The Guest List

by Michaels, Fern

  Maybe what she needed to do was just exactly what she’d been doing—make herself less available, less agreeable to Carol’s plans. She could put some added distance between herself and Carol simply by leaving her answering machine on all the time and monitoring the calls. That way she could talk to her when she wanted to, not when Carol wanted to.

  “It’s okay, Beemer, I’m not going to cry. Don’t look so sad, Olivia. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Are you ever going to relax, Abby? For God’s sake, in two days it’ll be Christmas. Why are you so uptight?” Mallory asked as she emptied the dishwasher.

  “I’m remembering … other Christmases … with you and Mama … with Connor,” Abby responded with a sad smile. “When I think about Connor, I think about Carol and Donovan. I told them I was spending Christmas with Bunny.” Feeling a chill, Abby rubbed her arms. “You know what, Mallory? My feelings for them have changed. I used to … adore them, especially Donovan. But these last three years… I don’t know. I feel like a Judas.”

  Mallory closed the dishwasher, looked around the kitchen to see that it was tidy before she sat down across the table from Abby. “You know, Abby, we really never talked about why you decided to put some distance between yourself and them. I hope to God I’m not the cause of it.”

  “It didn’t start with you. It started quite a while ago, while I was in my second year of college. As I became more and more independent, Carol became more and more controlling, and Donovan supported her. I got to the point where I stopped telling her what I was doing so she couldn’t add her nickel’s worth.” She gazed at the china Carol had bought for her and stacked in the glass-fronted cupboards, and wondered what anyone could have given her for a wedding gift that she didn’t already have. “As far as you’re concerned, Mallory, I’d be a liar if I said you weren’t one of the reasons why things have gotten worse between us. They threw you away, just like Mama threw me away. Like people who throw dogs and cats away. Carol and Donovan allow all their friends and business associates to think they are these compassionate, charitable people, and yet they won’t even give you a chance to show them you’ve changed.” She stared down at the tabletop, her heart heavy. “Another reason is … Did I tell you that I think Carol might have used this house as bait to lure me away from living in New York with Connor?”

  “No, but that wouldn’t surprise me. She’s very manipulative.”

  Abby groaned and slumped over the table. “I’m just starting to put two and two together. Carol has dominated and manipulated me all my life. This house and the things in it are testimony to her achievement. I use the shampoo she bought because she said it was good for my hair. I take the vitamins she filled my medicine cabinet with because she said they were what I needed. The way the house is laid out and decorated—She always wanted me to socialize more, to entertain. I’d say that this is definitely a party house, wouldn’t you? There are other things, too, but I think you get the idea.” She sat back, out of steam. “The day before Connor died, he told me there was something about Carol that wasn’t quite right. He tried to define what it was, but in the end he couldn’t. He finally said it was just a bad feeling he had. Ever since then, I’ve been more aware of her behavior, and I have to agree with him. But like him, I can’t put my finger on what it is.” She sighed with frustration.

  Mallory frowned. “You know, it’s funny that you feel Carol manipulated you, because that’s exactly what Mama did to me. She told me what to say, when to say it, whom to like, and whom to hate.” She leaned forward and looked at Abby straight on. “All those years I spent hating you—I never knew the reason why until a few years ago. It was because of Mama. She didn’t like you because you weren’t perfect, so she didn’t want me to like you. It wasn’t until I was around fourteen, when a new shrink came on board at the school, that I really got the help I needed. She worked with me daily instead of weekly. She cared about me, and I guess I sensed that, so I started to cooperate, where before I just sort of skated. Constance was her name. She cried with me, laughed with me, held me. She even hypnotized me a few times. I’d like you to meet her someday. I thought about inviting her for the holidays but she has her own family. Maybe Easter or the Fourth of July.”

  “Sure,” Abby said, meaning it. “This is your house now, too.”

  “No. This is not my house, Abby. This is your house, given to you by Donovan and Carol, and,” she said, exaggerating a shiver, “I do not look forward to the day when they find out I’m living here.” She rolled her eyes. “By the way, what did you think about the newspaper’s write-up on Donovan? They said he’s the biggest contractor in the Carolinas. In the entire South for that matter.”

  Abby shrugged. “I pretty much already knew that. I’ve always known he was wealthy. He works very hard, Mallory. I just wish he didn’t work so hard to please Carol. I think he would have been there for you throughout your schooling if it hadn’t been for her. I remember more than one occasion when he tried to talk to Carol about you, to reason with her. I remember, too, that Carol always refused to listen. I’m thankful to Connor for making me more aware of their behavior. It’s been enlightening to say the least.”

  “I could use a drink. We have wine, don’t we?”

  “Are you kidding? Didn’t you see that climate-controlled wine cellar Donovan built? Go down there and bring some up. I don’t know anything about wine other than it relaxes me. Connor knew all about wine. God, I miss him.”

  Mallory stared at Abby as if she wanted to say something. Instead, she got up and opened the door to the basement.

  Abby stood at the top of the stairs and talked to Mallory’s back as she went down the steps. “I’m still wondering why Connor didn’t tell me about his heart condition. We were together four years. You would think he would have mentioned it … unless there wasn’t anything to mention.”

  Connor had been on her mind a lot recently, but she’d only recently tried to make sense of the details of his death. She’d told him everything there was to tell about herself and thought he’d done the same. And then there was the fact that just prior to starting his new job, he’d had a physical and every single test had come back A-OK.

  Mallory bounded up the stairs, a wine bottle in her hand. “Maybe he didn’t want to worry you,” she offered. “Or maybe he just didn’t think it was worth mentioning.” She closed the door behind her. “Not to change the subject but—What’s going on between you and Steve?”

  “We’re just friends right now.” Abby thought about their first and only date and their good-night kiss. Having just talked about Connor, thinking about Steve and what he was beginning to mean to her came hard. “He’s nice, don’t you think?”

  Mallory searched the drawers until she found a corkscrew. “He’s very nice. And handsome. And intelligent. And best of all, he really likes you.” She struggled with the cork, then poured the wine into exquisite wineglasses. “Baccarat. Nothing but the best,” she said with a grimace. “A hundred bucks a pop.”

  “For one glass!” Abby was outraged. “How do you know all this stuff?”

  Mallory held the glass up to her nose and inhaled the bouquet. “I started out as an insurance investigator. I was in all kinds of homes, rich, poor, middle-class. I had to be observant. I also had to catalog stuff. Sometimes it was interesting, and sometimes it was incredibly boring. Constance had me on a work program with the same insurance company the last two years of school. They liked me and asked me to go full-time when I was finished at Argone. You’d be surprised what you can learn from insurance files. Here’s to us. Sisters,” Mallory said, holding her glass high.

  A chill ran up Abby’s arms when the phone in the kitchen rang. The sisters looked at one another. Abby shook her head.

  The answering machine clicked on. Mallory turned to add more wine to her glass when Donovan’s brisk, cool voice knifed through the kitchen. “Merry Christmas, Princess. I just wanted to call and say Carol and
I will be stopping by in a few hours. Bobby talked us into it. If you’re not home, as I suspect, we’ll leave your Christmas presents on the doorstep. We’re going to spend Christmas in Orlando this year. Carol thought it would be something different to do. We’re taking a few of Bobby’s friends with us. We love you.”

  Abby set down her wineglass. “Get your stuff, we’re taking the dogs to Steve’s house. Donovan’s full of hot air. He was on his cell phone. They’re probably already on the way here. We have to turn everything off to make it look like I’m gone.”

  “Abby, stop it! Listen to yourself. You’re running away. This is your house. They gave it to you. Whatever’s wrong, you have to confront them with it. You can’t keep avoiding them.”

  Abby crumpled. “I don’t know why, but I can’t confront them. Not until I sort things out in my head. In the meantime, I don’t want to see them. I told them I was spending Christmas with Bunny. I let them think I was going to her house when the truth is she’s coming here. So explain to me why they’re coming here when they think I’m away. Huh?”

  “They must have known you were lying. You aren’t a very good liar, Abby. If you want to leave, we’ll leave. I just don’t think it’s a good idea. And there’s the matter of Bunny. What time is she supposed to be here?”

  “Oh, my God. I’ll call her on her cell phone to tell her to meet me at Steve’s house.”

  “I’ll follow you over to Steve’s. If Donovan sees my car outside, I’m sure he’ll recognize it since he’s the one who gave it to me,” Mallory said, sticking the cork back into the wine bottle.

  Abby slammed the door to the dishwasher, wondering if the exquisite wineglasses broke. “What? You never mentioned that to me.”

  “It never came up before now.”

  “But I thought they all but abandoned you.”

  “Donovan visited me a few times, but they were always short visits—just minutes really—and very impersonal. I’d like to think that he did it because he cares for me, but probably he did it out of a sense of responsibility.” Mallory put the wine bottle on the countertop next to an unopened liter of Coke. “You realize, don’t you, Abby, that you’re making a choice here. You’re choosing me over Carol and Donovan. It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Abby glanced around the kitchen to make sure everything was tidy and in place so as not to give her away. “Come on, Olivia,” she said, opening the garage door. “You, too, Beemer, round up the others. Let’s go for a ride.”

  As soon as Abby had both dogs in the garage, Mallory put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Think about this, Abby. Think about what you’re doing. I don’t want you regretting your decision later.”

  Abby whirled around. “You’re my sister. The only thing I regret is that it took us so long to get back together.” She threw her arms around Mallory and hugged her. “Donovan and Carol have each other and Bobby. I never really belonged to them. I wanted to call Donovan Dad a million times, but I could never get the word past my lips. You and I are just now finding our way. Maybe it was supposed to happen like this. You’re all I have, Mallory, and I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

  Tears rolled down Mallory’s cheeks. “I swear before God, that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in my entire life. I love you, too, Abby, I really do. Okay, you call Steve and Bunny, and I’ll go around the house and make sure all my stuff is out of sight.” She started toward the dining room, then stopped and turned around. “Wait a minute! What are we worried about? They won’t be coming in the house.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’ll bet Carol still has a key.” She locked the back door and jiggled the handle to make sure the door was secure. “You know what I think we should do? I think we should drop the dogs off at Steve’s house, come back here, and wait outside in the dark and watch to see what they do.”

  Mallory giggled. “You sound like a detective out of one of your own books.”

  “I do, don’t I?” Abby grinned.

  In less than ten minutes all the dogs were secure in the cargo area of the Jeep.

  “You go out the front door and set the alarm,” Abby instructed Mallory. “I’ll go through the garage and get the rest of the dogs. Boy, this is going to rile them. They aren’t used to going in the car. They’re going to be scared. Steve will calm them down once we get there. He’s got this magical, I don’t know, call it presence, when it comes to animals. He’s just great.”

  “He’s great, huh? That’s a step up from a little earlier when you said he was nice,” Mallory drawled, winking at her sister

  Twenty minutes later, Steve drove them back and parked his car in a grove of trees next to Abby’s house. “I think you two are crazy,” he grumbled, switching off his headlights. “We’re going to freeze our asses off. This is what guys do in a duck blind. Long underwear would go a long way right now.” He blew his breath into his hands and rubbed them together. “Maybe your adoptive father wasn’t calling from a cell phone after all.”

  “He was. Trust me.” Abby moved up close to him and wrapped her arm around his. “I told you to dress warm. You’re a wuss, Steve. You don’t hear me or Mallory complaining, do you?” Abby grumbled.

  “That’s because both of you are crazy and don’t know any better. Uh-oh, I see headlights coming. We better get out of the car now, or we risk them seeing the interior lights when we open the doors.”

  To a casual observer it would have looked like a Chinese fire drill as the three of them jumped out of the car and ran around it to the clump of evergreens.

  “This way,” Abby said, pointing to a tall hedge that flanked her house. “Two cars,” she whispered. “Carol’s probably driving one and Donovan the other.” They ducked behind the hedge just in time.

  Three pairs of eyes strained in the darkness.

  The two cars pulled into the driveway. Carol got out of one, and Donovan climbed out of the other. “The house is dark, Carol. I told you she wouldn’t be here,” Donovan said. “The dogs aren’t barking, so that has to mean she boarded them and went away like she said she was going to do. It’s getting late, and I’m tired.”

  “Open the front door, Donovan,” Carol ordered.

  “Are you crazy? This is Abby’s house. I’m not committing a B&E on Abby’s house. Abby is of age, and she’s on her own. That’s the end of it.”

  Behind the hedge, Mallory and Abby clasped hards.

  “Maybe I was wrong about him,” Abby whispered, only to have Steve shush her.

  “C’mon, Mom,” Bobby’s young voice piped up from inside the car Donovan had been driving.

  Carol stood on the steps, her arms crossed. She looked every inch a commanding general. “I spent a lot of time to say nothing of money on this house. I’m not leaving until I see what she’s done to it. Or should I say what those dogs of hers have done to it? Not only that, I suspect she’s hiding something from us, and that’s why she’s been avoiding us. Once I see the inside, I’ll know if my suspicions are right or not.”

  Abby and Mallory gave each other questioning looks in the darkness.

  Donovan put his hands on his hips. “All right, Carol. I can’t stop you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll go in there with you.”

  “Fine.”

  “To tell you the truth, I hope the alarm goes off and the police come. I’d like to see you explain yourself to them,” Donovan snapped.

  Abby’s eyes widened. She’d been so sure Carol knew the code she hadn’t even considered the consequences if she didn’t. Steve shook her hand and gave her a look that said he was wondering the same thing. With a confidence she didn’t feel, Abby whispered, “Wait,” and hoped she was right.

  “The alarm won’t go off, Donovan, unless Abby has had the code changed.”

  “She could have changed it, Carol. She could have changed the locks on the doors, too. Come on, we don’t belong here.”

  Steve looked at Abby. “Did you?” he whispered.
<
br />   “No, but now I wish I had,” she whispered back, making a fist and pounding the air.

  “Give me the master keys, Donovan,” Carol demanded coldly. Her voice indicated to Abby that she was very sure of herself … and of Donovan.

  Abby’s mouth gaped when she saw Donovan hand over the keys. So much for the kind thoughts she’d had about him a moment ago.

  Mallory whispered in Abby’s ear. “You know what I said earlier about not looking forward to the day they find out I’m living here?” At Abby’s nod, she went on. “Well, I think that day has come. If she goes into my room and starts snooping around, she’s going to know I’ve moved in. My name is on a lot of my stuff.” She gritted her teeth. “Boy, is the fur going to fly! Uh-oh, there she goes.”

  Donovan walked back to his car and stood leaning against the passenger door.

  “Excuse me for my ignorance,” Steve said, turning Abby toward him. “But I’m a little in the dark here. Would you two mind telling me what the hell is going on? Why all this subterfuge?”

  “I’ll explain it all later,” Abby muttered, putting him off when she saw the rooms light up one by one. “God, wait till she sees what the dogs did to her white carpeting.” Abby pulled her lips back from her teeth. “And the dining-room table,” she said, seeing the chewed table legs in her mind’s eye.

  “And the yard!” Steve added with a grimace.

  “I hate it that she’s probably going to go in my office,” Abby said, thinking about the personal and financial things she had lying around. There’s a lesson to be learned here, she thought. “This is giving me a real creepy feeling. There go the living-room lights. Aah!” she gasped. “She’s checking the presents. Where are the presents Donovan said they were bringing me?”

  Mallory sniffled. “This reminds me of the year I left the presents on your front doorstep. I sat in my car and cried for a whole hour. I wanted you to be home so bad so I could come in. I wanted to belong, to be a part of your Christmas.”