Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  “Damned straight.”

  She hung up, and he scratched at his chin, hearing the scrape of his fingernails against his five o’clock shadow. What would Cissy Holt’s hairs be doing around the screwdriver? Why would she jam the lock, then call the police?

  To fake them out?

  Because she was cracking up?

  He thought she might be on the verge of a breakdown…but that might be a ruse on her part. Maybe to sabotage the investigation? Tell the authorities she’d seen her mother, when she really hadn’t?

  Was she trying to turn the police in the wrong direction?

  Was Marla long gone, out of the state, and Cissy the one behind the murders?

  His stomach started burning once more, and he thought he should really see the doc again, but right now, he was too damned busy to hang out in a waiting room. He opened the drawer to his desk, sifted through the pencils, paper clips, pens, and rubber bands before he found a bottle of Tums. It was nearly empty. Great. Popping the last two into his mouth with one hand, he tossed the empty bottle into the trash with the other.

  So what did Cissy Holt stand to gain by twisting the truth?

  More of the family fortune?

  Her mother’s safety?

  A scapegoat for her own crimes?

  He glanced at the open files in front of him. Two dead bodies. Rory Amhurst and Eugenia Cahill, connected by one woman, Marla Amhurst Cahill.

  Cissy Holt’s mother.

  He decided it was time to do a little more digging into Cissy’s privileged life.

  Who knew what he’d find?

  Cherise hung up.

  Alone in her own home, standing in the middle of the kitchen, she didn’t know what to do.

  She’d left three messages on Donald’s cell phone and one in his hotel room, but he hadn’t called back. No doubt he was deep into discussions about the mission the church was planning to create in a small Mexican village. Nonetheless, she wished he would call, prayed that he would. He was such a good, wise husband, and she leaned on him more than she should. They’d had some rocky times in their marriage, but really, what couple hadn’t shared the bad with the good? Recently, though, she and her husband were solid. Right?

  Don’t question him! Learn to trust.

  Perhaps that was why God, or the Reverend Donald himself, had decided he shouldn’t return her calls. So that she would make her own decisions, be the strong one.

  She hated the fact that everyone thought she was weak, that her previous three marriages seemed to indicate that she couldn’t handle her life by herself. But that wasn’t it. She could. She just didn’t want to. She liked being married, loved being part of a couple, needed that feeling of being a half of a solid whole. The few months she was single between her marriages, she’d always felt adrift. At sea. Almost as if she were doomed to drown.

  But Reverend Donald had saved her, and they’d married to create this perfect union. Well, near perfect. And so she wanted to talk to him, to tell him that she was certain that she’d actually seen Marla driving a silver car near the Cahill estate, a place Cherise often drove by. She’d been cruising along a road that wound near the university hospital which backed up to the estate and there, clear as day, driving a little erratically, had been Marla. Or she thought it was Marla. She’d caught only a quick glimpse as the approaching silver Taurus had shot down the road, but the woman at the wheel, who was the spitting image of Marla Amhurst Cahill, had looked over as she’d sped past. For a split second their gazes had locked in recognition before the Taurus had rounded a corner and disappeared from view. Cherise had been so startled she’d nearly hit the curb. She hadn’t had time to write down the license plate number. She’d managed a quick U-turn, but by the time she’d reached the corner of the winding road, the Taurus was long gone.

  So now, she considered calling the police.

  First, though, she’d like to talk to her husband, get his advice. If only he’d call back.

  She picked up the plant mister she kept on the mantel and sprayed the leaves of the potted philodendron that grew between the window and her piano. If Donald wanted her to be strong, so be it. If the Lord thought she needed to make her own decisions, then so she would.

  Aside from her view of Marla, Cherise had other things she would like to discuss with her husband. The truth of the matter was, she just didn’t really know how to handle Cissy. The girl was a blasting cap, ready to go off at a second’s notice. Cherise would have to tread carefully, flatter her and the boy, remind her that they were all part of an ever-dwindling family.

  At that thought, too, Cherise felt edgy. She set the plant sprayer on the mantel, adjusted the sparkling barrettes she used to hold her hair away from her face, and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror hung over the mantel. Oh dear, she was getting old. Wrinkles had begun to line her face, dark spots on her skin had to be hidden with makeup, her teeth needed bleaching again, and gray hairs were threading through her blond tresses at an alarming rate. She was still thin, but things had begun to sag. Uneasy, she walked to the liquor cabinet, where she kept her bottle of gin. She drank rarely but tonight, well, she needed a little liquid courage, so she poured herself a healthy shot into a short glass.

  “Oh, please, Donald, call!” she said to the empty house, a three-bedroom Southern California-style home with a red tile roof and gold stucco walls. She tossed a splash of tonic water into her glass of gin, then carried the drink into the kitchen, adding a twist of lime and three ice cubes. Staring outside, she wondered if she’d done the right thing. She even considered calling one of her kids, but decided against it. She’d received only one phone call from them since Christmas, and that had been about money.

  Of course.

  Ungrateful children.

  She suspected that her two oldest had turned their backs on God completely. Her husband, kind man that he was, had advised her, when she’d broached the subject, that “They’ll be back in their own time. Let them make their own choices. God will guide them.” She wasn’t so sure. In fact, she was afraid all their hard-earned money was going for beer and weed, maybe even ecstasy or mushrooms. Dear Lord, she knew what a tainted path drugs led to, and the thought that her babies were experimenting scared her half to death. And made her angry.

  “Oh, well,” she said and took an experimental sip. Ummmm. Another sip, and the chilled gin slid smoothly down her esophagus.

  She walked into the living room again and started plotting what she would say, how she would appeal to Cissy. After all, the girl was little more than a kid, in her mid-twenties. Cherise could handle her. Another long swallow, and she felt the warmth in her bloodstream.

  It was almost time.

  She closed her eyes.

  Willed her muscles to loosen.

  Heard the creak of a floorboard.

  Her eyes flew open. No one was in the house. And the sound was too heavy to be the cat, right? “Patches?” she called, searching for the calico. “Here, kitty, kitty…Oh, for heaven’s sake, where are you?”

  She rounded the corner and looked into the darkened front vestibule, where the cat often hid under an antique table on which the family Bible was displayed. “You naughty girl…oh!” She stopped short. Sheer terror shot through her.

  A woman stood in the shadows. A woman with a gun leveled squarely at Cherise’s chest.

  Cherise dropped her glass. It crashed onto the tile floor, shattering, glass flying, liquid splattering, ice cubes skittering.

  “Don’t say a word,” the woman ordered in a low hiss that caused Cherise’s blood to run cold. “Not one word.”

  Cherise swallowed back her scream.

  What could she do? She had mace in her purse, but that wouldn’t help. She could run, but there was nowhere to hide. She could—

  The woman stepped out of the shadows and for a second Cherise thought she’d gone mad.

  “Marla?” she whispered, disbelieving. She nearly peed her pants as she saw her assailant’s cruel expres
sion. Other than the quick glimpse earlier, Cherise hadn’t seen her cousin’s wife in ten years, but this woman…oh dear God, she looked so much like Marla. “Please don’t. Show some mercy…. We’re related…Please, oh God…no!”

  “Uh-oh. I guess you didn’t hear me,” Marla said. Her lips twisted in an ugly grin.

  Before Cherise could utter another word, the woman fired point-blank. Cherise fell back, stumbling against a small table.

  “Ssss!” The cat, hiding behind a potted plant, hissed loudly, arched her back, and dashed into the kitchen.

  Cherise landed on the floor. Her head cracked against the Mexican tiles.

  Pain exploded behind her eyes.

  A hot, oozing sensation spread through her abdomen.

  Her assailant stepped closer, holding the gun on her. “You miserable, money-grubbing bitch. I hope you go to hell.”

  Marla? Why? No…no…not Marla…

  As darkness pulled her under, Cherise watched her killer drop something soft and floating onto the floor in the vestibule before she slipped out the unlocked front door.

  Why? she wondered futilely, knowing she couldn’t make it to a phone, to anyone in time. She felt the lifeblood seeping out of her.

  I’m going to die…oh God, Donald, I’m going to die…Please know that I love you…. I…love… The blackness dragged her under. A blessing and she gave herself up to it.

  Please God, take my soul.

  Chapter 15

  Elyse’s blood sang through her veins.

  Killing Cherise had felt so right. And the confusion and sheer terror in her eyes when she’d thought she was facing off with wicked Marla.

  Priceless!

  Almost as satisfying as watching that pampered bitch Cissy nearly stumble down the stairs when she’d thought she’d seen her mother in the doorway of the house on Mt. Sutro. God, what a rush! It would have been so easy to kill her then, and Elyse had considered it. She’d had the gun with her. But she wanted Cissy to twist in the wind a bit more, feel a little pain, the kind Elyse had lived with for years.

  “You’ll get yours,” she said and thought about the man she loved…. Oh, wouldn’t it be perfect to make love to him tonight, when the thrill of the kill was still in her bloodstream, the adrenaline rush still pounding through her.

  Eyes on the road, she reached into the side pocket of her purse, pulled out her cell, and hit the “2” pre-set button. It rang once, and a male voice answered.

  “Hello?”

  Holy Christ! This was the wrong phone. She’d used Cissy’s damned phone.

  She clicked off and cussed herself up one side and down the other. What had she been thinking? Had she been too high, too revved up not to notice the subtle difference in the cell phones?

  She had to ditch it now. Fast. Fortunately, she was near the bridge. Stepping on the gas, she drove across the illuminated span and tried hard to keep the needle of her speedometer under the limit. Her heart was pounding, her skin hot, sweat collecting under her hair.

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered, and at the south end of the bridge, before driving into the city, she turned into the park and left her car so that she could walk back along the span and, once she was a distance from the shoreline, wipe Cissy’s cell phone clean and drop it over the railing and into the water so far below. It would never be found. Quickly, once her mission was accomplished, she walked briskly back to her car and climbed behind the wheel. She had t o be more careful. She’d already nearly run over a bicyclist, and then there was the woman walking her damned dog when Elyse had left Cherise’s house. Fortunately she was wearing the disguise and it had been dark, but there was always a remote chance either she or her car would be recognized. And then she called the wrong number by dialing Cissy’s bloody phone. God, she had to be smarter if this was going to work. She had a few people on the payroll; the guy from whom she’d bought her fake ID had also done a great job of terrorizing Cissy, bumping into her at the coffee shop and then walking in front of her car. But he could talk. Elyse just wasn’t too sure how much she could trust him.

  And she couldn’t afford any more slipups.

  Not now.

  Not when she was so close to getting everything that was due her.

  Though she wasn’t as high as she had been a few minutes earlier, she was still keyed up, and so she tried again, this time with the right phone. Her phone.

  The phone rang three times before he picked up. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” she said a little breathily. “What’re you doing?”

  “Not much,” he admitted, and she heard the wariness in his voice.

  “Are you alone?”

  “No,” he said, giving nothing away to whoever was close by.

  “I thought we could get together.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know if we can meet tomorrow.”

  “I’m talking about tonight.”

  “I know.” He was covering, trying to hide the fact that he was talking to her because of the other person or persons he was with. That was the trouble with cell phones, the double-edged sword of anonymity. Not only could the person you called not know where you were, but you too had no idea where he was when he picked up. He could well be in the city, across the country, or at home in bed…with whomever.

  She felt a burning in her gut, but disguised it. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “I told you this wasn’t a done deal.”

  “You know where I’ll be,” she said in a low voice. “And you know what I’ll be wearing…. We’ll have ourselves a really good time.”

  “I just don’t know.”

  “Trust me, you want to see me. To touch me. To kiss me. I’ll do things to your body you can’t begin to imagine.”

  He laughed a little then. “Look, I’ll be in the office in the morning. I’ll call you.”

  And then the bastard hung up.

  “You goddamned cocksucker!” she hissed, knowing full well that he’d show. He couldn’t resist her. Oh, sure, there were other women in his life; she knew that. He wasn’t the kind of man to be satisfied with only one woman, but hell, she intended to change that. Maybe tonight. She was sick to the back teeth of him admitting that he still loved his wife. What a crock!

  “Bastard.” He’d better be careful.

  Now that the phone was properly ditched, she swung the car around again and headed back to Sausalito, to the place to which she knew he would return. It was there that they laughed and made love, there that they’d plotted out how to spring Marla from prison, there that they’d laid out their plans.

  He’d show up.

  He couldn’t resist. She knew that about him.

  She considered meeting him in her Marla garb, but decided against it. Once she was back at the house, she’d ditch the green contacts, red-brown wig, padding in her bra, enhancers in her cheeks, and lifts in her shoes.

  She didn’t look that much like Marla, but the power of suggestion was a strong and wonderful thing, especially if one was seeing ghostly elevators open or staring down the barrel of a handgun.

  She smiled to herself, gave herself a pat on the back. “Good work, Marla,” she said and thought of the real Marla Cahill, that pathetic creature in the basement.

  She couldn’t wait to take off anything that remotely resembled the woman. In only a few minutes, she’d shower and be herself again.

  And then she’d wait for the turn of the key and the familiar sound of his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to her bedroom….

  “The Sausalito police just called,” Janet Quinn said, strapping on her sidearm as she reached Paterno’s desk. It was ten in the morning, and she was serious. “Looks like we’ve got another dead relative of Marla Cahill.”

  “What?” He glanced up from his notes. The homicide unit was bustling this morning, conversation loud, phones ringing, computers humming, shoes scraping against the floor as detectives walked from one area to the next. “Who?”

  “Cherise Favier. Shot
dead in her own house.”

  “Jesus!” Paterno said. He hadn’t seen that one coming.

  “The neighbor she usually goes walking with called 9-1-1 this morning. She was so upset the operator could barely understand her. Come on, I’ll drive and fill you in.” They walked out of the station together and headed for Quinn’s car rather than use a department vehicle. Paterno forced himself into the passenger side of Quinn’s red Jetta and clicked on his seatbelt as she tore out of the lot. The traffic was thick, morning rush hour still creating gridlock in the city, but a few rays of sun filtered through the thick, gray sky.

  “This is what we know so far,” Quinn said, turning on her blinker and looking over her shoulder as she wove her way into the next lane. “Cherise was alone. Her husband was in Sacramento on church business.”

  “He’s got an alibi?” Paterno had never liked the Reverend Donald and thought the preacher was full of hot air and BS, heavy on the BS.

  Quinn’s mouth twisted wryly. “You’re going to love this one. Turns out he was with Heather Van Arsdale.”

  “Cissy Holt’s friend?” He remembered seeing her at the funeral. Young and hip. Pretty. Good body.

  “One and the same. And it gets more and more interesting. Heather, when she’s not an elementary school teacher, volunteers at the church. She’s some kind of computer whiz or something. Anyway, she and the reverend, they were a little more than business associates, or preacher and parishioner. They were pretty cozy. Had connecting rooms at the hotel in Sacramento.”

  “Figures,” Paterno said. “I never trusted the guy.” He slid Quinn a glance. “You remember, he was in trouble before. Can’t seem to keep his zipper up.”

  “It goes further than that,” Quinn said, cutting through traffic toward the Golden Gate Bridge. On the north end of the span lay the community of Sausalito and Marin County. “Heather was a college friend of Cissy Cahill.”

  “I know. So how does that all work together?”

  She shook her head and reached into the console for her sunglasses.

  “Optimist,” Paterno said as she slipped the shades onto her face and eased toward the incredible rust-colored bridge with its spiraling towers and wide span. There was more traffic flowing into the city than flowing out, but the lanes were still clogged. Paterno barely noticed the view as they spanned the neck of water connecting San Francisco Bay with the Pacific Ocean. Two hundred feet below, green water sparkled in the wintry sunlight, a few sailboats and islands visible, but Paterno was trying to piece together the puzzle that was the Cahill murders. He reached in his pocket, withdrew a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, and offered a stick to Quinn.