The Bad Sister

by Kevin O'Brien

Hannah glanced down toward the train car’s doors again. No sign of her.

  Maybe if she wasn’t sitting here all alone, she wouldn’t feel so depressed. She couldn’t depend on her half-sister for anything. Ever since Eden had moved in, the two of them had been at odds. Fortunately, Hannah’s bedroom was in the basement, which had made it easier to avoid everyone—especially Eden, whose room was on the second floor. Their respect for each other’s turf was probably what kept them from killing each other.

  Two weeks ago, in an email from the college, they both received the distressing news that they’d be rooming together in one of the dorm bungalows—along with Rachel Bonner.

  Hannah tried to assure herself that Rachel would be cool. This was one “big sister” she didn’t have to worry about. She had a good reputation and a pedigree background. Unlike Eden, she wouldn’t come with a shitload of problems.

  “Delmar!” the train conductor announced as he walked through the car. “Next stop, Delmar and Our Lady of the Cove University!”

  From the upper level, Hannah glanced down toward the car doors again. Still no Eden.

  “Shit,” she muttered again.

  The train started to slow down.

  Hannah got to her feet and started gathering up the bags.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Thursday, September 3, 4:11 P.M.

  Delmar, Illinois

  “The class lists went out last week, Ellie,” said Jeanne, the clerk in the bursar’s office. She was in her early sixties with close-cropped, beige-colored hair and glasses. She stood behind the counter, where a small, dirty-looking plastic fan was blowing on her. The air-conditioning didn’t seem to be doing much good. “I really wish you’d check your email once in a while,” Jeanne added. She started typing on the keyboard in front of a computer monitor on the counter.

  “Sorry,” Ellie sighed. She had a regular Gmail account for family and friends. But she purposely hadn’t checked her university email account all summer. “I appreciate this,” she said.

  “You’re just lucky I like you,” Jeanne replied—over the sound of the printer running. “How is it out there? Still miserable?”

  “Stifling,” Ellie replied as she leaned against the counter. She pulled the strap of her bulky, cloth purse off her shoulder and lowered it to the floor. Ellie was thirty-three, but looked younger. The tan helped. She taught four different journalism classes at Our Lady of the Cove—and except for teaching one summer school class, she’d spent most of her summer goofing off: swimming in Lake Michigan and working in her garden in back of her townhouse apartment.

  Slim and pretty, she wore her shoulder-length, chestnut brown hair in a ponytail today. Since classes weren’t in session, and it was ninety-nine degrees out, she’d dressed casually in a pink-and-white-striped tee, khaki shorts, and sandals. She had her sunglasses pushed up on top of her head—a look she knew some people hated (including her dad and her ex-husband). But she was too hot and tired to care right now.

  The printer spit out three sheets of paper, and Jeanne handed them to her.

  “Thanks,” Ellie said. She glanced at the enrollment list for her Introduction to Journalism class: twenty-two students. Manageable. She scanned the names, and showed the listing to Jeanne. “I should know this, but what does this double asterisk by Jensen, Nicholas mean?”

  Jeanne squinted at the page. “He’s not a registered full-time student,” she explained. “He’s adult continuing education.”

  This was a red flag for Ellie. “Did he sign up for any other classes in the college or just my freshman journalism class?”

  The printer had churned out four more pages, and Jeanne handed those to her. “Jensen, Nicholas?” she said, pausing at the keyboard.

  Ellie nodded.

  Jeanne typed on the keyboard and checked the monitor. “Nope, just Intro to Journalism.”

  “Do you have an address for him?” Ellie asked.

  Jeanne consulted the monitor again. “Eight-twelve Sunset Ridge Road, number seventeen. Highland Park.”

  That was about fifteen minutes away. Ellie figured maybe it was just a temporary address for this Nicholas Jensen person—if that was even his real name. Then again, if someone was out to get her, would he really go to all the trouble of moving into an apartment in Highland Park and enrolling in one of her classes? It would be a hell of a lot easier just to hang around the liberal arts building, Lombard Hall, one morning. If he asked enough students, he’d eventually find out where she taught her class. Then he could just walk into her classroom and start shooting.

  Ellie told herself that she was being paranoid.

  But sometimes, it was hard not to be. That was why she’d deliberately avoided checking her college email account all summer. Too many people had access to that email address, and too many cranks were out there.

  Ellie decided Nicholas Jensen was probably just some old guy who wanted to write his memoirs. She’d had an adult continuing education student like that last year—a baggy-eyed, gray-haired, middle-aged man who thought he knew more than she did—and he didn’t hesitate to tell her so in front of the class. He was a major pain in the ass, but more or less harmless.

  Ellie glanced farther down the list of students in her freshman class. “Eden O’Rourke... Hannah O’Rourke?” she read aloud. She looked up at Jeanne. “Are they the same Eden and Hannah O’Rourke from Seattle, the half-sisters?”

  She shrugged. “Beats me. Am I supposed to know them?”

  “They were all over the news about two years ago,” Ellie explained. “It was a big story—murders, infidelities, real juicy stuff. Their father is Dylan O’Rourke. Does that ring a bell?”

  Jeanne shook her head. “O’Rourke,” she repeated as she typed on the keyboard again.

  “Dylan O’Rourke—married, father of three, extremely handsome,” Ellie explained. “If you saw his picture, you’d remember him. Quite the looker—or at least, he was. He was also a serial cheater. Two years ago, this sixteen-year-old girl, Eden, dropped in on him and his unsuspecting family. She was the result of a brief, extramarital fling Dylan had with her trampy mother. The woman dumped the baby with a friend of hers named Cassandra, who, more or less, raised Eden on her own. Then, just in time for Eden’s sweet sixteen, this Cassandra woman said she was moving away and gave Eden back to her birth mother, who months later, died in an apparent suicide. Are you following me so far?”

  “I think so,” Jeanne said with uncertainty.

  “Anyway, Dylan didn’t even know he had a daughter. It was a big surprise for everyone. With Cassandra gone and the mother dead, the girl had no place to go. So after making her take a paternity test, Dylan and his wife—who was either a saint or a total doormat—took the girl in. This Eden is only a few months older than their daughter Hannah. Apparently, she turned everyone’s lives upside down—and not in a zany, cute Parent Trap way either. The whole situation was more like Psycho than any Disney movie.”

  Jeanne’s eyes widened. “What happened? You mentioned a murder . . .”

  “Turned out Eden’s mother hadn’t committed suicide after all. She’d been killed by Cassandra. The two were more like lethal frenemies than friends. Cassandra was obsessed with Dylan. She killed a couple of other women, who had both slept with him. Then she tried to kill Dylan’s wife and one of Hannah’s younger brothers, too. I forget the wife’s first name. This crazy woman shot Dylan while he was driving his car, and he crashed into a tree. The accident definitely changed his looks. Depending on who you talk to, it’s up for grabs just how much he deserved getting his handsome face messed up. I feel a lot sorrier for the wife and his kids. Apparently, the wife had a sister who committed suicide years and years before—and the sister might have slept with the husband, too. At least, it was intimated in some of the reports. The whole thing was very sordid and scandalous. It was national news for several days.”

  Jeanne glanced at the monitor. “The wife’s name is Sheila. It’s here as the emergency contact for both girls
: Dylan and Sheila O’Rourke. And it’s a Seattle address. Looks like you’re right. Both girls are incoming freshmen.”

  “Why do you suppose they’re coming all the way here to attend this little school? I mean, I know we’ve got a good reputation, but come on . . .”

  “Maybe they just wanted to go to college where no one has heard of them,” Jeanne said with an arched eyebrow. “And no one will gossip about them.”

  Ellie nodded sheepishly and sighed. “Okay, point taken.”

  Still, as a former news reporter for the Chicago Tribune, she was naturally curious about the half-sisters. Ellie hadn’t even met the girls yet, and already, she wondered if they’d allow her to interview them. Maybe she could write a follow-up article about the half-sisters two years after being thrust into the national spotlight. Then again, perhaps Jeanne was right. They probably wanted to be left alone.

  Ellie slipped the class lists into her purse. Heading out of the bursar’s office, she thanked Jeanne for her help.

  “Check your email for God’s sake!” Jeanne called after her.

  Ellie realized the building’s air-conditioning must have been working after all—at least somewhat—because she got a blast of hot air as she stepped out into the blazing sun. Fortunately, the trees alongside the walkways between buildings offered some shade, especially here, in the campus’s older section. It was quite pretty—with a sweeping view of Lake Michigan. The tall church tower loomed above the other rooftops on the campus. Though their architectural styles varied, all of the buildings somehow seemed to blend together harmoniously. The old brownstone housing the bursar’s office had a certain charm, and so did the women’s four-story white stucco dormitory next door—despite some signs of decay. A creek snaked through the old section of the campus, and around every corner, there was a quaint footbridge or a garden patch with a shrine or a statue of some saint.

  As lovely as it was, this picturesque old section of the campus took on a sinister air at night. Woods bordered the area on two sides, and there were just too many shadowy nooks, too many places for someone to hide. Those pious saintly statues became slightly menacing once the sun went down. This part of the campus reminded Ellie of a cemetery—beautiful during the day and downright creepy at night. Or maybe she just felt that way because she knew about Our Lady of the Cove’s history—and what had happened there in 1970.

  It was hard to imagine it now—with the sun shining through the trees and the birds chirping. Since school wasn’t yet in session, the place was practically deserted. Everything seemed so peaceful.

  Check your email for God’s sake!

  It was the last thing Ellie wanted to do. During the summer, when she’d purposely avoided her college email account, she’d actually had some days when she hadn’t been afraid. She’d slept easier at night. She’d even taken the steak knife out from between her mattress and box spring and put it back in the kitchen drawer, where it belonged.

  She was going back to work in a few days. A lot of people—including everyone associated with Our Lady of the Cove—used her college email address to reach her. She couldn’t put off checking it any longer. She had her laptop in her bag.

  She headed across the brick-tiled quad toward the student union—a big, ugly steel and glass monstrosity in the newer section of the campus. The attached coffee shop, Campus Grounds, was air-conditioned.

  Ellie stepped inside and shuddered gratefully from the delicious chill. She was practically the only person in there. She didn’t have to wait in a line to place her order. She took her iced latte to a window table. The barista had Sting on the sound system.

  With a napkin, Ellie dabbed the perspiration from her forehead. Then she pulled the laptop notebook out of her bag. Switching it on, she logged into her email account through the college, and found 772 unread emails.

  “Oh spare me,” she murmured.

  Sipping the iced latte to fortify herself, Ellie started weeding out all the junk mail and spam. She managed to whittle down the unread messages to sixty-three, most of them from the college’s administration office and senders whose names she didn’t recognize.

  With reluctance, Ellie clicked on the first unfamiliar email name. The date was May 29, and there was no subject name.

  I hope you get AIDS and die, you skanky bitch. Your whole family should get AIDS and die. Do you even have a family? I’ll bet your a lesbian, you dried-up—

  Ellie didn’t read any more.

  “Sweet,” she whispered, clenching the wadded-up napkin in her fist. She was sorely tempted to reply and tell them she wasn’t a lesbian, and that it’s “you’re a lesbian ,” not “your.” But the unwritten rule in cases like this was not to engage. Besides, the asshole didn’t even leave a name. So she deleted the message.

  With a sigh, she moved on to the next email, also dated May 29. The sender was ninar402@chevyd.com, and the subject line was “Your Arson Story”:

  Dear Ms. Goodwin,

  I have written a very, very compelling screenplay version of your newspaper coverage of all those arsons in Chicago from two years ago. I know there’s currently some film deal about that going on, but I also know that some of these film deals can go bad really quickly. I’m really hoping for you to read my screenplay (attached-152 pgs) and let me know what you think. I know, after you read it, you’ll want to talk to the people making your movie about using my brilliant screenplay. Let me know as soon as you get this, because I think the timing of this is very, very important. I do not have an agent, but I don’t think I really need one, because I’m very, very confident you will find my screenplay excellent . . .

  It went on for three more paragraphs, but Ellie skipped down to the sign off: Sincerely, Nina Rumble.

  “I’m very, very sorry, Nina,” she said under her breath. When she had some downtime, she’d email Nina an excuse as to why she couldn’t drop everything and read her brilliant screenplay. She tagged the email “Keep as New” and then noticed that Nina R had sent three more emails over the summer. Ellie clicked on the most recent one—from two weeks ago. The subject line was “My Screenplay”:

  Dear Ms. Goodwin,

  I think you are extremely rude and very, very inconsiderate. I sent you my screenplay over two months ago, and have never heard back from you. I spent a lot of time writing my screenplay based on your story. How long would it take for you to read it? Just a few hours at the very, very most. You should be flattered that I was even interested in your newspaper articles. Now I don’t even think you’re even that good a writer . . .

  “Oh terrific,” Ellie murmured. “Now someone else hates my guts.”

  There was no use writing back to Nina and apologizing, because then, she’d end up having to read the stupid screenplay, which was bound to be very, very bad. With a pang of guilt, Ellie deleted Nina Rumble’s emails.

  Then she opened the next one, sent on June first from ggma@gbrewer.com with the subject line “Thinking of the Children.” There was no salutation:

  Because of YOU, my brother, Ted Brewer, is in prison, and his wife is left without a husband at home, and his three children are left without a daddy. They had to move from their nice house to a small apartment in a terrible neighborhood on the south side. You should know that all three of Ted’s kids are now having problems in school and “acting out.” The oldest, Ted, Jr., has been in fights and arrested twice. My sister-in-law is now suffering from depression, and she drinks as a way to self-medicate. You’ve ruined my brother’s family and so many other families. You did this. You took Ted away from his family, and put him in prison. You are godless . . .

  It went on for another five paragraphs and was signed Gloria Georgina Brewer. Ellie wanted so much to write back—just one sentence: Ted put Ted where he is. But what good would that do? Gloria had had her say. There was no use in trying to argue with her. She wanted someone to blame, but not her brother. It was easier to blame the former newspaper reporter.

  However many angry or threatening emails waite
d for her now, the numbers had been a lot worse two years ago, when the messages had come through her newspaper email address—dozens by the day. Ellie had written a six-part exposé for the Chicago Tribune about an organization called American Family Preservationists. Eight of its most ardent members—including Ted Brewer—carried out a string of arsons in the city. They set fire to a Jewish cultural center, a mosque, a branch of Planned Parenthood, a GBLT youth center, and even a yoga studio. Three people perished and another seven ended up hospitalized from those fires. Thanks to Ellie’s exposé, Ted and his cohorts were arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Ellie won a few local awards for her reporting, and the series was syndicated nationally. For a while, there was even some movie interest. Ellie got an agent—and a film option netting her one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. But the movie people couldn’t come up with a decent screenplay. There wasn’t much glamour, sexiness, or cloak-and-dagger stuff in Ellie’s painstaking investigative work. She’d conducted scores of interviews and had dozens of doors slammed in her face. She’d also done a ton of research online, in the library, and at the Cook County Hall of Records. But that kind of thing didn’t really transfer well into film. Yet, according to Ellie’s film agent, there was still a lot of buzz about the project, and once it was off and running, she would receive half a million dollars on the first day of the movie’s principal photography.

  So—nineteen months ago, when the newspaper downsized and Ellie was encouraged to take a buyout, she didn’t feel too bad about it. Unfortunately, once that happened, film interest in her story dried up and her option wasn’t renewed.

  Ellie glanced at Gloria’s email again. She wanted to write back and point out that the people killed or permanently scarred by Ted Brewer’s handiwork had families, too. But she knew it was pointless.