Rose said after a moment as she eyed Vivian. “Long before I had met and married your father, long before you were born. I never married the guy who had fathered Dolph. It had been one of those things, like a one-night stand, and nothing more. I had met a guy through friends at some event somewhere a couple years after I had graduated from high school. I thought he was attractive, cute, and good looking with that big physique and blond hair. As you can see, I gave birth to Dolph out of wedlock when I had been in my early twenties or thereabouts. As you may have deduced, I hated Desirée, whom I am loath to address as ‘my mother,’ because when she had found out that I was pregnant, especially having been an unmarried woman, she had harangued me ad infinitum about the Bible, God, Jesus, Hellfire, eternal punishment, and so on. She had never let it go, had never let me forget. After the birth of my son, she called me an immoral, loose woman.”
“Oh, now you tell us,” Vivian said. “I would’ve thought you’d put this information in the pages of your diaries.”
“Since you read my diaries, you may have noticed some pages had been blacked out and torn out. I threw them in the fireplace after I had changed my mind and decided that those things should not have been written in the first place. Instead, it was to be my deep, dark secret.” Rose turned to Christine. “Now, as for everything you took from the trunk, I demand that you give them back to me!”
“The hell I will!” Christine said. “It’s way too late anyway, because I paid my three friends and a professional typist for their help by giving them most of the jewels and gems and thousands of dollars. Plus, I’ve already got a manuscript written, and as we speak, the book will be published soon. Too bad you won’t live to see me bask in glory.”
“You could not possibly have—”
“I had it all planned since I saw the goodies in the trunk that fell from the mezzanine during the earthquake, right down to the very last minute detail.”
“You did not.”
“Oh, no? Need I say more?”
Christine raised her arm and pulled the trigger. The bullet grazed Rose’s left ear.
Hope screamed.
“I demand you drop that gun at once!” Vivian said to Christine.
The cabbie heard the gunshot. He called 911.
Christine fired the pistol again. This time the hot bullet punctured Rose’s left shoulder below the collar bone. Rose stumbled backward and fell on her backside. The fall loosened her turban, which sat askew on her head.
“Now, look what you’ve done!” Vivian said to Christine.
“Gladly,” Christine said. She bent over and pressed her face close to Rose, cocked her head to one side, and gawked at her with a smirk.
“That’s not funny, Christine!” Vivian said.
Rose lay on her back and gasped for air. Blood oozed from the gunshot wound and stained the top she wore.
“At long last, my pride and joy,” Christine said with a snicker. “Now, I’ve got something to be proud of.” She laughed hard.
“Give me the gun now,” Vivian said to Christine. She held her out hand, palm up.
“How about I give you a bullet instead?” Christine pointed the pistol in Vivian’s direction.
“Come on, Christine. Hand it over before someone else gets hurt.”
The front door flew open and the cabbie’s sudden appearance startled Christine and caught her off guard. She turned and fired in the cabbie’s direction. He dashed for cover as he jumped to one side of the door frame.
“Damn you, Christine!” Vivian said. “That’s enough!”
Christine aimed the gun at Vivian. The cab driver regained his composure and ran toward Christine. She swiftly turned around and pointed the gun at his leg.
“Down boy,” she said and fired the pistol.
The bullet grazed one side of his left leg. He went down and groaned in pain.
“You stupid girl!” Vivian said to Christine.
“I should’ve shot you square in the temple the night I crept into your room,” Christine said as she turned to wield the pistol at Vivian. “Yeah, that’s right. A short while back, I sneaked into your room with the intention of splattering your brains on your pillow while you were sleeping.”
This revelation didn’t surprise Vivian. She knew how Christine was, especially with her unconstrained anger and maniacal lust for blood.
Right now, Vivian kept in mind that four bullets had been fired so far, but didn’t know how many bullets were left, if any. She didn’t know how many bullets the pistol’s chamber held, but she wasn’t taking chances. She immediately lifted her hand and hit Christine’s wrist with such agility that it took Christine by surprise. Vivian had intended to knock the gun out of Christine’s hand. In the process, Christine impulsively fired the gun twice. Vivian ducked as the bullets whizzed over her head at an angle and ended up lodged in the ceiling.
“You bitch!” Christine said. She aimed the gun at Vivian’s face and pulled the trigger.
The gun did not fire. Christine pulled the trigger several more times and realized the gun was out of bullets.
“Oh, crap!” Christine said.
She threw the pistol in Vivian’s face.
“Ow!” Vivian said as she groaned in pain.
Christine dashed to the other end of the front room to the sliding glass doors. Vivian ran behind her.
Hope helped the cabbie to his feet. He winced with pain and glanced at the bloody gunshot wound on his left leg. He and Hope helped Rose to her feet and took her to the rear of the cab where she lay on her back. Hope ran back into the house while the cabbie plopped into the driver’s seat. He hastily floored the accelerator and inadvertently flooded the carburetor.
“Oh, come on!” he said.
“Vivian?” Hope called out from the front door as she stepped inside, then closed and locked the front door.
Christine pulled open one of the sliding glass doors. Vivian ran and lunged at Christine and knocked her over.
“Oof!” Christine said.
They tumbled to the ground.
Vivian crawled on top of Christine.
“Got’cha,” Vivian said, breathless. She panted as her chest heaved. “What are you going to do now, huh?”
Vivian pushed herself off Christine and forced Christine to her feet by pulling on her arms. “Get up! Get up, I said!”
“Ow!” Christine said. “Watch it, woman! You’re hurting me!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I’ll hurt you a lot more if you don’t do as I say.”
Vivian grabbed Christine’s right arm and quickly twisted it around behind her back.
“Ow!” Christine said.
With her free arm, Vivian firmly placed it around Christine’s neck in a chokehold.
“Oh, man,” Christine said. “C’mon, Viv. Do you have to do this?”
“Do you claim defeat?”
“Never.”
“Shut up, then.” Vivian nudged Christine forward. “Hope? Hope? Call the police.”
Hope nodded and saw a cell phone on an end table.
“Easy now, you hear?” Vivian said to Christine. She nudged her forward and maintained the chokehold. They slowly made their way into the middle of the front room.
“You really wouldn’t turn in your own sister, would you now?” Christine asked with a nervous chuckle.
“Pull another stunt and I swear I’ll turn you into compost. Got it?”
Suddenly, Vivian, Christine, and Hope felt a sharp jolt and heard a loud crack.
“Oh, gosh, an aftershock,” Vivian said with a gasp.
The house vibrated with intensity as windows rattled, walls shook, and other objects moved.
“Aftershock, my ass,” Christine said. “It’s more like a damn earthquake.”
“Oh, man,” the cabbie said. “I don’t believe this.”
The cab shimmied a bit.
Rose groaned from the backseat.
“Get this thing moving,” she said weakly with erratic breath.
“I’m trying, ma’am! I’m trying!”
He turned the ignition, applied a little pressure to the accelerator, and revved the motor. It lurched forward and pulled away from the curb.
Nervous from the aftershock, Vivian unintentionally loosened her grip on Christine, who then bolted from Vivian and ran across the room. In her state of panic, she lost her balance due to the tectonic force from the tremor. She tripped and fell.
Vivian stood still with her hands on the wall to maintain her balance while the ground continued to shake.
Christine shot to her feet, stumbled through the front room and raced for the door. Hope stood nearby with the cell phone in her hand. Reflexively, she flinched and stepped out of Christine’s way. Once again, Christine tripped over her own footing.
“Damn it!” Christine said as she fell face first to the ground.
The ground’s movements stopped and Christine scrambled to her feet. Vivian ran and lunged at Christine once again and knocked her back down.
Christine saw the pistol nearby where she had thrown it at Vivian’s face earlier. The pistol was a half-inch from her fingertips.
“Oh, c’mon!” she said.
She thrust her arm further forward and grasped the butt of the pistol with her fingers while Vivian did what she could to pull Christine’s arms away from the gun. Hope dropped the cell phone and ran to where the pistol lay and kicked it away.
“Damn you, girl!” Christine said.
Christine then grabbed Hope’s ankle with both hands, pulled herself forward, and bit Hope’s ankle hard. Hope cried out in pain. She wiggled and twisted her leg to pull herself away from Christine’s tight grasp.
“Let go of me!” Hope said.
Christine twisted Hope’s ankle, which caused Hope to lose her balance. Hope managed to regain her balance and wrench her foot from Christine’s grasp. Vivian pushed herself off Christine’s back, grabbed Christine’s ankles, and pulled her away from Hope. Christine rammed the heel of her tennis shoe into Vivian’s right knee. Vivian howled in pain. Christine quickly pushed herself off the floor, shoved Hope aside, and ran to the front door to open it only to realize it had been locked. She hurriedly unlocked the door, yanked it open, and dashed to her convertible.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Vivian said. She tried to get to her feet even though her right knee throbbed with pain.
“You should take it easy, Vivian,” Hope said with concern as she helped Vivian to her feet.
Vivian watched Christine jump into her convertible and slam the driver’s side door closed. The motor revved as Christine burned rubber. She guided the car back down the driveway, then turned into the street and sped off.
Vivian rubbed her sore knee with the palm of her hand. She hobbled as she stood for a moment, then, to Hope’s surprise, she abruptly bolted from Hope’s side.
“Vivian!” Hope said.
Vivian half-ran, half-limped out the front door. She gritted her teeth and winced in pain with every step.
“Vivian!”
Hope ran after Vivian, who jumped in her yellow Honda Civic and turned the ignition.
“Vivian,” Hope said. “You don’t have to do this. It’s not worth it.”
“I’ve got to stop her!”
“You’re in no condition to drive. Just let her go.”
“No!”
Vivian speedily backed out of the driveway and drove off. Hope stood there, feeling helpless and forsaken.
Moments later, Hope hopped in her car and chased after Vivian.