Amy Maxwell & the 7 Deadly Sins (The Amy Maxwell Series Book 2)

by Heather Balog

  “Ugh! I’m going to have to call Roger and maybe get this towed…” I start to explain as I pull the car back onto the shoulder.

  “Maybe you want to take the parking brake off.” Beth points at the dashboard smugly.

  My face flushes. The red parking brake icon is flashing. Oh yeah, the parking brake.

  Wordlessly, I take off the brake and pull back onto the road; smoothly this time. I can tell my sister is gloating.

  “Told you you’re a terrible driver,” she mutters as she stares out the window.

  ~Eleven~

  Beth directs me to an oak lined side street, just off the town’s main road. I have driven through this part of town before, usually with my mouth agape, wondering what the hell I was doing wrong in my life that we didn’t live in one of these monstrous homes. Every time, I muttered a silent prayer to win the lottery, just so I could go and look at the insides of one of those homes without a real estate agent laughing at me. The homes on the main drag were beautiful, but I had never veered off the main road. Good thing too, because I might have gotten a permanent case of lock jaw if I had.

  The houses (if you could even call them that) on both sides of the street were sprawling over acres upon acres of land, with locked gates and pavers leading toward their ginormous front doors, all appearing quite foreboding. My sister Beth lived in quite a gorgeous house herself, but even her mansion could not compare to the castles that my eyes feasted upon.

  “There,” Beth directs with a shaking finger. My gaze rests on the most magnificent home in the cul de sac, right at the end. It is surrounded on both sides by open land, a view of the mountains blanketed behind it. No other home comes within a quarter of a mile of this one. The entire property is lined with a ten foot high fence, a locked security gate at the foot of the driveway. I think that it is actually built over a moat. A brass placard is affixed to one of the concrete gate pillars. It reads, “Babbling Brook”.

  It takes me a moment to register the fact that these pretentious people have actually named their house, like they used to in the Deep South during Civil War times. And what’s more, the name makes no sense. If you give a house a name, it should make sense. For example, if I had to name our house I would call it Everything is Falling Apart-o-land. Or Mess-O-land. Or Please Leave Me Alone O-land.

  “Are you sure they’ll even let us in?” I murmur to Beth as we pull closer. I am whispering because I am nervous; not only because of the potential confrontation with this woman, my sister’s nemesis, but because we will be rubbing elbows with the filthy rich.

  Beth wrinkles up her brow. “I don’t know. You know how these wealthy people are…totally neurotic and unpredictable.”

  “I bet,” I mutter. I don’t mention that my sister can be a bit neurotic herself. I unroll my window and pull closer to the little black box that I’m meant to speak into. I squint my eyes, searching for a button to press, but I see none.

  “What’s the matter? What are you waiting for?” Beth asks impatiently.

  I throw my hands up questioningly. “I…I don’t see a button to press. I don’t know how to call them to get in.”

  Sticking out my hand, I run it along the face of the box, still seeking the magic button, when I hear Beth let out an exasperated sigh and unbuckle her lap belt. The next thing I know, she’s climbing over me.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I squawk as her bony knee digs into my thigh. She ignores me and leans out the window, her thumb pressing into the shiny plate on the front of the box. Within seconds, the gate swings open.

  “What?” Beth asks innocently. She brushes her fringy dark bangs out of her eyes and sits back down. I stare at her incredulously as she settles back into the passenger seat and buckles herself up. Yes, she buckles up to drive the twenty feet up the driveway.

  I am still staring when she impatiently indicates the steep driveway in front of us. “Aren’t you going to go?”

  “What the hell was that about?” I ask as I take my foot off the brake and give the gas a little nudge.

  “The scanner reads fingerprints to open the gate,” Beth mumbles.

  “How does it know your fingerprint, Beth?” I ask suspiciously, a sickening feeling in my gut. She met him here for her sordid little rendezvous, didn’t she?

  “Kevin may have programmed my thumbprint into the system,” she mumbled, pulling her hair in front of her face like an embarrassed teenager.

  “Oh God, Beth! You did it here? At his house? Where he lives with his wife and kids?”

  Beth stares at me. “Well where did you think we did it? Seedy little motels and such?”

  I blush. I really didn’t put much thought into where they did it. I’m still reeling in shock from the recent revelation that they did it at all. This whole evening has been quite the eye opener. I feel like I’m on a bad soap opera or episode of the Twilight Zone. I’m waiting for the cheesy music to play.

  “Was his wife home?” I ask venomously as my minivan creeps over the bridge. Yes, I said bridge…told you there was a moat around the mansion. Although from this angle, it appears to be more of a babbling brook rather than a moat. Ah…hence the name. It’s all making sense now.

  “Amy!” Beth scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest indignantly. “What kind of a person do you think I am?”

  Um, the kind who has everything she could possibly want and cheats on the perfect husband who gives it all to her anyway?

  I don’t verbally acknowledge Beth’s question. Instead, I pull up to the front of the house (the driveway appears to snake on for another mile or so) and I stop right by the front door.

  I kill the engine and drape my hands over the top of the steering wheel. Glancing at my sister in the passenger seat, I announce with fake cheerfulness, “We’re here!”

  Beth moans slightly and then pulls the visor down. Flipping the mirror open, she inspects her face and pats down her perfect bangs.

  “Are you for real right now?” I ask disbelievingly. “Let’s go get Jillian.”

  “I’m just checking myself in the mirror. It wouldn’t kill you to do the same,” she remarks in a snarky voice.

  Ignoring her biting comment, I open the car door. At the bottom of the magnificent stairs, I let out a low whistle. There are at least twenty steps to traverse in order to reach the front door. “You sure know how to pick ‘em.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Beth snaps angrily. But at the same time, she grips my arm. I can see that my sister is frightened. Despite her generally bitchy attitude, confrontations are not her strong suit. She normally likes her prey to be completely unarmed (ahem, me). It sounds like she may have met her match in this Claudia woman. We climb the steps slowly together.

  “Well, you certainly traded up if you’re planning to leave Derek. These are some digs.” I whistle under my breath with the very little bit of air I have left in my lungs. I really need to work out…

  “I am not planning on leaving Derek,” Beth replies with a shocked tone. “Really, where would you get such an idea?”

  “Well, I just thought…”

  “Don’t think. It’s not your strong suit,” Beth replies with a huff. I am instantly reduced to feeling like an admonished third grader. Beth is right. Thinking isn’t my strong suit.

  At least you’re not an adulterer, Amy. At least you’ve got that going for you. My smug superior feeling returns.

  We reach the top of the steps. The spacious landing is actually nauseatingly gaudy with its ornate pillars and columns in the style of Roman architecture. Or maybe it’s Greek. I don’t know. As Beth said, I’m not too book smart. I just know it’s pretty fancy.

  We stand there for what feels like an eternity before I step closer to Beth and nudge her with my foot. “Ring the doorbell.”

  She turns to me and I see there are tears shining in her eyes. Her surgically enhanced eyelashes are also moist. “Can you ring it for me?” she asks in a terrified, childlike voice.

  I sulk as I reach to
ward the doorbell. I am certainly cashing in a year’s worth of babysitting for this evening’s debacle, Beth can be sure of that fact. As I depress the button, I hear deafening clanging and ringing, echoing against the cathedral ceilings of the mansion.

  As we wait for the door to open, I can hear Beth inhaling and exhaling sharply, her breath catching every few exhales or so. She sounds like Allie trying to stave off an asthma attack.

  Finally, I can make out the distinct sound of heels clacking on the high end Italian marble floor, just on the other side of the door. Ok, so I don’t know for sure that it’s Italian marble…maybe it is linoleum, but I highly doubt that.

  The heavy door swings open and bright light floods the previously dimly lit porch.

  I squint momentarily because the intensity of the light has assaulted my eyes. The figure in front of us appears silhouetted, a halo shining around her body. Behind her is an expansive hallway with Italian marble floors (yup, I was right) and a ginormous marble staircase spiraling upwards toward the second floor landing. There is a picture window that spans the entire height and width of the back wall; the moon is visibly glowing through the glass. It looks like something out of those Hollywood house shows where the talentless actress or model takes you on a tour of their house, gushing over their interior designer and the fact that their house was built to their “specifications”.

  “Hello, Beth.” There is the unmistakable sound of venom in her words.

  “Hello, Claudia,” my sister returns, poison sprinkled in her voice as well. It would be evident to even the most casual observers that these women hate each other.

  “What are you doing here?” The woman practically spits. I blink a few times before the figure becomes clear and I cannot resist the urge to gasp.

  I am completely taken aback by the woman standing in front of me. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. If this is Claudia, Beth has left out a few details. Like the fact that Claudia is devastatingly gorgeous. Oh, and also that she is Claudia Fox, the star of Mommy Wars, a show about moms behaving badly in PTAs and play groups and such. It is one of the shows that I religiously DVR, not that I have a ton of time to watch it. The irony of the situation is not lost on me as I jostle my sister.

  “You didn’t tell me you knew Claudia Fox!” I step forward and offer my hand to Claudia. “Amy Maxwell, I’m a huge fan! Mommy Wars is my favorite show!”

  The woman recoils and stares at me as if I have thrown her a dead fish. She does not shake my hand; rather, she gives me a look like I am something that she scraped off the bottom of her shoe. She crosses her arms over her surgically enhanced chest, ignores me, and stares at my sister. I drop my arm at my side, mortified and making a mental note to take Mommy Wars off of my DVR list. To hell with Claudia Fox.

  “What are you doing here, Beth?” she asks, bottom lip curling into a sneer.

  Beth lets out an exasperated sigh as she crosses her own arms over her own (although she won’t admit it) surgically enhanced chest. Come on, there’s no way at 38 years old she’s defying gravity like that. Her boobs weren’t even that perky at age eighteen.

  “I’m here to get Jillian, Claudia. I know that you took her.”

  Claudia arches a penciled in eyebrow at my sister. “Oh, really? And why ever would you think that?”

  “Enough with the games. Sherri Young told my sister that a woman, fitting your description, with your car, picked my child up from her house. A woman claiming to be her aunt. That woman was you.” My sister is leaning closer to Claudia, her finger punctuating the air at the end of every sentence. This is her signature, ‘I’m intimidating you’ move and it is scarily effective. I know because I have been on the receiving end of it. Claudia however, does not flinch.

  “I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.” She is almost a believable actress, but I catch a faint smirk curling up in the corner of her lips. I can tell Claudia is driven by anger, otherwise known as another one of those Seven Deadly Sins…WRATH.

  “Liar,” Beth is experiencing her own brand of wrath. She is swirling her finger in the air at Claudia. “You went to the Young’s house posing as my sister and you took Jillian. My sister was supposed to pick Jillian up and you got there before she did. You took advantage of the fact that Sherri Young has a fear of large crowds, doesn’t attend school functions, and wouldn’t know that you weren’t Jillian’s aunt.” Really? Wow, these rich bitches have quite a few juicy secrets.

  I was thankful that Beth didn’t mention I never actually made it to pick up my niece, but instead had sent my (incompetent) husband.

  “Now Beth, that just sounds ridiculous,” Claudia remarks with a condescending tone that I’ve heard oh so often from Beth herself. I didn’t realize anyone else was quite as proficient as my sister with this. There must be a rich person’s class you have to take to learn how to speak down to other people.

  “How would I know where your child was and who was picking her up?” Claudia holds her hand in front of her, examining her perfectly manicured nails. “I would just assume that you were picking up your own child. I mean, where else would you be?” She glances up at my sister, anger flashing in her already dark eyes. Oh, she has wrath alright, and plenty of it. And she is on her way to outsmarting my sister.

  Beth thinks she is effectively avoiding the question when she shouts, “You know where Jillian was because I told Kevin. You must have been listening to-” My sister, the picture of grace and refinement, snorts as she clamps her hand over her mouth. She fell right into Claudia’s fox trap. Ha ha…see what I did there?

  Claudia raises her eyebrows with mock confusion as she leans casually against the door jam. “But I don’t understand, Beth,” she croons sweetly. “Why would you ever be talking to Kevin? He’s a very busy man. He doesn’t have time to socialize with moms at his child’s school.”

  Beth is a deep shade of scarlet that matches her mohair trench coat. “We were, um, discussing PTA stuff,” she mumbles.

  Claudia waggles a finger at her playfully. “Oh, I don’t think so there Mrs. Phillips-Katz. Kevin doesn’t have a clue about PTA matters. In fact, I’m pretty certain that he doesn’t even know what PTA stands for.” She pushes her body off of the door frame and shakes her head. “Really, I would have thought you would have come up with a better lie than that when you’re screwing my husband.”

  I can hear Beth’s sharp intake of breath. She knows she has been outsmarted. Flustered, she says, “Just bring Jillian here so I can take her home.”

  Claudia shakes her head. “I don’t think so. It’s not that easy, Beth.”

  Beth sighs with exasperation and closes her eyes. I wonder if she’s trying to prevent herself from crying in front of her nemesis. “Fine. What do you want?”

  A vicious grin appears on Claudia’s plump crimson lips. She taps her finger against those lips, feigning deep thought. “I should like it if you would stop fucking my husband. That’s a good start.”

  I gasp, half expecting Beth to faint dead away from such foul language. I glance at her, but I can’t read her expression as she still has her eyes closed. I wait with baited breath, wondering how she will respond to the accusation.

  “Fine,” Beth finally remarks and I let out all the air that has been trapped in my lungs.

  “Oh, and I want you to say it,” Claudia counters smugly.

  “Say what?” Beth adds, voice wavering.

  “Say, I will stop fucking your husband,” Claudia replies. “Those exact words. I want to hear them come out of your mouth.”

  I gasp once more. Claudia must know my sister doesn’t curse at all. She’d rather die than say crap. There’s no way she going to…

  “Fine.” Beth juts out her chin and stands up taller. “I will stop…fucking your husband,” she manages to spit out.

  My head swivels toward my sister and I hold my arms out to catch her in case she faints. Wow, she really must love Jillian if she’s willing to not only admit
to such an egregious wrong doing, but to curse in the process.

  That self-righteous smile is still on Claudia’s lips, but now the rage in her eyes is nearly burning her dark chocolate brown eyeballs out. “Well, I wish I could help you out, but Jillian is not here.” With a shrug, she swivels on her Jimmy Choo clad heels and ducks behind the door, pushing it closed.

  Beth, nearly catatonic from her confession and use of vulgarity, cannot seem to move, but I am quick to react. I stick my foot in the closing door before Claudia has a chance to shut it.

  “Hey! What about Jillian?” I ask with annoyance.

  “I told you, I don’t have Jillian,” Claudia retorts while shoving her body against the door. I feel my foot folding under the pressure of the heavy wood, yet I still don’t give in.

  “Ok, ok, we get it,” I groan, wedging my body in the doorway. “You’re pissed off. I’d be pissed too, if Beth slept with my husband.”

  Beth suddenly springs to life. “Oh geez, Amy! Roger? Bad imagery! Bleech!” Beth moans as she squeezes in the doorway next to me.

  “Oh, screw you,” I snap at her. “Just because Derek is perfect doesn’t give you the right to judge other people’s husbands.”

  “Well, I…I wasn’t…” Beth stammers.

  I whirl around and confront her, poking my finger in her face. “You most certainly were. You always are. You constantly make digs about my less than perfect life. But if yours was so perfect, why did you need to cheat on Derek?”

  “I…I…” Beth’s mouth opens and closes like a guppy in a tank.

  “Ladies, I’m going to have to ask you to vacate the premises immediately. Take your petty little argument somewhere else.” Claudia remarks with a scowl. “Do I have to call the police?”