Chapter Thirty-Eight
Faith
Las Vegas
Faith was still in shock as she sat in the back of the taxi heading toward the condo. One of the interns had been in Vegas and somehow had recognized Faith despite Faith’s best efforts. An intern!
Moreover, the intern could have turned her in but didn’t.
It had been petrifying sitting in that bus shelter wondering if the entire world she and Hope had built was about to crumble.
Now that she had Olivia’s promise, Faith felt much better but also a little wary.
Promises were just that. What if Olivia changed her mind?
Faith didn’t know Olivia very well. Faith decided she needed to book that facelift now.
The plastic-surgeon-to-the-stars place was so popular with the elite crowd that it took a long time to get an appointment.
Inhaling a ragged breath, Faith looked out the window as city lights gave way to suburban quiet. The cab was nearing their place, a nondescript condo that resembled all of the others in the complex, sandy colored with low, rugged shrubbery.
Hope would be on her date and likely out at the bars or casinos for a while. Faith just wanted to collect herself and take a steamy, hot shower. Then she would look up the plastic surgeon place and book the earliest they had. It still might be months away.
Hope would be apocalyptic about this latest development with the intern recognizing Faith.
Maybe Faith wouldn’t even tell her, she’d just say that it was time to get the facelift done.
Stupid, she was so stupid for not wearing her glasses that night and for never considering how her walk might be recognizable. She would be smarter moving forward.
The condo was dark, and Faith flipped on lights as she went. As she got to the kitchen and turned on the overhead, something caught her eye immediately.
An envelope was propped against the napkin holder on the table. On the outside was scrawled:
FAITH: READ THIS
It was Hope’s handwriting. Faith furrowed her brow.
Hope must have left this for Faith after Faith went to the Bellagio.
Hope had said she needed more time to get ready for her date and would meet Faith there.
Picking up the envelope, Faith saw that it was sealed and was thin, as if it held just one piece of paper inside.
She opened it and leaned against the counter.
Dear Sis,
We’ve been through so much together. From Charity to Dad to this.
I love you and I thank you SO MUCH for what you did to gain us freedom, but I have decided that we need to live apart.
It’s not safe for either of us to continue to travel as a twosome.
Therefore, I have taken my portion of the money and you won’t see me again.
I’m not really on a date. I’ll be long gone by the time you read this.
Don’t try to find me. You won’t. I’m sorry I won’t ever see you again but trust me that I have given this a lot of thought and it’s truly what’s best for both of us.
You have your fake ID, this condo, and a chance at a new life.
I have that chance too. The money is in my name and I promise I will use it well.
I left you enough to get by for a while. It’s in your top dresser drawer.
Good luck and be well.
Love Always,
Hope
PS—don’t try to mess with me. Remember what I asked you tonight at the Bellagio? I recorded our conversation. If you turn me in I’ll turn you in and it will be way worse for you.
Faith dropped the paper.
She looked around wild-eyed.
This couldn’t be happening.
It had to be a joke.
Yet, everything around her was normal. The kitchen was exactly as she had left it just a few hours ago, dishes in the dish rack, apples in a bowl, the spinning spice rack on the counter.
She took off running down the hallway to Hope’s bedroom. The bed was made but there was nothing on the bedside table and usually Hope had her medications, a phone charger, her glasses, and a water cup there.
Yanking open the closet doors and dresser drawers in Hope’s room, she found them all empty. In the bathroom, all of Hope’s cosmetics and personal items were gone.
Faith wanted to scream, but she knew that if she disturbed the neighbors and police came this could get ugly fast.
Dashing into her own room, she pulled open the top dresser drawer.
A wad of cash was there, hundred-dollar bills held together with rubber bands.
It was definitely many thousands, but she also recognized right away that it wasn’t enough to live on for very long.
It might not even get her that facelift.
Hope had millions pouring in from life insurance and she was leaving Faith this tiny amount?
“Nooooo!” Faith cried out. A pounding started in her head. “Fucking bitch!” she said as loud as she dared without the neighbors being disturbed. Running wildly through the house, she opened every drawer and moved each bit of furniture to see if there was more money anywhere. There wasn’t.
Making her way to the kitchen, she slid to the floor, back against the stove, and rocked and moaned. Sobs came. She hadn’t cried like this since Charity’s death, since Hope had told her that she had been the one responsible.
Faith ripped her wig off and hurled it across the room, a visceral noise coming from so deep inside of her she surprised herself with its depth. She couldn’t help it. Please, neighbors, she thought, don’t call the cops.
This was her money. She had made it. She was the one on TV who had done everything needed, from the earring forecast to the videos.
She built up equity in the community while Hope accomplished next to nothing.
Always leaving her jobs because she hated her bosses, the hours, the duties, her coworkers, you name it.
Always drifting around. Now that two-faced, conniving scumbag had Faith’s money flowing to her and there was nothing Faith could do. Hope had her and had her good.
Faith’s mind whipped back to the PS part of the note: Hope telling her not to go public and saying she had recorded their conversation. What had Faith actually said on the bench? It had all seemed so casual, two sisters sharing margaritas and laughs.
Now it came back to her. Hope’s questions:
“You’re still OK with being the one to come up with the idea for Tom’s death? And Matthew rotting in jail for it despite being innocent?”
And Faith’s answers:
“I had to do it. What choice did I have? When someone wrongs you, you have every right to retaliate. That’s how the world works. An eye for an eye. I couldn’t just sit by like a patsy. For once I wasn’t the puppet but the puppet master and it felt so good to be in charge.”
With a sickening revelation she realized she was not the puppet master. Again. She had never been in her life and never would. Hope had been the one pulling the strings all along.
Faith grabbed her purse and took her cell phone out. She pushed the button for Hope’s number but knew already what she would hear, and did:
“We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service…”
Anger came like a tsunami but then took a sharp left turn to a deep, deep fear. She was on her own. Her best friend, her sister, gone.
Faith was by herself in Las Vegas and apparently still recognizable. Her only skill was being a television meteorologist, and that career was shot. She could stay in the condo, as it was paid off, but she couldn’t sell it—it was in Hope’s name.
She and Hope were supposed to live the high life now.
They were supposed to be the dynamic duo, never working again but enjoying everything good in this world, from clothes to food to travel.
And now Faith was going to be broke soon if she didn’t start working on her own in Sin City, while Hope wined and dined in whatever place she was going to.
On Faith’s money. And Faith was powerless to stop it.
Hope, who had played the scolding, “do what I say,” “I’m smarter than you,” big-sister role for way too long, had outwitted the little sister in one final coup de grace.
Faith ran to the bathroom and retched into the toilet, closing her eyes so she didn’t have to see what was in the bowl. Flushing, she sank down to the floor and sat there for a long time.
She knew one thing. She had to change her appearance. If Olivia ever squealed or if anyone else ever recognized her, it was over. Her mind went from the high-end plastic surgery place to one at a strip mall nearby she had seen ads for.
Nose jobs, chin lifts, eye lifts. Cheap.
In and out in just hours!
She would have to take her chances with some low-level doc whom she hoped had a license.
Her body remained weak from throwing up and felt like an empty sack, but her mind kept zooming ahead, thinking of the next steps to stay hidden.
She would get a job somewhere in Vegas off the Strip and away from tourists. Maybe as a waitress. It was something she had done in college, starting the semester she was kicked out for stealing.
At least she had a place to live. She could stay at the condo and save money with an eye on eventually getting out of town.
It was not the path she had expected, but it was clear she would have to figure out an escape.
Again. Where she might go, she had no idea.
The maps she and Hope had pored over in Gills Rock came to mind.
There were endless possibilities, sea to shining sea in this vast country, from coastal towns to farming communities to mountain enclaves to bustling cities to desert oases.
Perhaps she could be a nomad and just try them all.
She thought of how she had promised Olivia she would pay it forward.
Faith had meant it too, but that was also when she believed she had the means to do so.
She wasn’t sure what she could do to pay that debt now given that she had very little money.
Then she realized that maybe she was already paying it forward in a different way.
Or, more accurately, she was paying it backward.
This had to be the world handing her one final punishment for Charity and what Faith had done to get her little sister abducted.
In some ways Faith had known that her comeuppance would happen eventually.
You can’t lose your little sister and never get punished.
She was repaying the universe now. A bill she had owed for thirty years.
Olivia had told Faith that she was letting her go in an act of charity.
That was one of the most beautiful things anyone had ever said to her.
But this betrayal from Hope was perhaps an act because of Charity.
And strangely, Faith could already feel just a tiny bit of the long-burrowed guilt in her soul starting to lift.
It was a debt she had needed to pay and if this was the way to do it, well, so be it.
She stood up from the bathroom floor and looked at herself in the mirror as she realized sharply that there was no one in her life anymore.
Not one soul. No one she had to answer to, listen to, or be worried about.
Gone was Hope. Forever, Faith knew that.
Hope would always look out for Hope first and foremost. Gone were the coworkers at Channel 9.
Gone was Steve the stalker and all guys like him.
She would never be on TV again and put herself in that kind of position with celebrity-obsessed people.
It was time to stand on her own two feet and not rely on anyone else.
It might bring loneliness, sure, at least until she made new friends under her new identity.
It might be tricky with money for a bit, yes, but it would also bring power in a way she had never fully had.
It was a jarring revelation.
When she had first opened Hope’s letter in the kitchen, shock, fury, betrayal, fear, and sadness had all rolled through her in various waves. Now, a different emotion began to dominate.
She leaned closer to her image and looked deeply into her own eyes and she was surprised to realize that despite everything, all of the losses and all of the changes, the new emotion she felt was actually …
a tiny bit of excitement. She hadn’t expected that, and she had to accept it and make room for it.
In one night, she had lost Hope but actually gained hope.
She lost Charity decades ago but had also been handed unexpected charity by Olivia.
She had almost lost the true Faith over the years by becoming a larger-than-life TV personality, a caricature, just a name, but now the real Faith was back, as was her faith in her own smarts to figure it out.
There was simply too much living to do to give up.
A small smile began to play at the corners of her mouth. Faith’s eyes started to glow and her cheeks flushed pink. She looked at herself for a long time, until that hint of a smile became an actual grin.
Turning, she walked quickly back to the kitchen and grabbed Hope’s letter. The first tear was so gratifying. Ripping it up into the tiniest pieces she could, she watched with immense satisfaction as each one fluttered into the garbage can.
“Goodbye and good luck, bitch,” she said aloud when the last piece fell. She would miss her sister, of course, but it was so incredibly freeing to realize that she would never have to be under Hope’s influence again.
It might not have happened in the way Faith would have ever imagined or envisioned, but the reality was that Faith was now the puppet master of her own life. Finally. Every decision, every outcome was entirely hers.
And she couldn’t wait to get started.