Marionette (34 page)

“I guess you could say the same about me.” I finished her thought.

“I’ve learned a lot in the past few months, Paige.” She stubbed out her cigarette and lit another.

“Really, what’s that?”

“Circumstances. All of us try to live with the life we are dealt. You, Alex, Abbie, and your parents. Me being an orphan. We all try to get by the best we can.”

For several minutes we sat silently at the table, smoking.

“What’s next?” I broke the silence.

“I spoke to Julia last week. She wants to open a second restaurant and have me run it. I wasn’t going to take her up on it, but I think I might, at least until I can save enough money to pay for grad school.”

“That’s good.” I looked down at my hand holding the cigarette. The smoke swirled towards Jess. I waved it out of her face.

“That wasn’t what you were talking about, was it?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know what’s next with us.” She exhaled, smoke billowing around her.

I took another drag of my cigarette and then stubbed it out clumsily. Pushing my chair back, I cringed at the sound it made on the linoleum. “I need to lie down.”

When I passed her, she lowered her head.

“When’s the last time you slept?” I asked.

“Don’t know, really. Can’t shut my mind off.” She went to grab another cigarette, but I stopped her.

“Take one of my pills. You won’t be able to stay awake.”

I climbed under the covers and nestled down into the cold sheets. Jess followed minutes later and settled on the other side, careful not to invade my space. I wasn’t sure it would be possible for either of us to breach the chasm.

“You may not want to hear this, but I did it for you, Paige. For us.”

I stared out the window. “I know, Jess. I know.”

The pill I took before getting into bed started to kick in, silencing my racing thoughts.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Birds sang outside the window, and a ray of light fell on my face. I sat up, holding my wrist to appease the ache. Jess was still snoring. Several minutes passed before I realized what my next move should be. I crept to the kitchen and fished a business card from my wallet.

Dialing the number, I leaned around the wall to ensure Jess was still sound asleep.

“Hello.”

I whispered, “May I speak to Liddy?”

“Speaking.” Her voice sounded heavy with sleep.

“I’m sorry I woke you, but I need to talk to you.”

“Paige, is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“It’s not what you think.” Then I looked at my wrist. How was I going to explain that? “I…‌just need to talk.”

“Okay. Where can I meet you? The office is closed today.”

“Can I come there?”

Liddy hesitated. Then she agreed and gave me her address. I hung up the phone, grabbed my wallet, and then saw Jess’s cigarettes. After taking a couple from the case, I left the apartment.

The drive to Liddy’s didn’t take long—‌or maybe it did; my mind was in a fog, probably the pills for my wrist.

Liddy opened the door, took one look at my wrist, and then gasped. “Oh my God, are you all right?”

I started to cry. Liddy wrapped an arm around me and led me inside. After sitting me down on the couch, she left me for a couple of minutes and then returned with two cups of tea. I took one of the mugs gratefully and held it close to my chest.

“Please tell me what happened to your wrist.” Her tone was commanding but polite.

“Davie.”

“Davie? Jess’s friend.” She sat on the chair next to the couch.

I looked up to see if she had a notepad and pencil, but she only held her teacup. “Where to begin?”

“You know me, Paige, I like to start at the beginning.” She smiled.

I told her all of it. Jess. Davie. Richard. By the time I finished, I had polished off three cups of tea and a turkey sandwich.

When I stopped talking, Liddy sucked in air but didn’t speak. Then the doorbell rang. She looked scared, and I wondered if she expected Guido to crash into her home with an Uzi.

Liddy stood up to get the door, and I stayed put on the couch. I could hear muffled voices, but couldn’t make out who was talking or what was being said. Then I saw Jess walk into the room. The directions! I had left the directions I’d written down on the kitchen counter. Once I wrote something down on paper, I had it memorized.

“Hi,” was all I could muster.

Liddy followed Jess into the room. “Why don’t I make some more tea?” She disappeared around the wall.

Jess didn’t stay with me. She followed Liddy into the kitchen. Was she defending herself?

Both of them soon reappeared looking nervous as hell.

“What happened? Is Davie okay?” I demanded from Jess.

Liddy answered, “That’s not why she’s here.”

I turned to Liddy. “What’s going on? Something happened?”

“Paige—‌” Jess stopped abruptly.

Liddy looked down at the carpet. “Paige, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“What?” I screamed.

“Your parents—‌”

I whirled around to look behind me, expecting to see them there with hulking men in white coats to haul me away.

“No,” Liddy said. “They aren’t here.”

“What, then! Tell me!”

Jess sat down next to me and took my hand in hers. “Honey, they’re dead.”

Everything went black.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I opened my eyes to find Jess and Liddy leaning over me.

Jess smiled. “Hey there.”

Liddy sat down next to me, and Jess sat on the other side.

I rubbed my eyes, wincing when my chin brushed against my wrist.

“Do you need something for the pain?” asked Liddy.

“No. It only hurts if I nudge it.”

“How about your neck? The bruise is really starting to show.”

I ran my fingers over it gently and felt the scratch marks. “No, it’s fine.”

I turned to Jess. “Tell me, please. Wh-what happened?”

“It appears that Abbie—‌”

I cut her off. “Abbie? Is she okay?”

“She’s in the hospital.”

“What happened? A car accident?” Had Abbie come home early for Christmas?

“No, Paige. This isn’t going to be easy to hear, so let me tell you all that I know.”

I braced for the news. Jess took a deep breath and then let out a torrent of words. “Abbie is in the hospital. She’s been shot. It seems that your father shot her.”

Jess paused and locked her eyes on mine. “He was defending himself…‌Abbie had a gun.”

I turned to Liddy, who just nodded.

Jess continued, “Abbie shot your parents, Paige. She confessed to the cops when they arrived. It’s all over the news.”

I looked to the blank TV in the hope I would find my answer, but I didn’t. “Why?”

“
That
I don’t know.”

“What next?” my voice croaked.

Both of them shook their heads in unison.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“She’s in intensive care,” said Liddy.

“I want to see her.”

Jess fidgeted. “She’s surrounded by police. I don’t know if they’ll let you in.”

Liddy stood up. “Let me make a few calls, Paige. I know the chief of staff at the hospital.”

I nodded my thanks.

Jess and I sat on the couch and I rested my head on her shoulder. “This has been the weirdest few days.”

She ran her fingers through my hair. Liddy came back into the room and announced, “It’s all set, and the police would like to talk to you.”

The news didn’t shock me at all. “Okay.”

“I think you should go to the station first. I’ll go with you,” said Liddy.

Jess hopped off the couch. “Me too.”

I turned to Jess. “What if they ask where I’ve been? I don’t think you should be there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Paige. They don’t suspect you, and I’m your alibi anyhow.”

Jess being around the police made me nervous, but the look on her face made me acquiesce.

As it turned out, I had no reason to worry. The police only asked me about Abbie. Her frame of mind? When I had last heard from her? How close we were? So many people believe in the twin connection. I think they expected me to confess that I had felt it when she snapped, and did nothing to prevent it. It became apparent that they didn’t like my father. I was too stunned to show much emotion either way.

Jess and Liddy were waiting for me in the hallway when I finished. Before I knew it, we were leaving the police station. A pack of reporters was waiting outside. The constant camera flashes blinded me. If my father had still been alive, this media circus would have been averted. The thought almost made me smile. Instead, I tucked my head down, pulled my collar up, and slid into the backseat of Liddy’s car.

The chief of staff arranged for us to arrive via the hospital employee entrance, so we avoided the police and reporters outside. A nurse led me into Abbie’s room, where a police officer sat in the corner reading a newspaper. Abbie lay in the hospital bed, hooked up to several machines. The cop must have recognized me, because he picked up his coffee and stepped out into the hallway. I pulled his chair over and sat next to Abbie. I took her hand. She didn’t respond. A nurse came in, checked her chart, glanced in my direction, and then left.

I sat with Abbie for hours, hoping she would wake. She never did.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The next week passed like a bad dream. Each day, I visited Abbie. Each day, I found her in the same condition. The same cop would get up and leave. The same nurse would come in and check on her. Jess stayed with me in town, but Liddy had other clients to take care of. Each night, I called Liddy to check in. She said it was so she could say hi, but I knew she wanted to know that I was still breathing.

Abbie’s medical team approached me on the sixth day and asked about a DNR: Do Not Resuscitate. The entire time she’d been in the hospital, not once had she opened her eyes. Not once had she breathed on her own. The machines did it all. They wanted to know if I was ready to let her die. I didn’t want to make that decision, but I was the only one left.

The only survivor of the once-great Alexander family.

My father’s lawyer showed up at the hospital. I was to inherit fifteen million dollars. I told him I didn’t want it. He looked at me like I was insane, and then said something about me being in shock and that he would talk to me later.

I hated that money. It was dirty money—‌every cent of it. My father cheated to get it. Then he used it to control all of us. That money was the cause of all this suffering. And too many deaths.

However, the doctors wouldn’t go away like my father’s lawyer. Abbie was never going to wake up, they said. I knew that even if she did, she would be tried and convicted for murdering our parents. They didn’t say that, but it was implied. What choice did I have?

I signed the DNR, and then I didn’t leave Abbie’s side until she was gone.

It was Christmas Eve.

After all of the funerals and the media frenzy, Jess and I boarded a plane to pack up Abbie’s apartment on the East Coast. Abbie had chosen a small school, just like I had. However, hers had been even farther away from home.
Had she hated everyone knowing that she was an Alexander?
I wondered. Of course, it would be hard for people to forget her now. The rich heiress who went berserk and murdered her parents. How long until a made-for-TV movie aired?

My picture was plastered over every newspaper too, with the headline: Alexander Survivor to Inherit Millions!

Survivor. I wasn’t even at the house when it all happened, but that detail was usually left out of the articles. Instead, millions of people thought I was there for the horrific event. When people looked at me, their eyes were filled with pity. But some looked at me accusingly, as if I had been in on it with Abbie and had left her to take the fall.

I wasn’t prepared for Abbie’s dorm room. Newspaper and magazine articles were strewn about. The same stories I had tracked down over the past few months. Not once had I thought that Abbie might have been going through the same hell as me. All I had been able to focus on was Alex. Alex’s death. My mother’s threat. Abbie never entered my mind. I had forgotten or ignored the sister who was still alive. My twin.

We boxed everything up and took it to the condo we rented for a week. All of her clothes and furniture we donated to a battered women’s shelter. All that I kept were her papers. That first night, I read her diary. She had begun it when she was approached by the wife of the reporter who had been mysteriously killed. She was also a reporter, and was following up on her husband’s lead about my father. Both reporters knew that I had taken care of my mother during my childhood and neither had approached me.

Abbie had hired a private investigator. Even though I had been living in fear of my parents, part of me had hoped that my mom’s drunken confession was fictional. The P.I. didn’t find concrete proof, but he made the same connections as the reporter and they matched what I had concluded. And he tracked down the sister of Alex’s friend—‌the one who had given Alex the heroin when she was in rehab. He had left a suicide note explaining what he had done, how much he’d been paid to slip Alex the tainted drug. The friend had thought he was being followed, and he had ended it. The family never came forward, and they’d burned the note out of fear of my father.

Abbie’s diary read like a thriller. Each entry revealed a new piece to the puzzle. Most importantly, it revealed how guilty she had felt all of her life about the Lego incident. Abbie may not have slit her wrists like I had, but she was much worse off than me, I soon realized. All of her life, she had been jealous over my friendship with Alex. I had never realized how alone Abbie was in the world. Being an Alexander cut her off from everyone. She had no one to turn to. She hated Alex. She hated me. Then when she found out what our father had done, and what our mother had done…‌The manipulation had driven her mad. Abbie couldn’t live with it.

In the last entry of the diary, Abbie stated she was going to correct the wrongs that had been done. Retribution. I set the diary aside and thought of the white tulip I had seen at Alex’s grave. Had Abbie gone there asking for forgiveness?