Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  “You’ve got to take him away. He can’t be here.”

  “He doesn’t know where we are. He’s too little.”

  “Somebody will see him. Oh God, look! He’s going to cry!”

  B.J.’s face had crumpled and was turning red. Marla was right. The kid looked ready to wail for all he was worth.

  “We’ll see your mommy soon,” Elyse said hurriedly. “Don’t worry.”

  For an answer, he threw back his head and howled. The noise was loud enough to wake the dead. Marla looked ready to throttle the kid, so Elyse dragged him upstairs. What the hell was she supposed to do now? The little house scarcely had any furnishings apart from what Elyse had found for Marla’s secret room.

  There was a beat-up chair in one of the two bedrooms, and Elyse carried the screaming child down the hallway, trying to shush him without scaring him. God, he could make noise! Were all children so loud?

  “Shh…shh…,” she said, holding him awkwardly on her lap. What the hell was she going to do?

  “Dad-dee,” he cried. “Dad-dee.”

  “Make up your mind, kid. Mommy or Daddy.”

  She could hear Marla hammering with something downstairs. Now what? Muttering furiously, Elyse hauled the kid back down the stairs while he wailed “No-o-o-o!” and tried to grab onto the handrail. Her head felt like it was going to split in two.

  “What are you doing?” Elyse demanded of Marla. “I could hear you! Someone else might hear that pounding too!”

  There was a piece of pipe on the floor beside her. “I wasn’t through,” Marla said, glaring at her. “We’ve got to leave. I’ve got to leave.”

  “Not yet!”

  “Look…” Her gaze centered on the television, where the news was just breaking on the murder of a young woman near Burlingame. Tanya.

  Elyse stared in a kind of horrified fascination as Marla said, “You did that. You killed her.”

  “It’s all part of the plan,” Elyse said through her teeth. Why did Marla question her? When she knew what had to be done!

  “Did they see you? Get your picture? Like when you killed Rory?”

  “No.”

  “That picture of you in the newspaper? That artist’s composite? They’re saying it’s me. They’re blaming this on me.”

  “Well, of course they are.” Elyse was fast losing patience, and the kid’s continued crying was enough to split her head right open. It was all she could do not to shake him.

  “You want me to take the fall for this,” Marla said on a note of discovery. “You want to get away scot-free.”

  “That’s not true. This is a partnership. Didn’t I help you escape?”

  “You never intended to share. That’s why you’ve kept me down here. You want it all for yourself.”

  “I haven’t kept you down here. You refuse to go upstairs! For God’s sake, Marla, get a grip!”

  But Marla was right. Elyse did plan to double-cross her. Did want the police to blame all the murders on her. Why not? It was Marla’s relationship with her relatives that created the motive. Nobody knew Elyse was involved. They thought Mary Smith was Marla.

  Elyse couldn’t take it anymore, so when Marla ordered her to get the kid to stop crying, she hustled him upstairs again.

  “Go home!” he sobbed. “Me go home!”

  “We’re going to my place.”

  “No-o-o!”

  “Shhhh!”

  It was dark now. The ground was wet, but the rain had ceased for the moment as Elyse hauled a whimpering B.J. back to her car. She strapped him into the damn car seat. Couldn’t risk getting pulled over for not having him properly buckled in. Jesus, the rules they had these days.

  Why did anyone ever have a child?

  Across the way she saw someone peeking through the blinds of the old biddy’s house, the lady with the cat. The bitch was watching her! Infuriated, Elyse jumped behind the wheel.

  “Shut up,” she warned B.J., who gazed at her with big eyes.

  “Bad word,” he said.

  Yeah, well, he was just lucky she hadn’t said the phrase that leapt to her tongue.

  Damn! She could see the old bitch now as she’d pulled the blinds up and was watching Elyse like a hawk, her pointy face aimed in Elyse’s direction.

  Had she seen the kid?

  Carefully, Elyse backed out of her driveway, resisting the urge to flip the old crone the bird. She had things to do. Family business to take care of.

  And nobody was going to get in her way.

  Cissy watched dully from the apartment parking lot as CSI techs did their work and the detectives canvassed the area, searching for witnesses, information. Jack was with her, his arms pulling her close. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out her fear.

  Everyone kept urging her to go home, get some food, get some sleep, take care of herself, but Cissy couldn’t leave. Jack was one of the few people who understood. He stayed by her side as the afternoon wore into evening and evening into night.

  It was only when a weary Detective Paterno made the effort to bring them up to date that both Cissy and Jack knew there was nothing left for them here.

  “We’ve canvassed the area,” Paterno told them. “Checked with the neighbors. People around the area.”

  “Did they see B.J.?” Cissy asked urgently.

  “Several of them remember seeing a woman carrying a boy about B.J.’s age from her car. The description fits Miss Watson and your son.”

  “And?” Cissy gazed at him.

  “She carried him into her apartment.”

  “Did they see anything else?” Jack asked.

  “Not really. One of them reported seeing a silver car, but she wasn’t specific about the make and model.”

  “A silver car,” Jack repeated. “Like the one used by Mary Smith.”

  Paterno nodded. “A lot of silver cars out there,” he reminded.

  “The neighbor, Corinne Glenn, heard a ‘pop.’ Maybe the gunshot,” Jack said. “Anybody else?”

  Paterno shook his head. “We’re still checking with people. But the crime scene’s off-limits. There’s no reason for you to stay.”

  “Where would she take him?” Cissy asked. “Oh God…She can’t hurt him.”

  Jack said, “We don’t know it was Marla. Maybe Tanya was into something we don’t know about.”

  “We’re checking into her history. How did you come to hire her?”

  “Jack’s father, Jonathan Holt, recommended her.” Cissy’s tone was sharp.

  “Do you know how he knew her?” Paterno asked.

  Jack’s face was a mask. “I believe he learned of her through a woman he was dating. He meets a lot of people that way.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Paterno promised.

  The area had all but cleared out by the time the streetlights fully came on. The rain was a sputtering mist, as if being turned on and off by a spigot.

  Cissy felt like her body wasn’t her own. She wanted to pinch herself, make herself wake up from this nightmare. Reluctantly, she allowed Jack to take her home. Both of them looked through the pantry and refrigerator, but neither had an appetite.

  “We have to eat something,” Jack said, and he split a sandwich with her that he made from the leftover tuna salad used for B.J.’s lunch. Cissy took two bites and couldn’t go on. She laid her head on the table and sobbed.

  Jack wanted to die. If he hadn’t trusted Tanya with B.J. she might still be alive and his son would be with them right now. Safe and sound. Cissy had given up blaming him, but he sure as hell was still blaming himself.

  “Come on,” he said, pulling her to him and guiding her upstairs. “We’ll go to bed. Maybe by morning, Paterno will have found him.”

  “You think so?”

  “We’ll know more,” he evaded.

  “Jack, if anything’s happened to B.J….”

  “Shhh.”

  “I just can’t bear it!”

  “I know.” He squeezed her hand, kissed the top of her
head, prayed that his son was all right.

  And inside, a deep, boiling rage took root. Whoever had taken his son would pay a price. Jack would make sure of it.

  Paterno drove to the station before dawn broke. He hadn’t slept. He’d tried to, but he’d watched the clock, his thoughts traveling various routes, all of them leading to Marla and her accomplice.

  He’d left a message for Quinn. She was in charge of getting the background information on Tanya Watson. Meanwhile Paterno was chafing for the hours to pass. He wanted the ME to get the bullet from Tanya’s skull and give it to ballistics. And he wanted ballistics to compare it to the bullet that ended Cherise Favier’s life.

  He’d bet dollars to doughnuts they came from the same gun.

  Now, he rubbed his face as he got himself a tall cup of black coffee, the terrible sludge offered at the station, the perfect stuff to keep him awake.

  He would check with the feds later. It was really their case now, but Paterno wasn’t about to back off one bit.

  He sighed. He hadn’t told Jack and Cissy Holt that he was worried for their son’s life. He hadn’t wanted to scare them. But Marla Amhurst Cahill had never shown the smallest bit of humanity, and if she’d taken the boy—or had hired someone to take him—it wasn’t out of love and/or a crazy, obsessive need. Nope. The boy’s abduction would be for other reasons. Monetary, most likely. Something to feed Marla’s need for freedom and greed.

  And he would be expendable.

  Paterno popped a few antacids. Coffee and bicarbonates. Breakfast didn’t get any better than this.

  He wondered about Tanya. Why had she taken the kid? Was it simply that she went back to her apartment for some reason, and B.J. was with her? Or was she somehow involved in Marla’s plot to systematically kill the members of her family? If that’s what Marla was doing.

  And if so, why hadn’t she killed the boy and left his body with Tanya’s? Maybe Tanya had her own agenda, something unrelated to Marla herself. Maybe she had wanted something from the Cahills and ended up working at cross-purposes to Marla. Maybe that put her in Marla’s sights, and blam! She was permanently removed.

  But why was Marla so careless? What was going on with her? The crime-scene investigators—under Tallulah Jefferson’s command—had scoured Tanya’s apartment. They’d found hairs and bits of fingernails—clipped pieces—that didn’t seem to match the victim’s. So whose were they? Someone Tanya knew? DNA tests would take weeks to get results, sometimes longer, and Paterno knew he didn’t have that much time.

  He needed answers now. He needed to find Marla Cahill. Before she killed anyone else.

  Before she killed her own grandson.

  Cissy stood at the kitchen window. She’d watched the sun rise and glisten through the raindrops. She’d heard birds twittering and the groan and hum of their new furnace kicking into gear. She’d smelled the coffee Jack was brewing and felt the warm mug he pressed in her hand.

  “Ciss?”

  “What’s he doing right now? He should be asleep in his bed. We should be waiting for him to wake up. What do you think he’s doing?”

  “Don’t torture yourself.”

  “How can you stand there and not care!” she burst out.

  Jack swallowed. “I care.”

  Cissy sank into one of the kitchen chairs. “I can’t do anything. I can’t think. I just want to go to sleep till they find him, safe and sound, but I can’t sleep!”

  “Paterno will call us as soon as he knows something. Or, the FBI.”

  “What if we never find him? What if we never know?”

  “Don’t think like that,” Jack said sternly.

  In truth, Jack was beside himself. His fury and fear were bone deep. If it turned out Marla was behind this, he planned to strangle her conniving neck himself!

  The minutes crept by. He made toast for himself and Cissy. He practically had to browbeat her to get her to eat anything. In truth, he could scarcely choke down food himself, but he was determined to keep up his strength. There was a showdown ahead, and he planned to be ready for it.

  It was barely nine when the feds arrived. They began to systematically set up for the expected kidnapping ransom call. Cissy and Jack hung back, watching and staying out of the way. Hearing another car screech to a halt in front of their house, Cissy rushed forward.

  “Beej?” she whispered.

  “Wait…,” Jack said, trying to stop her as she flew outside.

  To Cissy’s shattering disappointment, she saw Jack’s father, Jonathan, and his brother, J.J., climb from Jonathan’s car and hurry their way through the rain. Cissy sagged against Jack, who held her tightly as they came inside.

  “Is he back?” Jonathan asked, white faced. “Have they found him?” Jack had called his father the night before to tell him about Tanya’s murder and B.J.’s abduction.

  Jack shook his head, and J.J., normally remote and completely self-involved, stared through wide, stretched eyes, as if looking at a harrowing vista only he could see. They both gave the feds a wide berth.

  “Where’s Jannelle?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know, son. I just called J.J. and came over. God Almighty.” He ran a shaking hand through his hair. “Have you had a ransom call yet?”

  “No,” Cissy repeated faintly.

  “Why else would someone take him?” Jonathan said, as if he were puzzling it out himself. “Has to be ransom.”

  They all moved to the kitchen, and Jonathan sat heavily onto the chair Cissy had just vacated. J.J. stood by the back door, gazing outside. Jack spooned more coffee grounds into the filter and watched the pot fill.

  “You have to pay the ransom,” J.J. said in a low voice. “Keep the police and FBI out of it. That never works.”

  “I think it’s too late for that,” Jack said.

  “The kidnapper killed Tanya,” J.J. reminded. “He’ll kill again.”

  Tears of fear filled Cissy’s eyes.

  “Murdering bitch,” Jonathan said angrily.

  “We don’t know it’s Marla,” J.J. said.

  “We don’t know anything,” Jack reminded. “Let’s not speculate. Let the feds take care of it.”

  “I’m surprised at you, Jack,” Jonathan said. “You can’t trust the police with your son’s life!”

  “What do you propose I do about them?” Jack responded repressively, gesturing toward the federal agents. His fists clenched. He didn’t want this argument. He sure didn’t want it in front of Cissy.

  “Get rid of them!” Jonathan gazed at him as if he’d never seen him before.

  At that precise moment, one of the agents separated from his partners and looked into the kitchen. “We’re almost done here, Mr. Holt. Can I have a minute with you?”

  Jack talked to the man, and Cissy waited in the kitchen with Jonathan and J.J. She appreciated their desire to help, but she would rather just be alone with Jack.

  The agent explained the procedure if and when the kidnapper called. Jack nodded, listening but barely hearing. This was B.J.’s life they were discussing. Anything could go wrong. He wanted to kill whoever had stolen his son. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t, given the chance. But there were rules of engagement. And he damn well wasn’t going to break them. Not yet. Not while the risk was too great. Once B.J. was home. Once he was safe. Then the rules changed.

  Returning to the kitchen, Jack said, “For now, we wait.”

  “For the ransom call.” Cissy shivered.

  Jack nodded, adding grimly, “And for our kidnapper to make a move, or a mistake, or something.”

  The downtown office of Treasure Homes Realty was a narrow building hosting a luxurious windowfront reception area with a lovely, wraparound rosewood desk. But that facade was for the client who needed convincing and dazzling. The real work took place behind a solid-core door that led to rabbit-warren work spaces, of which Sybil Tomini’s was one of the largest. She, like the other agents, was part owner in the company, which didn’t amount to diddly-squat when thing
s downturned like they had just recently. Although the downturn hadn’t affected everyone. Nuh-uh. Those sharks at Luxury Unlimited were selling multi-million-dollar palaces like they were tract homes.

  Sybil looked at her desk and sighed. It was covered with stacks of papers: loan docs, inspection reports, earnest money agreements. She felt like sweeping it all into the trash. It was amazing how many deals fell through when the interest rate went up a half percent. There had to be an easier way to make a living.

  And the rental real-estate business was no picnic, either. She was trying to ease out of that business entirely. There just wasn’t enough money for all the problems rental units created. Whenever someone called in wanting Treasure Homes’ rental department to lease their home, she did her damnedest to convince them to sell.

  Her phone buzzed. Sybil waited for the receptionist to announce what she wanted, but no such luck.

  “I’m here,” Sybil reminded frostily. What was with these receptionists? This girl’s IQ had to be in negative numbers. She always buzzed and then couldn’t seem to verbalize what she wanted.

  “Sybil?”

  Oh for God’s sake. “Yes?”

  “There’s someone here to see you. A Mrs. Owens?”

  Sybil had to fight back a short bark of annoyance. She practically tugged her blunt-cut, straight black hair out of her head.

  Mrs. Owens was a perfect example of why the rental market was such a losing racket. The woman was the nosiest old bag you would ever hope to meet. She lived across the street from one of Treasure Homes’ rental tenants and complained and complained about them. Worse, she’d somehow gotten Sybil’s name as the person to call.

  “I’ll be right there,” Sybil said, at the same moment the receptionist said, “I’ll send her back.”

  No! Sybil did not want that big mouth tottering into her work space.

  She glanced down at her papers, made a sound of annoyance, then headed for the door just as Carrie, the stupidest receptionist on the planet, threw it open, nearly knocking Sybil in the teeth.

  “Come on in, Mrs. Owens,” she invited in a sweety-sweety voice she reserved for the infirm or mentally disabled.