It was 10 o’clock in the morning the next day. Charlie was having breakfast with Tommy and Jeremy at The Deuce. They haven’t done that in awhile. Amber’s funeral was still a hot topic on the news. It made the front page of The Goldstone Daily newspaper. Maxine’s grieving face when she delivered her eulogy was plastered all over the news instead of Amber’s.
Arch Enterprise paid a lot of money for the media coverage, Charlie knew that first hand. Everyone was reading about it with their morning coffee.
Her phone rang, it was Malcolm.
“Charlie … where are you?” his voice sounded concerned.
“I’m at The Deuce … having breakfast … is there something wrong?”
“Do they have a TV?”
Charlie looked at the counter and saw a TV hung above it, “Yeah … why?”
“You need to watch the news … right now,” he commanded.
Charlie walked into the diner with her phone still on her ear, she beckoned Tommy and Jeremy to follow. “Could you turn on the news please?” she asked the server.
“Sure,” she clicked the remote and turned up the volume.
A visual of Maxine’s eulogy was in the left screen, while on the right was a visual of her house. Yellow police line tapes were all over it, police car parked on her driveway. She didn’t understand what she was seeing until she saw a gurney pushed out from the house. A caption appeared under the footage. “Movie Mogul Maxine Roberts Found Dead At Her Goldstone Hills House.”
She gasped, her phone almost slipped from her hand. “Oh my God,” she mumbled, almost inaudible.
“Is this for real?” Jeremy watched in disbelief.
“Charlie … you still there?” Malcolm’s voice on the phone.
Tommy wrapped his arms around her waist, he was as stunned as everyone else.
“Yes, I’m here … she’s dead? But how?”
“They said it’s accidental drowning, one of her staff found her this morning in the Jacuzzi … apparently she took too many sleeping pills and fell asleep, but they will have to do an autopsy to confirm it,” Malcolm said.
Charlie’s head felt light, it didn’t feel real.
“Her nephew and friend, Bradley Roberts and Deeta Lee Rose were called for questioning. The two were the last persons to see Maxine Roberts last night according to the staff as they were having dinner together after Amber Stewart’s funeral just yesterday,” the newscaster said.
“Oh my God … what do we do now?” Charlie asked.
“Just go to the office as usual, it’s probably a little chaotic there today, but you need to go there, take all your things and apply for a resignation or put in a letter … and Charlie … ” Malcolm paused for a moment. “Tommy’s contract had been cancelled, I wanted to tell you that yesterday but you were at the funeral … and I have the tape … you might want to tell Tommy that,” he added.
As soon as they hung up, she pulled Tommy in her embrace.
Soon after, Tommy’s phone rang.
“Vicky?” he answered.
“Have you heard?”
“Yeah … I just saw it on the news.”
“I still couldn’t believe it,” her voice was shaken.
“Me too …” there were no words to explain how it felt.
“You still have to show up for work today, everyone’s pretty shaken up … but the show must go on … do you think you can handle it?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there … no worries.”
“Good … and Tom … I just want to tell you … this changes everything … work wise … we’ll talk about it later, when the time is right,” she said and ended the call.