Cocktail Hour (62 page)

Lucie shook her head. "Sharon's right. We can't wait for the police to get here. If they're not dead yet, they will be any minute now."

Sharon turned her head, listening. "I haven't heard any shots."

"You won't," Lucie said, realizing what the odd high-pitched sound she'd heard was. "She's got a silencer on her gun."

"A silencer?" Sharon said. "Oh, my God. This really
was
planned."

"I'm calling the police," Dean said.

Lucie put her hands together as if in prayer. "Do you have a cell? Oh, good. Would you please call them from outside? I'm afraid she'll hear us. She thinks I've left for the night."

"Okay, I'm calling now."

Sharon turned and put her hand on Dean's arm just as he started back out the door. "Thank you. And thanks for being here."

Dean shook his head, "I'm just....I should have believed you."

"I only wish I'd believed myself more. Okay, you better call," Sharon said and turned back to Lucie as Dean stepped outside. "Now we've got to figure something out and fast."

Lucie shrugged and looked around the room again. Something, they had to figure something out. Then she noticed it, a large bottle of olive oil from the Rossi's pantry that Lucie had taken from the shelf and had been admiring. Imported from Italy and extremely expensive, it was liquid gold.

Staring at it, Lucie realized that it was more than that. "Olive oil."

"What?"

"It's very slippery."

"I'm losing you."

"Bianca could fall."

"Aha, now I'm getting you. But she's got the gun pointed at them, right?"

"Yes. You're right. The gun could go off as she fell, shoot one of them anyway."

"I've got an idea."

"Thank God. I'm running dry here."

"Here's what we're going to do..."

Lucie poised just outside the library door waiting for Sharon's cue. At first she was glad to hear that the three of them were still talking and John and Chelsea were still alive, but then she had to listen to what was being said and it was making her sick to her soul.

John had stopped talking, so Bianca prompted again. "What else is disgusting about Chelsea? Come on. You said she was just a fuck. If you want to live, you better keep talking. And Chelsea, don't cover your ears again or I'll blow your hands off."

"Um, she...," John said, wincing as he gripped his injured shoulder.

"Come on, John."

"She left her dirty underwear all over her apartment. It smelled."

Bianca let out a little trill of laughter. "Really? Chelsea, who knew you were such a dirty girl? More, John, more."

Just then there was a loud banging, Sharon knocking on the library window farthest from where the small group stood and then ducking down.

Jerking with surprise, Bianca turned the gun away toward the window. Lucie moved quickly, running forward with the open oil bottle and dashing it under Bianca's stiletto-clad feet. Bianca, seeing Lucie peripherally, swung around and lost her balance. Her feet skidded, trying to gain purchase, but instead simply flew over the slick of oil. The gun fired, its high-pitched crack making Lucie jerk back. Heat tingled on her right arm. Lucie looked down to see it intact, and then over her shoulder to see the hole in the door frame behind her. The bullet had just missed her.

Hearing Bianca fall, Lucie looked down to see Bianca on her back, the gun out of her hands and sliding on the oil toward Chelsea, whose face was still crumpled and stained with glistening mascara-tracked tears. Bianca, realizing she'd lost the gun, started to scramble on her back toward it, her arm stretched out, using her feet to propel her across the oily floor with only partial success.

"Oh, no," Chelsea said, her breath hitching and her whole body visibly shaking as she looked down at Bianca. The gun had ended up closest to her, only inches from her feet.

Watching Bianca's progress and feeling desperate, Lucie prompted, "Chelsea? Please? For me?"

Chelsea, who seemed to be frozen with fear, looked up as if waking from a dream. She shook her head. "No," Chelsea said, her large blue eyes becoming enormous. "For me." She reached down and grabbed the gun up and trained it on Bianca.

Bianca stopped mid-crawl. "Oh, Chelsea. Come on. You don't even know how to shoot a gun."

Hearing footsteps behind her, Lucie turned to see Sharon entering the room. Sharon said, "Chelsea doesn't need to know how, Bianca. You're at close range. Even the biggest newbie can shoot someone that close. At least maim you."

Chelsea let out a nervous low laugh, holding the gun firmly with both hands now. "Yeah, at least maim you."

John took a step towards Chelsea and she said, her eyes still trained on Bianca, "Stay back, buddy. I'm done with you." John faltered, staring at her.

Bianca let out a little laugh, but then stifled it.

Sharon laughed, too, a bitter knowing sound. "Enjoy laughing, Bianca. It might be your last chance to get some amusement. This isn't what you'd planned on, was it? Your little game didn't work out. You know the one: winner take all? Looks like you're going to take none. Well, correction, you'll probably get life in prison, no parole. The police are on their way, they'll be here any minute."

Bianca blinked and then slowly sat up. "Game? Plan?" she asked wide eyed. "I...I didn't plan for my best friend to run off with my..." She gasped a little, tears popping into her eyes. "Husband? I was just a loving wife? And my son, Sebastian, to lose his mother because of his father's inability to keep his dick in his pants?" Bianca put her hands together and wrung them, starting to sob a little. "When I found out John was leaving me, was going to get rid of me, I went crazy. And then I found John's gun and I-"

John, hearing Bianca's accusation, turned and said, "What? I don't have a-"

"You were going to kill me, murder me! Admit it!" Bianca said, crying openly now.

"What? I wasn't...I..."

Lucie was unable to bear another minute of Bianca's crocodile tears. After all she'd heard and seen that night, she wouldn't stand by and allow this despicable pity play, where Bianca turned things around and blamed her own victims, to continue. "Stop it, Bianca. Right now. I saw the whole thing, heard everything you said. You had every intention of murdering Chelsea and John, and it was obvious that you felt no personal threat at all. And the worst thing? You were enjoying it."

"But..." Bianca said, startling and staring at Lucie. Then she tilted her head to listen.

Then Lucie heard it, too, the sound of approaching sirens. Lucie said, "They're coming for you now. Don't think you can lie. We're all witnesses. Too many of us to dismiss. All of our stories add up against you."

"Listen to her, Bianca," Sharon said, taking another step closer and putting an arm around Lucie's shoulders. "She knows what she's talking about. This is one smart cookie. You know, Bianca, it sucks when you're a psychotic bitch and people find out, doesn't it?"

Bianca, head cocked, slowly got to her feet and walked past John to the window facing the driveway, suddenly oblivious to all of them. She pulled back the curtain and stared as one, then two, then three police cars pulled into the driveway, lights flashing red, her favorite color.

At that moment, Bianca reached up and smacked her ear. She looked over at her hand and screamed, shaking her hand off as if something was on it. A second later her other hand went to her mouth and she spat onto her palm and her screams grew louder, her eyes bulging as she stared at her hand.

"Did she say 'bugs'?" Lucie said, hearing a repeated word between screams.

"What? Bugs? But-" Sharon said, slack-jawed as she witnessed Bianca's meltdown. She wasn't able to complete her sentence because, at that moment, Bianca looked down and her screams escalated to a siren-pitched shrieks as she started jumping around in a crazy jerky dance as if something was on the floor.

They all looked down and around, but the parquet floor remained the same, clear of debris except for the oil stain in the center, until the room filled with police officers. Then it was covered with the shiny black shoes worn by determined men and women seeking answers and finding them everywhere.

Full Bar

It was one of those rare crisp cool days in August when a Canadian front moved down through Connecticut and briefly pushed away the heavy humid air of late summer, providing a much-needed respite from the heat. As a result, locals rushed to enjoy the fleeting days of gorgeous weather, most of them heading down to the waterfront restaurants in Stamford and crowding the bar and every table, hands waving in the air to get the attention of the overwhelmed wait-staff and bartenders who rushed around looking harried.

Luckily for the four women, Kate had arrived early and secured a table outside at the most popular restaurant, The Lobster Pot. Lucie and Sharon arrived shortly afterward and Chelsea was the last, having to commute from her new job in Manhattan working at a publishing house, a job she'd gotten thanks to Edie, who had survived the food poisoning but lost her taste for French food. Nevertheless, Lucie's book proposal was still being passed around and there was reason to hope.

After ordering their drinks and a few appetizers to share, they finally got down to something they hadn't had the chance to do since that terrible night in June: compare notes about Bianca. Lucie and Sharon had talked, of course, but Chelsea had been too shell-shocked from the events of that night, distracting herself by focusing on her job hunt and withdrawing socially ever since. Kate, too, had been MIA, sending terse replies to Facebook messages that told the girls that things were hectic and little else. Oddly, she, Bianca's biggest supporter, seemed the least surprised about what Bianca had done after she and Grant left.

Taking a sip from her seltzer water, Kate started to explain her lack of surprise. The others, already noting how different Kate seemed - not drinking her usual Corona, not speaking or acting in her typically deferential, almost childish way - were prepared for a potential shock, but they had no idea how much it would change the very landscape of what they'd come to assume about the dinner party's purpose and Bianca's plans. Kate told them Grant's story as well, about all the times Bianca had been flirtatious and inappropriate with him, but most of all she detailed Bianca's attempted seduction of Grant, her husband's Rohypnol "roofie" spiked drink, and how Kate believed that Bianca had made sure she had Grant to herself by food-poisoning everyone else before making her move.

"I still can't believe it about the bouillabaisse, but the police tested the leftovers and I know I didn't put oysters in it, all of which turned out to be putrid," Lucie said. "But wait, how did you know about the roofie?"

"Grant's a doctor; he knew he had been given some kind of sedative. We went to the hospital and had him tested," Kate said.

Falling back in her chair, Sharon said, "I can't believe it. It was all about Grant. Getting him alone."

Kate calmly nodded.

"I believe it," Chelsea said. "She always wanted what she didn't have. If I had a boyfriend, she had to take him. Like she took John."

Sharon raised her eyebrows. "What a prize he turned out to be."

Chelsea pressed her lips together and shrugged, looking down.

"Chelsea," Lucie said in a warning voice. "You're not-"

Chelsea looked back up, eyes wide. "No! No way. Trust me. I'm done with John."