Forgiveness and Punishment

26

"What?" Marissa asks shocked.

"Sarah seduced Dale and they were lovers as well. He was with her about as much as you were. He took her to get at least one abortion. 

"You mean you didn't know? How careless of you, Marissa. Even I knew that."

"You lie." But Melissa could tell that Marissa believed every word and she should, because it was true.

"Nope, but you know that already.

"Who else did you kill, Marissa?"

"Your grandmother. That bitch never did like me, she tried multiple times to get your father to divorce me."

"I always did love her. She was very smart. How did you kill her?"

"I replaced her heart medicine with a placebo." Marissa was more than satisfied with that death. "But then she went and left you the jewels, they should have gone to me!"

Pimpernel snorts, "Hardly, they are to be passed down from mother to daughter and if there is no daughter to granddaughter. You are none of the above."

"They then should have gone to Sarah! Not some freak."

"I was the oldest granddaughter and besides she couldn't stand Sarah, she was too much like you. Grandmother had taste."

Marissa is now glaring at Pimpernel and is no longer terrified of her.

"I enjoyed killing your father, it was so satisfying when the car hit him and to see him go flying. I hated to ruin my car like that and then having to ruin it even further by running it into the ditch a few days later. 

"Dale said that he enjoyed the show as well." Marissa says with her eyes narrowed looking at the ghost of Pimpernel. But the reaction she was looking for wasn't there.

"You say that like it was some big secret, I already believed you responsible for his death. I just had no proof. I wasn't the only one either."

This news does shock Marissa, she hadn't thought that any one would suspect her.

"Too bad for you about your car. I would have left you that, but since you killed my father with it, it's just as well you had nothing after all."

"That money was mine! I don't know how you stole it all from me like you did." Marissa says more than a little petulantly with the acid having taken a back seat.

"No clue, perhaps it was all the years of you treating me like shit, he decided that you didn't deserve anything. Or, I don't know, could it possibly be the long parade of lovers you took to your bed? Or maybe the bastard you tried to pass off as his? There are any number of reasons that he left the money to me. Not to mention the money my mother left me."

"Your mother left you money?" This is news to Marissa. She starts cussing up a storm.

"Oh yes, even more than what my father left me. When I left here I was a millionaire several times over. By the time of my death I was a billionaire. And I made sure that you will never touch a cent of it, ever." Pimpernel smiles nastily at her erstwhile mother.

"Now, I wonder what else we can talk about to pass the time away."

Marissa gets a little edgy with those words and moves away from the ghost. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I will be keeping you company for the rest of the night. This night and every night here after as long as you are alive and walking free."

"What!" Marissa is shaking her head, once more she is terrified out of her mind. "No, that can't be right. You are dead."

Pimpernel smirks at her and gives a little snort. "Of course I'm dead. But that just means that I have all the time in the world to come here and spend some quality time with the woman that made my life hell. Now it's my turn to return the favor." Pimpernel now smiles brightly at her, the anticipation of all the time they will have together.

"You will leave me alone if I am no longer free?" Marissa finally grasps that salient fact.

Pimpernel frowns at Marissa, "Yeah, but since you don't want to face the consequences of your actions you won't turn yourself and all your partners in crime in. That is the only way to be free of me. That and not saying one word about seeing me or ghosts. You can't get out of jail by using the insanity plea. You can't do anything to make it seem that you are, in fact, insane. If you do, then I'll continue to visit you until the day you die."

Pimpernel breaks off her gloating. "What are you doing?" 

Marissa is getting dressed as fast as she can. "I'm going down to the police station and turning myself and my accomplices in."

Marissa doesn't even bother brushing her hair. She just throws on whatever she can find and whatever shoes she comes to first before heading out the door.

Melissa lets the projection of Pimpernel go.

Melissa and Timothy start running to the police station. It will be harder to go unseen, but they want to witness what happens.

Melissa struggles with this part, but manages. They enter the station and wait patiently for Marissa to show up.