36 #2
“Then where did he put it?” demanded Chucky.
“I don’t know, Chucky,” said Eddie. “Maybe he shoved it up your ass.”
Joel laughed around the jug of OJ and then had to wipe a dribble off his chin.
“My name is Charles!”
“I like Chucky,” said Joel. “I think your name is Chucky.”
“It’s Charles,” hissed Chucky.
Above the window sill, behind Chucky, a small device appeared—like a camera on a stick. Someone was outside. She looked around the kitchen. Was Rowan on his own? Would he be able to take all three of them? Would it be better if she separated them? Could she separate them?
Eddie started to turn toward the window.
“I think I know where the will is,” Vivian blurted out and they all focused on her again.
“You just said you didn’t,” said Chucky. “You’ve been saying you didn’t this whole time.”
“Yeah, but I think I just figured it out,” said Vivian.
“Fine. Where is it?” Chucky sounded like he didn’t believe her. She supposed that no one could be as stupid as he looked.
“Well, you said you searched upstairs. And I know it wasn’t at work. That means it’s in the office here.”
“I didn’t see any papers on that trick desk,” said Chucky. “Is there a secret drawer somewhere or what?”
“No,” said Vivian, trying to work it out as she spoke. “Nadine said that he came home from golf with your father and went directly into the office.”
She remembered that the computer screen had been the work log-in and realized what Howard had done.
He’d come home and gone directly to the office to get the document securely into the work records.
That meant he’d scanned it. She was going to bet money that if she searched the database the will would already be there.
But she didn’t want to tell Chucky that because if she was right, he was already shit out of luck.
“I think he went to photocopy it and got distracted. I bet it’s still in the copier.”
Chucky rolled his eyes. “Old men can’t even figure out how to work their phones. Who was ever going to look in the damn copier?”
“Not you apparently,” said Joel. “Go get it.”
Chucky reached out and grabbed Vivian by the arm.
“You don’t have to push,” barked Vivian, sharply shoving Chucky’s hand away.
“I will push whatever I want to,” snarled Chucky.
“Stop touching the girl and fucking go get the will,” snapped Joel. “I want to get out of here.”
Chucky looked angry but didn’t say anything. Vivian stomped down the hall.
“Look,” she said loudly, swinging open the office door so it made a loud bang.
Vivian hoped she was loud enough to keep the two in the kitchen distracted, but she didn’t know if that was the right thing to do or not.
“You can just take the will and get out of here,” she said keeping her voice loud.
“Yeah,” said Chucky. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Why are you even bothering?” demanded Vivian crossing the room to the desk. “You are getting money one way or another. What do you care if it’s got an extra zero or not?”
“What do I care? That is my money.”
“It’s your father’s money,” said Vivian.
“It’s mine. I have had to put up with all of his wives and all his stupid ass shit for too many years to get cheated now. I’m not forking over one single dime to that harlot of a wife of his or her brat.”
“You mean your sister.”
“Maybe she’s my sister. Maybe not. He never got a paternity test like I told him too. That money is mine.”
“And for that, it’s worth killing Howard?” Vivian asked, lifting the lid of the scanner on top of the printer.
Sure enough, there was a document inside.
“Don’t kid yourself, Vivian. As soon as I get that will, I’ll have Joel put you in the pantry next to Dave.”
“Too chicken to do it yourself?” asked Vivian looking down at the will.
“Why should I get my hands dirty? Although, if you made it worth my while maybe we could come to some sort of agreement.”
She had reached out to pick up the will when she felt his hand on her ass. The anger that had been welling up inside her suddenly crystallized into something hard and sharp.
“Get your damn hands off me,” she said straightening up.
“I’ll be fucking you one way or another, you know,” sneered Chucky. “It doesn’t really matter. You don’t have any friends with Ferraris around to protect you. You should be nice and maybe I’ll be nice to you.”
There was a shrill yell from the kitchen and a bang as if something very hard had been hit by something else.
“What—”
Chucky turned toward the noise, his gun swinging away from her.
Vivian whirled, clamped one hand down over the gun, forcing it even further away from her.
With the other hand, she hauled back and punched Chucky as hard as she could in the eye.
He staggered, and she wrenched the gun away as she hit him again and then a third time.
He seemed disoriented, but that wasn’t good enough.
She reached out and grabbed the decorative stone plinth off the table next to the armchair and swung for his head.
He finally let go of the gun and toppled over, hitting the carpet chin first. She spun the gun around in her hand so it was pointing at Chuck and stopped, panting, when he didn’t move. The door slammed open, bouncing off the wall, and Vivian raised her plinth and the gun.
Rowan stood in the doorway, a rifle pointing at Chucky. His frame was tensed, pushing forward in carefully restrained energy and a grim expression on his face, but he was the most beautiful thing that Vivian had ever seen.
“Rowan, I don’t want to see you Monday,” Vivian wailed, dropping the gun and objet d’arte.
“What?” His gun came down and instead of feeling better, Vivian burst into tears.
“I love you,” she sobbed.
“Baby,” he said, coming forward and putting an arm around her.
She tried to say all the things, but between the tears and her face being stuck in his chest, it probably sounded like a Muppet in a windstorm.
“You love me and we got in a fight and all you got to say was that you would see me on Monday?” he asked, holding her tight and kissing the top of her head.
“Yes!”
“It’s OK,” he said, soothingly. “I knew that was what you meant.”
“Rowan?” someone yelled down the hall.
“Yeah!” Rowan yelled back. “We’re good.”
“Is Vivian OK?” asked Tyrique appearing in the doorway. “Jake’s sitting on the other two.”
“She’s upset because she said she would see me Monday.”
“Um…” said Tyrique.
Vivian straightened up and tried to wipe tears off her face. “Nadine is going to be so mad,” she said looking down at Chucky. “He is bleeding all over her carpeting.”
“Yeah,” said Tyrique, nodding. “Rowan dented the fridge with that other guy’s head too.”
“Fuck that guy,” said Vivian.
“Baby, I really do love you so much,” said Rowan.
“Aww,” said Vivian, and melted against him. She knew she probably looked a mess, but it didn’t matter when he kissed her.