“You could have just asked me for a divorce, you know,” Torri said, looking down at the papers in front of her. “I would have been happy to grant it.”
“You’re not just giving him a divorce—you’re going to sign those other papers too!” Amanda pointed at a second stack of legal documents. “You’re going to sign away every last cent your grandpa left you to me and Chuckie!”
Torri’s heart had been drumming against her ribs from the minute Chuck had shaken her awake, and it had gone into overtime when Amanda snapped the handcuffs on. But now her fear turned suddenly to anger.
“Why should I do that?” she demanded, glaring at both of them. “Why should I give the money Grandpa Pete and Nana left me to the two of you?”
“Because you got me fired!” her ex-husband roared in her face. His own face was nearly puce with fury.
“You got both of us fired, you skanky bitch!” Amanda put in.
“What are you talking about?” Torri was honestly mystified. “I haven’t even seen either one of you for the last four months! How could I get you fired?”
“Because you ran off from St. Elizabeth’s to help those damn aliens take over everything!” Chuck snarled. “My boss at the DOJ told me that the head alien personally demanded they get rid of me because he said I did you wrong!”
Torri remembered her conversation with Commander Terex and how the Head of the Kindred High Council had told her he would deal with her problems. At the time, she had believed he only meant he would get her name cleared for escaping from St. Elizabeth’s. Now she realized he had taken steps to avenge her ex-husband’s infidelity as well.
“I…never meant for that to happen,” she said blankly. “I only told Commander Terex my story—that the two of you had conspired to commit me to St. Elizabeth’s so you could get the money Nana left me in her will. I didn’t know he was going to, er, take steps against you.”
“Take steps…take steps?” Chuck roared in her face. His breath smelled like stale coffee. “My whole career is ruined and you’re going to pay for it, you bitch! You’re going to give me every Goddamned penny of that inheritance right now!” He stabbed his finger at the second stack of paperwork ominously.
“Wait a minute.” Amanda stepped in, frowning. “I want to know something, Chuckie. I thought the money was a secret, but it seems like she knew about it—I want to know how she knows!” She glared at Torri. “Well?”
Torri supposed she could lie to them, but there didn’t seem to be any point.
“The night Vic—the Kindred scout I was with—and I escaped from St. Elizabeth’s, we stopped off at the house to get some of my clothes,” she said, lifting her chin. “The two of you came in drunk, looking for Chuck’s cell phone, and we hid in the closet. I heard everything you said, Chuck,” she said, turning to her ex-husband. “From how you planned with Dr. Burrows to keep me in the hospital the rest of my life so the two of you could steal the money Nana left me, right down to the fact that you’d been cheating on me for the past three years.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t believe what a fool I’d been! How could I believe you were on a bowling league? Friday night used to be our date night and then you pretending you were bowling so you could spend it with her instead.” She jerked her chin contemptuously at Amanda.
“What I do with Amanda is none of your business!” Chuck exclaimed, but she could tell by his guilty flush that he was both embarrassed and ashamed.
“I’m your wife—or I was, anyway,” Torri said quietly. “It most certainly is my business. Especially when you started plotting to put me away for good. Tell me, Chuck, did you have the idea of keeping me drugged and locked up right away, or did it only come up when you went to the lawyer and found out what Nana left me?”
“I put you in there for your own good!” Chuck protested uneasily. “You were crazy with all your screaming and crying in the middle of the night! I mean, what was I supposed to do—just put up with it?”
“For better or worse,” Torri said evenly. “Those are the vows we took. I’ll admit, that was a tough time—it definitely counted as ‘worse’—but you’d already checked out of our marriage by then, hadn’t you? And I’m sorry that my night terrors caused you so much distress but as I tried to explain, they were Seeing Dreams, just like Nana had. And what I was seeing, was the Scourge invasion of the Earth! If it hadn’t been for those night terrors, the Kindred never would have come in time to save everyone on Earth from the Scourge!”
She thought for a minute that maybe she was getting through to her ex, who was staring at her, slack-jawed, as he processed this information. But then Amanda yelled,
“Hey! If you were there in the house that night, you must have been the one who put the Nair in our shampoo!”
Uh-oh… Torri had honestly forgotten about dumping the bottle of hair remover into the shampoo bottle in a moment of pique. It had seemed a small thing to do to repay her ex and his mistress for their horrible plot against her, but apparently it had had real-life consequences. Suddenly, she realized why Amanda’s long blonde hair looked so stiff and wrong and Chuck’s hair looked like he had skinned an animal and put it on his head.
Bald! she thought, staring at the both of them. Either they’re both bald, or they’ve lost enough hair that they feel like they have to wear wigs! And now Amanda knew who was to blame for her hair loss—Torri. Uh-oh…
“You bitch!” Amanda launched herself at Torri, who scooted back hurriedly, her chair nearly tipping over in the process, since her hands were still cuffed behind her back. “You ruined my hair!” she shrieked at Torri. “You ruined it!”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Chuck stepped in and caught Amanda around the waist.
“Let me go, Chuckie!” his secretary/mistress howled. “Let me go, I’m going to scratch her eyes out! She put the Nair in the shampoo—I know she did!”
“How am I going to see to sign the paperwork if you scratch my eyes out?” Torri asked in a voice that shook more than she liked.
“She has a point, Manda, baby,” Chuck said soothingly. “Let’s just make her sign the papers before we do anything else.”
“I know what I’m going to do. Let me go!” Amanda straightened up and stopped fighting to get at Torri, though her eyes were still hot with rage.
When Chuck finally let her go, she turned around and marched out the front door, much to Torri’s mingled relief and apprehension. What in the world was the vengeful mistress planning?
“All right now…” Chuck glared at her. “You’re going to sign this paperwork—every last bit of it—giving me a no-fault divorce and turning over every cent of that inheritance to me. Then you’re getting in the car and I’m taking you right back to St. Elizabeth’s where you’re going to stay put this time!” He sneered at her. “And don’t worry—Dr. Burrows has promised to put you in the Violent Offenders ward, so at least you won’t be bored.”
Torri felt sick with fear. The idea of going back to the mental hospital—especially if she was going to be put in the Violent Offenders ward—made her stomach clench like a slick fist.