by Marti Green
“Why, Ben? Just tell me why?”
He looked up at the ceiling and held his gaze there.
“Answer me!” I shouted.
He looked back at me. “Because I wanted your money. And I didn’t want you.”
I took a step forward, my head filled with a furious pounding, blocking out the shouts of my sister. I hated him, this man I’d shared my life with, my deepest secrets, and wildest dreams. I’d made him rich, and that’s all he’d wanted from me. I held my arms out in front, both hands clasping the gun, my finger on the trigger. I didn’t see Mallory run up behind me. I didn’t see her step in front of Ben, and I didn’t hear her shout, “No, Charly!” until after I’d pulled the trigger and the bullet headed straight for her chest. I screamed when she dropped to the floor.
Ben used the moment to run for the door. I didn’t hesitate. I quickly blocked his path but got too close. He grabbed for the gun, but I held on tight as he tried to wrestle it from my hands. Ben had six inches and seventy pounds on me, but it didn’t matter. My anger fueled my strength.
“Let go, you bitch,” Ben said. The look of fear in his eyes was gone, replaced by a coldness that matched my own.
I remained silent, my only thought getting free of Ben as we each struggled for the gun. I didn’t have much time. I knew Saldinger had to have heard the gunshot. I silently thanked my hours in the gym as I made a push to twist the gun upward, then shoved it under Ben’s chin and, once again, pulled the trigger.
Ben dropped to the floor, his blood splattering over my beautiful Persian rug, and I briefly thought, I wonder if that stain will come out. I pressed the gun into Ben’s right hand, then ran back to Mallory. I cradled her body in mine, both of us covered in blood. That’s where Detective Saldinger found me when he burst through the back door.
“He shot her. He shot her,” I cried, tears trickling down my cheeks. “I rushed him to get the gun away, and we struggled, and it went off. He tried to shoot me, too. Get an ambulance. We need an ambulance. Oh, please, help Mallory. Please help her.”
Saldinger called for an ambulance, then gently lifted me up.
“It’s on the way.” He brought me over to the couch to sit down. “Why didn’t you have the transmitter on?”
“What do you mean? It’s on.” I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him. The light was off. “Oh, God, I turned it off when I went back to get Mallory, and I pressed it back on when we got to the den. I must not have pushed it hard enough.”
I began crying more steadily, with genuine remorse for my sister. But my anguish over Mallory was mixed with joyfulness. Ben was dead. My nightmare was over.
PART THREE
MALLORY
CHAPTER 47
“What are you doing?” I shouted at Charly when she pulled out a gun. This wasn’t our plan. She wasn’t supposed to kill Ben. She already had his confession that he was the one who’d hatched the scheme, not me. Now that she’d seen Ben’s reaction when he realized she was alive, Saldinger would come in at any moment to arrest him. It was over, all but the trial. Surely, Ben would take a plea, and there wouldn’t even need to be a trial. We could both get on with our lives, with the sweet addition of having each other now.
She moved toward Ben, the gun held close to her body.
“Charly, don’t!” She wouldn’t shoot Ben; she couldn’t. If she shot him, she’d be sent to prison, and I’d lose the sister I’d had so briefly. I stood rooted to my spot in the room, convinced Charly was just trying to scare him, urging her to put the gun down.
Charly took another step forward and now extended her arms, the gun held in both hands. “You’re going to ruin everything, Charly. Think of us. We finally found each other. Think of our grandparents.” She seemed oblivious to my shouts, her eyes fixed on Ben. “If you do this, I won’t forgive you,” I warned. Her finger began to move to the trigger.
“No!” I screamed as I ran toward Ben, ran to push him away. Just as I reached him, there was a thunderous sound. I felt nothing and wondered why my legs had buckled, then looked down and saw dark-red blood ooze from the top of my chest. I tried to lift my hand to touch it, but nothing worked. I heard sounds of a scuffle, then another gunshot. Darkness overcame the room, and I closed my eyes and drifted into it.
Sounds wafted in from someplace far away. I struggled to open my eyes, and when I finally managed to do so, I discovered I was in a bed in a white room, bright light streaming through its one window. I turned my head and saw tubes running from my right arm to a pole, soft beeps emanating from a screen behind it. I was in a hospital. Why? My left arm was immobilized in a sling, and I felt a throbbing ache in my shoulder.
I strained to make out the voices that I’d awakened to. “Sorry, no one’s allowed in,” I heard a man’s deep voice say.
“But I’m her sister.”
“No one means no one.”
Charly’s voice grew louder, more hysterical. Then I heard a thump and someone call, “Get a nurse.”
My head felt so heavy, my tongue so thick. I tried to fight it but couldn’t. Slowly, the darkness descended once more.
Voices again. I opened my eyes—it was easier this time—and standing over my bed was a woman, a white jacket worn over her flowered dress, holding a chart in her hands, and next to her another woman in nurse’s scrubs.
“Well, there you are,” the woman in the dress said. “I’m Dr. Kessler. How are you feeling?”
The pain in my shoulder had lessened, but I still felt groggy. “Okay, I think.”
“Well, you’re a very lucky young woman. The bullet just missed your subclavian artery. You would have died before you’d gotten here if it were just a centimeter closer.”
“My arm?”
“It nicked your clavicle. We’ve operated to remove the bullet fragments and stopped some internal bleeding, but you’re going to be fine.”
I knew that wasn’t true. I would never be fine again. The sister I’d hoped would become my friend instead almost became my executioner.
“Where’s my sister?” I asked.
“She was here earlier, trying to speak to you,” the woman in scrubs said, “but the police haven’t cleared you for visitors yet. She collapsed while talking to them and was admitted. She’s just down the hall. Poor dear, the stress got to her.” She lowered her voice and leaned in toward me. “Her husband is dead. After he shot you, she tried to wrestle the gun from him, and it went off. Hit him in the brain. He died instantly.”
No. That wasn’t what happened. Charly shot me, then she must have shot Ben. I remembered the noise, an earsplitting sound.
“You’re lucky you have her. She saved your life,” the nurse continued.
Nothing made sense to me. Nothing at all. I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep.
The next time I woke up, Detective Saldinger was sitting by my bedside. “Well, it’s about time,” he said when I opened my eyes. It was dark outside the window, and only a small lamp next to my bed illuminated the room.
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“Not long. Maybe thirty minutes. It’s the end of my shift. Figured I’d take a chance on you waking up. How do you feel?”
“Like someone shot me.”
He smiled. “Glad you still have a sense of humor.” He cleared his throat. “Mind if I do a bit of official business?”
“Go ahead.”
“First, for the record, what’s your name?”
I hesitated. I could tell him the truth, and Charly would go to prison for killing Ben, for shooting me, and I would go back to waiting on tables and squeezing out money and time for art classes. Or I could say I was Charly. My sister would still go to prison, but as Mallory. I would step into her life. I would have her money. I would own her gallery. I had trained for months to be Charly. Either way, Charly would be locked up. She deserved to be. I’d begged her to put the gun down, to put our relationship first. I wasn’t important enough for her. She deserved to go to jail. And I d
eserved to be rich.
“Charlotte Gordon,” I answered.
Saldinger looked confused, as I’d expected he would. Charly had to have told him who she was, who I was, and that Ben had been the shooter.
“Your sister says she’s Charly.”
“She’s lying.”
“She says Ben shot you, and she struggled with the gun, killing Ben in the process. Is that how it happened?”
“No. Mallory shot us both.”
He leaned in close to me. “Damn. It’s just what I told you I was afraid of, that Mallory might decide to go ahead and kill you and then take over your life. Just one thing is confusing me,” Saldinger went on. “Why did Mallory have the transmitter pen in her pocket?”
“After I got Ben to confess, I came back into the kitchen. Mallory asked to look at it, and I handed it over to her. She put it in her own pocket, but I didn’t think anything of it. It didn’t matter who was carrying it, did it?”
“It did. She turned it off so we wouldn’t hear anything.” He stood up. “Okay. I’ll let you rest now.”
When I was certain he’d left the hospital floor, I buzzed the nurse, and five minutes later she entered my room.
“Need something, honey?”
“Is my sister still in the hospital?”
“She is, just down the hall.”
“Is it possible for me to get up?”
The nurse nodded. “You should start moving around. Here, let me help you.”
I swung my legs off the bed and carefully stood up. “I’d like to go to my sister’s room.”
“There’s a cop outside your sister’s room now. I’m not sure he’ll let you see her.”
“Let me try.”
She unhooked me from the wires that led from various spots on my body to the pole by the bedside, then followed me out of the room. “She’s down this hallway, Room 413.”
Slowly, I made my way there, careful not to move my arm, which was still in a sling. When I reached her room, I asked the policeman if I could go in.
He hesitated, then said, “Just for a few minutes.”
I walked up to Charly’s bedside and sat down. “You killed Ben. You shot me.”
She turned away from me for a few moments. When she finally met my gaze, she said, “He deserved to die.”
“Did I deserve to be shot?”
“You got in the way. It was meant for Ben.”
“I begged you to let him be. You didn’t care that you’d go to prison, that we’d be separated again. You didn’t care about me.” I paused, then leaned in to whisper in her ear. “I told Detective Saldinger that I’m Charlotte Gordon, and you’re Mallory.”
“What!” She looked over at the cop. “So, that’s why he’s there.”
I continued in a whisper. “I came to you to stop you from being murdered. All you had to do was let Saldinger arrest Ben. Now, you’re going to prison.”
“I won’t go to prison if you say Ben had the gun, that he shot you.”
I shook my head. I’d thought about just backing up Charly’s story, never telling Saldinger the truth, but I couldn’t get past the fact that Charly had killed someone. I’d had very little growing up, but one of the things my mother instilled in me was that actions have consequences. It seemed wrong for Charly to walk away from what she did scot-free. “You made your choice. You need to pay for it. Why shouldn’t I take over your life? It’s no use to you anymore.”
Her face darkened. “You won’t get away with that. I can prove I’m Charly.” She stuck out her hand and pointed to a small scar. “See? I’ve had that since childhood. Poppy knows it’s there.”
I stuck out my hand. “Really? You mean a scar like this? Ben told me about your accident. It was really quite easy to cut myself. It didn’t take too long for the scar to form.”
“You bitch,” she hissed.
“I was supposed to be you, in every respect.”
She lay quietly for a minute, chewing on her lip. “It’s money you want, right? I can make you rich. Filthy rich. I’ll give you the hundred million Ben was going to leave for you. Just back up my story to Saldinger. Ben shot you, and then I rushed him for the gun.”
I felt tears spring to my eyes. “I didn’t want the money. I wanted a sister.”
CHAPTER 48
The next morning, after I’d been poked and prodded by the nursing staff, and runny eggs with burned toast had been served for breakfast, an older man, his skin tanned and wrinkled from the sun, stepped into my room and sat in the chair next to my bed. “How are you feeling?”
I recognized him right away. He was Herman Jensen, Charly’s grandfather.
“Hi, Poppy.”
His mouth turned down to a scowl. “I know you’re really Mallory.”
“Poppy, how can you say that?”
He moved his chair closer to mine and lowered his voice. “I would have always been able to tell you apart.” He cleared his throat. “Charly told me what she did, Mallory. She wasn’t herself. Watching her father die, finding out Ben wanted her dead, even you turning up—which was a good thing, she was happy to find you—but all of it together, she just couldn’t handle it all. Her thoughts got all mixed up.”
He cleared his throat. “She’s going to be discharged this morning, but she’s under arrest. They’ll take her straight to jail, and then she’ll be arraigned. You can put a stop to it. Tell them the truth about who you are. Back up her story that it was Ben who had the gun. I’ve arranged for her to be admitted to a private rehabilitation center. She’ll get intensive counseling there. She’s deeply repentant about what she did. Please know that.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Jensen waited for me to open my eyes and look at him. “She wants you to forgive her.”
I felt a heaviness in my body. I looked around the room and spotted a large vase of flowers on a table in the corner. Without asking, I knew they’d come from her.
“Please, Mallory, she’s genuinely sorry.”
“You’re her grandfather. Of course, you’d believe her.” If I changed my story now, told Saldinger who I really was, I’d probably be in even more legal trouble than I already faced.
I glanced up at the ceiling for a few beats. When I looked ahead, I pinned Jensen with my eyes. “Tell Mallory I don’t forgive her.”
His nostrils flared. “She’s Charly. You know that. I’m going to tell the police who she is.”
“You’re an old man who just lost his son. They won’t believe you over me.”
“We’ll see about that.” As he stood up to leave, he looked like he’d aged ten years over the course of the last ten minutes. He found my eyes and silently implored me to put my family first, then left the room.
CHAPTER 49
I stuck to my story. I was Charly Gordon. The person who’d shot Ben and me was my sister. Charly was arraigned on charges of second-degree murder, and bail was denied. As I’d predicted, my grandfather’s protestations that I was really Mallory were dismissed. After all, what reason would Charly have to shoot me? Mallory was the one who had schemed to get Charly’s money. Mallory had to be the one to shoot Charly. I had been shot; therefore, I must be Charly. It helped that science couldn’t prove otherwise. We shared the same DNA, and since neither of us had ever been fingerprinted, there was no record to compare.
I returned to Charly’s townhouse—now mine—after I was released from the hospital, and a few days later went to the gallery. Much as I liked the idea of owning a gallery, my months of dreaming about Paris and studying there were too great a temptation. I offered Sandy the chance to buy it from me, with only a small down payment. I agreed to finance it with very generous terms. She jumped on the offer.
I knew I would have to return for my sister’s trial—after all, I was the key witness—but that would be months away. Maybe close to a year—unless she agreed to a plea. I doubted she’d do that. She hadn’t wavered on her insistence that I was Mallory, not her. I would need to return for Clark’s an
d Mullin’s trials as well, if they didn’t take pleas.
Two weeks after I had been released from the hospital, I flew to Paris. I stayed in a hotel rather than search for an apartment. After all, money was no object. At first, I just lost myself in the city. I went to every museum, then started all over and went to each a second time. It seemed like every few streets had artists displaying their work, especially along the Seine, and I stopped to admire and chat with each one. Finally, I enrolled in the Paris College of Art and began taking art classes. The school taught classes in English and led to a US-recognized bachelor of arts degree.
At the end of the day, I’d return to my hotel room and wonder if I’d done the right thing. I had more money than I’d ever spend in my lifetime. I could buy anything and go anywhere. I was finally studying art full-time. But I was alone, with no family and few friends.
Was it worth it? I often asked myself. I didn’t know the answer.
Seven months later, I returned to New York for Charly’s trial. The assistant district attorney trying her case had scheduled my trial preparation for 2:00 p.m., but before I met with her, I drove to Riker’s Island, where Charly was jailed.
When she was brought into the visitor’s room, I did a double take. She looked like I had when I’d first met Ben. Her hair color had returned to its natural shade, and her hair was longer and unshaped. She’d also gained weight on the prison’s carbohydrate-rich diet.
“Did you come here to gloat?” Charly asked me when she sat down at the visitor’s table.
I wasn’t sure myself why I’d come. “How are you doing?”
