Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  “The price we all pay for being Cahills,” she confided to her son as she locked the door behind her and walked to the driveway, where her car, a silver Acura sedan, was parked, the pizza already cooling in a box on the floor of the passenger seat. In no better mood than he’d been in all day, B.J. wailed and clawed at his hat as she strapped him into the child’s seat in the back and climbed behind the steering wheel. It was dark out, a soft rain beginning to fall, the lights of the city a little blurry. She glanced across the street to the spot where the unmarked police car had been parked ever since she’d heard the news that her mother had escaped from prison, but, surprisingly, it was missing.

  Gone too was the news van that had camped out for hours on the street, a reporter coming to her door three times and asking for an interview. As if she would ever talk to the press! Cissy had prayed they’d go away, and tonight she’d gotten her wish.

  Good.

  She was sick of being treated like she was some kind of criminal when she’d done nothing wrong. Nothing! It wasn’t her fault that her mother just happened to be a narcissistic, murderous bitch—which were some of the nicer adjectives Cissy could ascribe to Marla. As far as Cissy was concerned, the farther her egocentric nutcase of a mother stayed away from her and B.J., the better.

  Don’t think that way…get rid of the negative thoughts…count slowly to ten…. Cissy’s shrink’s voice slipped through her brain, but she ignored it. She wasn’t in a forgiving mood tonight, and she was just grateful that the police weren’t following her to the Cahill estate, where her grandmother had resided ever since marrying into the family nearly fifty years earlier. Cissy’s life was in enough turmoil as it was; she didn’t need to deal with the cops. In her opinion, she’d already suffered enough melodrama and pain to last her a lifetime or two—compliments of Marla Amhurst Cahill, sick-o extraordinaire and her mother.

  “Yeah, Beej, that’s your nana,” she said, weaving her way through the neighborhood streets rimming Alamo Square. “Nana Psycho.” She glanced into the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of her son, his wailing having stopped, his big eyes devoid of tears. For the moment, he’d stopped fighting the hat.

  Relieved that the tantrum was over, she winked at him. “See, you just wanted a date out with Mom in a classy car, right?”

  The light ahead turned amber, and she stepped on the brakes. There had been a time when she had run anything remotely yellow, but now, with Beej, she’d suddenly become a model driver and nearly overprotective mother. Who woulda thunk it?

  Her rumbling stomach and the clock on the dash reminded her that she was late. Great. No doubt she was in for another lecture. Like she hadn’t had enough. She was a grown woman, for God’s sake.

  Once again she looked into the rearview mirror. This time she scanned the traffic behind her, searching for signs of a cop car. Not that she could pick one out. But considering that ever since her mother had escaped, the police had planted themselves near her door, it was odd that they weren’t following her now. Though the detectives had been nothing but nice, she knew, behind the concerned words and patient smiles, they were suspicious.

  As if her mother would contact her.

  As if she would harbor a woman she hated.

  “No friggin’ way,” she whispered. Every muscle in her body tensed. As a kid, she’d grown up with Marla’s cool, aloof attitude toward her. She’d accepted it, accepted the fact that her whole family was a set of cold weirdos. To survive, she’d simply rebelled in any and every way she could think of.

  But now, as a mother herself, Cissy couldn’t imagine not feeling close and bonded to a child. From the first time she’d laid eyes on her son, she’d been a new person. Life had changed in that sterling instant. Throughout her pregnancy she’d talked to the baby, rubbed her tummy, even named him Juan because of her cravings for tacos or anything Mexican at all hours of the day or night, but it hadn’t compared to holding him and hearing him cry at the hospital. Yep, they were a team. Inseparable.

  So where was her mother?

  How the hell had she gotten out?

  Weren’t prisons supposed to be escape proof?

  What will you do if she does show up at your door?

  “Don’t even go there,” she told herself. She didn’t need any more tension in her life. Wasn’t it bad enough that she was in the first stages of a divorce and that her son was quickly approaching the terrible twos and had been crabby all week? It didn’t help that the furnace had decided to go kaflooey now too. All in all, the last seven days had been hell.

  The light changed, and Cissy drove along the panhandle until she reached Stanyan, then headed steadily uphill. Her cell phone rang just as she was taking a steep switchback of a street that climbed Mt. Sutro. Pulling the phone from the side pocket of her purse, she checked the caller ID. She could plug the phone into the slot on her dash and talk hands free, but seeing the number on the LCD caused her to frown.

  “Not tonight,” she said aloud. She wasn’t going to deal with Jack—lying, cheating bastard that he was. Oh yeah, and he was still her husband. Well, not for long. Dropping the phone into its pocket, she concentrated on the narrow road that climbed ever upward past elegant old homes built a hundred years earlier and surrounded by manicured gardens. Near her grandmother’s home, she pressed on the electronic gate opener and slowed as the old iron gates groaned open. She pulled into a spot in front of the garage, hit the button again and, once the gates were locked behind her, tried to figure out how she was going to haul B.J., the pizza box, diaper bag, and purse into the garage and upstairs without dropping the baby or ending up with melted cheese and marinara sauce everywhere.

  “You win, Beej. You get to go first,” she said, tossing her purse into the oversized diaper bag. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she walked around the car, ignoring the tantalizing scent of garlic and pepperoni as she unbuckled her son. “You can stay with your great-grannie while I run back down here,” she told the boy. She hoisted him onto the same hip she used to nudge her car door closed. Rubbing her nose into his ear, she heard him giggle. “Come on.”

  Sometimes it was a real headache to visit Eugenia when the staff had the night off. It would be so much easier for Cissy to spend time at the old mansion when someone else was here to help with the baby. Then there wouldn’t be the problem of dinner, or the guilt that if she didn’t show up the old woman would be disappointed.

  Carrying B.J., who was making loud smacking noises with his lips just to hear himself, she walked along a brick path through tall rhododendrons and ferns that still dripped from the rain that had stopped over an hour earlier. This old house, where she had grown up, held a lot of memories. Maybe too many. Some good and a lot that weren’t, but the brick, mortar, and shake walls, peekaboo dormers and sharp gables had endured two earthquakes and generation after generation of Cahills. For well over a hundred years it had stood on the slopes of Mt. Sutro, offering up commanding views of the city and the bay. Cissy didn’t know if she loved the old house or hated it.

  Oh, get over yourself, she thought, inserting her key into the old lock.

  “Helloooo,” she called as the door opened. “Sorry I’m late, but…Oh God!” She bit back a scream and turned away, hiding her son from the sight of her grandmother lying on the marble floor, blood pooling beneath her head. “Oh God, oh God, oh God!” she whispered. She dropped her keys and the diaper bag, then, still holding B.J. close, fished in her purse for her phone. She was trembling all over, her fingers scrabbling for her cell. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she said over and over as she found the phone and punched out 9-1-1.

  Beej, picking up on her stress, began to howl. Bracing herself, Cissy placed him on the bench on the porch. “Sit here for just a second, honey,” she instructed.

  “No!” he screamed and began scrambling down as she hurried inside.

  “Gran!” Bending down on one knee, Cissy reached to her grandmother’s neck, her fingers searching for a pulse, the phon
e pressed to her ear. She felt nothing beneath her fingertips, no sign of a heart pumping. “Oh, Gran, please be okay.” Her stomach cramped, and she thought she might be sick.

  “Nine-one-one, police dispatch.”

  “Help! I need help!” Cissy yelled. “It’s my grandmother!”

  “Ma’am, please state your name and the nature of your emergency.”

  “There’s been an…an…accident. A horrible accident. My grandmother fell down the stairs! She’s hurt. Bad. There’s blood everywhere. Oh God, I think she might be dead! Send someone quick. Oh God! Oh God, I can’t find a pulse!”

  “What is your address?”

  “Send someone now!”

  “I need the address and the name of the victim.”

  “It’s…it’s…” Cissy rattled off the address as she tried again to find a pulse, to hear even the shallowest drawing of breath. “My grandmother’s Eugenia Cahill. Oh, please send someone…. Hurry!” She glanced over her shoulder, out the door, and didn’t see her son sitting on the bench. “B.J.!” she yelled, panicking.

  “Ma’am. What is your name?”

  “Cissy Holt…er, Cissy Cahill Holt. I was coming over here to dinner, and oh, sweet Jesus, I found Gran, and now my son…Please just hurry!”

  “A patrol car has been dispatched. If you could stay with the victim—”

  “I have to find my son!” She hung up and yelled, “Beej!” But there was no answering response from a tiny voice. “B.J.! Where are you?” Frantic, Cissy jogged outside to the dark night where the rain was starting to fall again. There was nothing to do for her grandmother. Eugenia was dead. Cissy knew it. But her child…Oh God, where was he? He couldn’t have gotten far. She’d let him out of her sight for only a split second. “B.J.!” Panic gripped her to her very soul as she searched the night-darkened grounds. She tried to sound calm when inside she was out of her mind with worry. “B.J.? Honey? Where are you?” She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice, the sheer terror. “Beej?” Dear God, where could he have gone so quickly? The gate was locked…right? It had slammed shut behind the car.

  Or had it?

  “No,” Cissy whispered, running down the walk. New panic seized her. “B.J.! Bryan Jack! Where are you?”

  In the distance, sirens screamed. “Hurry, damn it,” Cissy said, her heart pounding, her mind black with fear. Don’t panic. He’s here, you know he’s here. He’s just as scared as you are. Calm down. Forget that you just saw your grandmother dead, forget that you might have prevented the accident if you had been here on time, forget that your mother, the psycho-bitch, has escaped from prison, and just FIND B.J.!

  Chapter 2

  She couldn’t believe she’d actually gotten away with it!

  Adrenaline sizzled through her blood.

  When the old woman had finally looked at her, she’d almost lost it, but somehow she’d found an inner strength to go through with her plan.

  Now, as the windshield wipers slapped away the rain, her heart drummed a million miles a minute. Triumphant, it was all she could do to ease off the accelerator of her Taurus. She couldn’t afford a speeding ticket, or any kind of interest from the police. Not now.

  Calm down. You can savor this later….

  Her gloved fingers curled over the steering wheel, but she couldn’t quite put aside, not even for an instant, the thrill of the kill and that moment, right before she’d pushed the old woman over the railing, that precise, magnificent moment of recognition when Eugenia had made eye contact with her.

  In that smallest of heartbeats, Eugenia Haversmith Cahill had realized that she was about to meet her maker, that she was facing her own demise. Even so, the old bitch probably hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. She probably thought that there would be a way to talk, bully, or buy her way out of it.

  Too bad.

  Grinning to herself, she turned on the defroster, forcing warm air to blast on the interior of the glass and evaporate the condensation as she gazed through the windshield at the glowing taillights of the sporty little BMW zipping along in front of her. In and out of traffic he wove, his engine whining. Go for it, you idiot, she thought. You get the ticket.

  She remembered the old woman’s horror as she’d been pitched over the railing. Oh, Eugenia had fought and screamed, but she hadn’t been able to save herself. Her small body had slammed into the hard marble floor, the crunch of bones a sickening, satisfying thud.

  Now she flipped on the radio and hummed along to an old song by Sheryl Crow. Staying within the speed limit, she headed over the bridge spanning the night-darkened waters of the bay, following a steady stream of taillights into Oakland.

  Still feeling a bit paranoid, she checked her rearview mirror more than once, making certain she wasn’t being followed.

  She couldn’t get caught. Not yet. Not when there was so much to do, so much to accomplish. Squinting against the headlights reflecting in her mirror, she saw nothing out of the ordinary, no red and blue strobe lights announcing a police cruiser pursuing her.

  For God’s sake, no one’s tailing you! No one knows what you did.

  Relax!

  You got away with it! And the cops…they’re morons.

  Remember that.

  Once on the east side of the bay, she headed north toward Berkeley and calmed a little. She quit holding the steering wheel in a death grip and wasn’t quite as jangled, nor as afraid, nor as high. She exhaled a calming breath as she drove through the suburbs toward Wildcat Canyon, where the dense population gave way to little bungalows and quiet, treelined streets. One more time, just before turning down the road to her little rental house, she rechecked her mirrors. To be safe, she made a couple of quick right turns, watching behind her. Then, satisfied that she was safe from pursuit, she doubled back into an alley behind the two-bedroom cottage she’d leased under a fake name. She remembered handing the leasing agent her fake ID, biting her lip with anxiety, sure that when it was checked the agent would discover the Oregon driver’s license was a fraud. Instead, with a few quick clicks on a computer keyboard to double-check the credit report and job history of Elyse Hammersly, recently of Gresham, Oregon, and acceptance of a cashier’s check, she, as Elyse, had been handed the keys. Wonderful! Now she liked to think of herself as Elyse. Why, she was Elyse. Why not? It was perfect!

  Chuckling to herself, she pulled into the drive. The bungalow had the basic floor plan of post–World War II, with two small bedrooms, single bath, a living area, walk-through dining room, tiny kitchen, and stairs that led to the most important feature of the house: a basement. With special amenities.

  The basement was where this house, nearly identical to every other one on the block, got interesting. And perfect for what she needed.

  Now, however, she had to face her new guest.

  Marla Amhurst Cahill.

  Or, as she liked to think of the woman she’d helped spring: Marla the Missing, or Marla the Escapee. Not that she would ever admit as much to her prickly new roommate.

  The weeks before the actual breakout had been nerve-wracking, and they’d communicated through several different parties. Never once had she visited Marla in prison. Never had she called. The people who had relayed messages had known nothing of their plot, nor had they known her name. Elyse felt her anonymity was secure. Just for good luck, though, she crossed her fingers and braced herself for the confrontation she knew was brewing.

  Though they’d planned this prison break for over two years, and it had gone off without a hitch, Marla, as ever, wasn’t satisfied.

  Sometimes Elyse wondered if it was worth it.

  Of course it is! Millions are at stake! Remember that!

  Slinging the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she climbed out of the car and locked it. Nervous as a cat, she glanced this way and that, peering at the corners of the garage, the garbage can, and the long, sweeping porch, half expecting an ambush of FBI agents with badges flashing and guns pointed at her heart.

  Don’t freak out!
You made it.

  She dashed up the overgrown cement walk to the back porch, where a now-leafless clematis wound skeletally and ropelike over the eaves. She fiddled with her keys until she found the one she needed and slipped it into the deadbolt.

  Click.

  Key ring jingling with her case of nerves, she found a separate key for the second lock and had to twist and jiggle it a bit before the ancient deadbolt slid back with a scrape of metal on metal. Using her shoulder, she pushed the sticky door open to be greeted by the smells of must and dead air. She reminded herself to get some of those air-fresheners, as the cottage had been unoccupied for eight months. Maybe there was a way to convince Marla to get off her ass and break out the Lysol and a mop. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done just that kind of work in the big house, but Marla was still paranoid, afraid someone might see her.

  “I’m never going back,” she’d confided in Elyse. “Not ever. They’ll have to kill me.”

  And Elyse believed her.

  She locked the door behind her, pulled a white sack out of her purse, and dropped the leather bag on the landing. Up half a flight of stairs was the kitchen, where the leaky faucet dripped and an old-fashioned wall clock ticked off the seconds of its life. But she wasn’t interested in what lay upstairs. Instead she double-checked to make certain both locks were latched, then followed the creaking stairs downward into a musty basement that seemed forever damp. The ceilings were low enough that a tall man would have to duck beneath some of the beams, and she’d found more than one nest of spiders hiding in the dark corners of the joists for the floor above.