Dead Before Tonight

Part One: Midnight Encounter

The mansion was quiet. It was Saturdaynight, 4 am, but Lisette Berntson could not sleep. She was lying quietly on her back, listening to only Joe's breathing breaking the utter silence in the large house. She could remember thinking how a house as large as this should be bustling with activity and how voices should fill its rooms, but all she could hear was Joe breathing deeply. He would start snoring soon, she knew that. She had slept long enough with him to know his sleeping habits inside out. Indeed, it took less than a minute until his deep breaths became soft snoring that became louder and more penetrating with every breath he took. Sleep wouldn't be hers for tonight, she decided. Lisette slid out of the king size bed and shuddered when her bare feet touched the marble floor beneath. She took her thin negligee from the chair next to the bed and bound it around her with its silk sash. It wasn't much, but at least it would keep the worst chill from touching her skin while she made herself some warm milk in the kitchen.

One would think that an expensive and big mansion like this would be better insulated, but apparently this was not the case. She had alerted Joe on it many a time, but he always waved it away and said he'd arrange it one of these days, and then never did.

Lisette made her way downstairs through the silence and the darkness, but her eyes were used to the dark and by now she knew her way rather well through this house. She and Joe had been together for over half a year now, and she usually spent the night at his place, since his was simply better located and much more comfortable. Lisette had been doing great for herself in the past few years, but she did not have a whirlpool and a sauna like Joe. Then again, she was just a manager, and he was the president of the company. And, of course, she told herself, he'd had more time to earn his fortune. After all, he was seventeen years her senior. Never mind that most of his fortune was made up from his late wife's heritage. He had used his late wife's money wisely by starting his own company and invested in the right places and by now her heritage had quadrupled. The stock broking company he had started was one of the leading companies on the market on this side of the country. He had claimed at first it was to give his daughter a good and a secure future, he'd told her, but in the end he just liked the game too much. He lived for his work and left his daughter mostly to fend for her own. When Jennifer had gone to university this had become even worse.

Jennifer was visiting them for Christmas vacation this week (on Lisette's insistence, by the way. Joe would have just left his daughter to rot away in that dorm room for the holidays… he could be so strange sometimes), although she had gone out earlier this evening and if Lisette knew Joe's daughter, then she probably wouldn't be home for a few more hours to come. And thus the mansion would remain deadly silent until then.

She flicked on the light in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator to get herself a milk carton. Carton in hand, she turned to the closet and suddenly found Jennifer standing behind her, silent as if she'd been there all along. Lisette yelped and nearly dropped the milk carton. "Christ Jenni, you startled me!" she chided the girl, but then took a closer look at Joe's daughter.

Jenni's pupils were dilated and there was blood on her face. Her normally so shiney and well-kept thick brown tresses were damp and caked with mud. So was her lightblue winter coat, by the way. "Are you okay?"

Jenni smiled vaguely. "Don't worry about that. Can I have some milk?"

"You're /bleeding/!" Lisette exclaimed, circling around Jenni and touching her hair. Jenni winced slightly and took a step back. "I'd rather you don't do that," she grimaced, snatching the milk carton from Lisette's hands.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Jenni drank deeply from the milk carton before she placed her unfocused gaze upon Lisette again. "None of your business, Lisette."

"Did you get in a fight?"

Jenni shrugged and placed the milk carton back on the dresser. "It happens. As I said, don't worry about it."

Lisette picked up the milk carton and found that Jenni had drank all of the milk. "Thanks for leaving some milk for me," she remarked. Sighing, she turned back to Joe's daughter. There was about ten years of age difference between the two of them, and she could have sworn that Jenni treated her as such: the annoying older sister who happened to fuck her father. She had wisely kept quiet during the argument Joe and Jenni had over their dinner. It had to do with money, of course, combined with Jenni's new distressing tendency to come home either drunk or stoned. Or maybe worse.

Jenni had asked her father for more money and Joe had calmly refused to finance her drug habit. It had ended in one of the most distressing fights she had ever witnessed: icy cold and acid remarks being flung at each other in perfectly conversational voices that were sometimes so bad that it had made Lisette cringe.

Lisette came from a hot-blooded and big family, herself. Arguments were settled over lots of shouting and cursing, but in the end their arguments were always resolved. This icy war between Joseph and Jennifer was something she had never experienced before. The things they had said had exactly been the thing that had kept her awake tonight. She simply couldn't believe that people could say these things to each other in a perfectly civil and conversational tone of voice, as if what they were saying wasn't horrible enough. Their icyness had chilled Lisette's heart while it left them untouched. She had tried to talk to Joe about it, but he had just shrugged it off and said it that teens will be teens, that had always been this way and that Jenni took after her mother, who had been quite the handful as well.

But Lisette had seen them together and thought that Jennifer was exactly like her father. She had seen pictures of Jennifer's mother – a young gorgeous woman with some of the same features that Jenni was sporting now, but Jennifer definitely had her father's icy eyes. She had rarely seen Joe angry. He just wasn't the kind of person to be bothered by stuff and usually shrugged everything off and went his own way. Tonight had been one of these occurrences where he did not even think about how he had cut his daughter in her pride – he had called her a stupid, good for nothing crack whore, and that he wasn't planning on financing her in her disgusting indulgences.

Lisette had nearly choked on that one while Jennifer calmly retorted that if Joe would be dead, she would be perfectly free to spend his money in whatever way she wanted. On which Joe had smiled lazily and promised his daughter to cut her out of his last will before /that/ would ever happen.

Jennifer had finished her meal in silence and went upstairs without a word.

"Shouldn't you make it up to her?" Lisette had asked her lover, but Joe had just shrugged. He could be awfully pigheaded sometimes, so she supposed that his pride wouldn't let him. But technically, it wasn't her business. All she had done was ask Jenni where she was going when she grabbed her coat from the rack in the hallway and Lisette had spotted the glittery top and the high heels she was wearing.

"Out," was all Jenni had said, and then the door had slammed behind her.

Lisette remembered thinking that it would be Christmas in two days, and that she really hoped that the argument between Joe and Jennifer would be settled by then. She wasn't terribly looking forward to that dinner if it wasn't.

And here Jenni was, all banged and drugged up, admitting that she'd been in a fight. "Was it because of what your father said tonight?" asked Lisette.

Jenni laughed. "What, you think /that/ got me pissed off?"

"Well, it would piss /me/ off if my dad would call me a crack whore," Lisette admitted, opening the fridge for some orange juice, instead. If she couldn't have any milk, then at least some juice for tonight. She was thirsty.

"Naw, it's okay. He's an asshole and he doesn't even know what he's talking about." She could almost see something in Jenni's eyes. Something like recognition, but then it passed as Jenni smirked. "I don't see what you see in him anyway. You're way too nice to sleep with a dick like him. Or is it good for your career?"

Lisette looked up sharply. "What?"

"You heard me," Jenni smirked. She took off her coat and tossed it upon one of the chairs.

"How can you say that?"

Jenni shrugged. "Can you pour some juice for me as well?"

Lisette picked two glasses out of the dresser and waited for answer. And the answer came, when she handed a glass of juice to the young woman before her. "You're pretty enough to be one of his girls, but you're too sweet. You care too much. About him, as well, while it's obvious to the whole world that he's a dickhead. And since you're in the management team, I suppose you got there by fucking him. Am I right?"

Only Joe's daughter could make it sound that matter-of-factly, Lisette thought. It sounded as the perfectly normal thing to do, as if it happened every day. "It's more complicated than that," she heard herself answer, before she cut herself off and added: "I can't believe I'm having this conversation with his daughter."

"Oh fuck that, Lisette. You're not that much older than I am, don't treat me like a little girl just because /he/ does. You both have no idea what I've seen and done."

Lisette, who had seen strips of ecstacy pills and booze in Jennifer's room among her belongings, thought she had a pretty good idea. She knew some of the things that the young rich people of the nation did to pass their time, and it kind of matched with the ideas she had of Jenni – the wild rich pretty girl who had everything she always wanted and loved to indulge in pleasures and sensation. And who, apparently, hated her father.

"So?" Jenni demanded, still with that shit-eating grin plastered on her face as if there wasn't mud and blood caking her hair. As if she wasn't doped up.

"As you would say: none of your business," Lisette retorted sweetly.

Jenni chuckled and got up from the chair. She finished her drink and slammed the glass on the dresser next to her so loudly that for one moment Lisette thought that the glass would break. "You're right. It's none of my business who you fuck with and why and where it's getting you. Just like it's none of my business who he keeps to warm his bed."

"Well, that's easy," she heard herself say. "That's me."

That statement was met with laughter that tinged with disdain. Jenni opened the doorway and shot her a grin from over her shoulder. "That's what I mean. You're too sweet, too naïve. And you have /no/ idea what is going on in this house."

The door closed softly behind her, and Lisette found herself staring at the kitchen door, wondering whether Jenni was speaking truth or just messing with her head. Joe couldn't possibly be cheating on her, could he? Shit, /could he?/

Part Two: Past And Done

Lisette was still sitting in the kitchen with a cup of hot coffee when Joe joined her. He was wearing a dark blue bathrobe and he looked decidedly tousled, sleepy, and still damn sexy. It wasn't fair how older men could still look so damn attractive while the beauty of women faded at higher age. "You're up early," he greeted her with a lazy smile that made her want to kiss him despite all of it. "Is there any coffee left?"

"A little," she said, looking up from the newspaper. "It's old and tangy though… you'd better make some new."

He nodded and began puttering around the kitchen with the lazy ease of someone who has nothing better to do on his Sunday morning. Usually, these were the moments that Lisette could imagine herself spending the rest of her life with him, but today she wasn't so sure. Jennifers words kept ringing in her head and she'd found herself evaluating their relationship all night long. She'd never given much thought before to the idea of whether she loved him or not. She had just accepted him as part of her life and had somehow gotten the notion that he'd always be there for her and that it would forever be this way. Perhaps she /was/ as naïve as Jennifer thought she was.

Joe sat down across from her at the table with his own mug of coffee a few minutes later. He gestured at the paper she was holding. "Can I have the front page?" he asked, completely oblivious to her inner turmoil.

Lisette handed him the front page and then asked: "Joe, can I ask you something?"

"Sure," he replied with still that good-natured laziness tinting his voice.

"What was your wife like?"

He looked up at her with suddenly alert and icy blue eyes. There was a touch of danger and alertness and intelligence there that reminded her strikingly of Jennifer last night. "Why?"

Lisette made herself smile and said: "Just curious."

"Rosa was a handful, just like Jenni. But that's what I liked about her – she was fiery and willful and independent. We were married for two years when she died, weeks after Jenni's birth."

Lisette nodded. "I'm sorry. How did she die?"

"Didn't I tell you?" Joe reached for the sugar pot to add deliberate amounts of it to his drink. He'd always had a sweet tooth. "She killed herself."

"What?"

Joe sighed. "Her pregnancy changed her. She became clingy, depressed and uncertain about herself. She complained about losing her good looks and accused me of sleeping with other women while she became fat and ugly. We were having arguments every other day and so I left her alone for as much as I could, so she could calm down. After Jennifer was born it only got worse. She got medications for her depression."

Lisette bit her lip and thought of the pretty young woman she had seen on pictures. She had looked so confident on those pictures – and so much more beautiful than Lisette could ever hope to be. But then again, Rosa Stanford had been a popular cover magazine model. No wonder she had worried over losing her good looks.

"Apparently, those medications made things even worse. I was away on a business trip when she killed herself. She just took an overdose of her medications and alcohol and no one knew until I got home a week later. No one had even checked on her… she had sent the maid on vacation and the gardener never even noticed anything."

"And Jennifer?"

"She'd left Jenni with her grandparents… under the pretense of allowing the grandparents to spend a while with their grandchild. They thought it was weird for letting her dump Jenni on them for so long while not being around, herself, but they did not question because they liked to have Jenni around. Rosa's mother was fond of babies."

"I'm so sorry," Lisette whispered. "I wouldn't have asked if I knew-"

"Never mind." Joe shook his head abruptly. "I was surprised you didn't know because it was all over the news, but how could you have known? Back then, you were just a kid, yourself."

The remark stung. He never commented on their age difference, and to hear him do that right now annoyed her to no end. Was that his way of making her hurt as well, because she had made him dig up the memories?

"Anyway," he continued, "it's all past and done, now."

She had to know. "Did you cheat on her?"

Again his eyes flashed. "That's none of your business, Lisette. It's all past and done."

"Are you cheating on me?"

"What the hell gave you /that/ idea?"

"/Are/ you?" She heard her voice rise with the increase of adrenaline in her blood. She had been brooding upon this all night and it was all coming to a head now. However sad the story of Joe's wife was, her own situation was eating at her and Jenni's laughter and disdain wouldn't leave her alone.

Joe abruptly rose from his chair and pushed it backwards so roughly that it nearly toppled over. "Don't be so fucking paranoid, Lisette. I've given you all you needed and more."

"That's no answer and you know it!" She was /not/ going to cry. She wasn't. She'd rather die before she shed any tear over this.

"It's all you're going to get. I don't want you going psycho on me – you know I don't like that."

And with that, he was gone. He didn't even slam the door behind him, but just left Lisette to seethe at the kitchen table. For a moment she debated going after him, but then decided against him. Didn't she have all the answer she needed, then?

Balling her fists, she stared at the table and fought her tears until she heard the door open again.

She jerked up quickly, hoping and fearing that it might be Joe who returned, but it wasn't. It was Jennifer, looking freshly washed and amused in sweatpants and a tanktop. "Told you he's a dick," she commented lightly, as she walked over to the fridge.

Lisette watched Joe's daughter and bit on the inside of her cheek. She wondered how long exactly the girl had been listening in… and dimly, how Jenni could possibly be so bright and good-natured so early in the morning when she'd been fighting and doped up just the night before.

You have /no/ idea what's going on in this house, Jenni had told her. Lisette was starting to believe it.

Part Three: Monday Morning

It was Monday morning, 9.59 am. Lisette was the first to enter the meeting room, so it was still quiet when she sat down at her usual spot at the oval table and readied herself mentally for the management meeting that was about to commence. She poured herself a cup of that too-strong coffee that Joe's secretary would always put on the table and waited for the others too arrive.

Surprisingly, she felt good. She was proud of herself for leaving Joe's house yesterday morning after breakfast. This week would be a madhouse at work, with several deadlines expiring and at least one important presentation coming up, so she had needed some time for herself to charge herself up for next week. Staying in Joe's house and being around him and Jennifer would have only robbed her of more energy and she really could not deal with that right now. Why was it that the end of the year was always such a madhouse? Half the management team was on holiday off skiing somewhere, and the rest of the team always had to throw those end-of-year presentations together and lay the finishing touches on the reports that were always expected at this time of the year. And thus Lisette had spent the past few New Year's sleeping off her overstressed schedule. She hadn't had a relaxed Christmas or New Year's Day in three years, probably.

In a few minutes she'd have to face Joe again and hell if she wasn't dreading the idea. Never mind, she'd just have to shed herself of her private thoughts and become the business-Lisette that her colleagues knew: cool, competent, professional and with the sharp intelligence she displayed whenever she was debating. That had been what had drawn Joe to her in the first place: her ambition and her competence and how she would pursue her goals. He had made her pursue him – he had admitted as much, later, between the sheets.

Not that it mattered, now. Maybe it /was/ time to move on and set her sights to other goals but Joe or the position she'd consolidated in the management team. She sighed sadly and listened to the sludgy icy mess that splattered against the windows. It wasn't quite rain and it wasn't quite snow… all it was, was dangerous. The highway had been filled with traffic jams and near-accidents and it had made her grateful that she'd used public transport to go to work instead of taking her car. There had been some delays and it had been cramped and hot in the metro, but at least she'd been at work on time… and that was more she could say about her colleagues.

It was 10.15 when the first of them arrived: James Lipton rushed in accompanied by curses about the weather and apologies for his tardiness; but that the highway had been crazy today and that he'd almost been in an accident. "We're lucky that I got to work at all," he claimed.

Lisette smiled, poured him some coffee, and told him he was the first. It wasn't until 10.45 that the management team was complete for all but Joe. Checking with his secretary learnt them nothing; she had not heard from him either.

/Fucking figures,/ Lisette thought ironically. She smiled at the two men and the woman before her and proposed: "How about we start our meeting already? Joseph is probably stuck in traffic much like you were, and we're losing enough time as it is anyway. I'm sure you all have other things to do today, as well."

By the time the meeting ended, it was way past lunchtime and Joe still had not arrived at his work yet. Lisette contemplated whether to call him. Only last week she would have been more than happy to do so, but not today. Not after their argument yesterday. She approached Maria at the coffee maker and asked her whether she knew what was keeping Joe; perhaps he had called in sick?

Joe's secretary shrugged and said she'd tried to call him several times already, but that he wasn't picking up his cell. She was about to try his home number, because he was supposed to join some conference call at 3 pm and she needed to know where he was. "It would be serious bad business if he wouldn't even decline but just never show up," Maria said.

"Definitely."

Lisette stood next to Maria as the blond girl made her call to the Stanford mansion and clicked some buttons to make the conversation sound through the speaker so Lisette could listen in. The phone rang four, five, six times, until finally a sleepy female voice responded: "Hello?"

"Jennifer, this is Maria o'Reilley. Is your father still there? I really need to talk to him," Maria said with her most pleasant secretary-phone-voice.

Jenni yawned and said: "I just woke up, I don't think he's here. Didn't he leave this morning?" A pause. "Well, the weather's shitty, maybe he's just late."

"It's past noon," Maria said dryly. "He should have been here by now."

"Well, I have no- oh wait," Jenni cut herself off. "I think I see some cars pulling up here." Another pause. "Oh fuck. Police." There was a slight gasp, and Maria and Lisette shared a look.

"Is it okay if I call you back later, Maria?" Jenni asked, her voice suddenly small and strangled.

"Of course," Maria responded quickly. "Good luck." She disconnected the call and took her headset off, her blue eyes clouding over with worry. "What do you think?" she asked Lisette.

Lisette suddenly felt very, very cold. "I think I'm going to Joe's place to check it out. Would you please hold my calls and say I went home sick?"

Maria, being the gossip center of the company and thus very aware of the relationship that Lisette and Joe were involved in, nodded. "Of course. Be careful on the road though."

She didn't even respond to that. Within the minute, she was out of the building and on her way to the subway station. Thankfully, the metro arrived quickly and she spent most of the ride to the other side of the city huddled in her warm coat and staring outside of the window, worrying what might have happened.

She could think of countless scenario's: Joe just being elsewhere without having informed anyone (maybe fucking his new girlfriend?); and the police pulling up on the Stanford lawn to talk about Jenni's fight last weekend… or Joe having gotten into an accident with possible outcomes: wounded or dead… something else entirely… Lisette was graced with a vivid imagination and sometimes she cursed herself for being so creative in drawing out courses of actions and happenings. It was a useful tool for a manager to be able to think of doom scenario's and possible outcomes of different actions, but sometimes it was a curse as well. Especially in uncertain situations in her personal life… like this one.

The metro ride passed like a bad dream. Minutes ticked away, tinged with worry, while the bowels of the city flashed past before her eyes. Eventually the metro rode upwards and out of the underground tunnel again. Lisette blinked against the bright grey daylight as she stepped out of the metro and onto the platform. From here, it was a five minute walk to the Stanford mansion. Normally Lisette liked the short walk, but with the icy rain that was pouring from the skies at present, it wasn't such a fun thing to do. The sidewalk was slippery and icy, and with her high heels she was scared to death that she'd lose her balance and go sprawling in the sludgy mess that was pooling the sidewalk.

When she rounded that last corner and saw the policecar parked before the garage, she did begin to run, though. She had to know. What had happened?

She had her own key, of course. One didn't sleep for seven months with Joe Stanford without him giving you a key. A glance through the glass-in-lead windows of the front door told her that the hallway was empty, but that didn't have to mean anything. Shit, why were her hands trembling? It only made her fumble the key and drop it into the mud. She picked up the key and tried again, this time opening the front door without any problems.

Barely taking the time to use the doormat and get rid of mud and snow, Lisette barged in. She opened the door to the living room quickly and abruptly and took in the situation in one glance. There were two policemen in uniform, and their were holding their hats in their hands. One of them was standing, the other was sitting next to Jennifer with his hand on her back, as if he were comforting her.

And Jennifer: looking up at Lisette with big blue eyes that might be anguished. Eyes that might be shocked or mourning. Eyes that were betraying naked feelings that she usually didn't show all that much, unless she was trying to get her way and was manipulating her father into agreeing with things. But no, this was bigger.

Jennifer, sitting on the couch in her sweatpants and tanktop, her hair still tousled with sleep, was truly distraught. This was what Lisette saw and believed. She knew. Her hands gripped her handbag tighter as she pulled it against her, as if she was trying to defend herself from the naked truth. "He's dead, isn't he," Lisette blurted out.

And Jennifer, sitting on that couch, looked up at Lisette with those strange icy blue eyes that reminded her so of Joe, and she nodded slowly.

Part Four: Sweet Misery

Joseph Stanford had died in a car accident at 9.17 am on Monday morning. With the slippery road and the bad weather circumstances, the brakes of his Mercedes had malfunctioned and he had become one of six cars to become involved in a chain car crash in which two other people had died and two more had gotten severely injured. Just like that, Joseph Stanford, success story, businessman, father of a gorgeous daughter and (ex?) lover of Lisette Berntson had been reduced to just a name in the paper. Just another dead person for the statistics.

The funeral was elaborate, large and overcrowding with people that Lisette did not know. She kept close to Jenni, who was trying to arrange everything with a feverish drive for perfection that Lisette did not know before. Lisette did not mind the fact that Jenni was taking care of everything. She just walked around in a daze, not knowing what to feel or how to respond to anything and simply following Jenni's lead. She had no idea how the girl kept herself upright throughout this tragedy. Jennifer and Joseph had not been particularly close and she knew that the Stanfords were an important family and so it was important that Joseph's burial and memorial were taken care of, but Lisette had not seen the girl cry even once.

She just figured that it was Jenni's way of dealing with things; mourning in private and channeling her sadness into perfection – a scripted step by step ceremony and then the burial of her father. Maybe she'd let herself go afterwards, Lisette figured, looking at Jenni as she shook hands and nodded and even smiled at some of the guests at the funeral.

Jenni looked… flustered, as if she were sitting this all out and wanted desperately to be elsewhere. To the funeral guests, she looked perfect. She was dressed in a modest black dress and looked lovely and sad. To Lisette, however, standing next to Jenni as Joseph's girlfriend until the end, she looked nervous. Lisette couldn't quite put her finger on it, so when the guests left them alone for a minute, she murmured: "Are you okay, Jennifer?"

"I hate funerals," Jenni said under her breath. "He's dead. Dead is dead, and I have better things to do with my time than to nod and smile at all those dickheads out here. I just want to be alone."

"We'll be out of here soon," Lisette promised the younger woman, but all in all it took hours before the last of the guests went home and they had their appointment with the notary. Joseph had not left her anything, of course, but she went with Jenni nonetheless. For some reason she had a hard time leaving the girl alone, even though Jenni made her nervous and feel out of place. Maybe that was because she /was/ out of place. She was sure that Joe had been cheating upon her. He had not said it outright and by now she'd never know… but if he had not been cheating, surely he would have said so? All he had done was avoiding a direct answer by running away and dying. Shit, they had not even gotten to the point of breaking up their relationship yet! Things felt oddly unfinished and unreal to her.

Jenni inherited the whole fortune that her mother had brought in and her father had quadrupled. James Lipton became the new president of the company, Lisette remained in the management team, and Jenni became the main stockholder of the firm. All in all, Jennifer was good for millions of dollars. Lisette bit on the inside of her cheek when the notary named the price. Jenni's eyes lit up in surprise as well. "I had no idea it was this much," Jennifer admitted. "Is all of that mine?"

"As soon as you're twenty-five, Miss Stanford," the old man behind the huge oaken desk told her. "Your father has put it in a trust fund until then. He edited his will just the other day."

"He did?" Jennifer got up abruptly, her eyes flashing so familiarly like Joe's.

The notary nodded. "As of your twenty-fifth birthday, which will be on October 31st, four years from now, you will inherit the money that your father has left you. Until then, it is in a trust fund and he has seen to it that you have more than enough money to live from."

Jenni sat down again and folded her hands in her lap. Long fingers clenched and flexed again. "So he did. Alright." Silence fell upon the room, pressing and laden, until Jenni nodded: "We should respect that."

Lisette watched the girl sideways and did not say anything. Had Joe truly acted on the argument that he and his daughter had on Saturday evening? Had he truly taken steps to make sure that Jenni would not be able to touch his money until she was twenty-five? Had he taken these words, uttered in that icy anger, seriously? It was a confusing and horrible thought, and Lisette pushed it away as far as she could.

The way home was quiet, laden with that same horrible tension that she had already tasted with the notary. Jenni was at the wheel and she was speeding horribly, but still Lisette kept quiet. It wasn't until they pulled up the driveway that she ventured, much like she'd done at the funeral: "Are you okay?"

Jenni took the key out of the contact and stared ahead. "Why the hell do you keep asking me this? Yes, I am okay. I don't even miss him. I'm just pissed off that he screwed me over like this, alright?"

"You-" Lisette began, but Jennifer gave her that icy look again and cut her off. "How about you get the fuck out of my life, by the way?"

That took her by surprise. It hit her like a blow in the face and left her reeling. "What do you mean?"

"I have nothing to say to you anymore," Jenni told her patiently in that perfectly conversational and horrible voice that she'd heard before. "Joe's dead, and I never liked you. Go. Away."

There were tears in her eyes. Just like that, she was crying, but she unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the car nonetheless, nearly breaking her neck over a book that had shoved from under her seat and into her foot space. "I can't believe you're doing this," said Lisette through a veil of tears.

Jenni got out of the car and closed the door with perhaps a fraction too much force. "I can't believe you're still here," she smiled back sweetly. "Go mourn that dickhead somewhere else, Lisette. I don't want you around anymore. Get lost."

Speechless, Lisette did. She walked away through ankle-high snow and never looked back, not even when she realized that there were still toiletries that belonged to her littering Joe's bathroom. Some clothes, some other stuff. No, she wouldn't come back for them. Let them be buried in Joe's house, let them be buried with any feelings she might have had for her lover. It was over. Their relationship had ended mere hours before his life, and Jenni had chased her away forever.

It didn't occur to her until she was standing in the metro that the book she had tripped over when she had stepped out of the car had dealt with car mechanics. But Lisette pushed away that thought and refused to ever think such things again. It was none of her business whether Jenni had poured over that book to see how a car crash could have been prevented afterwards, or whether she might have initiated it. That thought was too horrible to be true and Lisette did not want to think like that. The weather had been bad, the circumstances lousy, and Joe had been involved in a car crash. That was /it/.

The rest was none of her /business/.

fin