Ник Сайнт - Purrfect Revenge

“Does everybody sign a contract?” asked Odelia.

“Of course,” said Shayonne. “Girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives… Camille takes care of all of that. This is a business, honey. We need to protect the Kenspeckle brand. Nobody is going to come and mess with our brand.”

“And what is that brand, exactly?” Chase asked, unable to control himself.

“Beauty and grace,” said Shayonne instantly, as if she’d rehearsed the phrase, which she probably had.

“Wealth and power,” added Shalonda.

“Style and beauty.”

“I think you said beauty twice, honey,” said Shalonda.

“That’s because it’s important. The Kenspeckle brand is all about beauty.”

“And selfies,” Odelia said with a smile.

The two sisters laughed. “You said it, girl,” said Shalonda.

“Wasn’t Shana called the queen of selfies?” asked Odelia. “Maybe her habit of portraying her wealth and beauty made some people feel jealous?”

“Oh, but everybody was jealous of her,” Shayonne confirmed. “Shana was so gorgeous it was hard not to feel jealous. She was the center of attention wherever she went. I’ll admit even I felt jealous of her from time to time.”

“Yeah, she couldn’t walk into a room without getting everyone to turn.”

“Remember my wedding? How she upstaged me in front of everybody? That dress. That hair. She looked like she was the one getting married.”

“I hated her for that,” said Shalonda.

“Me too. Or that time when I was sixteen, going out on my first date and she was flirting with my date? The guy didn’t even look at me after that!”

“Shana was an attention whore, no doubt about it,” said Shalonda. “And we all loved her for it,” she quickly added when she saw Chase frown.

“She was the most popular star in the family, wasn’t she?” asked Odelia.

The two sisters stared at her, momentarily lost for words. Then Shayonne asked, “Who the hell told you that?”

“That’s not true,” Shalonda chimed in.

“We’re all stars. Just look at our contracts. We all get star credit.”

“There’s no denying Shana got the most attention,” said Chase. “She got the endorsement deals, the paid appearances… Even her app is a bestseller.”

Wow. Chase had obviously done his homework.

“Those are just rumors,” Shayonne said, sitting up.

“Filthy lies,” Shalonda chimed in, also sitting up.

“We all share equal billing on our show. There are no prima donnas.”

“Still,” Chase insisted. “You just said you hated your sister because she upstaged you, and tried to steal your boyfriends.”

“Oh, she did,” said Shayonne, nodding.

“She most definitely did,” Shalonda agreed.

“Which doesn’t mean we didn’t love her.”

“Oh, yeah. We loved her to pieces.”

“Tiny, little pieces,” said Shayonne, holding her nails millimeters apart.

“You told me that Shana was sleeping with your husband?” Odelia asked.

“You told her that?” asked Shalonda, turning to her sister. “What about putting up a united front for the outside world, like Camille told us to? Family first, Shayonne. Family always comes first.”

“This is a police investigation,” Chase reminded her. “You can speak freely. Nothing you say will go beyond Miss Poole and myself at this point.”

“All we want is to catch your sister’s killer,” Odelia assured them.

“Yes, I told her,” Shayonne said. “Because it’s true. Shana was sleeping with Dion. She told me so herself. She came clean to me last week.”

“I don’t believe this,” Shalonda said, shaking her head. Whether she didn’t believe that Shana had been sleeping with Dion or that her sister was confiding in the police wasn’t immediately clear. Odelia suspected the latter.

“Well, she was!” Shayonne exclaimed. “She finally confessed. Told me she couldn’t live with the lie anymore. She also told me she was done with Dion.”

“And how did you react?” asked Chase.

“I was stunned. Completely stunned. And then I dumped Dion’s ass.”

Odelia frowned. “So why is Dion still here?”

“Because Shana confessed to me off camera, and I broke up with Dion off camera. We needed to do it again, on camera, which is why we all flew out here, because this was going to be the highlight of the season. We were going to end on a big cliffhanger, with my relationship with Shana and my marriage in the balance.” She shook her head. “You obviously still have a lot to learn about TV, honey. This all happened already, and now we have to recreate it.”

“So Dion was only hanging around until you filmed the bit about the breakup?” asked Chase.

“Well, duh. We were going to milk this thing for all we could get.”

“What about Dion? How did he feel about this situation?” Odelia asked.

“Well, he’s not too happy,” said Shayonne. “He’s off the show, isn’t he?”

“You snooze, you lose,” said Shalonda.

“I don’t think that’s correct, honey,” said Shayonne. “More like, you cheat, you lose.”

“It doesn’t have the same ring to it. I like mine better.”

“What it all comes down to, Detective,” said Shayonne, touching Chase’s knee, “is that when you cheat on a Kenspeckle you’re out on your ass.”

“Amen to that,” said Shalonda.

Odelia shared a glance with Chase. This was definitely motivation for murder. If Dion was going to get kicked off the show, he stood to lose a lot of money. He might have wanted to plot revenge against Shana. Maybe even hoped that the murder would sink the entire show.

“What about Damien?” asked Chase.

Shayonne swatted away a fly. “What about him?”

“Did he know about Shana and Dion?”

“Of course he did. We don’t keep secrets in this family. Damien knew all about his wife’s infidelities.”

“Infidelities?” asked Odelia. “You mean this wasn’t a one-time thing?”

“Nope,” said Shayonne. “Now don’t get me wrong. Shana was the sweetest person in the world.”

“So sweet.”

“And I loved her, like, a lot.”

“A whole lot.”

“But let’s not kid ourselves. She was a skank.”

“They didn’t get any skankier than Shana.”

“She never met a guy she didn’t want to sleep with and who didn’t want to sleep with her.” She shrugged. “That’s the way she was. Take it or leave it.”

“Damien knew that going in,” said Shalonda. “In fact he sleeps around just as much as she does. They have a, quote unquote, arrangement.”

“So he was fine with this Dion situation?” Odelia asked.

The two sisters shared a look. “Well, fine would be overstating it,” said Shayonne.

“Yeah, he and Dion got into a big fight about it the other night.”

“They knocked the shit out of each other and then bonded over a couple of beers and hung out at the pool all night. It was crazy.”

“Dion is crazy.”

“Hey. Who you calling crazy? That’s my husband you’re talking about.”

“Ex-husband,” Shalonda specified.

“He’s not my ex-husband. I haven’t divorced him yet.”

Shalonda stared at her sister. “You’re not seriously thinking about keeping him, are you? After what he did to you?”

“But I still love him, honey. And maybe now that Shana’s gone we can start over.”

“You’re officially crazy. That man never treated you right.”

“He has. And anyway, better to have a man than no man at all.”

Shalonda’s eyebrows rose and she planted a hand on her hip. “Don’t hold back, honey. Just throw it all out there, why don’t you?”

“I’m saying you don’t get to give me marriage advice. I’m only going to take marriage advice from a person who’s in a successful marriage. And that person obviously isn’t you.”