Good Sister, The

by Diana Diamond

  Catherine went on, explaining how she had gone out to Hollywood to help launch the new partnership. She spent the best part of an hour detailing how they had worked together to pick the half-dozen projects they would work on, and to sign up the support they would need. “It’s an exciting business, and Padraig’s name is prime capital. It could be a great success.”

  Jennifer was nodding. Padraig had told her all that. She was thrilled that he could be a help to Pegasus and still do his own thing. She didn’t see any bad news.

  Catherine gathered up their glasses for a refill. “There’s more. A lot more, I’m afraid.”

  She told her sister how eagerly Padraig had agreed to a reorganization that put more money in his hands. “Leprechaun, he wants to call it. Leprechaun Productions.” And how happy he had been to parade his wife’s sister before potential backers and associates. It was obvious that his only interest in the Pegan sisters was as an almost boundless source of funding. He had even implied that two bed partners might bring in more money than one.

  “So, I decided to have him followed,” Catherine said. “Was he the loving husband you deserve or the self-centered bastard I was seeing?”

  “I don’t think I like where this is going,” Jennifer interrupted.

  Catherine agreed. “I could stop right here with just a word of advice.”

  “No, you can’t. Not when you’ve gone this far.”

  “He went straight to some movie-star wannabe. I have full reports on the whole lurid scene.”

  Jennifer caught her breath. “You bitch!” she finally managed. “You have no right.”

  “I have a right to find out whether the person I’m funding can be trusted, or whether he’s a lying cheat. And I have a duty to make someone I care for see what she doesn’t want to see.”

  Jennifer was breaking into tears.

  “There were pictures. They turned my stomach. All I could do was burn them.”

  Jennifer rushed at Catherine and began swinging and clawing wildly. “You took my husband from me. You ruined my marriage … .”

  Catherine fended off the attack and then grabbed Jennifer’s hands. “I didn’t take your husband. I showed you that you have no husband. Padraig O’Connell doesn’t love anyone except Padraig O’Connell.”

  Jennifer stopped flailing, letting her hands and arms be captured. Then she fell against Catherine’s shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. The two sisters hugged and rocked in each other’s arms, Catherine’s makeup running in dark streaks down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating, an apology that Jennifer finally acknowledged with a nod.

  “I’d like to leave now,” she said when she was able to pull out of the embrace.

  “Stay for the night. You’re too upset to be home alone.”

  “I’ll get more upset if I stay here and keep looking at you.”

  “I know … I did something terrible. But I had to find some way to make you see him for what he was. Please don’t hate me so.”

  “Not you, him! I want to tell him I know and see what kind of funny Irish explanation he’ll come up with. See if he has the balls to call me ‘darlin’ ’ with his mischievous little smile.”

  “Just get a lawyer and be rid of him,” Catherine advised. “I’ll get even for you. I’ll put that bastard through so much hell—”

  “No! He’s my problem, and I’ll take care of him,” Jennifer said in a tone that invited no discussion. “What I’m wondering is how I’m going to take care of you.”

  “Jennifer, if there had been any other way, I never would have done this to you.”

  Jennifer sneered. “Oh, I’m sure of that. But why is it, Catherine, that every time I find happiness, you’re the one who takes it away? Why are you always the cloud that appears just in time to rain on my parades?”

  ELEVEN

  THE ENVELOPE was postmarked from the New York City main post office on Thirty-third Street. Plain brown, nine by twelve, fastened with a metal clasp, glued, and then taped over with cellophane tape. The address had been hand-printed with a felt-tip marker.

  Jennifer fingered it before tearing it open. Inside, there were two cardboard stiffeners protecting half a dozen black-and-white prints. She pulled back in shock. Padraig, buff naked, was stretched on top of a dark-haired woman with a voluptuous figure. Jennifer couldn’t believe her eyes, but then again, there was nothing here that Catherine hadn’t told her about. It was just that the graphic evidence was much more jarring.

  Cautiously, she pushed the picture away and saw the second photo. This time it was the back of the woman, who was now sitting atop a man. Jennifer couldn’t see either face, but there was no mistaking Padraig’s elaborate headboard.

  Then a repeat of the second photo, only this time with Padraig’s face visible. His eyes were open and he was smiling broadly. She could almost hear him making one of his outrageous jokes. He liked to talk during sex.

  The next two photos had the lovers in various poses that might have been cut from a porno magazine. Padraig’s face appeared in one, and the other showed the telltale headboard. The woman’s face couldn’t be seen, but Jennifer didn’t really care who she was. In fact, she didn’t want to know.

  But then came the final picture, the one she knew she was really meant to see. The woman had turned in the bed as if about to get up and had been caught naked, staring full-face into the hidden lens.

  It was Catherine.

  Jennifer let the photos fall onto her desk and sat staring into space, the final image still burned into her eyes. She glanced down and scanned the evidence. Now she could recognize her sister in each of the pictures: her hair, the taper of her shoulders, the wasp-thin waist. Her sister romping with her husband, to the obvious delight of both. Her husband bathed in pleasure beyond what he had shared with her. They went well together, two celebrities in love with their status and sharing it in the public eye. Two stars high above the world, making love in a way that normal earthbound people could only imagine. Jennifer felt like an outsider gawking into a magazine that embraced the lives of the rich and famous. She felt rage but with an aftertaste of envy. She felt betrayed but also cut out, as if she had been dismissed and sent back to her less glamorous surroundings.

  Carefully, she reordered the prints, slipped them between the cardboards, then closed the clasp. She walked as steadily as her shaking legs allowed down the hallway to Catherine’s office.

  Catherine was at her desk, editing a document, while a secretary bent over her shoulder. She glanced up at the interruption, caught her sister’s cold glance, and dismissed the secretary. Neither of them moved until the girl had closed the door behind her.

  Catherine started to get up, but Jennifer bounded toward her and tossed the envelope on her desk. ��This morning’s mail,” she said, then stood and waited while her sister glanced up from the envelope to Jennifer, then back to the envelope. She opened it carefully and slid the photos out.

  She recognized herself even in the first photo where her face was hidden. “Oh my God” was the best she could manage. She looked up at her sister with fear in her eyes. Then she started, “Jennifer—”

  “Look at the others,” Jennifer ordered. “They all do you justice.”

  Catherine fingered her way through the prints. When she got to the final picture, she let her face fall into her palm.

  “No wonder you burned the pictures. You certainly didn’t want me to know just which Hollywood wannabe Padraig was with. Or were you just shy about posing in the raw?”

  “Jennifer, there were no pictures. I just made that up. I had no idea someone was actually taking pictures. But it proves what I said last night. He wanted the money and then he wanted me.” She gestured to the prints in front of her. “I don’t know, but maybe he hired the photographer so he’d be able to keep me paying. Blackmail, in case I ever wanted to cut off his funds and get out of his business.”

  “What are you saying, that he drugged you and dragged you into bed for a photo sess
ion?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good, because I wouldn’t believe you. You seemed to be having too much fun.”

  Catherine nodded. “No, I wasn’t drugged. I wasn’t even dragged. I just wanted to know whether he would betray you for money, and I learned that he would. Maybe it’s good that you’ve seen these, because now you know the truth. He’s a bastard, Jennifer. What he saw in you are the same things he saw in me. Dollar signs!”

  “I don’t believe that!” Jennifer screamed in a voice loud enough to earn glances from the secretaries outside the glass door.

  Catherine simply gestured to the pictures. “Isn’t this enough proof?”

  “It’s more than enough proof of how much you hate me. How in God’s name could one sister climb into bed with the other sister’s husband? Were you jealous that the movie star picked me instead of you? Or is it that you just can’t stand to see me happy?”

  “What are you going to do?” Catherine asked.

  Jennifer couldn’t wait to answer. “Send these to Padraig. I want to hear whatever ancient Celtic spell he uses to get out of this.”

  Catherine’s eyes lowered. She wasn’t sure there was anything more to say. But Jennifer kept talking, her voice becoming more ominous with each word. “And then I’m going to get back at you, sister dear. I’m not sure exactly how, but it will be your worst nightmare. This time you’ve gone much too far.”

  “Sweet Jesus, you’re merciless,” Padraig said as soon as Catherine came on the line. “Private detectives and lurid photographs? Did you have to grind the poor girl down into the dirt?”

  He had just received the photograph in the mail, along with a terse note from Jennifer.

  If this is really you, could you autograph it for my photo album.

  Your fan, Jennifer.

  He had cringed at the image, which made him look heavier and older, and then tried to figure out how it had been taken. The view was through the sliding glass door at the side of his bedroom. He was on his back in perfect profile. She had been caught looking into the camera.

  The photographer, he reasoned, had somehow climbed up onto the deck from the beach side, then gone around to the bedroom window. It was embarrassing to think of what else might have been photographed, and to see how ordinary he looked making love. The movie scenes of him slipping under the sheets with a naked nymph implied an ecstasy that he found lacking in the photo.

  “I didn’t bring the photographer. I thought that was your idea,” Catherine said.

  “Mine? Now, why in hell would I want pictures of one of my more shameful moments?” he countered.

  “Maybe to blackmail me. You could threaten to show them to Jennifer.”

  He groaned in exasperation. “Then why would I send the pictures to her? Wouldn’t showing them to Jennifer make them rather useless?”

  Catherine was suddenly speechless. Then she asked, “Well, who then?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ll have to figure that one out. But in the meantime, exactly what am I supposed to say to my wife?”

  “As little as possible. Just agree to a quiet divorce and don’t quibble about the property settlement. I’ll be bringing more than enough to the partnership.”

  “But I have to explain to her,” he protested.

  “The picture explains everything,” Catherine answered. “And if you get into one of your witty Celtic moods, she may take a pistol to you. Be particularly careful not to call her ‘darlin’.‘She told me that would really enrage her.”

  Catherine set up a schedule of weekly trips out to California, where she spent long days touring the industry. She sat through the casting meeting for a movie about a boy and his dog, a wholesome family picture that would get maximum satellite distribution. “How in hell do you interview a dog?” she demanded during the lunch break. She looked at the camera work of cinematographers who might shoot a moody story about an older man obsessed with a much younger girl. She was introduced to new faces who might be ready to make the jump to stardom. She dined with agents until she could almost predict their pitches. On each trip, she stuffed her bag with scripts that Padraig thought were worth considering.

  On most trips she slept with Padraig, who seemed fully recovered from his disastrous breakup with Jennifer. “Am I on Candid Camera?” he asked one night as he was slipping out of his briefs. He made a great show of pulling the shades and drawing the blinds. “Is this thing bugged?” he wondered on another occasion before using his bedside telephone.

  “This is really a wonderful arrangement,” he admitted one morning while Catherine and he were sharing coffee on the deck. “Money, power, and sex, neatly served in a spectacular chafing dish. Brought from New York to my bedside every week.”

  “Just don’t do anything to spoil it,” Catherine warned him.

  Padraig knew that the warning was to be taken seriously. That was the bitter herb that came with the chafing dish. Catherine had taken control of the venture, reserving the more important decisions for herself. At times it seemed that she was purposely humiliating him. She had forced him to back away from a commitment to an industry mogul known for his vast ego. The man could make stars fade very quickly for less brazen insults to his power. She frequently overruled him at meetings with his associates, leaving little doubt as to who was in charge. At first she had been the surprisingly knowledgeable ornament on his arm. Now he was becoming a decorative scalp hanging from her belt. He had protested several times, but she had dismissed his complaints as silly pouting. And she had reminded him of the facts. They were further along than he ever would have been on his own. The profits would soon be pouring into Leprechaun Productions.

  Jennifer’s recovery wasn’t nearly as quick or as painless. She decided to leave Padraig and began divorce proceedings. She plunged back into her work with an energy that bordered on insanity, arriving early, leaving late, and eating a packaged lunch at her desk. She cut off social contacts with her staff, appearing at meetings through a private door and disappearing the moment that the business was completed. Her secretary generally returned calls from Catherine and Peter, acknowledging that Jennifer had seen the memo, studied the proposal or whatever was involved, and that her comments would be forthcoming.

  Peter, who had only suspicions about the relationship between Catherine and O’Connell and no knowledge of the damning photographs, was clearly worried. He had tried several approaches to forcing meetings with Jennifer and had always been put off. He had tried to talk to her during the legal exchanges of her divorce when her stock ownership was at issue. Again there were only notes, and most of these from her lawyers.

  “How much of this was my fault?” he asked Catherine while they were having lunch together.

  “How could it be your fault?” she responded.

  “I’m the one who had the security people investigate the accident. I guess you could say that I was the one who tried to implicate O’Connell. And then I told her that her husband had tried to blackmail me.”

  “You never accused him.”

  “No, but I didn’t deny that it had been him. So it was pretty obvious whom I was talking about.”

  He suggested that it might be best for Jennifer if they pulled out of their corporate partnership with O’Connell. Catherine reminded him they had a great deal invested.

  “I’d just as soon write it off as a loss and get Padraig O’Connell out of our lives. It can’t be easy on your sister to have us arm in arm with a man who treated her badly.”

  “A loss?” Catherine seemed shocked. “Do you have any idea how much effort I’ve put into this? We’re going to be very successful as producers. And we’re going to bring the whole damn industry onto our satellites. I’m not writing it all off as a loss.”

  When he finally succeeded in cornering Jennifer in her office, he faced the issues head-on, first with an apology for his part in the strain on her marriage.

  “As it turns out, you were probably right,” she answered w
ith little fanfare. He was surprised to see that she seemed to have accepted that Padraig was behind her accident.

  Next he had attorneys study the deal between Pegasus and Leprechaun. He wanted to find a way for Jennifer to participate without having to deal with her soon-to-be ex-husband.

  “Just get us out of it, Peter,” she said. “I can’t work on a project where his name is going to keep coming up.”

  That, he agreed, was his thought as well. But, as he explained, the organization put Padraig and Catherine in control. Peter could take back his interest, but they could go on and hold Pegasus to all its financial commitments. “We need the business, or something like it, so I’d rather get Padraig out than take ourselves out.”

  “But Catherine won’t go along with you?” she asked, suggesting that the cause of his dilemma was her sister.

  “Not yet. He’s the only industry insider in the company. She feels that we still need him.”

  Jennifer leaned back, smiled for a moment, and then fell into a sadistic laugh. “First she takes my husband,” Jennifer said, shaking her head in disbelief, “and then she flaunts him in front of me.”

  Peter defended Catherine. Her ties with Padraig, he explained, had started because he would have gone on taking Jennifer’s money. “It was all to protect you. That was her concern—”

  “She has some photos she might let you see, Peter. They’ll clear up your delusions. This isn’t about business opportunities or saving me from myself. This is about the war between my sister and me.”

  Peter had long been aware of the rivalry between the two. In their personal lives, it kept them from being best of friends, but then sisters seldom were. In their business commitments, it was healthy, as each tried to score the important contributions. His contribution had been to remain scrupulously neutral between them.

  But now he saw something deeper. The rivalry had spilled over into hostility. He remembered when Catherine had first suggested her own involvement in Padraig’s production company. Had he been naive to think that she was concerned for Jennifer’s well-being? Had he overlooked that she might be trying to reclaim her star billing and her place in the spotlight?