Praying for Time

by Carlene Thompson

  Jane marched farther into the house and caught sight of Cara cowering by the Christmas tree. ‘Where is she? Where’s Roxanne?’ Jane demanded of the girl.

  Cara stayed mute.

  ‘I know she’s here. Where is Roxanne?’ Suddenly Jane raised her hand. She held a gun and pointed it at Cara. ‘Where is Roxanne?’

  ‘Have you lost your mind, Jane?’ Vanessa yelled. ‘Put down that gun.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve lost my mind. Your sister murdered my father – the man who meant more to me than anyone in the world – and I’ve lost my mind. I will kill her!’

  Vanessa took two steps closer to Jane who swung the gun away from Cara and aimed it at Vanessa.

  ‘If you think my sister murdered your father, you should call Wade.’ Vanessa’s voice wavered.

  ‘Call Wade? Wade with all of his rules and regulations and passion for the letter of the law? This isn’t a matter for him. He’s too weak. This is a matter for me.’

  Abruptly Roxanne appeared in the entrance hall. To Vanessa’s horror, she also held a gun. ‘Are you going to shoot me, Jane? Because I guarantee I’m a better, faster shot than you are. I’ve had years of practice. I know what I’m doing.’

  Jane fired in Roxanne’s direction and missed by two feet. Cara screamed but Roxanne didn’t even flinch.

  Roxanne laughed. ‘See what I mean? You were always a screw-up and you still are. No wonder your father didn’t love you.’

  ‘You bitch! I suppose you think he loved you,’ Jane snarled.

  ‘He didn’t love anyone, Jane. He didn’t have the capacity to love.’

  Another car pulled up out front. Vanessa glanced out quickly enough to see a white car and Max Newman getting out of the front before returning to the horrific scene playing out in front of her. Jane kept her gun aimed at Roxanne but kept glancing at Max, who was unloading a large brown paper-wrapped rectangular package from the back of his car. He carried it carefully up the porch stairs and stepped inside through the open front door. ‘Hello! Anybody home! I brought a painting of—’

  Stepping into the hallway he saw Vanessa standing tense and white, while Roxanne and Jane aimed guns at each other. ‘Good God!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Roxanne demanded.

  Max swallowed and answered in a shaky voice, ‘I brought the second lighthouse painting that Grace commissioned.’

  ‘And it had to be brought now?’

  ‘Well, it’s done and I wasn’t doing anything else and … and …’

  ‘“And, and, and”,’ Roxanne mocked.

  Max looked at Jane. ‘That’s not your car out front.’

  ‘I kept calling Daddy but he didn’t answer. It was after eleven. I had to check on him. My car wouldn’t start so I borrowed another nurse’s – oh, what does it matter? I found Daddy dead.’

  ‘Oh,’ Max said weakly. ‘He just dropped dead? I’m sorr—’

  ‘Roxanne murdered him.’

  ‘Murdered him?’ Max’s voice cracked. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘Oh, is it, Max?’

  ‘Janey, you’re upset—’

  ‘Shut up, Max. Roxanne killed him. I saw her sneaking out the back door of his house. When I got to him, his body was still warm. He had a needle sticking out of his arm.’

  ‘A needle?’ Vanessa asked. ‘I know he had diabetes. You said at the party at Nia’s that he wasn’t always careful with his doses. Did he give himself too much insulin?’

  ‘No, he did not,’ Jane spat. ‘His kit was on the dresser but very little insulin was missing. I checked that insulin kit yesterday.’

  ‘I’m very sorry about your father, Jane,’ Max said in a ridiculously prim voice. ‘I think I’ll leave the painting and go.’

  Roxanne pointed her gun at him. ‘You are not going anywhere.’

  Cara had lowered herself into a crouch at the far side of the tree, her face white and terrified. ‘Please let Cara leave,’ Vanessa said quietly. ‘None of this has anything to do with her.’

  Roxanne glanced at Cara. ‘No. She can’t leave. I think she’ll enjoy this.’

  ‘This?’ Vanessa repeated. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The truth. At last.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘The truth?’ Vanessa stared unflinchingly at her sister. ‘You were not held prisoner in the S & M room at Zane’s house.’

  Rozanne tilted her head slightly and smiled. ‘And when did you figure out that, Vanessa?’

  ‘Last night. In a dream.’

  Roxanne started laughing. ‘In a dream? Now I’ve heard it all.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. I know more, but I want to hear everything from you, Roxy, from your kidnapping until now.’

  Vanessa felt that her sister’s face had changed, the lines harder, the eyes colder. She didn’t look twenty-three anymore. She looked thirty-five and full of hate.

  ‘Simon Drake first groped me when I was thirteen. He raped me two days after I turned fourteen.’

  ‘He did not, you filthy liar!’ Jane exploded.

  ‘You know he did, Jane. You always have.’

  Vanessa was stunned. She’d known Simon was too free with his hands, but rape? Of an adolescent? ‘Even if it happened, why didn’t you tell Mom and Dad?’

  ‘I did. Mommy said she was certain it wasn’t as bad as I thought. It probably wasn’t rape. I shouldn’t start trouble with Dad’s business partner. She actually started shaking all over she was so scared of my rocking the boat with Simon. She was such a weakling! And Dad? He slapped my face and called me a liar. He told me to never tell Grace or you. He said if I did, he’d send me to an institution. An institution, Vanessa. I was so young, I believed him and the very word made me think of dank cells and barred windows. So I never said a word again, even though Simon raped me at least once a month.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me when you got a little older?’ Vanessa cried.

  ‘You? You who thought Dad was wonderful. And if things blew up between Dad and Simon, you might not have been able to afford your nice apartment in Los Angeles and your fancy drama school. You wouldn’t have listened to me. Everyone was looking out for themselves.’

  ‘That is not true. And why, when I asked you when you came back if Simon had ever abused you, did you say no?’

  ‘I wanted him to feel safe. I always intended to kill him – always – but he couldn’t know I was a danger to him. He would have avoided me, maybe left town. It’s why I was nice to him yesterday when he brought me flowers. But I always planned to make him pay for what he did to me.’

  Color rushed to Jane’s face. ‘You’re crazy. My father did not rape you!’

  Roxanne’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not the only girl your sainted father abused. Nia for one.’

  ‘Nia Sherwin?’

  ‘She was Nia Jones then. That was three years before me. But there were others. You know that because you always watched him and hung on his every word. You couldn’t stand it that he thought you were homely and boring. You wanted your father’s attention – any kind of attention – but he wasn’t interested in you. “Plain Jane” is what he called you.’ Roxanne smirked. ‘Did you know that? I think you did. He had a type – blonde, blue-eyed, large-breasted with classic features like Nia and me. That’s why you got breast implants and long, blonde hair extensions, and a nose job, and contacts that make your eyes darker blue. You’ve spent a fortune trying to look like Nia and me. Anyone can see it. But Simon still didn’t want you.’

  Jane looked crushed. She swayed and for a moment, Vanessa hoped she would faint. But she didn’t. She stood thin and wooden, her mouth pressed into a nearly invisible line.

  ‘Who kidnapped you?’ Vanessa asked.

  Roxanne smiled slowly. ‘Max.’

  His face froze. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Only his eyes seemed alive, burning at Roxanne.

  ‘Max?’ Vanessa asked, stunned. ‘Why would Max kidnap you?’

  ‘It wasn’t a real kidnapping,
you idiot,’ Roxanne said witheringly. ‘It was part of a scheme to get me out of Everly Cliffs.’

  ‘A scheme? It wasn’t real?’

  ‘No. But it had everyone fooled.’ Roxanne smirked. ‘Pretty smart thinking for a fifteen-year-old girl, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Max took you off the beach that night? I thought you barely knew Max.’

  ‘I knew Max very well, even if he was five years older than I was. Max was in love with me.’

  ‘In love!’ Vanessa turned to Max, who had set down the painting. ‘Is that true?’

  Max threw back his shoulders, adopting a steely posture. ‘Roxanne wasn’t like a regular fifteen-year-old. She seemed older. She was beautiful. And mature. She was crazy about me. But the whole kidnap scheme happened because she was so desperately in need of help. No one would believe her about Simon and she was afraid to run away.’

  ‘You mean running away wasn’t dramatic enough for her.’ Vanessa looked at Roxy. ‘I was the would-be actress, but you were the real actress. And you craved attention. Even when you were little.’ Vanessa turned to Max. ‘Why did you go along with this scheme? Didn’t you know how much trouble you could cause for yourself?’

  ‘I loved Roxanne. I was going to school at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I had a small apartment. I told Roxanne she could just run away and come live with me. She wanted to, but she didn’t want her parents thinking she’d run off with me and hunting her down.’

  ‘Why would they have thought she’d run off with you?’

  Max looked surprised. ‘She told me she’d said too much about me. Her whole family knew we were in love and hooking up.’

  Vanessa’s voice turned to acid. ‘Oh, she told you. Sorry, Max, but she never mentioned you. No one ever gave you a second thought as someone she had even a crush on let alone as her boyfriend.’

  ‘Well, of course you’re lying,’ Max said contemptuously. ‘Anyway, she came up with the idea of the kidnapping. Brody had gone nuts and everyone knew about him rambling all over town looking for his lady. She said he’d get the blame.’

  ‘She hoped a sick man would be blamed for kidnapping her,’ Vanessa said with disgust.

  ‘What difference did it make? Brody wouldn’t have been held responsible for his actions.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have gone to prison. But his reputation—’

  ‘What reputation?’ Roxy demanded. ‘He didn’t have any reputation left except as a nut.’

  Vanessa felt like slapping her sister, an impulse that was only held in check because Roxanne held a gun. ‘So you ran off with Max. And then what?’

  ‘And then she got restless,’ Max said. ‘During the second year, she left me. She said she wanted to be free. You see, she was so young when we got together—’

  ‘I’d found another man,’ Roxy interrupted. ‘A real man, not a boy tied to his mother’s apron strings while he dreamed of becoming a famous artist.’

  ‘And how long did that affair last?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘A while.’ Roxanne sighed. ‘And then there was another man and another. At first I had a lot of fun. But the fourth man – well, he wasn’t fun. Or kind. Or normal. He got me hooked on heroin. Then I got pregnant. I got rid of the kid and I left him. Then I got clean. I’d had enough of being on my own.’

  ‘That must have been when you came back here,’ Jane blurted.

  ‘She came home?’ Vanessa asked in shock.

  Jane nodded. ‘She came to this house. I was taking care of your mother. Roxanne didn’t even know I was here. I heard her yelling at her father in his bedroom. She followed him onto the landing. He was standing at the top of the stairs. By then she was screaming at him about my father. She described horrible things my father had done to her. Your dad called her a “dirty little whore”. She rushed at him and pushed him. He didn’t have time to brace himself. He tumbled over and over and hit his head on the floor below. She just stood there staring at him. Finally she went down and looked in his eyes and took his pulse. And then she left the house without calling for help or anything.’

  Vanessa was too astonished to say a word. So that’s how her father had died. He’d been drinking, yes, but he didn’t have a very high blood alcohol level according to the medical examiner. There were whisperings of suicide. No one had ever considered the possibility of murder.

  ‘I didn’t come here to kill him,’ Roxy said. ‘I was tired. I wanted to come home. I told him I’d escaped from the man who’d taken me on the beach, but Dad had been drinking and he was belligerent and said even if I had been taken, I’d chosen to stay away and put everyone through hell. Then I told him about Simon but he yelled at me to not start that crap again.’ She shook her head. ‘He never believed me, even when I was a child.’

  ‘You told lies when you were a child,’ Vanessa said coldly. ‘Not harmless lies to cover up things you’d done wrong. Lies to get kids you didn’t like in trouble. We all hoped you’d outgrown the lying by the time you were around twelve, but you hadn’t. Maybe he would have believed you about Simon but you were the girl who cried wolf too many times. You were still lying to him when you came back – he must have known by your tone. He was right – you did choose to stay away from home and put everyone through hell.’

  ‘That’s not the point, Nessa. He wasn’t glad to see me. Like always. And then he started shouting, and he called me names and I … reacted. Then I knew Grace would be home any minute. I had to get out and I couldn’t come back anytime soon. It would have looked too suspicious.’ She looked at Jane. ‘I knew Mommy was shut in her bedroom and Grace was out. I had no idea someone else was in the house.’

  Vanessa looked at Jane. ‘So you’ve known for over three years that Roxanne was alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you said nothing.’

  ‘I … I was afraid of her.’

  Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. ‘You might have been afraid of her for yourself, but that’s not all that kept you silent. It was your father, wasn’t it? You wanted to keep him safe. If Roxanne was around, she might start talking about what he’d done to her.’

  ‘Well, yes. Even though I knew she must be lying, more girls would have come forward. More and more … they would have ruined Daddy and Mom and … me.’

  ‘Daddy and you,’ Roxanne sneered. ‘That’s who you cared about. You didn’t give a damn about your mother any more than I did mine. Besides, why would more women have come forward if I was lying?’

  ‘For money, attention, just plain meanness!’

  ‘Or because they were telling the truth. Oh yes, there would have been quite a scandal.’ Roxanne smirked.

  ‘I wanted you to go away and never come back again. I went to church and prayed for that,’ Jane said fervently, then sagged. ‘But you did come back. You’re evil and evil always returns.’

  ‘Evil did return.’ Vanessa looked at her sister. ‘Why now?’

  ‘I’ve stayed in touch with Max all these years. Sometimes I went to him when things got bad for me like when a boyfriend beat me up and broke my wrist. That took months to heal but Max let me stay with him for weeks.’

  ‘And you paid him back by leaving again,’ Vanessa said.

  ‘He was planning on coming back here anyway. We stayed in touch. I was getting really tired of trying to make it on my own, finding men with money who liked me. Then less than three months ago, Max told me Grace probably had only months to live. I wanted her to include me in her will.’

  A chill washed over Vanessa. ‘You came home because you wanted Grace’s fortune? No wonder you were so affectionate with her. It was all another of your acts. How utterly cold and calculating and immoral.’

  Roxanne’s gaze didn’t waver.

  ‘But she died too soon to change her will,’ Vanessa said.

  ‘You want me to feel guilty? She wasn’t even glad to see me. You saw how she was around me. The woman never liked me.’

  ‘She never trusted you, Roxanne. I’ve known that since you were
young. I made excuses for you then, but she always saw through you. She said little things throughout the years that let me know she had doubts about the kidnapping being what it seemed. She still doubted you when you came home. I didn’t like that she was being cold to you, but now I understand. She knew you better than I did.’

  ‘She favored you. She always did. Most people do.’

  ‘Obviously not Max.’

  ‘He’s still my best friend.’ Roxanne looked at him with abrupt fondness. ‘The only person I’ve ever really loved.’

  Max’s voice was flat. ‘I wish I could believe that, but it’s not true.’

  ‘You’ve remained her flunky, haven’t you?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘I’ve never been able to really care about another woman.’

  ‘You made those cruel, anonymous phone calls to me.’

  Max nodded. ‘I started talking to Grace about the lighthouse paintings right before she broke her hip. She was out of the room – her cellphone was lying on the table right in front of me and I couldn’t help snooping. I found your number. I wondered about how many people would pay to have that. But I didn’t sell it. I waited and used it for something else.’

  ‘Something that Roxanne thought up. She knew I liked the song “Praying for Time”. She masterminded this whole thing.’

  ‘She started preparing a couple of months ago, losing weight, hurting herself with scratches and bruises. Exposing herself to illness like flu and bronchitis and strep throat. I brought her to Everly Cliffs and dropped her off. I did it all for her but it was because I had to,’ Max said despairingly. ‘She forced me.’ He looked at Roxanne. ‘It wasn’t just love. You’ve always held that kidnapping over my head. You were only fifteen when it happened. Underage. I was twenty. If you told anyone, I would have gone to prison. You never let me forget that.’

  ‘Don’t lie, Max. You stayed loyal to me only because you love me,’ Roxanne said confidently.

  Max looked at her with tired misery. ‘I’ve stayed loyal to you out of fear for my own life. You threatened to confess, to see that I went to prison. But you’re capable of much worse, Roxanne, and I cherish my life. I don’t want to die young.’