Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  Paterno scowled. The thought that Eugenia’s daughter-in-law had escaped really gnawed at his gut. He’d worked his ass off to put Marla away years before, and now recently, because of overcrowding and her stellar behavior as a model prisoner, she’d been transferred to a lower-security facility.

  What a mistake! He wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Cahill fortune had been used to grease the skids on that little maneuver. Within two years of the transfer, Marla had found a way to break loose of that country club disguised as a lock-up facility. It hadn’t come as much of a surprise to Paterno, but it pissed him off. In all his years in law enforcement, Paterno would be hard-pressed to come up with a more calculating, murderous bitch than Marla Cahill. The way he saw it, she should have been locked away doing hard time for the rest of her life.

  And now she was out.

  And her mother-in-law, keeper of the family fortune, had just suffered a quick, untimely death.

  Coincidence?

  No friggin’ way.

  Paterno just didn’t take much stock in coincidence.

  Especially not where Cahills were concerned.

  But right now he didn’t want to deal with Jack Holt, or anyone else. Not until he’d gathered a little more evidence. Besides, Holt was a member of the press, and at the moment Paterno wanted reporters far away from his crime scene. “Go ahead and take your wife home,” he agreed. “If I need anything else, I’ll call. And here—” He reached into his wallet, grabbed one of his business cards, and handed it to Holt. “If she needs to get in touch with me, she can reach me at any of these numbers, including my cell.”

  “Okay.” Holt’s face was still grim. “If this is a murder, we want to know. Immediately.”

  “You will.”

  Holt turned and jogged through the falling rain, his shoes slapping on the wet bricks. He skirted a camellia bush, his shoulder swiping a near-dead bloom, a few red petals dropping onto the ground.

  Watching him leave, Paterno couldn’t help wondering if Holt had married Cissy Cahill for love or money. That was the trouble with having millions stashed away in stocks, real estate, or the bank vault—someone was always after a piece of it. You could never be certain if they cared for you because they truly found you fascinating and really loved you, or if they were attracted to you because of the number of zeroes on your bank statement.

  Greed, before, had cost a few people close to the Cahills their lives.

  He made a mental note to check out Holt. Phone records, he told himself, might help. Credit-card receipts and bank balances. If the old lady had been murdered. He glanced through the open doorway, spying the broken body of the little dead woman, appearing, in many ways, like a nestling that had fallen from its nest. In life, Eugenia Cahill had been a force to be reckoned with. Sharp as a tack and definitely the matriarch, she’d run this family with tiny iron fists and an incredible will.

  Had she suffered an unlucky fall?

  Or was it murder?

  With Marla Cahill on the loose, he was betting on the latter.

  Cissy spied Jack running toward the car and rolled down her window. “What’s happening? Can we leave?”

  “The police are still investigating. They’re not sure what went on with your grandmother, and they’re being careful, just in case this isn’t an accident.”

  “Not an accident?” she repeated, her worst fears slicing through her.

  “Nothing’s decided,” he said, standing in the rain, the shoulders of his shirt drenched, his hair dripping, his face a mask of concern.

  Cissy gazed at him. Murder? “No way…no one would want to kill Gran,” she protested, though, deep inside, hadn’t she considered that Eugenia hadn’t just fallen? Her mother’s escape. The cops’ surveillance. Homicide detectives in the house. They all added up to the simple fact that someone was likely behind her grandmother’s death. She felt herself shaking inside, unspoken denials forming on her lips.

  “Paterno gave me the green light to take you home.”

  Cissy didn’t want to leave with Jack, but she had to get out of here, away from the creepy old house with its dead body in the foyer and secrets locked away in all the other rooms. Now lights were glowing in the windows of all four stories, as if a giant party was in full swing, when, instead, police, photographers, criminalists, and God only knew who else were crawling through the rooms where she’d spent so much of her life.

  “Come on, I’m drowning out here. Let’s go.”

  A van marked as belonging to the coroner’s office rolled to the end of the drive and parked between the other vehicles scattered haphazardly on the rain-slickened streets. A reporter, wielding her microphone like a weapon, flew out of a news vehicle and hurried up to the driver of the van as soon as he stepped a foot on the pavement.

  Cissy watched in horror as someone she assumed was the assistant ME gave a quick little interview.

  “Practice your ‘no comments,’” Jack advised, and she remembered that he too had once been with a newspaper, chasing down the latest story not only in Los Angeles, when he was first out of college, but in the Bay Area as well. Now he’d already opened the passenger door and was unbuckling his son. “Come on, big guy, let’s go home.”

  Beej, the traitor, flung his hands up and down and grinned like a goof for his father, who it seemed just happened to be his most favorite person in the world.

  Although she wasn’t crazy about spending any more time with Jack, she didn’t have much of a choice. And, believe it or not, Jack’s company was a lot less stressful than the detective’s. She hauled her purse, diaper bag, and disreputable pizza box with her. Together they wended their way through the emergency vehicles and police barricade. As soon as they stepped onto the street, they were immediately assaulted by the same determined female reporter that had chased down the assistant medical examiner.

  “Miss Cahill!” Cissy heard her name, but ignored the newswoman. “Can you tell us what’s going on? Who died? Was it murder?” The woman hardly paused for a breath, and Cissy pressed on, right behind Jack and B.J., refusing to look into the blinding light held by one of the television station’s crew, or the camera she knew was following her every move. “Does your mother, Marla Cahill, have anything to do with this?”

  Cissy bristled and had to bite her tongue, all the while waiting impatiently as Jack unlocked the door of his Jeep.

  “Have you heard from Marla Cahill since her escape?”

  The locks of the Jeep clicked. Cissy opened the passenger door, nearly knocking over the cameraman.

  “Back off!” Jack shouted across the top of his vehicle. “No comment!”

  Cissy slammed the door with the camera still rolling and with shaking fingers managed to snap her seat belt into place. She’d ridden in this very seat hundreds of times, and yet it felt awkward to be sitting here, staring straight ahead, trying not to meet the eyes of neighbors and the curious who had gathered. It was all so weird. Not just because of the bizarre media circus: police vehicles scattered about, walkie talkies crackling. And not just because her grandmother now lay dead in the big, old house. Her relationship with Jack was weird too.

  She sighed. Now that she and he were separated, there was a little bit of “this is yours” and “this is mine” going on. While before it had been natural to share everything, and she’d never felt the least bit uncomfortable about driving his car, using his laptop, “borrowing” his toothbrush, or wearing one of his shirts as pajamas, now the rules had changed. Their way of interacting with their child, the division of their property, the days of the week when they could expect to see B.J., all this was now written in lawyer doublespeak and tied up with suspicion.

  Jack strapped Beej into his car seat, then slammed the back door, jogged around his vehicle, and climbed behind the steering wheel. “The press,” he said with mock severity as he jammed his keys into the ignition. “All a bunch of vultures.” He offered her a self-deprecating smile, as they both knew he’d been a stringer for a local pa
per, then a full-blown reporter before coming up with the idea and backing for City Wise, his latest venture and the very magazine where Cissy now contributed.

  She understood all too well about stories, spins, and angles, but she didn’t like it when the focus narrowed onto her and her family.

  Jack cranked on the Jeep’s wheel and disengaged the parking brake as he pulled away from the curb. The SUV shot down the steep hill with its narrow, winding street, and Cissy, unaware that she was holding her breath, let out a sigh. “Thank God,” she whispered.

  “Yeah, it’s good to be out of there.”

  That was an understatement. Rubbing her temple, she sneaked a glance in his direction. Jaw rock hard, hands so tight on the wheel his knuckles bleached through, he didn’t seem to notice that she was studying his profile as the headlights from oncoming cars splashed bluish light into the Jeep’s interior, giving her short, almost strobe-light images of his honed features. Deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, rugged jaw, and thick hair that streaked blond in the summer. All he needed was a Stetson and boots and he could be Hollywood’s image of a modern-day cowboy. There was just something about him that whispered “rebel” and “independent” and “irreverent,” all the qualities in a man that attracted her…and now repelled her as a wife. Had he changed? Or had she?

  Of course she’d been a fool to fall so fast and hard for him. He wasn’t the marrying type. She’d known it. All the warning signs had been there, right in her face, and she’d ignored every last one of them. She’d sensed he was a confirmed bachelor, a man who had wanted to play the field, a workaholic who spent countless hours on the job, ensuring the success and growing popularity of his local magazine. He’d worked with the Internet, rather than against it, when it had threatened circulation, and he’d been ahead of the game every step of the way.

  He’d been described as a “rogue” publisher, ruthless and cutthroat with the competition, smarter than most.

  And she’d loved every bit of it.

  Until he’d stepped over the line.

  Now, behind the wheel, he guided the Jeep downhill toward the financial district. As they merged onto Stanyan, she caught a familiar whiff of his aftershave and mentally kicked herself for remembering all too vividly how that scent, and the man, had turned her on. Even on the night when she’d first met him.

  Cissy—in college and wondering what the hell she was going to do with her life—had gone to the benefit for Cahill House at her grandmother’s insistence. She’d intended to make a quick appearance at the stuffy old hotel on Nob Hill just to satisfy Eugenia’s need for “family solidarity,” then ditch out. Even though she thought Cahill House a worthwhile cause, Cissy saw no reason to rub elbows with the stuffed shirts on the board or make small talk with staid members of the several foundations who had helped fund the house.

  Talk about boring!

  What she hadn’t expected when she’d stepped into the grand ballroom with its cut-glass chandeliers, patterned carpet, and incredible view of the bay was Jack Holt with his tie already unbuttoned, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his hair messy from shoving his hands through it one too many times, and the scent of that clean aftershave. A drink in his hand, a cocksure smile on his lips, a square jaw, and a glimmer of irreverence in eyes that were a startling blue, he’d had the nerve to wink at her as she passed—as if the two of them shared a secret.

  A player, she’d thought and written him off.

  She’d run into him a couple of times more throughout the course of the evening, and each time there was something she found interesting, but it wasn’t until she was introduced to him by his father, Jonathan Holt, who knew her grandmother, that he’d gotten to her.

  Maybe if she hadn’t been on the rebound from a rocky relationship with Noah Chandler, a soon-to-be lawyer she’d met at USC, she might not have fallen for Jack’s charms, but the truth of the matter was that she’d been looking for something or someone different. Someone edgier and fun. Maybe someone older.

  It had hurt when she learned that Noah was seeing another law student, a smart, beautiful LA girl whom Cissy had met and sensed had more than a friendly interest in him. She’d known the girl had set her sights on him, though Noah, always playing the part of the innocent, had denied it and had even gone so far as to accuse her of being paranoid.

  It’s hell always being right, Cissy thought with an inner snort.

  A few days after graduation, she and Noah made a final break. A few days after that, Cissy was back in San Francisco and met Jack, all smiles and dimples and sexy eyes. He’d danced with her, drank with her, and, under his breath, made jokes about all the “stiffs” at the party. Ultimately, he charmed the socks—and her siren red dress—off her.

  And it hadn’t ended that night. What started out as a hot one-night stand erupted into an incredible, heady affair ending with a wedding in one of those little chapels in Las Vegas being witnessed by complete strangers. The impulsive elopement had resulted in an incredible son and a marriage that seemed destined to fail from the get-go.

  Cissy shut down the memory. What was the point? She stared out the windshield, watching the wipers slap away the thick raindrops as some old rock song drifted through the speakers. The lights of the city stretched out before them in a dazzling display, and beyond the grid of illumination, the inky waters of the bay stretched to the opposite shore, where more lights sparkled like jewels.

  The beauty of the view was lost on her tonight.

  She felt hollow inside. Numb. She’d never known life without her kid-gloved but iron-fisted grandmother, couldn’t imagine what it would be like now that Eugenia was dead. It could be easier in some ways, but it would certainly be less defined. Eugenia Cahill was nothing if not an autocrat, her rules unbending.

  “You okay?” Jack finally asked.

  “No.”

  “I am sorry, Ciss.”

  “I know.” She blinked against a new rush of tears. She could accept his callousness, even his fury, but not his kindness, not when they had no chance of reconciliation, which they hadn’t. “I just can’t help thinking that if I hadn’t been late, if I’d been there, she wouldn’t have fallen.”

  “You think she fell.”

  “Of course she did,” she said, denying her darkest fears once again.

  “Then why the homicide dick?” Jack’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel nervously as he turned through Haight-Ashbury and past Buena Vista Park. He hit the brakes for a jaywalker, then, once the guy had crossed, said, “Paterno and his partner don’t just show up at every crime scene.”

  “It’s because of my mother,” Cissy said darkly. “Ever since she escaped, the police have been all over the place. As if Marla would come running to me, or to Gran! That’s just plain stupid. She’s smart enough to know that the police would be waiting for her.”

  “So you haven’t heard from her?”

  Jack thought Marla had contacted her? She pinned him with an incredulous glare. “Are you nuts?”

  “It’s normal that she would want to see you. She might even want to see James.”

  “She doesn’t know where he is,” Cissy said, thinking of her brother, who was nearly eleven now, hidden away in Oregon with her aunt and uncle. “My guess is that she’s going to run as far away as possible. Maybe Mexico. Canada.”

  “She’ll need papers. ID.”

  Cissy sent him a don’t-be-so-naive look. “She broke out of prison. I think she can figure out how to avoid the police and get forged documents. If she didn’t know how to before she was arrested, I bet she does now. Surely some of her ‘friends’ on the inside know people on the outside who can get any kind of ID she’ll need.”

  “She couldn’t get documents without help or money.”

  “Well, she’s getting none from me,” Cissy stated positively. “And I think the police figure she had an accomplice working with her.”

  “Who?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” she said. It was one she�
��d been asking herself ever since learning Marla had broken out. “I can’t imagine who would want to help her.”

  “Not everyone hated her.”

  That much was true, she thought as they eased around a final corner before reaching her street. Her mother had always attracted flocks of people. Not only beautiful, but rich as well. But to help her escape? Not exactly the actions of someone she shopped or played tennis with.

  Jack nosed his Jeep into the drive in front of the garage, and she felt a bit of relief at just being home. Had it been less than three hours since she’d unknowingly driven to her grandmother’s house? In that short time span her life had changed irrevocably. Now she slid out of the SUV and gathered her things while Jack carried Beej into the house and deposited him into his high chair.

  It all seemed so natural.

  The tiny nuclear family.

  But it wasn’t. She couldn’t allow herself to be seduced into thinking things between her husband and herself had slipped back into the trust they’d vowed when they married. Even though it seemed perfectly normal for him to be standing in the kitchen, she had to remind herself that things had changed. Forever. A little bit of her heart tore, but she ignored it.

  Before her husband could get too comfortable, Cissy said, “I think I can handle it from here. Thanks.”

  His lips tightened at the corners. “Don’t do it, Ciss,” he warned.

  “Do what?”

  “Play the part of the bitchy ex-wife. You know, all prickly and able to handle life on her own no matter what kind of trauma she’s just been through.”