Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  She drew in a couple of slow breaths, taking her time, searching for her own equilibrium. “Count your blessings,” she told herself, whispering one of Gran’s favorite sayings. She’d gotten no ticket. There was no fender bender.

  But it was still morning.

  God only knew what the rest of the day would bring.

  Lost in thought, she drove down the hill. She stopped for a red light at a crosswalk near the park. As her engine idled, a brightly colored bus belched clouds of exhaust her way, the smelly smoke mingling with the bits of fog still trailing through the city.

  Cissy waited, foot on the brake, fingers tapping the wheel.

  Several pedestrians crossed in front of her. An old man walked his impossibly tiny dog, a young couple held hands, lost in their own world, a teenager on a skateboard with a stocking cap pulled down to frame his face rolled past, skating around a businessman in a long, dark coat.

  Cissy snapped to attention.

  She focused on the man in black.

  Sure enough, it was the same creep who’d nearly knocked her down. As she contemplated blasting him with her horn, he turned to look straight at her. She froze. Had she seen him somewhere before, not just on the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop? He never stopped walking to the bus stop, but he stared at her long and hard with eyes that seemed to have no soul. And then, before he stepped onto the curb where the bus was waiting, he smiled. A cold, toothy grin that quietly promised they would meet again. Though no word was spoken, Cissy understood the silent message.

  The bump on the sidewalk at Joltz had been no accident.

  This appearance in front of her car had been planned.

  She thought of the figure she’d seen just the night before staring at her bedroom window. At B.J.’s window.

  Her heart jackhammered.

  Her blood froze in her veins.

  What the hell was this all about?

  She needed to pull over and accost the man, right here, in broad daylight, with witnesses.

  And what?

  Accuse him of hitting her with his briefcase on purpose?

  Of walking in a crosswalk and grinning evilly?

  She, the daughter of Marla Cahill?

  Impotently, she watched him disappear behind the idling bus, then heard the honk of an angry horn. The light had turned green, and the guy in the Range Rover behind her was in a hurry. “Get a life,” she muttered, stepping on the gas, but as she drove through the intersection, she kept one eye on her rearview mirror, where fog was clouding her view and the bus bullied its way into traffic.

  The man in the black coat with the frighteningly cold grin was gone. Like a scary-looking marionette yanked quickly off the stage by unseen hands, he’d vanished.

  Chapter 8

  Marla was sitting on the bed, propped up by pillows, a book on the night table, the television turned on, but muted, a rerun of some reality cop show casting shadows in the poorly lit room.

  And she wasn’t pleased.

  Big, big surprise.

  Nor had she gotten off her sorry ass and cleaned the upstairs, claiming that she might be “seen” by some nosy neighbor peeking through the blinds or windows.

  What a crock!

  Elyse had known dealing with Marla would be difficult, of course she’d known it! The woman was notorious for being self-serving and wanting to be treated like the princess she’d thought she’d been born to be. But she’d never been lazy before. And all during the planning of the escape, she’d done her part. Eagerly. Anxiously. Cleverly.

  Now all her sly aggression had flown out the shuttered windows, replaced by idle ennui and sharp remarks. “I thought you’d be back earlier,” she accused. “I’m bored sick. And don’t start in with that garbage about me going upstairs and cleaning toilets or sweeping floors. I’ve had enough of that.”

  Elyse bit her tongue. She didn’t know how much more of the woman’s complaining she could take. “After work I stopped by a couple of stores and bought you some things to wear, as a disguise.”

  “You really think I’d risk that?”

  “Not right now, but soon, yeah.” Elyse had carried two shopping bags down the rickety steps and behind the false wall to Marla’s room. “Take a look.” She felt a little zing of triumph as she pulled out the clothes, body padding and wig that would transform “Marla the Beautiful” into “Marla the Frump”: old-lady shoes, support hose, and an ugly brown housedress that was voluminous enough to hide the fat suit she would wear beneath. The wig she’d found was short and neat, somewhere between platinum blond and gray.

  Marla gazed at the items, repulsed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Ignoring Marla’s sarcasm, Elyse placed each item of clothing next to the other. “No, I’m not kidding. They’re perfect! I found them all at the thrift store.”

  “I bet. You know, maybe I’ll just stay in.”

  “You can’t hide forever.”

  “I’m not hiding!” she snapped. “I’m just being careful. Can’t you get that? I’m not going to wear any of those!” She sneered at the floral print in brown and gray. “God, it looks like you tried to find the ugliest clothes in the universe and succeeded!”

  “I just tried to find you things that would make you blend in.”

  “Oh, right, like this is the pinnacle of haute couture in San Francisco this year! Everyone’s wearing ugly prints and shoes that look like they came out of the sixties.” She threw a look of scorn at the plain, flat loafers. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “You’re not going to be walking through the business district or having lunch at the Four Seasons,” Elyse replied with forced patience. “You’ll just be in the car, and we don’t want anyone on the street who has seen your picture on TV to recognize you. I thought you’d want to get out.”

  Marla turned quiet.

  Again.

  She had the whole passive-aggressive act down to a science, and Elyse knew what this was all about. She’d altered the plan enough that Marla was still pouting. Punishing her. Giving her the silent treatment.

  Elyse reached into her bag again, this time coming up with a sandwich from the deli just down the street from where she really lived. “You might like this: turkey, lite mayo, even some cranberries. Kinda like Thanksgiving.” She took the wrapped sandwich out of the bag and left it on the night table along with a can of diet soda, a pickle and a small bag of chips.

  “You know I like beef,” Marla reminded her in that same cool soft voice that irritated the hell out of Elyse. The quieter Marla got, the stronger her words seemed to be. Oh, she was so sly, a master at the psychological game-playing.

  “I just thought, after the hamburger, you might want something different.” But maybe not. Marla’s minifridge was stocked with salads and soups in cups that only required heating in the microwave. There were apples on top of the refrigerator and instant oatmeal along with the coffeemaker and special French roast blend that Marla had insisted upon, some kind of obscure coffee she’d had ten years earlier. Elyse had worked hard to find that stuff and had Marla even uttered one word of thanks? Of course not!

  “Just try on the clothes and we’ll go out in a week or so, once they’re convinced that you’re in Oregon or Washington. I’ve got a guy who agreed to drop off your prison clothes at a rest stop on I-5, somewhere around Roseburg. The cops will think you’re heading north or making a run for the Canadian border. Either way, the heat will be off San Francisco.”

  For once, Marla looked relieved. “Good,” she said, and actually showed some interest in the sandwich. “I don’t try to be a bitch.”

  It just comes naturally, Elyse thought, but clenched her teeth and didn’t let the words pass through her lips. “And I’ll look for something else for you to wear.”

  “Do I have to be fat?”

  Here we go with the demands.

  “It will help. No one will expect you to have gained weight. It’s just a disguise.”

  “I’ve never been heavy in my life
.”

  “Exactly.” Time to experience new lows in self-esteem.

  Marla gave up a long-suffering sigh, but didn’t argue.

  “Look, we can start with your hair. Let me trim it a little,” and to her surprise, Marla didn’t argue. “Here, you can watch.” She found the hand mirror that Marla always kept near her and handed it to the vain woman, forcing it into her tense fingers.

  “I don’t know…”

  “Marla, please.”

  “Not too much,” Marla warned.

  “Just a trim…We can talk about color later.” She found a pair of scissors and began snipping carefully at Marla’s long, mahogany-colored tresses. She was careful with her scissors, clipping around the edges of Marla’s hair and sneaking a few locks into her pocket. Fortunately, Marla was too busy gazing at herself to notice.

  Only when Elyse pulled harder, as if her finger had gotten caught in a few hairs, pulling them out by the roots, did Marla look up sharply, her gaze finding Elyse’s in the mirror. “Ouch!” she shrieked. “What’re you trying to do? Scalp me?”

  “Sorry. Mistake,” Elyse lied.

  “Well, for Christ’s sake, be careful!” Marla hissed in a low, angry whisper as she shot Elyse a baleful look full of mistrust.

  “I said I was sorry, okay?” Elyse pretended to be wounded. “I’m just trying to help. See how nice this is going to look when I’m finished?”

  “Fine.” She eyed her reflection critically, and Elyse held her breath. “So, tell me again about Eugenia,” she finally said, calmer now, nearly smiling, in fact. It was almost as if the pampering had mollified her.

  God, the woman had an ego! And a temper.

  Elyse felt a little niggle of trepidation. Marla could be so deadly. Elyse had witnessed Marla’s volatile mood swings with her own eyes. She reminded herself to watch her back. On the day that they’d made good on Marla’s escape, she’d been elated. There had been an almost manic jubilation on Marla’s part; her eyes had been as green and deep as the waters of San Francisco Bay, her smile absolutely infectious. No wonder men had fallen all over themselves to be with her. She was pushing fifty, but you’d never know it. She’d kept in shape in prison and even with minimal makeup she was beautiful. She’d let her hair blow free on the day of the escape, rolling down the window of the car that they’d picked up at a rest stop, drinking in the fresh, damp air despite the cold and fog that had socked in the entire Bay Area.

  But now, of course, some of that euphoria had worn off. The gleam of triumph that had been so evident when Marla had slipped away from the prison in a delivery van had disappeared. She was paranoid. Hiding behind double locks in a dark basement, the jubilation having dissipated to become something akin to depression…silent, moody, dark depression. Sometimes Elyse had to work hard to scare up a smile, or even a word, from the woman.

  Not for the first time Elyse wondered if the risk of springing Marla had been a mistake.

  Well, there was no going back.

  It was all part of the plan, all for the money.

  Remember the money.

  They had planned that she’d hide out here, and the escape had been years in the making. Years! Elyse couldn’t blow it now. Wouldn’t.

  Marla had promised to bide her time, change her appearance, then leave once some of the fervor of the hunt had died down. But now Elyse sensed she wanted to speed things up, that she was getting impatient.

  “I can’t stand it here,” Marla complained.

  “I know, I know, but now we don’t have a choice. Remember, we talked this over.”

  “But I didn’t know it would be so dark, so…alone.”

  “I told you that you can go upstairs. Just keep the curtains drawn. You should move around more, get your blood pumping.”

  “As if I could!” Marla said with a sneer. “Don’t you get it? Someone might see me. I may as well be back in prison!”

  “No way,” Elyse argued. She couldn’t have Marla thinking that! Not after all the risks she’d taken.

  Marla seemed somewhat mollified. “Fine. You were telling me about how you killed the dried-up old prune.”

  “Your mother-in-law,” Elyse reminded her gently.

  “Eugenia.” Marla made a moue of distaste at the memories of her mother-in-law. “So go on, tell me, did she recognize you?”

  “Oh, yeah. It was great,” Elyse admitted, rubbing in her victory a bit, still feeling the thrill running through her veins. “She didn’t even see it coming.” Smiling down at Marla, Elyse said, “I wish you could have been there to see it, the way she flew over the railing, sailing and screaming and landing on the floor with such an incredible crack. It was so loud, it was like I could feel it in my body. Then it was silent, and she was staring up at me vacantly. I don’t even know if she was dead yet, but I picked up that stupid little dog so that the last image she had was of me stroking it.”

  “Did you kill it too?”

  “The dog?” Elyse recoiled as if she’d just encountered a horrid smell. “Of course not. I left it there, locked in a cupboard so it wouldn’t follow me, but the police or someone would find it.”

  “I hate that dog,” Marla said.

  “You hate everything.”

  “I liked being a Cahill,” she said with sudden longing. “It was even better than being an Amhurst, let me tell you.”

  “If you say so.” Elyse checked her watch. “Look, I can’t stay. I’ve got to keep up appearances, you know. But I’ll be back soon, when it’s safe.”

  “It’ll never be safe,” Marla said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Sure I do.” She was nasty again. Angry. Pouting.

  More trouble than she’s worth…. But that wasn’t true. Marla was worth a bundle…a damned fortune. If they played their cards right. And Elyse intended to. Along with a stacked deck, she had an ace up her sleeve. One Marla wasn’t privy to.

  “Good-bye, Marla,” she said, but the other woman wouldn’t so much as look at her. In the blink of an eye, Marla had gone back into her morose pouting. God, her act was already getting old.

  Too bad.

  Elyse knew what she had to do.

  She pushed the fake wall back into place and wound her way through the dank basement, then up the old stairs. She had to return to their original plan. It was the only way to keep Marla satisfied.

  Well, so be it, she thought, locking the house with her key and hurrying to the Taurus.

  Marla wanted her brother Rory dead.

  So Elyse would take care of it.

  The retard was history.

  Cissy’s concentration was shot. She couldn’t outline the article she’d planned to write—the same article that had sat on her computer for weeks was still a bunch of jumbled notes. Four weeks earlier she’d interviewed a new, young candidate for mayor, but it was the same week Cissy had found out about Larissa and kicked Jack out. Not long after that, when she’d tried to pull her notes together, her psycho mother had escaped from prison. Now her grandmother had fallen to her death—or been murdered—and she was dealing with grief and guilt. Maybe the article wasn’t meant to be written.

  Cissy sighed. Between the house phone and her cell, she must’ve fielded over twenty phone calls: all short, one-sided conversations about her grandmother. Family members, including her father’s cousin Cherise, whom she could not stand, had phoned. People who knew her grandmother from her civic work, or friends of Eugenia who had played cards or taken trips with her, even some woman from Sacramento who claimed to have roomed with Gran at Vassar had called. Cissy’s e-mail in-box was filled with inquiries and expressions of sympathy. Heather, a friend from her sorority at USC; Gwen, her personal trainer; and Tracy, who had ridden horses with her when they were in grade and high school—all of them had e-mailed or sent text messages to her phone. Of course, there was the press too: reporters fishing for some information about Gran’s death, and, if they got the chance, they asked about Marla as well. As promised, Deborah had e-maile
d her the names of the Cahill attorneys and accountant, so Cissy was dealing with legal matters and tax issues as well. It was getting so overwhelming, she’d started screening her calls, avoiding those she didn’t want to take and just leaving them in her voice-mail box to access later. Ditto for the e-mail.

  It was a flippin’ nightmare.

  And things were only getting worse as the afternoon wore on. Cissy was working in her office, a little niche by the exercise room, while Tanya was supposed to be taking B.J. for a stroll before it got dark. The sun, setting low, was peeking from behind a veil of clouds, out for the first time all day. For the next forty-five minutes, if they were lucky, there would be some light. Since Tanya hadn’t gotten around to taking Beej out yet, Cissy decided it was time she and her son hit the streets. She clicked off the computer, nudged aside Coco, who had been sleeping at her feet, and stretched out of her chair. Snapping a rubber band around her ponytail, she then changed into jogging pants, finding her favorite running shoes in the back of her closet. After snagging a hooded sweatshirt for herself, she headed to B.J.’s room and grabbed his little down coat and stocking cap, another piece of headwear he detested.

  “Tanya, I’ll take Beej out, I need the exercise,” she said as she hurried downstairs.

  The front door opened as she reached the bottom step, and a gust of cold air and her estranged husband swept inside. Cissy instantly put on the brakes and tried not to notice that it seemed right for him to walk into the house after a day of work. Just like he had every weekday throughout their ill-fated marriage. She ignored any sense of nostalgia as he glanced up at her. “Did you forget you don’t live here anymore?” She shot Tanya a don’t-interrupt-me look when she saw an explanation or protest of some kind forming on the nanny’s lips.

  “What?” he asked, in the cocksure way of his that irritated the hell out of her as he slid his arms out of the sleeves of his overcoat. “No martini waiting for me? No wife in a cute little French maid outfit?”