Like a Sister(42)

I finally glanced at my phone as I waited for the elevator. There were enough unanswered texts from Erin that she’d resorted to actually calling me. U ok?

I hit her back. Fine. Tell you more later. I just hoped I wasn’t lying.

When I got into the elevator, I saw Stu had texted again too. Desiree’s profile is running tomorrow in the Sunday edition. Hope I captured the woman you told me about.

I wrote back. Looking forward to it.

And I was. It was going to be bedlam at Pierce Productions when Mel found out Stuart knew he and Desiree hadn’t been speaking. Part of me wanted to happen to call Tam just so I could hear him yelling in the background. He’d be even more pissed when he couldn’t find out who Stuart’s source was.

It was as close to a good mood as I’d been in since learning Desiree had died.

Stuart wrote again. Heard the police are still putting a lot of time into finding Desiree’s car.

I hearted the message, not surprised they were still focused on her ride. It would be nice to have her stuff back. I still wanted to see her phone.

Sherry was at the registration desk. It was too early for checkout so the lobby was deserted. Bored, she stared me down as I approached, barely blinking until I was just a foot away. “You look like shit.” She slapped something on the counter between us as she spoke.

The bill.

It was two full pages. Front and back. She eyed me as I turned it over, waiting, waiting, waiting. I glanced at it without really looking. At least until I got to the final page.

$38,873.13

I choked and glanced up. Sherry smiled. I’d given her exactly what she’d been waiting for. “You could buy a place for this much,” I said.

Sherry blinked at me. “Where?”

I flipped the bill back over so I could start at the beginning, paying attention this time and seeing exactly what Desiree had gotten for Mel’s money. “I don’t know. Some red state that starts with an A.”

She leaned forward so she could read upside down. “I doubt your average Alabama foreclosure comes with the Mystique spa package. Or a fifty-dollar Caesar salad.”

I noticed the name in the top right corner. “Why does this say Melina Scott?”

“Because that’s the name she used to check in.”

“Like an alias?” I’d heard of celebs using them to hide from fans and paparazzi. I didn’t think Desiree had been on that level. She’d obviously felt differently. Part of me was flattered she’d chosen me. Just like the passcode. Further proof I’d been on her mind.

“It’s the name on the credit card,” Sherry said.

“That’s impossible. I’m Melina Scott.”

“Oh? Then you probably should check your wallet.”

I didn’t have to. “She might have used my name, but she didn’t use my card. My limit’s nowhere near that high.”

“Yeah, she did. I checked her in. Visa White Card. Best believe I paid attention to the name.”

It hit me. “That heifer.”

Sherry smiled. “Let me guess. It’s your card.”

“Technically. Mel—our father—gave it to me a few years ago. I didn’t want it. So I gave it to Desiree to return.”

Sherry stopped smiling solely so she could grin again. “Pity. She must’ve forgot.”

I signed the bill, handed it back. “Well, I’ll definitely make sure this gets paid. Since it’s my credit and all.”

I pulled out my Alexa app to set a reminder for when I got home. I’d ask Aunt E to tell Tam to cut it off.

“I’m sorry, you know, about Desiree,” Sherry said. “I knew she’d been stressed, but she seemed okay the last time I saw her.”

There it was again. Stressed. Depressed. Another person telling me Desiree wasn’t in a good place. The baby. I must’ve also said it out loud because Sherry spoke.

“Huh? No, her arrest.”

“How do you know about her arrest?” It had to be her DUI two years ago. If there’d been a recent one, it would’ve made my Google Alerts.

“How I know about everything. I eavesdropped. She asked to use the phone in the office. Said her phone was out of juice. I let her. You know, ’cause she always tipped well. I couldn’t hear much until she started crying hysterically about her accident. Something about she’d been looking for this person for a couple of years. They knew she wasn’t driving. They needed to tell the police or she would. Said something about a video. She was pissed. She knew I heard her, but she didn’t care. Rich people never do—no offense. A couple of days ago, when I asked how she was doing, she said she was feeling better. That the problem was taken care of.”

Shitnuts.

She’d been just as insistent the last time we ever spoke.





Thirteen



There are sixty-two emergency rooms in New York City, which meant sixty-two frantic calls in the three hours from when I thought my sister had died to when I wanted to kill her myself. It’d been two years since that night, but I remembered it like it was last week. Remembered it better than last week because I had no clue what I was doing last Saturday.

At the time I was still in my basement studio apartment in Jersey City. It was fate—not the phone—that woke me up that Friday night. My cell was on vibrate, as usual. Otherwise, I would’ve woken to my customary 7 a.m. alarm for my weekend bike ride, just in time to learn that Desiree wasn’t dead. Instead, I had to pee. I was stumbling back to bed in the dark when I heard the familiar buzz of my phone on my nightstand. Only one person on Planet Earth had the gall to call me that late.