Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

Though her pulse was pounding and she wanted to get as far away from the bitch as possible, she was careful as she drove, not attracting any unwanted attention.

  She wondered when her lover would show. Surely he wouldn’t stand her up again. She felt a little sliver of worry about it and didn’t like the turn of her thoughts.

  Patience, she reminded herself, was a virtue.

  It just seemed virtues were often vastly overrated.

  Bayside Hospital

  San Francisco, California

  Room 316

  Friday, February 13

  NOW

  I can hear them talking—the doctors, nurses, and others, people I cannot see, as I can’t open my damned eyes. How long have I lain here? Five minutes? Five days? For the love of God, can’t they, with all their expensive equipment, realize that I’m not as near death as they think? I just need a little more time.

  I hear them talking about me, discussing me as if I’m just another case, not a living, breathing woman. Sometimes they argue—oh, please, let the believers hold sway!

  It’s my life that’s in the balance.

  One deep voice is holding out for my life, insisting that they give me a little more time to recover, to show some sign that I’m improving.

  Jack?

  Is Jack my champion? The one with all the faith?

  No…not Jack, but a doctor, the one who insists that I’ll respond soon. His name is Reece; the nurses speak to him with deference, and, when he’s not in the room, talk about how “hot” he is, how good looking. This man, this Dr. Reece, could be my savior, my only chance for survival.

  Dr. Reece, please, please don’t listen to them! Trust in me. In my life.

  He’s speaking now, but his arguments are fading; the other voices, that of a woman doctor named Dr. Lee and a nurse, are persuading him that I’m a lost cause.

  No, oh, please, no…

  I can do nothing but wait anxiously, praying they will not end my life, but eventually even my one last hope is convinced. Dr. Reece finally listens to reason, to medical charts, to data and computers. He touches my arm, and I try vainly to respond.

  Don’t do this!

  Don’t give up on me!

  But it’s too late.

  He agrees with the others: there is no hope. I won’t come out of this coma. The specialists think I’ll never awaken.

  For the millionth time, I strain to move my hand, to flutter my eyelids, to force some kind of wheezing noise through my vocal cords, but nothing happens; there is only stillness and the ever-present atmosphere of resignation.

  This is all so wrong!

  “There’s nothing more we can do,” Dr. Lee says.

  No! Oh no! Please don’t let me die…. I can hear you…. Don’t give up on me.

  Call my family. Call Jack…. I’m sorry for all the mistakes I made, I’m sorry if I let anyone down, I’m sorry if I hurt anyone, but please, I’m too young to die. If I could change anything I would, but I can’t.

  Now all I can do is remember….

  Chapter 16

  Damn it, this house should have been hers!

  Elyse stripped off her clothes inside the once-commanding Queen Anne mansion mounted on the cliffs overlooking the bay, a place her mother had pointed out to her, a place that once was almost as regal as the Cahills’ mansion. As a child Elyse had gazed up at the ornate, arched Palladian windows, wide porches, and elaborate turrets and dreamed about what was hidden inside, what secrets the house built a century before held.

  Now, she knew.

  With her inheritance, she would finally be able to rent the place, and soon, if all went according to plan, it would be hers, and she would restore the deteriorating home to its once-regal grandeur.

  It was all just a matter of time. And the clock was ticking.

  She showered and found her favorite robe. This was the place she belonged, the place she secretly called home, the place no one knew about. The house had long been abandoned and was starting to show signs of neglect, which was a shame. She knew that at one time there were grand parties held here, and if she closed her eyes, she could hear the tinkling of stemware, the laughter, and the soft strains of music filling the hallways and staircases. In her mind’s eye she witnessed the dim, romantic glow of chandeliers that had been forever polished and gleaming. The grounds were manicured, the kitchen always gave off warm, mouth-watering odors, servants abounded.

  And there would have been love….

  Or…was she imagining it all? Sometimes she got caught up in her own fantasies…or did she?

  But she was certain there would have been happiness and hope here, a warmth and security she’d never been allowed to feel.

  And it’s where she belonged.

  Her heart tore a bit for the time that never was, the life she hadn’t lived…or had she? Sometimes the memories of her past blurred a bit, which was disturbing. She relied on her sharp senses and her keen mind, but the past…It was something she didn’t like thinking about too much, and it wasn’t always crystal clear. Sometimes it was like the dripping glass chandeliers had grown dusty—blurred and indistinct in her mind. As if she were losing it. But she was far too young for anything as disturbing as dementia to be thwarting her. No way.

  No, she was just overwrought.

  Emotional.

  That’s what being around Marla could do to people…push them to the brink of insanity.

  Casting her dark thoughts aside, Elyse lit the fireplace in the bedroom, uncorked a bottle of wine, and waited as the clock in the hallway ticked off the minutes of her life, as the candles she’d set around the bed burned softly, as the gas fire hissed.

  She glanced at the clock. For the smallest of moments she worried that he might cancel again.

  What if it was really over?

  What would she do then?

  She felt suddenly tiny and alone…. All her life she’d been alone. Oh, sure there had been parents, but had they ever really talked to her, showed any interest? Only around their schedules. For two people who had claimed they’d badly wanted a child, they sure had proven themselves lacking in the parental-concern department.

  Elyse hadn’t grown up poor, but she’d never had as much wealth as Cissy, nor the attention that Cissy had garnered just by being a Cahill.

  Cissy. God, how had she gotten that stupid, little-girl name? She wondered how it had felt growing up in that huge mansion overlooking the city, never overhearing her parents squabble about money when they thought their darling daughter wasn’t listening. Cissy had been surrounded by parents and grandparents, a daughter of one of the most prestigious families in the entire Bay Area. At least that’s the way Elyse saw it. What little fortune her parents had managed to amass during their lifetimes didn’t hold a candle to the Cahill-Amhurst estate.

  Life wasn’t fair, she reminded herself. You can’t expect fate to hand out fortunes. You have to make your own luck. That’s what you’re doing.

  And now she was waiting for a man she knew didn’t really love her, a man who would never care for her the way he did his damned wife.

  So who’s the fool?

  Look what you’ve done for him.

  Think about how many people you betrayed, you killed.

  For him.

  Oh, you tell Marla it’s for her, but you know better. You’re only kidding yourself, and now you’re in this big bed, in a room overlooking the bay, in a house that should have been yours but has been denied you while you wait for a man you don’t really trust.

  “He’ll come,” she said aloud, and her voice seemed to ricochet off the walls. “He will come. He’d better.”

  Her shrink had told her not to hold false hope, not to expect more from people than they could give. But why couldn’t they give? Why couldn’t she have had a real mother’s love? Or a husband’s? The louse she’d married had never had any time for her, was married to his job, had never understood her. In fact, he acted as if she were the one with the problem! As if she were cra
zy. What had he called her? A “psycho whack-job”? She was lucky to be rid of him. Lucky!

  But still it bothered her that she couldn’t find a man who cared about her, who would love her, fight for her, even die for her.

  Soon, all this mess with Marla would be over, and Elyse would have what she wanted. Then she wouldn’t have to run over to the bungalow where Marla was hiding out any longer. God, that was getting tough. Sooner or later someone would see her. There had been the incident with the bicyclist, and just the other night she’d stumbled over a cat. The damned thing had shrieked as if she’d stabbed it, and a nosy neighbor had peeked through her blinds, the same old bitch who had looked through the slats before.

  Elyse couldn’t take any more chances.

  It was time to end this thing. Go for the real prize.

  So where the hell was he?

  Through the open window, she heard the low sound of a foghorn and then the quiet rumble of a smooth engine. She smiled with relief as she recognized it.

  He wasn’t standing her up.

  No way.

  He’d come! Her smile broadened as she imagined what she would do to him to prove how much she loved him, to show how much she cared. Her heart beat a little faster, and she adjusted the lapels of her robe, glancing in the mirror to assure herself that her hair was freshly tumbled, that a sexy glimpse of her cleavage was visible, that her lips were glossy and wet, promising oh-so-sinful delights.

  The engine was closer now, louder, and then suddenly died.

  She waited. Counting her heartbeats.

  Within seconds a key turned in the lock.

  Her fingers twisted in the sheets.

  He didn’t say a word, but the door shut softly behind him. She heard his footfalls on the floor of the foyer a story below. Darling, she thought.

  Up the stairs he came, his footsteps quickening as he reached the second story.

  He tapped lightly on her door and pushed it open. She lay back on the pillows, every sense alive as he stepped into the darkened bedroom where the candles burned.

  His grin, always seductive, widened.

  God, he was handsome.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said without preamble as he unbuttoned his shirt. She watched every little pearl disc slide through its hole. He was tanned and fit, his abdomen a washboard of muscles, his chest hair thick and springy.

  “Don’t let it happen again.”

  “I won’t.” He said it easily, too easily, not as if it were a vow.

  “Come here, you,” she said, and he did, tumbling onto the downy mattress, grabbing her and kissing her until she couldn’t breathe. His hands were all over her, untying the knot of her robe, pushing the soft velvet over her shoulders almost roughly. As if he couldn’t wait. He kissed her breasts, his fingers kneading her back, but she wouldn’t let him get away with a quick, fast fuck. That was not what was going to happen. He was going to satisfy her long and hard, and she would do the same for him.

  “Slow down,” she whispered into his ear even as she was melting and wanting inside.

  “I can’t.”

  “Sure you can…. We’ve got all night.”

  He didn’t argue and took his time, but long before she was ready, he was inside her, lost in wild abandon. She too was caught up in the frenzy of the lovemaking, begging him for more. “Harder,” she cried. “Oh, come on, faster.” She wanted so much from him. She was sweating and screaming and scratching as he pushed her to the brink and then over. No teasing, no making her beg only to deny her and then start over again.

  Tonight was different. There was a desperation to his lovemaking. So fast. So hard. So furious. Almost as if he thought it would never happen again.

  But that wasn’t right…was it?

  As he collapsed on top of her and she stared at the flickering candles, she sensed how wrong things were becoming. He still loved his wife. And he always would. And it was killing her.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to leave,” he said, catching his breath. “But, hey, that was…great.”

  “Great,” she repeated.

  “Always.” He kissed her forehead, and she felt a disappointment so deep it was a dark abyss in her soul.

  “I thought you’d stay.”

  “Can’t. Not tonight.” He rolled away and was already hastily donning his clothes, as if he couldn’t get away fast enough.

  “Why?”

  “You know why. Can’t risk getting caught. I’m dealing with the cops all the time, and the family, and we just can’t take any more chances.”

  “You’re breaking up with me?” she asked, hating the sound of hysteria that had crawled into her voice, raising it to an unbecoming shriek. She had to get a grip on herself.

  “Oh, no, no! Are you kidding? This is the best sex I’ve ever had, but we’ve got to keep our eyes on the prize.”

  “And once we get it? The prize? What then?”

  “The sky’s the limit,” he said, zipping up his pants and pulling in his abdomen as he buttoned the top button. “Just you wait.” He’d already picked up his shirt and was shoving his hands down the sleeves. She adjusted herself, tried a pouty, disappointed look, but he ignored it as he slid into his shoes in the candlelight.

  “Don’t leave me, Jack,” she whispered, but he pretended he didn’t hear her, didn’t even have the balls to confront her. Instead he slipped out of the bedroom forty minutes after he’d slipped in.

  And then the son of a bitch was gone.

  “So get this,” Paterno said as Janet Quinn climbed into the passenger seat of his Caddy. “The Sausalito PD found hairs left at the scene of Cherise’s murder. Red hairs. Not Cherise’s, not anyone in the family’s.”

  “Red?”

  With a flick of his wrist, he fired the engine, and the old V-8 roared to life. “And they don’t match the hairs found around the screwdriver that was used to jam the gate at the Cahill house the night Cissy claims to have seen Marla.”

  “Which she probably did, if the hospital parking-lot tape is to be believed.” Quinn shook her head and frowned. “Does that make sense?”

  “Who knows?” Paterno sighed, still puzzling it out as he nosed the Cadillac into traffic and noticed how narrow the streets were. “Cissy claims her brush went missing along with her kid’s cup and her cell phone. Maybe Marla planted the hairs.”

  “And then shed her own at the Favier house?” Quinn said skeptically.

  He cranked on the wheel and headed north. “There were quite a few hairs found near the front door, along with one that wasn’t the same. In fact, it was synthetic.”

  “A wig?”

  “Yeah. And the Sausalito PD didn’t find any on the premises. The cleaning people were there the day before, so it’s not likely it was from another visitor.”

  “So what’re you saying?” she asked. “That the real hairs, or the fake ones, were a plant?”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know what I’m saying,” Paterno admitted, easing his big car around a delivery van double-parked in the street. A new model Jag heading in the opposite direction had to wait for Paterno, and the driver, a white male in his twenties, honked at the Cadillac. As soon as the Caddy’s tail was out of his way, he peeled rubber to show off his manliness and impatience.

  “Prick,” Paterno said, unruffled as he drove toward the Golden Gate Bridge. He was headed back to Sausalito to check out the Favier crime scene again. He’d heard the reports, seen the pictures, and had let the other cops and feds do their collective things, but he wanted to eyeball everything himself, get his own “feel” of what went down.

  The sky was clear, the winter sun bright, spangling the water and beating through the windshield with enough power to heat the interior of the car. At another time Paterno would have relished the day, gone down to the docks, maybe done a little fishing. Today he was knotted up, the case getting to him. Again, the connection was obviously Marla Cahill, but there was something more going on as well, and it centered on Marla�
�s accomplice, a ghost with evil intent.

  On the off chance that Cherise’s murder wasn’t related to the other deaths, he’d checked out her ex-husbands, kids, and extended family and friends. No red flags had shot up. Heather Van Arsdale, the reverend’s mistress, had the alibi of being with the preacher and also the other attendees at the meeting in Sacramento. There was no indication that she’d put a hit out on her lover’s wife. It was a long shot in the best of circumstances.

  Paterno had studied maps of the area and pegged the spots with pushpins where the victims had been found, trying to find a pattern, something on the map that would tell him where the killer lived. So far it had all been a waste of time, an exercise in futility. In his gut he knew that Marla Cahill was behind the murders. Where they had died was no indication of where she was holed up. What it told him mainly was that she was systematically, one by one, wiping out the members of her family. She seemed to have plotted her prison break to seek some kind of revenge. Make some kind of statement.

  Meanwhile, the police had procured a copy of the phone records to both the Favier home and Cherise’s cell. Most of the people who had called the cell were friends, members of the church, all of whom had ironclad alibis. There was one anomaly. The last person to phone Cherise was Cissy Cahill Holt. She’d called from her cell phone—the phone that had been “missing”—and talked a few minutes. According to the cell phone company, the call had originated near a cell phone tower close to Cissy’s home…. Had Cissy lied about the stolen phone and placed the call herself? Or had someone phoned Cherise from near Cissy’s house, hoping to misdirect the investigation and lay blame at Cissy’s feet?

  What were the chances of that?

  Cissy’s phone records also indicated that she’d called her husband right before phoning Cherise but had hung up quickly. There had been no other outgoing calls that night, and the incoming were always short, less than twenty seconds, probably messages. A lot of people would have been calling to express condolences or sympathy, and one call was from the Holt house itself, possibly Cissy calling to try and locate her cell.

  Paterno flipped down his visor against the unlikely glare. His instinct was to trust Cissy, especially since Marla’s image had shown up on the security camera at the medical school near the Cahill home after Cissy had reported seeing her at Eugenia’s. The police had been circulating that tape along with the artist’s sketches to the press. Local television stations and the newspapers had eagerly aired the tape from the hospital and discussed it at length. Newspapers had released the sketches of Mary Smith and a still of “Marla” taken from film footage.