Good morning and Happy Hump Day! If it's Wednesday, then it must be time for more flash fiction from the Wednesday Briefers! We're a group of authors who bring you our finest flash fiction every week, 500 to 1000 words, inspired by one of our prompts.
Imagine Vinnie's horror to learn they actually have to talk to the evil actress again, to learn more about the mystery director who was responsible for her irresponsible behavior! See what's happening in this week's chapter of Bad Karma and the Family Plan. Don't forget to visit the other Briefers and see what's up with them. Their links follow my tale! Enjoy!
Much as I despised the idea of speaking to the crazy witch, I understood that it was probably our quickest way of getting any information from her—providing I wasn’t doing the questioning, of course. There was a mutual antipathy there that nothing would probably ever lessen…at least on my part. As for her, she was crazy so there was no rhyme or reason as to her thought processes.
Ethan made a quick call to Anderson to find out where Crazy Pants was being held. I presumed at the nearest police station, but that proved not to be the case. Why was I not surprised to find she had wangled her way into a mental health facility just outside of Atlanta? It had always been my experience that money talked louder than common sense, so did being famous. That meant the rich and the famous had it ten times easier than us poor working stiffs.
I listened as Ethan explained what we’d come up with, and how we felt we needed to speak with her, and that she knew more than she was letting on. I could sense Anderson’s reluctance when Ethan brought up Troy and Brendan, as well as Benny. But my silver-tongued boy got his way, especially when he mentioned that we would be heading toward our objective anyway—i.e. getting Benny to Atlanta in time for him to testify. And Troy knew her better than we did and had a higher likelihood of getting her to spill the beans than we did. What about my own misgivings? At one time, I thought she had a crush on Ethan, but it turned out she was pretending to be with him in order to make her ex-boyfriend, the aforementioned director Daimler, jealous. Can’t say I was exactly thrilled with that situation, especially since she forced Ethan and me to resort to some pretty extreme methods to be together. But at least I understood that her feelings for Ethan were as phony as she was. After a few minutes of conversation, Ethan gave us a thumbs up as he hung up with our supervisor and I mentally prepared myself to face what was coming.
Anderson had agreed to our plan, but it turned out there was a proviso. We had to wait until the next day to approach her, as apparently she wasn’t in any shape to be dealt with today. Maybe they’d drugged her or something, I didn’t know. But at least we were getting somewhere. And, to be honest, I didn’t mind any postponement of that meeting. If it were up to me, we could wait for it until the next millennium.
Just kidding…sort of.
Which now left us with another day to kill. Ethan texted Carlos and let him know what was going on, and he just said to keep him apprised, he wasn’t going anywhere. Troy and Brendan decided they wanted to drive around and soak up some of the local atmosphere. I took that as a subtle hint that they wanted some alone time, and I couldn’t blame them for that. So Ethan and I went to see if we could do anything to help Maureen.
“Well, if you wouldn’t mind, it’s such a lovely day, I was about to hang out the wash on the clothesline,” she said.
“We’d love to,” Ethan said.
Wasn’t that why people had driers, I wondered, but I wisely remained quiet, and helped Ethan carry two baskets of laundry to the backyard.
to be continued
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