Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  “Goddamn it, Diedre! She’s dead, and I think she has been for a long time.”

  She was shaking her head, but the headache, the fog, returned. Through the rising mist she remembered the argument, the gun in her hand…a loud bang and Marla falling, spinning, turning, her face twisted in shock. Now she blinked rapidly, clearing her head. That was a dream. Surely. But Jack was reaching into his jacket, pulling out a videotape wrapped in a plastic bag.

  “I thought you would try to deny it,” he muttered, turning on the older model television and VCR, shoving the tape in the recorder. She stared at the snowy screen as he adjusted some of the knobs. “Here we go.” He hit the play button, and a jerky image of a woman reporter standing in front of the bungalow showed on the screen.

  The newswoman was holding a microphone in the rain, wincing a little with the blast of wind. “…prison escapee Marla Cahill was found dead this afternoon in the house you see behind me…”

  “That’s not right,” Diedre murmured. She had dreamed of killing the bitch, but she’d never actually pulled the trigger…right? She hadn’t killed Marla….

  “…partially decomposed body from the house…”

  A stretcher covered by a body bag appeared rolling from the back of the house, the rear porch Diedre recognized, to a waiting van from the coroner’s office.

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head.

  “She wasn’t supposed to die yet, not until we could frame her for the murders. You stupid, stupid bitch, what were you thinking? Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  She glared at him. Instead of being proud of her for all the things she’d done for him, he was pissed as hell. Furious, he snapped off the television and the VCR. The house was suddenly silent. Still.

  “You were not supposed to kidnap my grandson,” Jack said, so angry he was shaking. “He’s the link. I fought like hell for my son Jack to meet Cissy, and then when they were married, I thought I’d won the lottery. Then she started talking divorce, and you…you messed things up but good. I don’t know why I ever bothered with you.”

  “Jack—”

  “It’s Jonathan,” he said coldly, denying her the nickname she’d given him, the one like his son’s. She’d thought it cute and playful, and he’d put up with it. Until now.

  She leaned against the bed. Everything was changing, swirling in her mind. Did she actually kill the bitch then delude herself into believing that the corpse was actually alive? God, her head ached. She rubbed her temples, trying to think. She remembered several conversations with Marla. Her mother had sat in her chair or on the bed, not speaking, either smirking or pouting…or was it decomposing? But they’d had conversations, about the baby, about Rory, about her damned hair. Diedre remembered trimming her nails, listening to Marla whine in her low voice…that was it…always in the low voice. And only after she was in the room in the basement. That’s when she’d started whispering. Was it possible she hadn’t been complaining? How many times had Diedre wondered why Marla’s voice had been so soft, why she’d spoken when Diedre’s back was turned, why her lips had barely moved.

  Oh, God!

  WAS IT POSSIBLE?

  Had she…Jesus, had she taken the kid into the house to visit a dead woman? When B.J. had complained of the smell, had it been the stench of decay and rotting flesh?

  Images flashed behind her eyes. Horrible images of a decomposing body—maggots visible, flesh falling away—cut through her vision of her mother’s beautiful face…oh…oh no…Her stomach revolted, bile rising, and she was trembling inside.

  “You killed her too early!” he said again, snapping Diedre back to the present. Sweat broke out on her skin and the headache, that damned excruciating pain blasted through her. “What kind of idiot are you? Marla needed to be alive until after you took care of the people who needed to die…Eugenia and Rory and Cherise. That was the reason you threw suspicion on her. Remember? To prove that Marla was the killer? How the hell are you going to get out of it now?”

  “You mean us,” she said dully, fighting the pain. “How are we going to get out of it?”

  “I should never have trusted you,” he said, rage pounding in a tic under his eye. How could he talk to her this way, this lover who now wanted to be called Jonathan? This man she slept with, made love to, loved with all of her heart? “I knew it. This was a mistake from the get-go.” He raked his hands impatiently through his hair. “What the hell were you thinking? After all the time we spent finding a way to spring her? To get our hands on the money? You go and kill her too soon!”

  There it was again. The image of Marla lying dead on the floor, blood pooling from her brain. An accident…if it had actually happened. But now, Jack was saying they had planned to kill her. Her head was pounding so hard she could barely think. “This—you and me—wasn’t just about money. You and I…we’re going to get married. You’re leaving your wife for me…”

  “I’m not married. What did you think this was about?”

  “It was about love.”

  “Oh, give me a fucking break, Diedre.”

  He, like Marla, sniggered at her thoughts of love. That’s not how it had always been. He’d found her. While working as a donation solicitor at Cahill House, he had gone through old records and learned that Marla Amhurst had come to the home to have her baby and give the child up for adoption. Using the information, Jonathan located her and ultimately seduced her. Or was it the other way around? She too had been searching for her birth mother, and then this handsome, sexy, intelligent, older man had shown up. Flirting with her. Making her feel so much better after her loser of a husband, Gene, had divorced her.

  He’d spent years planning it, the ultimate score. He’d even set up his son to meet Cissy, to gain him the grandson and access to both the Cahill and Amhurst fortunes. B.J. Holt stood in line to inherit millions. But Diedre had believed Jack loved her. It had started out slow, their love affair, just a little flirting over coffee, then he offered to drive her home when her car hadn’t started one night. Over time, he’d admitted that he’d known who she was, and when he came up with a way for her to meet the mother she’d never known, she leapt at the chance. Eventually, he’d suggested they help Marla escape, and together they’d hatched their plan, which now seemed hazy. All of her communication with Marla had been through her cell mate at the first prison. She and Diedre had never met until the day that the plan went into motion, and then, the first time they’d looked eye-to-eye, Marla had smiled.

  They’d driven back to the city together. “You look like me,” she’d said, tilting her head and studying Diedre. Diedre had been pleased until Marla added, “Much more like me than Cissy does.” Her smile had been sincere. “Thank you.”

  Diedre had felt tears welling in her eyes, and then she’d outlined the plan to Marla…how to get their hands on the Amhurst money. Rory would have to die, of course, and James up in Oregon, eventually, and then there was Cissy. Marla had balked a little at that idea, at least at first. But prison had hardened her, and Cissy had turned her back on her mother. Eventually, Marla had gone along with the idea of the killings, though, of course, she didn’t know that Jonathan had ultimately intended to blame her and either kill her or send her back to prison. Diedre had thought that she could talk him out of it by staging Marla’s death, having it look as if she were dead or on the run in Oregon, away from the Bay Area. She’d already talked to Sam, the man she’d hired to scare Cissy at the coffee shop, and he’d agreed to do whatever was necessary. Except nothing had turned out as she’d planned. Now Marla was dead.

  How had she let herself believe Jonathan had ever loved her? How had she ever thought that Marla would love her as a daughter?

  You’re a fool, that’s why. Just like that bitch of an adoptive mother had always said.

  Now, Jonathan glared at her as if he actually hated her. “You screwed everything up. Everything. This had nothing to do with love. Ever. You and I, we were just using each other. And now, because you’r
e such a stupid idiot, we’re both going to go to jail for a long, long time.”

  “You bastard!” she hissed, snapping.

  Smack!

  She slapped him. Hard. Leaving a red mark on his face.

  “What the hell?”

  Rage, hot and wild, exploded deep inside her, and she saw Jonathan for what he was. How had she ever thought she loved him? He was a generation older than she, a man who had never forgotten his wife, never stopped loving Jill.

  “I always suspected you were nuts,” Jonathan sneered, clenching a fist.

  Before she could answer, he struck, his fist crashing into her chest. Pain exploded in her ribs, the wind rushed out of her lungs, and she doubled over.

  Fury rose with the speed of a demon. She looked up at him and saw the hatred glinting in his eyes. “You are such a lowlife,” she said.

  “A little late for name calling,” he spat. “Now what the hell are we going to do?”

  She didn’t think twice. Her purse was hanging from the bedpost. She lunged for the leather bag. In one quick movement, she reached inside and pulled out her .38.

  Her heart thudded, reverberating through the pain in her skull. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, Jonathan,” she snarled, aiming at his heart. “But I’ve got work to do.”

  “NO! Diedre—”

  She fired. Point-blank.

  With a startled cry, he stumbled backward. His handsome face was a mask of shock. “Diedre, no…” he whispered, disbelieving, starting to fall.

  Blood ran from the wound in his chest, staining his jacket as he dropped first to one knee, then the other.

  “You should have loved me,” she said as he tried vainly to catch himself, smearing blood on the floor.

  She blinked.

  Realized what she’d done.

  Dear God, no. This was all wrong. She loved him.

  And yet he’d attacked her!

  Her mouth went dry as she remembered how she’d met him, how he’d sought her out, how she’d envisioned a perfect life with him, even thinking she would become his wife. That, of course, had been a pipe dream, the kind of childish fantasy her adoptive mother had always teased her about.

  Now she looked down at him, the man she’d loved with all her heart, watching as he bled out. Had he ever really cared about her? He’d said so, but words were cheap.

  It had been his idea to not just shake down the Cahills, who were in control of the money, but the Amhursts as well. He’d offered it up and she’d thought it brilliant; he’d told her he loved her, and she, fool that she was, had believed him.

  Liar! Prick! She sacrificed everything for him. For them. For his plan. She took all the risks, and now…now she realized that he loved his damned grandson more than he ever loved her!

  “What have you done?” he said, staring up at her, trying to lever up on one arm and then falling back, his head cracking against the floor.

  “What I should have done from the beginning.”

  Diedre fired again, and his body convulsed, blood showing at his nostrils and one corner of his mouth as well as spreading in a dark red stain across his chest. He was already dead. She knew it. But she shot him one more time.

  The son of a bitch. He deserved it.

  Cissy drove like a maniac through the streets, her gaze scanning the rain-washed sidewalks, her eyes searching for anything that might give her a clue. She tried to call Rachelle again, but still no one answered. Think, Cissy, think, she told herself as she pulled up to a light near a low-slung car with rap music blaring from its speakers, the throb of the bass a counterpoint to her own beating heart. Of course. The coffee shop was probably closed at this hour. The police were probably now at Diedre’s apartment, but she wouldn’t be that stupid, that obvious. The house in Berkeley was cordoned off, so that wouldn’t be where she’d run with Beej.

  “Come on, come on,” she told herself. Where would she go? Where? She wanted to be you. She thought you lived a charmed, pampered life. So where would Diedre go. Cissy thought hard. If Diedre had always wanted a life of privilege, like the Cahills, she would run to the estate on Mt. Sutro, though that was too risky. No. There must be someplace else…someplace she would feel safe…someplace connected to the life she wanted.

  “Oh God,” Cissy whispered, her pulse jumping as the wipers slapped at the rain and the light changed. The low-slung car beat her from the stop and roared around her, but Cissy barely noticed. Her mind was spinning wildly. Diedre didn’t think of herself as a Cahill, but an Amhurst; therefore, she would take B.J. to—

  Her cell phone rang, and she snatched it from her pocket, saw that it was Jack and flipped it open.

  “Tell me you have Beej!” she cried.

  “No.”

  Her heart dropped.

  “Can you get away from the police and pick me up?”

  “I’m already out,” she admitted.

  “Oh…good. Then pick me up at my father’s place.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked, desperate for answers.

  “I’ll tell you when you get here.”

  “I’m on my way.” She did a quick U-turn at the next corner and stepped on it, making her way to Jack’s father’s condo in record time. Traffic was light, but the streets were wet, the wind gusting as she pulled into the short drive.

  Jack was waiting and dripping wet.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked as he opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.

  “I came to borrow a car. It didn’t work out. Dad isn’t here.” He said it bitterly, then added, “Let’s go. Drive. North.”

  “To Sausalito?” she asked, glancing at him. She was already backing out, heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge. “To the Amhurst mansion, right?”

  He gave her a surprised look. “You figured it out?”

  “I don’t know why Diedre killed Gran, maybe because she knew the truth, but she killed Rory because he was an Amhurst. Marla too.”

  “And Cherise?”

  “Oh…I don’t know…” Cissy shook her head, but she wouldn’t be deterred. “I just think she would go to the house.”

  “And, if Diedre’s out to get all the Amhursts, you, your brother James, and B.J. aren’t safe,” he said solemnly as he pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Paterno.”

  “What if we’re wrong?” she asked as she eased her car onto the bridge and felt the rolling gusts of wind buffet the Acura.

  “Then we look like fools. Still—no harm—no foul.” He left a message with the detective, then snapped his cell phone shut as Cissy drove through the stormy night, over the neck of water separating the Pacific from San Francisco Bay, seeing the winking lights of the city in her rearview mirror.

  She felt Jack’s worry and drove steadily onward. “How did you figure it out?” she asked, guiding her car up the hills of Sausalito. “I thought you were going to Jannelle’s.”

  “I decided I didn’t need the inquisition or the grief. I called Sam and couldn’t get hold of him, so I jogged over to Dad’s.”

  “It’s another mile or so.”

  “Two and a half,” he said, “but who’s counting? Anyway, Dad wasn’t in, but I went inside. I know a window that doesn’t quite latch. I was drying off, trying to figure out what to do, whether to wait for him, call you, the police, or what. I was running out of ideas, but as I was in his bathroom off the bedroom, using a towel, I saw his computer monitor. It was on, and Beej’s face was smiling up at me. It’s his wallpaper. So I touched the keypad, and his computer opened to his e-mail. There were hundreds of messages, all written by someone named Elyse, love letters, every one addressed to ‘Dear Jack.’”

  “Elyse…Who’s Jack?” She blinked. “Your father?”

  “Some people call him Jack, only a few, but apparently she did. Most of them were cryptic, but I figure they were in a hot love affair and that Dad was in on Marla’s escape and the murders, too.”

  “Your father…and Diedre…?”

  �
��Sick, I know, but apparently Dad has stooped to a new low. They headed up the long narrow road to the old Victorian manor built high on the cliffs. It should have been empty, but there were a few windows where they could see slats of light cutting through the blinds.

  Parked in the cracked, uneven lot was Jack’s father’s SUV.

  “Perfect,” Jack said. “I’m going in.”

  “Me too.”

  “Either wait here for me or, better yet, drive back to town and keep trying to get hold of someone at the police department.”

  She cut the engine. “My son is probably in there, and I’m not waiting outside. You told Paterno what’s up, now let’s go inside.”

  He hesitated, then reached into his pocket. “Then take this.” He handed her a small pistol.

  Cissy violently shook her head. “I don’t even know how to shoot a gun. Where did you get that?”

  His lips twisted. “Dad’s closet.”

  “It’s loaded?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Then you use it. Really. I would never be able to pull the trigger. I brought a knife. My Pomeroy 5000, all in one.”

  “All right, I’ll take the gun,” Jack said grimly. “Stick close to me.”

  They each slipped out of the car and closed the doors quietly. Here, on the cliffs over the sea, the storm raged, screaming inland, battering the house and rocks. A shutter banged loudly. Cissy followed close on Jack’s heels. Fear pounded through her brain, but she didn’t let it stop her. Inside this old, deteriorating home, her deranged half-sister, more murderous than their mother, held her child captive. Quietly, they walked up the rotting steps to find the front door unlocked.