“Where will you go?”
“Home. To Los Angeles. It’ll take me several months to sort
through Tiffany’s affairs.”
“Will you be all right? Financially, I mean.”
She nodded. “I plan on selling all four of her houses and her art and jewelry and buying something modest with the proceeds. I can live nicely for what I’ll make on them until I figure out what I want to do next. I thought about living on the Oregon coast for a couple of months, let the sea air help me gather myself.”
“I think that sounds great. You deserve to take some time. But have you thought about managing another actress? You have the contacts, after all.”
Sabrina’s eyes clouded over. “I think I’m done with this
business. It eats at a person’s soul until there’s nothing left of you but guts and blood and a thin shell called skin.”
The valet came then with the tea service. While he was setting
up and Sabrina was signing the bill, Bella heard her cell phone
buzzing from her purse.
Picking it up, she saw it was a missed call from Peter. She’d call him later, she thought, not wanting to be rude to Sabrina. A second later, a text came through from Peter.
“Call me asap.”
“What sort of tea would you like?” asked Sabrina.
“Green?” She smiled, thinking of Peter.
Sabrina poured them both a cup and motioned for them to sit in the easy chairs by the fireplace. “It’s been such a long and sad week. I hated to leave town before they figured out what happened to her
but now that we know I feel it’s time to go. Nothing but bad memories here.” She took a sip of tea. “I will never forgive myself for not
hearing her that night. I go through it a hundred times a day. What if I’d just not used my ear plugs that night, would I have heard her screaming out? I guess I’ll never know.” She touched her scar. “It’s the same as
the night I got this scar. I keep going over it a hundred times and
wishing I’d done something different than I did.”
Bella didn’t say anything, nodding in a way she hoped
translated her sympathies. She didn’t want to push the poor woman to talk about something traumatic if she didn’t want to and yet she was curious. What had happened?
“Tiffany was driving the car, you know,” said Sabrina, her eyes
glazed over as if remembering.
“Was it a car accident then? I never knew.”
“Tiffany never wanted me to talk about it, afraid if it got out that she was the one who drove the car that killed our parents and left me disfigured it would be bad for her image. Of course I agreed.” She cocked her head to the side. “It was always about her career, which fed us both, I suppose.”
“She relied on you and trusted you. I hope that gives you some small comfort.”
Her eyes flickered. “I wish I could say yes, but I’m afraid not.
I’ve wasted my life giving it to an ungrateful child whose carelessness cost me my dreams. I know it makes me sound terribly bitter but alas, it’s where I’m at these days. They say one of the stages of grief is anger, do they not?”
It was the feeling of coming upon an accident, the inability to
look away, the hungry need to see, that came over Bella then. What
had Sabrina’s dreams been? And suddenly she knew. “Did you want to be an actress?”
“I did.” She stood, smiling. “May I show you something?”
“Of course.”
She went to one of the drawers in the bureau and yanked it
open,
pulling out a scrapbook. It was tattered and faded. Sabrina put it on the coffee table and opened it. The first page was a newspaper article. “Local girl wins talent contest.” Was it a photo of a very
young Tiffany?
As if she read her mind, Sabrina shook her head. “No, it’s not Tiffany. That’s me.” She pointed to a child in the background of the photo, holding onto a woman’s hand. “This is her with my mother.”
She turned the page. There was another article, this time about a
high
school play. The caption under the photo, “Sabrina Archer,
freshman, knocks them dead in a production of
Oklahoma
.”
“I was the talented one. She was always in my shadow, too shy to perform. Until the accident and then suddenly she comes up with this idea she wants to act. ‘We should go to Los Angeles,’ she told me. ‘We have nothing here now that Mom and Dad are gone. What do we have to lose?’ I told her, ‘Nothing. I already lost it all.’ But she
continued her campaign for weeks. ‘It’s a chance for us to go
somewhere that no one knows our sad story. And Beany,’ that’s what she called me back then, ‘it’s our only chance to get out of this town and make a life. If you had the talent, surely that means I do too. Twins share gifts.’ Turns out she was right. She was just as good and she was still beautiful, not a freak like me.”
Bella couldn’t think what to say. How sorry she was for this
woman who felt her life had been robbed. “I’m sorry, Sabrina.”
Sabrina shook her head as if to dispel the cobwebs of memory. She closed her scrapbook. “Well, no matter. The future is ahead. I just need to figure out what’s next for me.”
Bella’s cell phone buzzed again. “I’m so sorry. Someone wants to talk to me, obviously.” She looked at the screen. It was a call with a 310 area code—Los Angeles. “Sabrina, this is a Los Angeles number. I should check my voicemail. It might be a work thing.”
“Of course. Take your time. I’ve tons of time to kill before I leave for the airport.”
Bella went to the window. Below, the news trucks and reporters still lurked about. What did they expect to find? Poor Tiffany was dead. It’s not like she was about to come out the front door. Idiots.
She listened to the voicemail.
“Hey, Bella, this is Austin Blu. I left a message for Peter Ball as
well. I don’t know what made me remember this but I started
thinking
back on when I received the last call from the blackmailer and
realized
it was the morning
after
Tiffany Archer was killed, which was
Friday. I checked my phone just to be sure and it said 8:27 a.m. on Friday. According to the papers she was already dead by then. I don’t know if it matters at all in the investigation but I thought I’d mention it,
especially given when I read about Rawley Hough being arrested
this morning. I had one of my sound guys decode the message so I could hear it without the distortion and I could swear it’s Tiffany Archer’s voice on the message, which is impossible so then I think maybe I’m
crazy? But you know, that’s my thing, being able to decipher
subtleties of tone and all. Anyway, yeah, well, I guess that’s it. Call me back if you need more information.”
Bella hung up the phone, still standing at the window, her hands
damp from perspiration.
Could swear it’s Tiffany Archer’s voice.
Tiffany was dead by then. But Sabrina wasn’t. They sounded just alike. Was
Sabrina the blackmailer? What had Sabrina said the morning after
the
murder?
My sister can’t even get money out of the ATM, let alone figure out how to extort money.
Had Sabrina made the call to Austin before she knew her sister was dead? No, that wasn’t possible. Bella had
received the call from Gennie with the news closer to 8:00 a.m. She turned to look at Sabrina, feeling her heart pounding between her ears. Was Sabrina thinking only of money hours after getting the news of her sister? Or was Rawley Hough telling the truth? Had he raped her but left her alive? Was it possible for a sister to do the unthinkable?
She typed with shaking hands to Peter. “Got voicemail from Blu. With Sabrina now.”
“Everything all right?” asked Sabrina.
“Yes, just Ben wanting to know when I’m coming home. We’re
so relieved, you know, that he’s in the clear. I’m just texting that I’m on my way home after our visit.”
Get her to confess.
Why this thought came to her next she could not have said.
Get her to confess
. But it was there nonetheless. Prove who did this once and for all.
Screw the haters.
She and Tiffany had agreed the day before she was killed. Yes, she was a flawed woman,
like we all are, thought Bella. Regardless, she didn’t deserve to die. Each day was a battle against her demons. Who is to say she wouldn’t have fought them down had she lived? Had her last
thought been the
knowledge that her sister wanted her dead? Was it a fight? Had
Tiffany gone to her after the visit from Rawley and confronted her? Had she threatened to expose Sabrina? Surely it couldn’t have been planned? All these thoughts were roaring in her mind, a jumble of tossed thoughts. And then Peter’s voice in her head—
get her to talk.
She opened the photo application on her phone, changed it to
the recording setting and pushed the “on” button. Then she dropped it in the pocket of her sweater.
“You’re white as a ghost.” Sabrina was watching her carefully. “Come sit.”
Bella did so and picked up her cup of tea, trying not to spill it from the shaking in her hands.
“I thought you said it was a Los Angeles number that called.”
Sabrina’s gaze was unflinching, watchful. Suspicious? Yes,
suspicious.
Get it together
, thought Bella.
Stay calm.
“Did I? I must have been looking at the number below. I think Stefan called me yesterday—it was probably his number.”
Talk about something that connects you.
“Sabrina, I feel terrible about everything
you’ve just told me. I know how it is to feel like everyone you love is gone. I lost my mother when I was only sixteen, just like you and Tiffany. And, of course, I’m sure you remember what happened to
my little niece and her mother. Talking like this brings it all back.” She paused, acting as if she just thought of it. “Matter of fact, I could use
a drink. Care to join me?” She went to the mini bar and pulled out two vodka bottles. “How does a screwdriver sound?”
Screw the haters.
“You know, why not?” asked Sabrina. Her face had relaxed back
into its usual placid expression. “As callous as it might sound, I’m
ready to embrace a new life. Tiffany-free. Which means I can have a drink every once in a while.”
“Of course you’re ready to embrace a new life. Who could blame you? You’ve had to babysit your sister for so many years. None of us knew how you did it.” Bella glanced behind her. Sabrina had opened
the scrapbook and was tracing her finger over the photo in the newspaper article. Bella poured both vodkas into one of the two glasses sitting on the minibar and added orange juice. Into the other
she poured only orange juice. She handed the one with vodka to Sabrina.
Sabrina took a sip. “Strong.”
“Too strong?”
“Heck no. I have a car to take me to the airport. Might as well enjoy your company and this drink without worry. I’ll have enough of those when I get back.” She drank from the glass again. “Doesn’t taste as strong with the second sip.” Sabrina closed the scrapbook and leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling. “You know, my
mother was the one who asked Tiffany to drive that night. I’d
wanted to but our mother insisted Tiffany be the one because I’d had all the
spotlight that night and she was always worried about poor,
sensitive little Tiffany’s feelings.” She took another sip of her drink. “It used to disgust me, the way she coddled her.”
“I can understand that. Must have been so hard for you.”
“It really was. Thank you for saying that. It feels good to talk about it.”
“You know what I can’t figure out is how someone as unable to function without you figured out how to blackmail those idiots. Not that I blame her for doing it. Those guys deserved everything they got from her. I’m just sorry, of course, that Rawley Hough killed her
over it. I mean, what was it to him? A little cash he could probably
easily afford to give her. No reason to give up his life for it. But I’m seriously impressed with our little Tiffany. I never knew she had it in her. The scheme was so complicated and well thought out. And the
fact that she had the balls to actually steal the client list from Ms.
Zinn? Genius and major guts. Don’t you think?”
Sabrina’s glass was empty. The drink had not seemed to relax her. Instead she was sitting forward in her chair now, twitching her
foot and rocking back and forth slightly. Her eyes were piercing.
“Yes,
it is hard to believe.” She placed her hands on her knees. “How
about another drink? That one went down very easy.”
“Sure. Same?”
Sabrina nodded. “Only make it a double.”
Gladly
, thought Bella.
“You know what I find odd, though.” Bella handed Sabrina the drink. “Is that the client list book is still missing. Where do you think she hid it?”
Sabrina pulled on her ponytail, her eyes darting to her handbag
next to the suitcases and then back to her drink. She shifted in her
chair. She took another sip of her screwdriver. “It is odd. Guess it doesn’t matter now. Excuse me a moment. I need to use the restroom. Then,
let’s order lunch from room service. Something bad for us. The
menu’s on the bedside table there.”
As soon as the bathroom door closed, Bella jumped from her chair and bolted to the handbag on the floor. Kneeling, she opened it and there, nestled next to a wallet and a Kindle was a black leather book. It had to be the client book. Sabrina was the blackmailer. Had she also killed her sister?
“Find what you were looking for?”
Bella, heart pounding, came to her feet and turned toward
Sabrina. She was standing five feet from her, aiming a gun right at the middle of her chest.
Bella took in a deep breath and held up her hands. “Hey now, no reason to get crazy. I won’t tell a soul.”