The Immaculate Deception Read online

  The Immaculate Deception

  By Sherry Silver

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Immaculate Deception Copyright © 2007 Sherry Morris

  The Immaculate Deception Copyright © 2012 Sherry Silver

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, organizations or locales is entierly coincidental.

  Dedicated With Love

  To

  Momma and Daddy

  Books by Sherry Silver

  Fully Involved Fire

  Hundred Dollar Bill

  Thousand Dollar Pharaoh

  The Immaculate Deception

  The Master Manipulator

  Inappropriate

  http://sherrysilver.info

  Chapter One

  Reston, Virginia

  On a gusty July Thursday, my telephone reverberated to the tune of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”. I shuddered because I knew who was calling. I had set that distinctive ring tone to my father’s number. I was screening his calls because he always had something vile to say about my mother and I had listened to too many of his outrageous lies. My stomach churned while I waited for him to hang up after the fourth ring like he always did when the automatic answering machine kicked on. I held my breath, hearing with relief the click of the machine.

  The robotic voice said, “Hello, no one is able to come to the phone. Please leave your message after the tone.”

  When I heard the beep, I swallowed the big wad that clogged my throat.

  “Oh-Donna, she’s trying to kill me!”

  I ran to the portable handset and punched the talk button. “Dad! Daddy! Who’s trying to kill you?”

  In a strained breathless whisper, he said, “Your mother.”

  “What? When?”

  “Right now!” he whimpered.

  I overheard Momma’s voice in the background. “Nobody’s going to care about you. You damned old fool!”

  After a dull thud, the line went dead.

  Oh my God. I detected my breath echoing out in audible pants. I couldn’t believe this. What was I supposed to do? Call the police on my own mother? Not an option. No way! I shook my head. This was just too bizarre to wrap my mind around. Momma was a good girl through and through. She might get furious with Daddy once in a while but she’d never ever hurt him. But what if she was really trying to kill him? Lord knows, he’d manipulated, stifled and belittled her for decades. Had he finally done something so dastardly to drive her across the line of sanity? Or perhaps he’d just pulled another one of his everyday mind games and Momma just reached her breaking point? What if she really was trying to kill him? Think, Donna, think! The Meddlesteins! Yes! I would call the Meddlesteins.

  Pressing the end button on my phone, I automatically plucked the number of Gloria and Roderick Meddlestein from the cobwebs of my childhood. They’d been my parents’ across-the-street neighbors for more than thirty years. When I was little, I could always count on them to help me when I was home alone and needed an adult to relight the furnace or check out a strange noise that had me frightened. They were such good people. I prayed they hadn’t changed their number. I felt a flush of heat rise up and envelop my body as I dialed with trembling fingers, agonizing in the seemingly slow motion.

  Gloria Meddlestein answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Meddlestein?” My voice sounded unnaturally shrill.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Donna Payne. You know, I used to live across the street from you?”

  She cheerfully said, “Yes, of course. Hello, Donna, how are you, dear?”

  “Listen, I just received a phone call from my father. He said my mother was trying to kill him.” I faked a laugh. “Will you please go over and check on him?”

  Without much of a pause, she said, “I’ll send Roddy over. You want to give me your number so I can call you back?”

  “Thank you so much, Mrs. Meddlestein.”

  I gave my phone number and ended the call.

  My mind was racing. Tammy works close by, she can zip over and talk some sense into those two. She is their favorite kid and has them wrapped around her pretty little finger. What is the name of that gym where she works? I frantically punched in the numbers of the telephone directory. A prerecorded voice told me to state the party’s name and city.

  “Rocky’s Gym, Washington, DC.”

  I waited and waited.

  Finally a live person came on the line. “Ma’am, we only retrieve Virginia numbers. You have to hang up and dial one, two–oh–two, five–five–five, one–two–one–two.”

  Shoot! I ended the call and tried again. Tears streamed down my face. Big almond-sized drops. This time a computer-generated voice revealed the phone number for the gym.

  The surly employee who had answered the phone at Rocky’s Gym had deserted me in the purgatory of hold. Five minutes passed as I waited on the telephone line for my forty-three-year-old adopted sister Tammy, personal trainer to the Capitol Hill pork barrels, all those congressmen, senators, lawyers and lobbyists who thought they ruled the universe. Come on, come on already. Tammy, you’re three minutes from their house. It might be a matter of life or—

  I wouldn’t let myself think the last word. My stomach churned and I tasted a burning sourness in my throat. This was taking too long. I punched the button to end the call and then pushed redial. Wedging the house phone in between my right ear and shoulder, I picked up my cell phone and dialed the Meddlesteins. The tiny blue phone on my left ear just rang and rang.

  I couldn’t stand this inactivity. I had to do something. I furiously wiped imaginary crumbs off my pistol gray granite countertops. Stomping into the utility room, I threw the damp rag in the empty laundry basket on top of the dryer. As I grabbed the broom and glanced around, I realized there wasn’t anything to clean. I had sterilized the place last evening in preparation for my trip to the writers’ conference in New York today. I didn’t want to get killed in a plane crash and then be embarrassed at the mess I’d left. What impression would that leave behind? No, I was a good, clean girl. I shoved the broom back up into its holder and shut the door.

  My neck and shoulder ached from squeezing the portable handset to my ear. Never realized how heavy my head was. I grabbed the house phone and erectly speed-walked into the hardwood foyer. I stumbled over my yellow backpack. Next to it, my pink overstuffed duffel bag leaned lopsidedly against the etched glass front door. A defiant beep pounded in my right ear. I ended the call to Tammy and slapped the phone down on the teacart, beside my purse and plane ticket to New York.

  I closed the never-ending ringing of the Meddlesteins’ call on my cell phone. Thunder cracked outside. The rain commenced its devilish needle pricking on the cedar shake roof of my end-unit townhouse. I folded the cell phone and clipped it onto the canvas belt on my sleeveless khaki shirtdress.

  I shuffled into the powder room and yanked tissues out of the box to blow my nose on. Looking in the mirror, I tried touching up the black rings around my powder blue eyes but the mascara kept running through the tears. Blue eyes. How come I was the only one in my family with blue eyes? Momma’s eyes were green. Daddy had brown eyes. Oh God, Daddy! What’s going on between you two? I knelt on the floor, grabbed my curly blond hair back and lost my bre
akfast. Momma used to hold my hair back when I threw up. I remember when Tammy had her tonsils removed and was so sick afterward. Momma made me hold my sister’s ebony black hair back. I thought it was so gross and mean at the time but now I knew she was teaching me compassion and nurturing. Eventually calming down, I cleaned myself up.

  After strapping on the backpack, I slung my crocheted purse strap over my right shoulder, maneuvered the overstuffed duffel away from the front door and opened it. The wind gushed in. I flinched as I watched lightning strike the field behind the townhouses across from me on Spyglass Street. Heaving the bag over the threshold and onto my brown brick stoop, I propped it against my foot, shut the door and locked up.

  I pressed the automatic key twice and listened to the doors unlock on my black Chevy Suburban. As soon as I stepped out from under the portico, I was drenched. Running to the vehicle, I opened the rear cargo door and heaved in the duffel. Struggling to free myself from the backpack, I pulled one of those unthought-of muscles in my side. Grimacing and wincing, I stowed the luggage, slammed the cargo door and raced to the driver’s side, climbing in as another bolt split the Bradford pear tree in my front yard. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I really loved that pear tree.

  I started the engine, shifted into overdrive and accelerated through the narrow winding, private streets of my planned community. After switching the front and rear wipers on, I fumbled in my purse to make sure that I’d remembered my ticket. A paper cut cinched that mystery. I sucked on the index finger of my right hand as I stopped at the red light. I spun the dial to defrost while trying to see through the fogged-up windshield. Soaked and shivering, I slid the temperature lever to high. I switched on the seat warmer as I floored it through the intersection on Route Seven.

  Darn it, Daddy. Why do you always have to pull one of your stunts just when my life is going so well? Am I not constitutionally entitled to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”? And if Momma is trying to kill you, I can’t say she wasn’t provoked by all your years of manipulation. I don’t have time to run over and referee. I’m going to miss my flight.

  As furious as I was at him, I knew there were shuttles leaving for New York every hour. I’d just have to pay a fee and stand by for a later flight. Damn it, Daddy, you’re costing me extra money and I’ll miss early registration. I hated attending conferences without a name badge identifying me as one of the group. If I was late today, I wouldn’t be able to get mine until tomorrow morning.

  I tensed up even more as I approached the exit for the Dulles Toll Road. If I turned here, I might be able to make the next shuttle flight to New York. Or a few more miles down the road, I could squeeze onto the conveyer belt they called Route Sixty-Six, the road to the Nation’s Capital, Washington, and the misery of my parents’ house.

  Before I had made up my mind, my cell phone rang out. I fumbled, unable to unhook it from my belt. I unlatched my seat belt and wrestled to get the phone loose.

  Simultaneously, I heard a thud and then glass shattering. I shielded my face with my hands as a deer hurtled toward me. I felt the air bag inflating against me and the sharp stab of the antler piercing my right shoulder. I slammed on the brakes with both feet. The vehicle skidded to a lurching stop as the air bag deflated. Impaled on the deer, I was ejected out of the Chevy.

  The buck and I bowled down a prickly embankment. The searing pain in my shoulder was alternately overwhelmed by the weight of the beast when he reigned on top. I felt the antler breaking loose from my shoulder just before my world somersaulted into darkness.

  Hearing a thumping whir, I blinked my eyes open. I struggled, unable to move. Someone was holding me down. I focused on his thickly haired brown arms and then down to his blue latex-gloved hands.

  “She’s coming to.”

  I screamed. Screams of fright, frustration and burning agony. Screams that I couldn’t hear.

  “Calm down, Miss. You’re gonna be all right. We’re flying you to Fairfax Hospital. We should be landing momentarily. What’s your name?” The man removed the oxygen mask from my face.

  “Ohhh…”

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. You’re really beat up. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Ohhh…Donna.”

  “Donna? Good. Do you know what today is?”

  Teardrops spilled. I didn’t know. The rhythmic whoop of the helicopter distracted me.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’ll be just fine. The trauma team will take good care of you.” He replaced the oxygen mask and wiped my tears with gauze.

  ~*~

  Four days later, when my HMO deemed me no longer in need of hospitalization, through their healing by statistical curve, I was discharged on a sunny Monday morning. My bloody muddy clothes had been cut off me and destroyed. So I left the hospital dressed in scrubs and slippers, duly charged to my inpatient bill. I had to sign a form promising to pay for non-covered items such as the television, phone and scrubs.

  I never even used the phone. Who could I call? Who would care about me? Not my family. They always had their own urgent crises. Clan emergencies. And I didn’t want to call. I didn’t want to hear any more bloated lies and bizarre accusations from Daddy. As if Momma would have killed Daddy. It would’ve been all over the news. I could hear the sound bites in my head. Retired Secret Service agent Chloe Lambert Payne suspected in the murder of her blind helpless husband, the saintly doctor Nathan Payne.

  An octogenarian volunteer helped me into a wheelchair and placed a plastic belongings bag and a fruit basket in my lap. The girls I worked with in the file room of the health insurance company had sent apples, oranges and bananas. That’s right. I worked for my own HMO and they still booted me out too soon. Fruit. They knew I was on the Atkins diet. No fruit allowed during the induction phase.

  The wizened portly volunteer groaned and wheezed as he shoved my torture chair down the corridor. Why couldn’t the hospital invest in an ergonomic chair instead of this folding low-end ouch-maker?

  We went down the elevator and he propelled me through the lobby to the curb. He waited until a taxi arrived and opened the back door for me. I stood, sore and stitched, on shaky legs. I eased into the backseat.

  The driver asked, “Where to, lady?”

  Where to? To the writers’ conference at the Hilton Hotel in New York, four days ago. To the red carpet, where I’ll stroll in my strapless champagne silk evening gown, with matching opera gloves, to accept my trophy and cash prize. To the appointment with the acquisitions editor of the romance publisher…

  “Lady, the meter’s running. Where to?”

  I sighed New York goodbye, “One–two–four–oh–six Nixon Court, Southwest.”

  Arriving at the Harrison Heights section of the District of Columbia, in front of a scaled-down imitation of George Washington’s colonial mansion at Mount Vernon, I dug my wallet out of the orange plastic bag of belongings retrieved from the wreckage. I paid the cabby and stumbled up onto the cracked sidewalk. Marijuana and charcoal lighter fluid steeped in the air. A pit bull barked ferociously from the chain-linked fortress next door.

  “Hi there.”

  I turned around too quickly and gasped. My whole body pulsed in pain. Gloria Meddlestein stood across the street holding open the metal bars on her front door.

  “Hello, Mrs. Meddlestein. How are you?”

  “Where on earth have you been, Donna? I tried and tried to get you on the phone. Are you having problems with your line because of the storm the other day? Did the roads wash out? What happened to your face? Got another one of those boyfriends? You really should—”

  “I need to go in and see my parents now. I’ll chat with you later. Um…we’ll have tea.”

  I climbed up the Zoysia grass hill, staggering on the crumbling concrete steps winding the way to my childhood home. A mildewy white gutter had torn loose from the two-story-high porch roof. It dangled over the front door. I winced as I ducked under it. I never knew that every muscle in my body was
attached to my shoulder.

  I pressed the yellowed doorbell button. And waited. I knocked. And waited. I tried to turn the knob and it did. I shoved the colonial red door open and stepped onto the slate landing.

  “Hello? Momma, Daddy?”

  I shut the door behind me and agonized up the three cherry red carpeted steps to the living room. It hadn’t been vacuumed since I had done it on Christmas Eve. That was seven months ago. There was white furry dust on every stationary object. I dropped the fruit basket and orange bag on the floor between the white wrought iron railing and the comfortable oxblood leather tub chair in the living room. I searched the house.

  My hospital slippers made a suction noise as I trudged through the sticky kitchen. A skillet with potatoes congealed in grease occupied the front burner of the electric range. The table was cluttered with grocery receipts, two aromatic black bananas, a nitroglycerine pill, toast crusts and grape jelly goo.

  I moved into the adjacent formal dining room. The carpet was littered with crumbs, spills and dust. The French doors to the balcony were locked. The blinds hung shut. As were all the blinds and drapes in the entire house. Daddy had cataracts cut out of his eyes in 1972, before lens replacements were invented. He had no lenses to filter out the bright light, so he had to wear a wide-brimmed hat outdoors and dark bottle-thick cataract eyeglasses indoors. This had abruptly ended his career as an obstetrician/gynecologist at the age of fifty-eight. Some days his eyes went out completely and he couldn’t see at all.

  I veered down the hallway. Daddy’s blue bathroom was empty. His bedroom was empty too, nothing but disheveled bedding and the plastic milk jugs he used for urinals.

  Momma’s bedroom was vacant as was her lavender bathroom. Her mattress sported a deep depression on the side closest to the door, where she always curled up. The bed was made and loaded with throw pillows.