Cherry Orphan

Chapter 55

Chapter 55

When the Jaguar finally pulled up in the Villa Suerte driveway Sonia literally flew out of the rear seat and into the house. She bolted straight upstairs and slammed the door to her room. Scott turned and shrugged. "Sorry, James. I guess that's the second wild ride I've given you. Maybe you should go to her."

He said nothing and went inside and up the stairs. Calley followed him with her eyes then looked at Scott again. "Do you know what happened to his parents?" she said in a low voice.

The driver heaved a deep sigh, heavy with regret. "Yeah, I know. Look, Calley, none of this relationship stuff is any of my business. I was out of line—totally out of line."

"Not really. I started it with my dirty comments about Leona. You had every right to come back at us. I don't care what you think of me, but you touched a real tender nerve with Sonia. Yes, she's been experimenting. All three of us have. We know we're not normal... whatever normal is. As sisters we've been fucked up for years—especially me. Left alone all the time I guess we became too close. The part that's really ironic; now we're screwed up like this our parents finally seem to be getting along better than they ever have."

The Mexican housekeeper, Eloisa, chose this moment to come outside to see what was going on. Scott got out smartly, went around the car and opened the passenger door. "Will that be all for today, Miss Nameth?" he said in a fake British accent.

She swung her bare legs out and went along with it, letting him take her hand. "Thank you, Tony. You can put the car away. Robert will be home soon in the Bentley."

He bowed slightly as the housekeeper scratched her head.

***

Scott made one last inspection of the Jaguar before driving the car into its slot inside the huge garage. Nothing seemed amiss underneath as far as he could tell. Even so he'd decided to have a mechanic look it over the next day, just to be safe. Before turning to close the garage door the white piece of paper under the windshield wiper caught his attention again. It fluttered; animated by a light ocean breeze that insisted its way up the slope between stands of tall pine trees. He shook his head. It seemed nothing could dislodge it—not even near catastrophe.

With every intention of throwing it in the garbage container, his fingers extracted the annoying advertising flyer. Something stopped him from scrunching it into a ball. It looked like black marker pen had bled through the thin stock from the reverse side.

Slowly he turned it over and read the message, written in neat block letters about an inch high.

HEY, RICH MAN - DO YOU AND THE JUNKY BITCH FEEL SAFE?

His mouth went dry. Despite the mixed emotions the day had produced, this prompted the worst feeling of all. He folded it carefully and slipped it into the pocket of his tracksuit.

***

Calley quietly entered Sonia's room via the connecting door. She'd stripped off her clothes and wrapped in a terrycloth robe.

Sonia and James were on the bed. Sonia curled against him, her head tucked at his shoulder while he gently massaged her back with one hand. Only the boy looked up. Calley slid onto the bed beside them and also began stroking her sister. This prompted Sonia to abruptly turn and hug Calley with a renewed flow of tears.

"I could have killed us all," she sobbed.

"Shh, it's alright. I talked with Tony. He knows what he did. I trust him not to say anything to Mom or Dad." Her eyes went to James. It was obvious the boy still felt scared. The fear in his face prompted her to tally her own emotions. She wasn't scared and it made her wonder why. Maybe the self-inflicted hell she'd been through at Colleen's had desensitized her; to a point were something like today's brush with the hereafter seemed almost anticlimactic.