Donna sat up, slowly waking up. What woke her up? She looked around the room. It was still dark, still early.
"What time is it?" she said softly to herself, as she sleepily looked for the alarm clock somewhere on the nightstand. Then she heard what had woke her up. The phone was ringing downstairs.
"Four o'clock." Donna saw, "Who would be calling me at this hour?"
She turned on the light, and searched for a night gown or something, and found a bath robe. As she tucked herself in she stumbled downstairs to the ringing phone.
"All right, all right." She said out loud, "I'm coming."
"Probably Robert." she thought yawning as she turned on the downstairs lights, "Who has something exciting to tell about his job. He sometimes forgets the time difference..."
"Hello?" She said as she picked up the phone.
"Hello, Donna, Donna Alldring?" A unfamiliar voice asked.
"Speaking?" Donna said a bit surprised, as it wasn't Robert.
"Hello, this is Dillon McDonnahue, the husband of Vivian." The man on the other side said, "Sorry to bother you, but is Vivian still with you?"
"No..." Donna answered slowly, suspiciously, "She left hours ago, around twelve..."
"She hasn't arrived home yet." Dillon McDonnahue said, "And if she left around twelve from your place, she should have been home hours ago."
"Yes..." Was all that Donna could say.
But her mind was racing again. She was wide awake right away and recalled what had happened last night. Vivian had been such a big help! She hoped nothing had happened to her.
"Did you guys drink a lot?" Dillon McDonnahue asked worriedly.
"No, not too much, Vivian knew she still had to drive home." Donna answered.
"I hope nothing happened to her." She added.
"I hope so too." Dillon McDonnahue said, "Listen, sorry I had to bother you, I'm going to check the police now. Hopefully she just had a flat tire or so, and her phone was dead so she couldn't make a call, or something like that."
"Please, keep me posted." Donna said, just before Dillon McDonnahue hung up.
"I hope nothing bad happened to her, she didn't deserve that." Donna thought as she hung up the phone.
She wandered through the living room for a while, switched on the television, trying to distract herself. She couldn't sleep anymore as she kept on worrying about Vivian.
"It is not such a long drive, and she was sober, or at least fit to drive..,"
She drifted in and out of sleep on the couch, constantly thinking of what could have happened to Vivian, and hoping for a liberating phone call from her or her husband. All her worries of her own situation were forgotten.
At around six the phone finally rang. Donna woke up from her drowsy state and anxiously picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Donna, this is Dillon....Listen..."
Donna could hear he was very upset and feared the worst.
"Vivian... she has had an accident. The car must have slipped, and she ended up in the river... "
"Oh no!" Donna said as tears welled up in her eyes. "Oh no!"
"The current has swept her body out of the mangled car. They are looking for it now, but with the current, and the cold, they have little hope of finding her any time soon..."
"How horrible!!" Donna whispered.
She heard Dillon choke also.
"I... I have to tell the kids still. I'm sorry, I'll call you later. The police will pass by..."
"I understand, don't worry. If there is any way I can help...."
"Thank you..." Dillon said with a trembling voice and hung up the phone, leaving Donna with her own worrisome thoughts.
The next hour she just sat on the couch comatose, just thinking of Vivian's terrible fate. Suddenly and awful thought crept up on her: maybe Ms. Brendan was involved in this?
She quickly dismissed the thought, as she could not have arranged an attack on Vivian on such short notice. Though the thought kept on coming back to her.
"It does make sense, in a weird way," she thought, "Doctor Dow also explained me once about the gang rape of the mother and daughter. She can be heartless, cruel. My own cut is a clear sign of that.... But still, murder?... And how would she possibly know?"
As time passed by, she couldn't shake the thought, and had to find out if it was true, if it was possible. After some internal deliberating she decided to call Ninon.
"She will know. If I ask her she will tell me..." She reasoned.
She picked up the phone. it was seven thirty already, and she expected Ninon would be up by now. She always had been an early bird, as far as Donna knew.
"Hello?" a surprised Ninon answered.
"Hello Ninon, it's me, Donna."
"Oh hi, I wondered when you would call me." Ninon replied.
Donna was a bit surprised at this.
"You expected me to call you?"
"Yes, listen, we can't talk on the phone right now. I'll pick you up in about half an hour. I have to bring my kids to school today, and we'll talk in the car afterwards. And you have little time before your meeting with Ms. Burkowitz. Be ready." and Ninon hung up.
Donna looked at the phone, wondering what was going on. "She expected me to call... does that mean that ...?"
Now she was really worried. And Ninon also mentioned the dreaded meeting with the psychiatrist this morning. She had figured she would call it off when the lady would appear at her doorstep. That had been the plan, Vivian's plan.
"Or maybe she just doesn't know yet I quit? Maybe she thinks I'm still going through with it? But why would she then mention she was expecting my call?"
Donna worried the next half hour as she showered and got ready for Ninon. She was unsure what to wear, normal clothing, or sexy? What was better now? She finally decided for something in between, medium high shoes, and a business suite with skirt. It gave herself an excuse to wear stockings.
Thus, Ninon could not really complain, and yet she did just wear normal clothing, or close to it. As for her make-up, her business attire excused her to just apply the basics, though she was a bit heavy on the bronze lip gloss and bronze eye shadow. But the bronze color wasn't showing as much, so she still looked acceptable to herself.
Her hair she just tied in a knot on the back of her head. She had no time to really comb it now. When she was finished, she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked acceptable at first glance. Only when you looked further you saw the too sexy stockings, and the too heavy make-up.
She knew she was cheating herself somehow with these clothes; she was in fact again following the orders of Ms. Brendan. But she had no choice now as she did not know what was going on now.
When she saw Ninon drive up the parking lot in front of the garage she quickly went out, closed the door behind her, and got in the car.
"Children, say hi to Ms. Alldring." Ninon said cheerfully.
"Hi Ms. Alldring!!" the children in the back seat said in unison.
"Hello children, good morning!" Donna replied pretending to be all cheery too.
They drove the kids to school and Donna talked with the children. She knew Ninon had a husband and kids, but she had never met them before. She looked at the kids as she talked with them. They were young, ages 4, 8, and 10. Striking was that the youngest one looked very different than the older two. The younger was blond, very blond, while the other two were dark haired. Also, his face was really different then the others.
"She probably has a very blond husband." Donna concluded, when she finally sat back looking forward.
Her somber thoughts took over when she saw they were driving alongside the river. The same cold river where somewhere the body of Vivian was drifting somewhere. How awful it was to think about that.
Not much was said from thereon up until the moment the children were delivered at their schools. But when the last one ran out of the car towards his friends, the tension in the car rose right away.
Donna didn't really know where to begin. She fumbled a bit and felt herself becoming very emotional. She got herself together and decided to start with the obvious question.
"Why did you expect me to call?"
Ninon smiled dryly; "You called off Ms. Brendan, and that is not how it works my dear. Ms. Brendan decides if she has had enough of you. On top of that you made the enormous mistake of threatening her. Not wise."
"So..." Donna said, "She is responsible for Vivian's dead?"
"Who is Vivian?" Ninon asked truly surprised.
"An old girlfriend of mine. I asked her to be my guardian for my therapy. She..." Donna had to choke back a tear "...She is the one who helped me to fight Ms. Brendan. She had a car accident early this morning. After she left me..."
There was a long silence in the car. Donna observed Ninon who just looked straight forward for a while, but you could see her thinking hard, her face tense.
"I don't know if she's responsible for her death." Ninon finally said, "I know she can be ruthless, vicious. And I know you pissed her off big time. She called me immediately after she heard your stupid message, and boy was she angry."
Ninon looked at Donna with a very serious look.