by Lisa Jackson
It scares me to death.
I’m hooked up to machines that monitor my heartbeats and breathing and God-Only-Knows what else. Not that it does any good. All the high-tech machines that are tracking body functions aren’t providing the hospital staff with any hope or clue that I know what’s going on.
I’m trapped in my body, and it’s a living hell!
Once again I strain . . . concentrating to raise the index finger of my right hand to point at whomever enters the room. Up, I think, raise the tip up off the bedsheets. The effort is painful . . . so hard.
Isn’t anyone watching the damned monitor? I must be registering an elevated pulse, an accelerated heartbeat, some-damn-thing!
But no.
All that effort. Wasted.
Worse yet, I’ve heard the gossip; some of the nurses think I would be better off dead . . . but they don’t know the truth.
I hear footsteps. Heavier than the usual. And the vague scent of lingering cigar smoke. The doctor! He’s been in before.
“Let’s take a look, shall we?” he says to whoever it is who’s’s accompanied him, probably the nurse with the cold hands and cheery, irritating voice.
“Oh, she’s still not responsive.” Sure enough, the chipper one. “I haven’t seen any positive change in her vitals. In fact . . . well, see for yourself.”
What! What does she mean? And why does her voice sound so resigned? Where’s the fake peppy inspiration in her tone?
“Hmmm,” the doctor says in his baritone voice. then his hands are on me. Gently touching and lifting, poking, Then lifting my eyelid and shining a harsh beam directly into my lens. It’s blinding and surely my body will show some response. A blink or flinch or . . .
“Looks like you’re right,” he says turning off the light and backing away from the bed. “She’s declining rapidly.”
What? No! That’s wrong! I’m here. I’m alive. I’m going to get better!
I can’t believe what I’m hearing and should be hyperventilating, should be going into cardiac arrest at the words. Can’t’t you see that I’m stressing? Don’t the damned monitors show that I’m alive and aware and that I want to live? Oh, God, how I want to live!
“The family’s been asking,” the nurse prods. “About how long she has.”
No! My family? They’ve already put me in the grave? That can’t be right! I don’t believe it. I’m still alive, for God’s sake. How did I come to this? But I know. All too vividly I can remember every moment of my life and the events leading up to this very second.
“Doctor?” the nurse whispers.
“Tell them twenty-four hours,” he says solemnly. “Maybe less.”
Chapter One
Four Weeks Earlier
Click!
The soft noise was enough to wake Eugenia Cahill. From her favorite chair in the sitting room on the second floor of her manor, she blinked her eyes open. Surprised that she’d dozed off, she called out for her granddaughter. “Cissy?” Adjusting her glasses, she glanced at the antique clock mounted over the mantle as gas flames quietly hissed against the blackened ceramic logs. “Cissy, is that you?”
Of course it was. Cissy had called earlier and told Eugenia that she’d be by for her usual weekly visit. She was to bring the baby with her . . . but the call had been hours ago. Cissy had promised to be by at seven, and now . . . well, the grandfather clock in the foyer was just pealing off the hour of eight in soft, assuring tones. “Coco,” Eugenia said, eyeing the basket where her little white scruff of a dog was snoozing, not so much as lifting her head. The poor thing was getting old, too, already losing teeth and suffering from arthritis. “Old age is a bitch,” Eugenia said, and smiled at her own little joke.
Why hadn’t Cissy climbed the stairs to this, the living area, where Eugenia spent most of her days? “I’m up here,” she said loudly; and when there was no response, she felt the first tiny niggle of fear, which she quickly dismissed. An old woman’s worries, nothing more. Yet, she heard no footsteps rushing up the stairs, no rumble of the old elevator as it ground its way upward from the garage. Pushing herself from her Queen Anne recliner, she grabbed her cane and walked stiffly to the window, where through the watery glass she could view the street and the city below. Even with a bank of fog slowly drifting across the city, the vista was breathtaking from most of the windows. This old home had been built on the highest slopes of Mount Sutro in San Francisco at the turn of the century; well, the turn of the last century. The old brick, mortar, and shake Craftsman-style house rose three full stories above a garage tucked into the hillside. From this room on the second story, she was, on a clear day, able to see the bay and had spent more than her share of hours watching sailboats out across the green-gray waters.
But sometimes this old house seemed so empty. An ancient fortress with its electronic gates and overgrown gardens of rhododendron and ferns.
Oh, she had servants, of course, but the family had, it seemed, to have abandoned her.
Oh, for God’s sake, Eugenia, buck up. You are not some sorry old woman. You choose to live here, as a Cahill, as you always have.
Maybe she’d just imagined the click of a lock downstairs. Dreamed it, perhaps. These days, though she was loathe to admit it, her dreams often permeated her waking consciousness and she had a deep, unmentioned fear that she might be in the early stages of dementia. Dear Lord, she hoped not! There had been no trace of Alzheimer’s in all of her lineage; her own mother had died at ninety-six and had still been “sharp as a tack” before falling victim to a massive stroke. Eugenia’s gaze wandered to the street outside the electronic gates, to the area where the unmarked police car had spent the better part of twenty-four hours. Now the Chevy was missing from its parking spot just out of range of the streetlight’s bluish glow.
How odd.
Why leave so soon after practically accusing her of helping her daughter-in-law escape from prison? After all the fuss—rude detectives showing up at her doorstep and practically insisting that she was a harboring a criminal or some such rot—they’d camped out at her doorstep watching the house and (she suspected) discreetly following her when Lars drove her to her hairdresser, bridge game, or Cahill House. At the last, she offered her time by administering sanctuary for unmarried pregnant teens and twentysomethings.
Of course the police had discovered nothing.
Because she was totally innocent. Still, she’d been irritated. Staring into the night, Eugenia was suddenly cold. She saw her own reflection, a ghostly image of a tiny woman backlit by the soft illumination of antique lamps, and was surprised how old she looked. Her eyes appeared owlish behind her glasses with the magnifying lenses that had aided her since the cataract surgery a few years back. Her once-vital red hair was a neatly coiffed ’do closer in color to apricot than strawberry blond. She seemed to have shrunk two inches and now appeared barely five feet tall, if that. Her face, though remarkably unlined, had begun to sag—and she hated it. Hated this growing old. It was just such a pain! She’d considered having her eyes “done” or her face “tightened”; had even thought about Botox, but really, why?
Vanity?
After all she’d been through, it seemed trivial.
And so she was over eighty. Big deal. She knew she was no longer young—her arthritic knees could attest to that—but she wasn’t yet ready for any kind of assisted living or retirement community. Not yet.
Creeeeaaaak!
A sound of a door opening?
Her heartbeat quickened.
The last noise was not a figment of her imagination. “Cissy?” she called again and glanced over at Coco, barely lifting her groggy little head at the noise, offering up no warning bark. “Dear, is that you?”
Who else?
Sunday and Monday nights she was usually alone, her “companion” Elsa usually leaving the city to stay with her sister and the day maid leaving at five. Lars was off every night at seven unless she requested his services, and she didn’t mind being alone, usua
lly enjoying the peace and quiet. But tonight . . .
Using her cane, she walked into the halllway that separated the living quarters from her bedroom. “Cissy?” she called down the stairs, feeling like a ninny. For God’s sake, was she getting paranoid in her advancing years?
But a cold finger of doubt slid down her spine, convincing her otherwise; and though the furnace was humming, she felt a chill icy as the deep waters of the bay settle into her bones. She reached the railing, held onto the smooth rosewood banister, and peered down to the first floor. She saw, in the dimmed evening lights, the polished tile floor of the foyer, the Louis XVI inlaid table, and the Ficus tree and jade plants positioned near the beveled glass by the front door.
Just as they always were.
But no Cissy.
“Odd,” Eugenia thought and rubbed her arms. Odder yet that her dog was so passive. Coco, though old and arthritic, still had excellent hearing and was usually energetic enough to growl and bark her adorable little head off at the least little sound. Now she lay listlessly in her bed near Eugenia’s knitting bag, her eyes open but dull. Almost as if she’d been drugged . . .
Oh, for heaven’s sake! She was getting away from herself and letting her fertile imagination run wild. She gave herself a swift mental kick. That’s what she got for indulging in an Alfred Hitchcock movie marathon for the past five nights!
So where the hell was Cissy?
Reaching into the pocket of her jacket for her cell phone, she realized the damned thing was missing, probably left on the table near her knitting needles.
Turning toward the sitting room, she heard the gentle scrape of a footstep, leather upon wood.
Close by.
The scent of a perfume she’d nearly forgotten wafted to her nostrils and made the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
Her heart nearly stopped as she looked over her shoulder and saw movement in the shadows of the unlit hallway near her bedroom. “Cissy?” she said again, but her voice was the barest of whispers, and fear caused her pulse to pound. “Is that you, dear? This isn’t funny—”
Her words died in her throat.
A woman, half-hidden in the shadows, emerged.
Eugenia froze, suspended in time.
“You!” she cried as panic swarmed up her spine. The woman before her smiled a grin as cold and evil as Satan’s heart.
Eugenia tried to run, to flee; but before she could take a step, the younger woman was upon her, strong hands clutching, athletic arms pulling her off her feet.
“No!” Eugenia cried. “No!” She tried to fend off her attacker with her cane, but the damned walking stick fell from her hands and clattered uselessly down the stairs! Nearby, Coco began to bark wildly.
Oh, God.
“Don’t do this!” Eugenia cried.
But it was too late.
In a heartbeat, she was hoisted over the railing, pushed into the open space where the crystal chandelier hung. Screaming, flailing pathetically, her dog still snarling loudly, Eugenia hurled downward.
The Louis XVI table and tile floor of the foyer rushed up at her.
Sheer terror caused her heart to seize as she hit the floor with a dull, sickening thud. Crack! Pain exploded in her head. For half a second she stared upward at her assailant standing victoriously on the landing, holding Coco and stroking the dog’s furry coat; and then there was only darkness . . .
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Copyright © 2000 by Susan Lisa Jackson
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-2491-0
