When Khloe arrived at home, the first thing she noticed was the note on the floor. On the backside, it said one word: "Justice" – and it was written over and over in what appeared to be blood. Immediately, she felt a sense of dread. She looked up, and the next thing she realized was that her apartment had been ransacked. Everything that was worth stealing had been stolen. Everything else had been destroyed.The third thing she noticed was the overwhelming smell of s.h.i.t. Slowly, she looked at the walls; they had been strewn with human s.h.i.t – suddenly, her psyche took a hit, and it screamed. It only said one word, but it echoed in her skull until she finally opened her mouth and let it out.
"Mother!" she shrieked. "Mother, mother, mother! Mother, are you okay? Are you here?"
Not knowing what she was doing, she picked the paper off the floor and flipped it over so that she could read the other side. It said, "If you don"t pay your debt, I will snuff out your life and take the money from your insurance."
Khloe crumpled the paper and threw it onto the floor. She called her mother"s name again, but there was no response. Finally, she pulled out her phone and dialed her mother"s number. It rang four or five times, but then her mother answered. Khloe sighed, and she whispered to herself, "Thank G.o.d. My mother is alive."
"Mom," she cried. "Where did you go? You scared me."
Alice"s voice sounded unsteady when she responded. "I am in the hospital," she said. "Your father woke up. He will fix everything!"
"Dad woke up?" Khloe cried. "I will be there as soon as I can."
***
By the time Khloe arrived at the hospital, Laurence had been transferred to another ward. He was sitting on the bed, and Alice was feeding him ice chips. From the outside, the couple looked like they were deeply in love."
When Alice heard the door open, she turned to Khloe and said, "It took you a long time to get here. Your father is already ready to leave this place. I think he should stay longer, but he isn"t listening to me."
Khloe wiped the sweat from her forehead. She smiled and said, "Dad, you look much better, but are you really good to go? You just woke up! I think you should stay and be observed for a few days?"
Laurence looked at Khloe sadly.
Khloe became frightened suddenly when Laurence looked at her, and she avoided his eyes. It was almost if, even though he"d woken up, he had actually died; he had dead eyes!
Alice turned to Laurence and frowned. She said, "My husband, you just recovered. Why are you angry? After a hard day at work, Khloe just came to see you. You should be thanking her!"
"You don"t understand anything," Laurence snarled as he picked up his gla.s.s and threw it to the ground. His fingers trembled, and he was pointing at Khloe."Sometimes I wish that I hadn"t had any children at all…"
As the gla.s.s shattered, Khloe stepped back. She smiled and said, "Dad, you"ve only just woken up. You aren"t thinking straight."
"Is that so," Laurence scoffed. "One thing I know clearly is that you tried to kill me while I was in the intensive care unit."
Hearing this, Alice stood up. Frightened, she looked at Laurence and said, "What are you talking about? Khloe is your daughter. How could she do such a thing?"
"Look at her in the eyes and ask her," Laurence commanded.
Alice turned to Khloe and asked her if she knew anything about what Laurence was talking about. Khloe lowered her head and thought about the time that she"d stopped her father"s air supply in an attempt to kill him. She sought out a way to answer the question that would be vague and misleading, but not untrue. If there was one thing that she knew about her mother was that she could tell when somebody was lying.
"My father has been unguarded this whole time," Khloe replied. "If I were trying to kill him, don"t you think that he would be dead by now?"
"You see," Alice said, "she is innocent. If she were lying, I would know. Now can we forget all of this nonsense?"
Laurence remained skeptical, and Alice could tell that something didn"t feel right to him. If Khloe had said that she was innocent in a more straightforward matter, she knew that he would have believed her. As it was, Alice knew that Khloe was manipulative even though she"d pa.s.sed her lie detector, that did not mean that she was telling the truth.
Of course, in truth, Laurence knew more than he had admitted to. The whole time that he"d been in a coma, it had been a lark. He"d been cognizant of everything that Khloe had done. That being said, he wanted to find a way to expose his daughter without exposing himself.
Laurence adjusted his breathing and said to Alice, "This isn"t over. I will investigate it more at another time. You go and check me out. Khloe can push me out in a wheelchair. I can walk, but it is hospital policy that everyone needs to go out in a wheelchair."
Alice and Khloe looked at each other. They didn"t want Laurence to leave the hospital at this time. Of course, Alice didn"t want him to see where they were living, and she didn"t even know that the place had been ransacked yet. Once they left, they would have to tell Laurence everything that had happened while he"d been in the hospital, and neither one of them knew what would happen when they told him…
"Honey," Alice sighed, "I don"t think that you are recovered enough to come home. Don"t you think you should stay in the hospital for observation for at least two more days? I was told that the doctors still don"t know what happened. What if it happened again?"
Laurence glanced at her skeptically and said, "Something doesn"t feel right. Is there something going on that you ladies aren"t telling me?"
Alice rolled her eyes and said, "I don"t know what you"re talking about. I am worried about you. That is all. I can"t even believe that the hospital is willing to discharge you so quickly."
Laurence glanced at Khloe, and in a cold voice, he asked her how the business was going and about any new initiatives she might have come up with in his absence. Khloe smiled at him and lied. She said I raised some money. Mother helped me to buy some shares of the company. At this point, I actually have more shares than anyone in the company! We are doing better than ever!"
What Khloe didn"t say though, was that she"d sold all of the family"s property to purchase the shares, that the shares were practically worthless now, and that they were currently living in squalor.
Hearing Khloe"s words, Laurence looked at her and said, "Show me the stock market. I want to see this for myself."
Hearing this, Khloe broke out in a cold sweat. Knowing there was no way of getting out of it, she opened her phone and started the app that she used to track her holdings. She pulled up the stock for Garcia Entertainment and handed her phone to her father.
Laurence took one look at her phone, and he threw it against the wall. "What the f.u.c.k is this?" he hissed. "Owning all of the stocks doesn"t mean anything if they are worthless!"
Khloe picked up her phone and looked at the screen. It was cracked from corner to corner, but Khloe knew that it could"ve been worse. The phone had been a gift from Aiden, and seeing as they weren"t dating anymore, she had been thinking about getting a new one for some time anyway.
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