SIX

 AFTER SPEAKING to the Doctor, Evelyn slowly opened the door to Doris' hospital room and peeked in through the gap. Doris was lying down, face up, her right leg which was wrapped in bandages was slightly lifted. She couldn't hear any snoring but she knew, from the sound of groans coming from the direction of the hospital bed, that her friend was wide awake. 

    Slowly and quietly sneaking open the door, she stepped into the room smiling guiltily at her well-awake friend who was now glowering at her.

    "I hate you, Evy." She pouted, whimpering. "I can't believe you left me alone. Now I don't only have to nurse my broken heart, I also have to nurse my broken leg. My leg is destroyed."

    Evelyn sat on her bed. "I'm sorry, Dee. I was in some sort of situation myself." She said gently stroking her injured leg. "Anyway, your legs aren't broken. The Doctor said you only sprained your ankle."

    Doris sniffled. "A sprain? It feels more like a fracture."

    Evelyn gave a small laugh. Shaking her head, she wiped the tears trickling down her cheeks with her thumb. "It's not, you crybaby!" She said. "What exactly happened to you last night? Why do you have a sprained ankle?"

    Doris grabbed some tissue paper from the tissue box on the table close to her bed and loudly blew her congested nose. 

    Apparently, she'd lost her way to find the restroom and had found herself outside the bar at the mercy of some drunks who's asked her to come with them. Refusing, she struggled free from them, and a guy who she deemed as ‘a drunk blind lunatic’ had almost run her over with his car. She'd fallen unconscious and woke up that morning in the hospital with the man sitting right by her side.

    "So where's the ‘drunk blind lunatic’ now?" Evelyn asked making a small quotation sign with her fingers. 

    "I have no idea. He took off saying he'd be back." She waved a hand. "Enough about me. You said you were in a situation yourself? What kind of situation?"

    Evelyn swallowed hard wondering whether to tell her friend or not. She's always told her everything. Well, not everything. She'd withheld all her plans to bring The Lyndon's down. But she hadn't told anyone about that. Not even her family. She didn't want to drag anyone into the mess in case it went south. She didn't want to lose any loved ones ever again.

    Evelyn knew that though Doris was a little too childish, she was a terrific planner capable of coming up with incredible ideas to get back at anyone.

    Back in high school, she'd found a way to prove and publicly embarrass the perverted principal who thought himself as the law and went about molesting female students.

    

    Doris had come over for a slumber party and told her her plans which they executed the very next day.

    They'd lit a lighter under the fire sensor somewhere in the hallway and the fire alarm was triggered. While everyone was running helter-skelter, they'd snuck into his office and installed some mini cameras at crucial locations. After the commotion ended, the principal called in his latest victim, who happened to be a member of their designers' club. He'd tried forcing himself on her but she'd hit him on the head with a picture frame and fled. 

    Without knowledge of the video they had in possession, he'd publicly announced her expulsion, at the morning assembly the next day, accusing her of attacking him for disciplining her. While he was making all the long boring speeches about violence and how violent students won't be accepted in their prestigious school, she and Doris had gone to the broadcasting room and played the video. Connecting the assembly hall TV to it and everyone in the school saw the ugly disgusting side of the principal.

    The dirty old man was probably still chilling with his fellow criminals behind bars right now. 

    As he should!

    And that was precisely where she intended to send Jason and his father, but she needed help. 

    Even if it was from just one person.

    Evelyn looked at Doris who was staring at her with a raised brow. "Okay, here's the thing..." She said, narrating her entire ordeal from the last night's incident down to that morning. 

    She told her how she'd been planning to prove that The Lyndon's especially, Jason, had something to do with her sister's death. 

    Evelyn showed her the flash drive she'd taken from them earlier. "This has the video of last night. I can, like, sue him for rape with this video. Unintentionally or not, he did force himself on me against my will. But I want to put good use to this piece of evidence, I don't know, like leverage to get something, anything, from him that can help me prove my sister's murder but I have no clue what is it that I want."

    "You still think his responsible for Clarissa's death?"

    "I don't think, Dee. I know. There are so many things that don't add up and I'm willing to risk finding it out at any cost. I owe it to my sister and Livvie."

    "Evy, we've been friends forever and I've always been on your side. If this is what you want to do, then I'm one hundred percent in. You just have to tell me what to do."

    Evelyn coughed a laugh. "I don't even know what I want to do."

    Doris tapped her lip with her forefinger. "I think if you want to find out more about Jason, you need to get close to him, like, really close," Doris said. "But that'll be quite difficult considering he's a rich-ass celeb and all."

    "I think it'll be difficult too."

    Doris' face lit up. "You know, you can still lure him out using the video as a threat, though."

    "Yeah?" Evelyn smiled, discerning the big picture.

    "But that won't last for long." 

    They both exhaled in unison, gazing at each other in silence as they rack their brains thinking of a possible idea. 

    Whoever it was that had hit Doris must be loaded or was the director of the hospital. He'd requested for Doris to be placed into a private room which, from the decor down to the quietude, didn't feel like a hospital room.

    Evelyn wasn't a big fan of hospitals. First off, She and her sister had spent most of their childhood in it waiting for their mother to get better whenever their father had gone crazy-drunk on them. Their mother would always shield them from getting hit by their father with her own body. Most times, she had some serious injuries that took weeks to heal.

    Worse of all, she and her mom had been called over to the general hospital's morgue to identify her sister's body. There wasn't much to identify, though. Her face couldn't even be recognized because she'd been totally burnt over.

    Evelyn could remember not being able to feel her feet as she strode toward her sister's lifeless body. She'd been hyperventilating like crazy as she lifted her sister's left arm—even when the doctors had tried to pull her away—to check for her sister's bracelet with the half-heart shaped pendant.

    Clarissa had bought a detachable gold heart-shaped pendant on Evelyn's Sweet Sixteen birthday which had a C and E inscribed on it. 

    Evelyn had been all gloomy that day because they couldn't afford to throw her a birthday party. That night when her sister had gotten back from her part-time work, she'd surprised her with the pendant. She'd given her the half with C engraved on it and had taken the other half with the E.

    She'd worn her's as a necklace while Clarissa had worn her's as a bracelet. They'd made a vow on the pendant that day to always have each other's backs and always put on the pendant no matter where they go. And since then, they never took off.

    But there had been no sign of her sister's bracelet on her wrist. She'd checked and double-checked until the detectives succeeded in pulling her away from the body. 

    She'd been in denial throughout that day. She kept saying it wasn't her sister's body because she didn't have her bracelet on and she never took the bracelet off. She didn't listen to any of them even when they told her the body was found in her apartment.

    Evelyn had ignored her Mom who was bawling her eyes out and had gone from one detective to another begging them to find her sister. 

    It completely downed on her the next day when the DNA test results came out. Though she still didn't shade a tear, she'd refused to eat or drink anything. She had wanted it to end it. She had wanted the pain to stop. 

    But then, one thing changed everything. She'd made the mistake of taking a look at Olivia who was wriggling and mewling in her crib. She'd picked her up and looked deep into her huge brown eyes and realized that that wasn't the time to feel depressed it was time to find who had murdered her sister and make them pay. For the sake of Olivia.

    "You're zoning out on me again, ain't you?" Doris pokes her forehead with her index finger.

    Evelyn smiled, touching the pendant. "No. I'm not!" 

    "Yes. You are. You didn't even hear what I asked."

    "Okay. Fine. What did you ask?"

    "I asked if—"

    Just then, the door swung open and the man that came in had Evelyn gazing with a stunned expression on her face, jaw slack and her eyes widened.

    You?!" Evelyn cried with a little smile.

    Brad returned the smile. "This was the important appointment you had to go to?"

    Evelyn replied with a nod.

    Doris held up a hand. "Hol' up! You two to know each other?!" She asked, pointing from her friend to the other guy.

    Evelyn led towards her. "Yeah! He's Jason's lawyer." She whispered aloud, angling her head toward him.

    "And friend," Brad added.

    "Oh?" Evelyn led closer to Doris again and whispered. "What's he doing here?"

    "He's the drunk blind lunatic I told you about," Doris whispered back.

    "You two know I can hear you, right?" He said with a chuckle. "Anyway, the doctor said you can be discharged this evening and you have to stay off your foot for a week"

    That caught Doris' attention. "What?! Stay off my foot for a week?!" 

    "I'm really sorry about all this and I'll make compensation any way I can."

    "Compensation? I don't need that. I'm a model and I need my legs functional at every time." Doris snapped. "Wait a minute! Was this, like, a plan or something between you friends? One destroyed one friend's chastity..."

    "Doris!" Evelyn utterly behind gritted teeth.

    "...And the other destroy my precious leg?" 

    "It was an accident which I'm sincerely sorry about."

    "An accident which wouldn't have happened if you'd taken a taxi or called a designated driver or weren't you taught in law school that drunk-driving is a crime?"

    Now it was Brad's turn to flame up. "I didn't have the time to think about that, okay?! My child was sick and I had to get to her and I don't regret any of it. My daughter is my top priority and I'll go to any length to see she's okay even if I have to go to jail for it. I'm only sorry you got hurt in the process."

    Doris fluttered her lashes and then let out a profound sigh. "Sorry. I didn't know your daughter was sick." She smiled with her eyes. "You don't have to compensate me. Just pay for the hospital bills and that'll be all."

    "Already done that." He flash her a closed mouth smile. "Thanks for your understanding. I'm sorry but I can't stay long I have to go now. Here's my card. Call me if you need anything else."

    Doris took the card from him. "Oh! Sure! You can go." She responded, gesturing towards the door.

    "Good day, ladies!"

    And with that, he left.

    Evelyn placed a hand over her chest. "Awwwwnn! Every daughter deserves a Dad like that." 

    "And every lady deserves a gentleman like that." Doris cut in smitten. Then, just as quickly, she shook it off. "Evy! I can't stay alone all by myself with this sprained foot." She pouted her bottom lip. "You've got to come live with me. Please?"

    Evelyn was about to give her a million reasons why she couldn't stay with her when a light bulb lit up above her head.

    "Live with you?!" Evelyn muttered to herself.

    "Yeah! Live with me!" Doris repeated.

    Evelyn grinned, looking at her with a wide-eyed expression. "Live with you! Doris," she held both of her hands and kissed her cheek. "You just gave me the best idea ever!"

    Doris tilted her head slightly to one side and her eyes half closed as they often were when someone was behaving really strangely. "I did?"

    "Yes. You did. And I might just have something I'd like you to do for me."