Chapter 108: Chapter 108
Jessica did not say anything, which wasn't surprising, considering that they said that she could not talk yet. She merely stared at Carol as her eyes focused on her as though she did not know what to make of her. Carol looked back at her, feeling stupid for even coming here in the first place. This woman did not know her, and for some reason, Carol felt uncomfortable with the way Jessica was staring at her. Jessica was staring at her as though she knew her, or had met her before, and did not like her one bit, but that was quite absurd.
"Um, we came to see how you're doing. You don't know me, but I'm married to Sebastian. We brought you some things." Carol tried again, indicating the gifts and flowers that she had stowed in one corner of the room. Jessica did not show interest in the gifts but continued to stare at Carol with that penetrating gaze that was very unsettling. Carol did not miss how Jessica's eyes narrowed a bit when Carol said that she was married to Sebastian. Fed up, she looked over at Charlotte, who was frozen in place, for help, but there was no help to be had there. As a matter of fact, Charlotte was trying her best to look very small and not be noticed.
"This is Melissa. We came together." Carol said, at last, looking over to where Charlotte was standing on the other side of the bed and watching Jessica. Carol wanted to divert Jessica's attention from her by all means as she was not comfortable with the dislike, bordering on hatred that she saw in her eyes. Charlotte watched as Jessica stiffened at the name and roll her eyes slowly to face the direction that Carol had indicated, terror, replacing the instant dislike that had been in those blue eyes when she was looking at Carol. She jerked on the bed, and Charlotte was sure that if she could scream, she would have been screaming out her lungs and alerting the whole hospital to Charlotte's presence.
"Oh, goodness me, Carol," Charlotte exclaimed before Carol could notice Jessica's expression, or dwell on it, rummaging in her purse as though searching for the necklace. "I can't find the necklace that Mr. James asked me to give to her. I must have dropped it in the lobby when we went there earlier. I remember playing with it while we were there. If you don't mind, can you grab it for me? It should be on or around where I was sitting. I still feel a little faint and can't think of going all that way and coming back."
"Um, sure. I'll go look for it." Carol replied, glad to escape from the tension in the room and Jessica's unfriendly and penetrating gaze. She walked out of the room, noticing that the guard was not anywhere around the corridor. As she rounded the corner though, she saw him standing at the end of the corridor and answering a phone call with his back to her. Anyway, Melissa was with Jessica, so she was safe in the meantime. It wasn't as though she was alone, plus the guard was not very far away. Let the poor man answer his call in peace.
She continued on her way, but could not shake the sense of uneasiness that kept gnawing at her, or the feeling that something about this whole situation wasn't quite right. She could not exactly pinpoint what was making her so uneasy, but she knew that it had to do with the activities of today, and even more pressing, it had to do with Jessica. It was not because Jessica had seemed so unfriendly towards her, though. It was something else. She slowed down a little, trying to understand why she felt so uneasy, and then it came to her in a rush.
Jessica had seemed unfriendly towards her, granted, but now that she thought about it, the lady had also seemed absolutely terrified of Melissa. Carol had noticed Jessica's expression as she was leaving the room, and when their eyes met, the expression that Carol saw in them was ... pleading ... as though she was using her eyes to beg Carol not to leave. She paused in her stride, wondering if it was just her imagination that was running riot when her phone rang. It was Sebastian calling and she smiled in spite of herself. He was no doubt calling to find out how her visit with Jessica was going. Maybe she would even wait for him to come to visit Jessica and then they would go back together.
"Hello, Sebastian." She said into the phone. There was silence on the other end for some seconds and then he spoke.
"Carol. It's my uncle. They found him dead in his bed some minutes ago. The CCTV camera shows your friend snooping around in his room and taking something from there. One of the maids claims that what she took was not what she was sent to take because they saw her taking out the necklace that she claimed she had been sent to take out of her purse. This same maid said that she saw her acting suspiciously with my uncle and believes that she may have had a hand in his death. We don't know if that is true or not, but I just think that you should be careful with her until we find out whatever it was she took out of my uncle's room and why she took it. Where are you, Carol?"
"Oh, my God! Mr. James ... Poor Mr. James ... I'm in the hospital with her. She's with Jessica ... Alone ... she sent me to go get the necklace that she said Mr. James asked her to give to Jessica ... Fuck! I'll call you back, Sebastian." Carol exclaimed, her blood going cold as she turned mechanically to face the direction that she had been coming from. She barely heard or registered Sebastian's 'be careful' and any other thing that he had been about to say before she cut the call. Without fully understanding or processing why, her legs began to move of their own accord and soon, she was running down the hospital corridors faster than she had ever run in her entire life, hoping and praying that she would not be too late, and another person's death would not be her fault. She shoved people out of her way as she ran, but now, the hospital corridors seemed endless and so long, as though she would never get to the end of them or it would take an eternity before she did.
It was all making sense now ... the desperation that Melissa had had to be Carol's friend, the insistence on visiting Mr. James and Jessica, and the insistence that it be soon. The way she seemed to know things about Mr. James and Jessica that she had no business knowing, the scary, not-there, or crazy look that she sometimes got in her eyes when you talked to her. The creepy stalking that Carol had chalked up to Melissa's strange nature, and the way she kept finding ways to be alone with Mr. James and Jessica. The girl had a sort of grudge against the both of them, wanted them dead or at least to harm them and Carol had made it super easy for her to waltz straight into their lives with her dumb way of trusting everyone and ignoring obvious signs. With her heart pounding, she rounded the corner to find that the security guard was still where he had been when she left, talking and laughing on his phone. That meant that crazy, thieving Charlotte was still all alone with Jessica and was doing God knows what to her at this very minute.