“Please stop. I don’t want to see any more. This is making me sick.” Flinching at the cruel images, Meredith rubbed at the hot spot Dev’s hand left on her knee and then tossed back her chocolate martini. Another one immediately appeared in its place. “I never imagined there could be repercussions like this. Oh, poor Jack, I’m so sorry.”
“His speaking engagements only go downhill from there. And the TV show…phffft!” Dev snapped her fingers. “On the Right Track with Dr. Jack never materializes after people laughingly refer to it as Flat on Your Back with Dr. Jack. The man’s a veritable laughingstock. Before long the only offers Jack McKenna gets are from sleazy porn promoters who want to hire him for their seedy films or from the cheesy confession tell-all types of magazines. Even the supermarket rags have lost interest by now. Jack is old news. A has-been.”
“How he must hate me,” Meredith said softly, shaking her head back and forth slowly. Sure she’d wanted to get even with him, but never like this. Aside from being an unfaithful husband who couldn’t grasp the concept of keeping his frisky dick in his pants, Jack was a good, decent man. He didn’t deserve this. And to think he would suffer this fate due to her selfish need for reprisal had Meredith’s stomach roiling.
“Oh yes, at first he hated you. Loathed the very mention of your name, in fact. And with good reason.” Dev shrugged. “But, alas, the poor fool is annoyingly forgiving. Watch this…”
“That’s Jack and Karyn.” Meredith sat erect as she watched the unfolding images. “What’s happening? Why is Karyn crying so hard? Where are they?”
“At the dinner following your funeral.”
Meredith blanched. “Oh.” Her hand went to her throat, resting there as she leaned back in the chair.
“It was tough at first,” Jack said to Karyn. “I hated her for what she’d done to me—to my career. My entire life. But, dear God, Karyn, Meredith was my life, my heart, my conscience.” His voice choked and a sob broke free. “I loved her, Karyn. With every fiber of my being and to the very depths of my soul I loved her.”
“I know you did, Jack. And she loved you too, just as much,” Karyn said as she patted his arm. “I’ve never known anyone with a bigger heart than Meredith, Jack. You do know that she never meant for any of this to happen to you, don’t you?” Jack nodded. “It was all supposed to be a harmless joke, a prank, just to get even with you for—”
Their attention was drawn to the restaurant’s entrance where some of the paparazzi who’d managed to get in were being ushered out by security.
“Look this way, Jack,” one of them shouted, as he snapped photos while being ejected from the premises.
“Who’s your pretty lady friend?” another called out. “Are you being a bad boy again, McKenna?” The restaurant’s vestibule rang with crude laughter.
“What’s the matter with you people?” Jack yelled. “We’ve just come from a funeral. Show some respect and consideration for chrissakes.”
“Are you wearing your sock puppet today, Jack?” a third photographer shouted as his camera’s flash went off.
Growling, Jack leapt to his feet and Karyn grabbed his arm. “No!” she said sharply. “That won’t do any good, Jack. It won’t bring Meredith back and it will only make matters worse for you. Now look at me and focus on what I’m saying,” she instructed as Jack took his seat again. “I was telling you that Meredith never would have pulled that stunt if she had any idea that you were going to be hurt like this. Even after all you put her through, Jack, she still loved you. Although I did my damnedest to convince her otherwise.”
“I know.” Jack released a pent-up breath. “I know.” He patted Karyn’s hand. “I’m not going to claim to understand everything I did to drive her to such extremes but whatever it was, I must have…” his voice wavered, “I must have hurt her so deeply, Karyn. And now she’s gone.” He buried his head in his hands and sobbed. As she did her best to comfort Jack, Karyn’s fragile hold on her composure crumbled and she cried too, dabbing her red eyes and dripping nose with tissues. “I’ve lost the only woman I ever loved,” Jack muttered into his hands.
“And I’ve lost my best friend,” Karyn choked out. “What will I ever do without her?” She sobbed a bit and then patted Jack’s shoulder. “Time. It will take a lot of time but we’ll get through it somehow.”
“No.” Jack shook his head slowly. “No, Karyn, you’re wrong. It’ll never be any better. She’s dead…my beautiful sweet Meredith is gone from my life forever.” After a moment he took a deep breath and looked up at her as another crop of news reporters started shouting inappropriate questions. “Nothing else matters anymore,” Jack said just above a whisper. “I fucking deserve whatever happens to me now.”
“I’ve never seen Jack cry before,” Meredith barely managed to say. By now tears were streaming down her face and she was hiccupping as she sobbed into the red silk handkerchief that had magically appeared between her fingers. “Look what I’ve done to them, all the grief and sadness and pain I’ve caused. Oh if only…” Her attention was drawn to a new set of images and she frowned.
“Here’s to you, buddy,” Karyn slurred as she tossed back a swig of whiskey straight from the bottle.
“Karyn looks terrible,” Meredith said to Dev. “What’s happening?”
“It’s one year from today,” Dev explained with a yawn. “Your loser friend is sitting next to your headstone celebrating your forty-first birthday.” Dev chuckled.
“I never did get to fuck Cristoval on my fortieth, Meredith,” Karyn said to the engraved chunk of polished granite. “I didn’t even get to fuck the smelly old bald guy with the beer belly next door.” She laughed and took another swallow and then she wiped her trembling hand across her mouth. “Seems as though I’ve found another best friend though. One I like even better than pistachios.” Smiling, Karyn patted the liquor bottle. “Allow me to introduce my new best friend. He doesn’t cheat on me, he doesn’t give me lip and he’s always there when I need him. What more could you ask, huh?” She laughed hysterically.
“Oh Karyn,” Meredith whispered, shaking her head as she watched her friend. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Because of you, of course.” With an I-told-you-so grin plastered across her perfect features, Dev poked her finger repeatedly toward Meredith. “It’s all your fault.” Then she made a shame-on-you motion with her fingers. “Bad Meredith.” And Dev erupted into giggles.
Expelling a monumental sigh, Meredith returned her focus to the dismal image of Karyn.
“I let you down, Meredith,” Karyn said, lovingly stroking her hand along the headstone. “I lost the business you were so proud of—the one you and I worked so hard and long to build. As of yesterday, Abundant Finds no longer exists.” She brought the bottle to her lips and drank again. “For some reason, it seems that our upscale clientele prefers not to do business with a drunk. Can you imagine?” She gave a meager laugh and then she started to cry. “I’m sorry, Meredith. I just can’t do it alone. It was supposed to be us, you and me, friends and business partners forever. But then you left me. Why’d you have to go and die, Meredith?” She took another swig of whiskey and sobbed.
“She’s never been much of a drinker,” Meredith mentioned absently, reaching out to Karyn’s image, wishing she could comfort her desolate friend. “Maybe a chocolate martini once a week or so but—” Rolling her eyes, Meredith trilled an exasperated sigh as another chocolate martini instantly popped into her hand.
“Drink up, darling,” Dev encouraged. “We don’t want poor Karyn to drink alone, do we?” Dev downed her own chocolate martini and smacked her lips with gusto.
Meredith thrust the glass toward Dev. “Here, I don’t want—”
“Of course…what was I thinking?” Dev said. In the next instant Meredith’s chocolate martini disappeared, replaced by a big glass of chocolate milk with a bendy elbow straw instead. A birthday sheet cake ablaze with forty-one candles floated before them, conical birthday hats appea
red on their heads and party blowers were stuck between their lips.
Dev smiled brightly, admiring her handiwork as she blew, unfurling the rolled whistling blower. “There, that’s better,” she said, brushing her palms together. “We’ll set an example for Karyn, showing her that she doesn’t need alcohol to celebrate.” Dev took a sip from her glass of chocolate milk.
Growling in frustration, Meredith tore the party hat from her head. “Will you please stop it!” she said after spitting out the blower. “This isn’t funny, Dev.”
“Really?” Dev hiked her shoulders in a clueless shrug and took another sip of chocolate milk. “I thought it was rather amusing.”
“…happy birthday, dear Meredith,” Karyn was singing in melancholy tones overhead, immediately drawing Meredith’s attention. “Happy birthday to you.”
“Ooh, goodie, here comes the best part,” Dev said excitedly as she wiggled in her throne chair and munched on another fistful of popcorn.
The next group of images began with the drunken Karyn behind the wheel of her car and Meredith gripped the arms of her chair in alarm. “Oh no. Please, God, no,” she cried.
“Enough with the G word!” Dev grumbled.
Meredith watched in horror as Karyn drove along a dark road, her vision distorted by sheeting rain and blinding tears as she sobbed. Meredith covered her eyes with her hands, peeking out of a small opening between her fingers as Karyn’s speeding car slammed head-on into a massive tree trunk.
“Wow, did you see that? What an impact!” Dev punched her fist through the air. “Wham!” She laughed and tossed another handful of popped corn into her mouth.
Working to compose herself after witnessing the horrendous accident that killed her best friend, Meredith turned to Dev. “You’re a sick and twisted woman,” she snarled. “Cold and cruel. How can you just sit there and laugh at the misfortune of others?”
“No, not sick or twisted, darling.” Dev arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow and smiled. “Cold and cruel perhaps and, possibly, a teensy bit…evil.” She held her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “But, after all,” she shrugged, “I am the Mistress of Darkness, am I not?” She smiled coyly, batting her eyelashes as she drained the chocolate milk from her glass. “And I have a certain image to uphold.”
Meredith’s head dropped into her hands and she groaned as her fingers raked through her hair. “You’re right. I do belong in Hell. I was stupid and selfish and my actions have caused untold heartbreak to the people I love most.”
“Now you’re talking.” Dev reached over and patted Meredith on the back. “That’s what I like to hear. Just to further cement your conviction, take a peek at this.” She gestured to the images coming into view.
“Oh, no more, please, Dev. I don’t think I can bear watching another minute of pain and anguish.”
Dev’s head snapped toward Meredith, whose eyes widened when she caught the menacing expression on Dev’s face. “I said watch!” Dev bellowed.
Swallowing hard, Meredith trained her attention back to the emerging images. As she watched the indigent street person foraging in a Dumpster for food, her eyebrows furrowed and she frowned. “Who’s that?”
Dev just smiled.
“Hey, you old piece of shit,” a man yelled from the back door of the restaurant. “Get your sorry, begging ass out of here or I’ll call the cops.”
Nodding, the bum backed away. “Sorry.” He held his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean any harm, mister. I’m just hungry, that’s all.”
“That voice…” Meredith said.
The next image found the tattered old man huddled and shivering in a doorway under a piece of cardboard. Leaning forward, Meredith strained to hear what the old man said just before he fell asleep.
“Goodnight, Meredith, my love,” the old man whispered. “I miss you so much.” He sniffled.
“Jack!” Meredith’s hand flew to her throat and she gasped. “That poor old homeless man is Jack. Oh my G—”
Dev slapped a hand against Meredith’s mouth, preventing another utterance of the G word, and wagged an accusatory finger under her nose. “Yes, it’s Jack. Unable to continue working as a motivational speaker, he finds it almost impossible to get hired anywhere else. The in-your-face images of his bare ass boasting the declaration that he’s been a bad boy along with pictures of his little pecker puppet spread all over the supermarket rags haven’t exactly endeared him to the corporate world. First, the hotel’s lawsuit wiped out most of his savings. Then he was sued by a number of calculating little bitches who figured they’d try to get their share of the pie.”
Meredith screwed her features. “Sued for what?”
“Support. The bimbos claimed that he’d fathered their illegitimate children. All lies, of course, but due to his tarnished reputation,” Dev fixed a piercing gaze on Meredith, “due to you, of course, Jack lost every case but one and was forced to pay child support for a little rug rat that wasn’t even his. When he couldn’t meet his financial obligations, he was thrown in jail. Needless to say, trying to get any job after that was difficult at best.”
“No…that wouldn’t happen,” Meredith said, shaking her head in disbelief. “They’d need solid DNA evidence proving Jack was the father.”
“A minor technicality.” Dev sloughed off Meredith’s logic with a flick of her wrist. “You’re forgetting that my people are everywhere, Meredith. All it takes is a bribe here, a bribe there… The power of greed is amazing, and ruining Jack’s life in exchange for a fat lump of cash didn’t even make the paternity tester blink twice.”
“All because of that dirty little trick I played on him…” Meredith gazed ahead with a blank stare.
“That’s right,” Dev agreed. “Because of your selfish need for payback, eventually your ex-husband lost everything he ever owned. He became a broken, battered old man, who blamed only himself for having hurt you so deeply. He died with your name on his lips. Here, let’s play that clip again,” Dev said with a flourish of her hand, and the image of Jack huddled in the doorway popped into view again, with a close-up on his wrinkled, weathered features.
“Goodnight, Meredith, my love. I miss you so much.”
“And,” Dev said, “as we fade to black, Jack McKenna breathes his last, still pining over the loss of the only woman he ever truly loved.” She feigned an exaggerated sniff and wiped her eye. “Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?” A red silk handkerchief appeared in her hand and she blew her nose with a loud, cartoonish honking sound.
Meredith’s shoulders slumped and her head drooped. “So what happens now?” Her voice was just above a whisper. “Do I start shoveling coal and stoking the fires?”
Dev cackled. “Jack was right, darling, you do have a marvelously quirky sense of humor. No, dear, as heinous as your little prank turned out to be, it’s not something that would condemn you to such a gruesome eternity. In all actuality, we abandoned the whole coal-shoveling idea eons ago—terribly messy, you know—in favor of more high-tech retributions. But that’s neither here nor there.” Dev flicked her wrist. “No, your task, Meredith, will be to recruit new souls to the dark side. Naturally, you’ll have a quota to meet and if you fail to do that, well, let’s just say that there’ll be some rather nasty consequences to pay.” Dev shuddered.
“You mean, I’m supposed to go back to Earth and try to corrupt innocent, trusting people so that they become evil?”
“Delicious sounding, isn’t it? Just imagine the fun you’ll have.”
“I’d rather be dead.”
Dev threw her head back in laughter and then rapped her knuckles on Meredith’s head. “Hellooo? You already are dead, remember?”
Staring at nothing in particular, Meredith sighed.
“Ah yes,” Dev said, “you’ll be mired in the myriad joys of inflicting humiliation, degradation, dishonor, mortification and ruination. What a rush! Of course, you’ll find it easiest to sway lost souls—people who are already desperate, grieving, in a state
of utter hopelessness. They’d be most likely to make a deal with the devil.”
“No…please. I could never do that.” Meredith’s chin quivered as her eyes fill with tears. She had trouble killing bugs for heaven’s sake. She couldn’t begin to conceive of tempting good trusting people to sell their souls—damning them for eternity. She shuddered at the thought.
Dev tsked and rolled her eyes. “Ugh, these nonstop waterworks of yours are really getting tiresome, Meredith. Look, if you’re not woman enough to prey on the dejected, forlorn sniveling wimps up there, then go ahead and shoot for a sure thing instead.”
Meredith frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about going after the greedy, money-hungry bastards who are already itching to sell their souls to ensure a cushy lifestyle for themselves. It’s a cinch.” Dev flicked her wrist with a shrug. “Piece of cake. Even you could handle it. Granted, it’s not as much fun as snaring a selfless, bleeding heart, goody-two-shoes type—like you, for instance—” Dev gleefully waggled her eyebrows, “but you can work your way up to that in time.”
No. No way. She couldn’t do it. She’d rather scour sulfur pits twenty-four-seven. “Dev…isn’t there any way that I can get a second chance?” Meredith raised her watery gaze to Dev’s hardened one. “Something I could do to make up for the pain and devastation I’ve caused? Some way I can alter things so that Jack and Karyn don’t have to experience those terrible fates you showed me? I deserve to suffer but at least give me a chance to make amends before you lock me away in some tar pool for all eternity.”
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