As Faith laid it out, Hope muttered “Aha” and “Yes” and “Wow.” Then she said, “I’m on it. I’ll tell Tom we’re good to go with the money but I’ll say to meet in person at a private place for the handoff. Then I’ll bring three water bottles: Matthew’s and two other Channel 9 ones you’ve given me over the years. I’ll put champagne in all of them and keep Matthew’s in my purse. I’ll tell Tom we’re going to toast our good fortune—we’re both rich, after all. His will have cyanide in it. A pharmacist friend once told me how to order it on the web. It can be shipped as fast as any Amazon product. I can get it overnight. I’ll drink from my bottle. Tom will die shortly after drinking from his. I’ll put Matthew’s bottle in the console. Earlier I will have texted Matthew to meet me at this remote parking spot at 12:15. Then right after Tom keels over I’ll call the police anonymously on a burnerphone and tip them off to a man dying in his car by the lagoon. Then I’ll take off. Police and paramedics should arrive just after Matthew. It will look very, very bad for him. Matthew should be up the river without a paddle. Oh, by the way, I tried to sniff around with good ol’ Aunt Carol again tonight at the meeting. I lied to her and told her I heard a rumor that Chloe said you gave an intern some piece of paper. I’m just trying to break her down for some info. She hasn’t given up the goods yet but it sounds like we won’t need it now anyway. Tom won’t be squealing anything to anyone soon. That asshole doesn’t know who he’s messing with.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Faith and Hope
December
Las Vegas
Channel 9’s ratings plummeted soon after Tom’s death was announced. Of the four original anchors, only Roger the sports guy was left. Veronica took a leave of absence due to stress and just two weeks later told the station she was retiring.
Abby was given the main meteorologist job, but she was no Faith. Abby tried delivering the earring forecast but it fell flat, and the station got so many complaints from people who thought they wanted someone to take on Faith’s gimmick but realized they didn’t that Abby stopped doing it. The daily videos Faith had been known for never revived under Abby either, and the special spot on the website with the password went away. So did the Fair-Weather Friends Fan Club Facebook page, retired by Chloe.
The vigil for Tom was less well attended than Faith’s, mostly because people were so in shock at two anchor deaths and because everyone was glued to what would happen with Matthew after his arrest. The station had to report on the trial of its own meteorologist.
Matthew was convicted in Tom’s murder due to DNA on the cup. As for Faith’s death, video from a pen camera in the weather office showed Matthew essentially confessing to it and he was found to have googled poison and “how to kill a coworker and get away with it.” But the rest of the evidence just wasn’t there, and his lawyers argued vehemently that you couldn’t convict on circumstantial evidence.
A lot of people still thought he was guilty. They theorized he was so jealous of Faith he couldn’t take it and had strangled her between dinner with Tara and coming in to the station to do the elevenPMweathercast. Even Sergio, the waiter, testified that the couple left the restaurant with plenty of time for Matthew to perhaps meet Faith near the station and for Matthew to then kill her. It didn’t matter in the end. He already had life in prison for killing Tom.
Tara confessed to falsely representing herself as someone else with the emails and pictures she sent Steve, and she got probation, but was fired from her job.
Channel 9 constructed two small memorials outside of its front door with two plaques, one with Faith’s face and one with Tom’s. For months viewers would drop off cards and flowers, but after some time that pretty much stopped. Even the most loyal Channel 9 viewers, like Carol, began to move rapidly to other stations. Carol found a new meteorologist she liked, a young woman who made graphics with fun things like the “honey-do-list forecast” for wives to decide if their husbands would accomplish chores indoors or outside that day. This wasn’t Faith and the earring-cast but it was still a little something to make Carol smile.
Olivia finished out her internship that summer. The newsroom was in complete shock and disarray and frankly, Oliviacouldn’t wait to be done. No one ever knew that it was Olivia who had turned over the pen-camera video to the police. When she, Carol, and Jim had heard and seen what Matthew said on the phone in the office that night, they raced to download the footage onto a thumb drive and dropped it in the mail for District 3 with a short typed note explaining what it was and also talking of the signature discrepancies on the autographed photos from Faith to Steve, just in case that was helpful to the investigation.
Police later found the pen in the cup of pens on Faith’s desk; they had no idea who had placed it there. In the end, Olivia and Carol decided not to try and be the public heroes. Jim convinced them it was better to do this anonymously. Help investigators but stay low-profile, he counseled. It would be better for Olivia’s career and it would also help keep both of the women he loved safe. They would simply live with the quiet satisfaction that they got justice for Faith.
Perry took a job as a news director in Chicago, happy to escape Detroit and all of the turmoil there. Laura was contemplating looking for a PR job with better hours and more pay. That way she could also be home with Quinn at night. She and Elliott remained together, but she had a gut feeling it might not be for the long haul.
Kelly and Joel were able to reconcile, and after couples counseling and rebuilding trust, Kelly felt a true proposal might be forthcoming, maybe even for New Year’s Eve.
Steve found a new love: a female sportscaster on a different station. He started emailing, writing, and leaving messages for her. He showed up to every event he knew she would be at. He was still waiting for her to reciprocate, but he knew it was coming. They were in love. He felt it when he shook her hand at apublic appearance. He had plans to follow her home from the station and see where she lived.
Faith watched Channel 9’s downfall from afar and laughed. It had all worked out so perfectly. Matthew convicted of her and Hope’s crimes. Her other enemies sucked into the vortex.
She cackled in delight as she walked the streets of Vegas as her new self, free from obligations and pressures. Her headaches were gone, and there was more money in Hope’s bank account than they knew what to do with. They spent most of it on clothes, scouring the boutiques embedded in nearly every casino and along the Strip and feeling revenge on their father every time they bought something fun and cool.
Faith had a new name and ID off the dark web. After contemplating every city and state in the US, Faith and Hope decided that there was no better place than Sin City to blend in. Faith could change wigs and looks as often as she wanted and no one would care. She had plans to use some of the massive insurance money to get work done on her face from a high-end “plastic surgeon to the stars” place so that she really would look different. And she put on a bit of weight, not feeling the stress of being tiny on TV anymore. Between those changes and the wigs, she was sure no one would recognize her.
One of Faith’s favorite things to do at night was to sit off to the side by the Bellagio hotel watching their famous fountains and thinking of all that transpired. It was ironic, she mused, that Steve’s psychosis, Matthew’s anger, Laura’s turning against her, and Kelly’s naivete had all played a part in getting Faith to this point. In their own ways they had either driven her to fake her own death or helped her to complete the fictitious story to take the money and run.
Now she didn’t have to work at all. Hope bought a condo nearthe Strip and they had fun all day, every day, lying by the pool reading fashion magazines in the afternoon and going to shows at night. Plus, shopping, of course. Lots and lots of shopping.
The old password to the website to get to her videos, “Cloud 9,” came to mind. Viewers had thought they were on cloud nine back then, and the TV station had too. All because of her driving up ratings. Now Faith was truly living on cloud nine, and she was loving every single second of it.
One warm night Hope came over to join Faith at the fountains, two margaritas from a nearby stand in Hope’s hands. One was lime green and the other neon orange. The sisters sat shoulder to shoulder. Hope was going to meet up with a guy she found on a dating app, but Faith wasn’t ready for that scene yet and was headed home soon. She didn’t want to push dating until she had plastic surgery. Her wig, natural eye color, and different clothing style were enough to keep her anonymous in a crowd, but she couldn’t change her voice and didn’t want to be overheard talking in a restaurant or bar.
That night she wasn’t wearing her glasses for the first time. She had accidentally sat on them at the condo and they were bent awkwardly. She would have to get them fixed. She had in regular contacts but she wasn’t worried. In all of these months no one had so much as given her a second glance in Vegas.
“How are you feeling tonight?” Hope asked, taking a long, slow slurp of her margarita.
Faith looked around at the ever-moving tide of humanity, the street musicians playing a variety of tunes, Jimmy Buffett music pumping from a speaker at the margarita stand, women in bikinis with giant peacock feathers on their backs drawing every glance, Chippendales men in tight white pants and matching white vests flirting and taking pictures with tourists. She smiled.
“I’m good. Really, really good,” she said. “How are you, sis?”
“The best,” replied Hope. And she was. She felt as happy as she’d ever been, all of those low-level jobs of her life behind her. She never had to work again.
“You don’t miss being on TV at all?” Hope went on, taking another sip.
