Nine Lives

by Sharon Sala

  “Do you know how to do CPR?” the dispatcher asked.

  Penny felt like screaming. “No, but it doesn’t matter. I couldn’t get close enough to him to try it, so I guess the answer to your first question is, yes, he’s still breathing. If he wasn’t, he couldn’t be flopping all over our bedroom floor like he is.”

  “Help is on the way,” the dispatcher said.

  “Thank you, thank you,” Penny mumbled, and then grabbed the hem of her nightgown and used it like a handkerchief, trying to stem the flow of blood from her nose. “Oh, wait! I hear sirens. They’re here! They’re here! I have to let them in.”

  She hung up, despite the dispatcher’s voice urging her not to, and headed downstairs on the run. For once in her life, she wasn’t waiting for the servants.

  She was at the door before the paramedics could ring the bell.

  “He’s upstairs!” she cried as she opened the door. “Second door on your right. Hurry! Please hurry.”

  “Lady, are you in need of—”

  “No, no, it’s just a nosebleed,” she said, and then started up the stairs ahead of them. “Follow me.”

  Fourteen

  Cat heard the doorbell as she was getting out of the shower. She grabbed a robe and pulled it on quickly as she hurried to the living room. It was ten minutes before eight in the morning, and if she’d had her wits about her, she wouldn’t even have bothered to go to the door. It was too darned early for visitors.

  She peered through the peephole, then stifled a gasp. It was Wilson, and he didn’t look happy. She opened the door without hesitation.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Good morning had been on the tip of Wilson’s tongue until he’d seen what she was wearing, or lack thereof.

  “Uh…”

  Cat rolled her eyes and pulled him into her apartment.

  “For Pete’s sake, come in. It’s freezing out there in the hall, and I’m still wet.”

  Lord…I can see that, Wilson thought, then managed to pull himself together and close the door behind him.

  “Do you have any coffee?” he asked, as he tossed his overcoat on the sofa.

  “In the kitchen,” Cat said. “Why are you here?”

  “It couldn’t possibly be because I missed your sweet disposition,” he drawled.

  She had the grace to blush. She was being rude.

  “I’m sorry. Really. You just took me by surprise. Help yourself to the coffee. I’m going to get dressed.”

  “Okay,” he said, and forced himself not to watch the way the fabric clung to her still damp body as she left the room.

  He was in the kitchen, standing over the sink with a doughnut in one hand and his coffee in the other, when Cat came back.

  “Wilson, those doughnuts are at least a week old,” she said, as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “They’re fine,” he said, and dunked the end of the doughnut before taking another bite.

  Cat eyed him nervously. Their last words to each other hadn’t exactly been comforting. Now he’d shown up at this ridiculous hour of the day and made himself at home as if nothing had happened.

  “Wilson?”

  He looked at her then, his mouth too full to answer, and arched his eyebrows questioningly instead.

  She bit the inside of her lip to keep from cursing. It was hard to be mad at someone so damned good looking. Between those dark eyes and that little gold hoop in his ear, he was fascinating. Still, this was her home. She should have the privilege of being in charge.

  “I know you didn’t come here to eat stale doughnuts.”

  He chewed and swallowed the last bite quickly, then washed it down with a gulp of coffee.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” he said.

  Cat frowned. She didn’t want a change of plans. She wanted Mark Presley’s head on a platter and his balls hanging from the highest limb of a tree.

  “How so?” she asked.

  He wasn’t going to tell her that Flannery had called him yesterday and then again this morning, because then she would think he was messing in her business. He just started talking.

  “Homicide got a phone call from Mark Presley’s wife this morning saying he wouldn’t be able to come in as promised.”

  Cat bristled. “Why didn’t someone call me like they called you, and why the hell isn’t he coming?”

  Wilson pointed to the red blinking light on her answering machine.

  “Maybe they did and you didn’t answer.”

  That took the indignation out of her disposition.

  “I guess I was in the shower.”

  “So…you weren’t left out of the loop after all,” he said. “And, as I was about to say, Presley won’t be coming in because he supposedly had some kind of seizure last night. Don’t know whether it was a physical or mental thing, but at any rate, he isn’t talking. In fact, they’re not sure he even knows who he is anymore.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Cat said, and sat down in disbelief. “He’s going to get away with it.”

  Wilson frowned. “I wouldn’t call becoming what amounts to a vegetable getting away with anything.”

  Cat turned on him in frustration. “Then you tell me how this is going to work? If he can’t talk, he won’t ever be charged.”

  “They say he’s in pretty bad shape,” Wilson said. “It’s not like he’s going to live the good life.”

  Cat’s fingers curled into fists. “But he’s alive,” she muttered. “He’s alive, and Mimi’s not, and it’s his fault.”

  “That hasn’t been proven yet.”

  “It won’t be, either. Not now,” she said, then stared down at the floor. “I can’t believe it. The sorry bastard is going to get away with murder.”

  “Maybe not,” Wilson said. “They’re obviously still going ahead with the investigation. They’ll still compare his DNA to the baby Marsha was carrying. If he gets to a point where he can stand trial, they’ll have the evidence.”

  Cat couldn’t look at Wilson, though she heard him just fine. A part of her even understood what he was trying to say. But she couldn’t get past the fact that she was going to have to bury Mimi and the baby, while Presley was going to some fancy nursing home where someone else would wipe his face and his butt. It didn’t matter to her that his quality of life would be next to nothing. He didn’t deserve to live, no matter what.

  “I don’t suppose what I say is going to make a damn bit of difference,” she muttered.

  He wanted to put his arms around her, but the cold tone of her voice was warning enough to stay back.

  “On the contrary,” he said. “This is still an open case.”

  “Open case my ass,” she insisted. “Then the cops better not stand in the draft of it, because they’ll freeze to death before anyone ever knows the truth of how Mimi died.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wilson said.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  “Then don’t treat me like it is,” he said.

  His accusation shredded her composure. Her eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. She looked away before he saw them.

  Wilson saw the tears anyway. Damn the woman. He couldn’t be mad at her if his life depended on it. “I’m not mad at you. If anything, I’m just mad at myself. I’m sorry I snapped, and I’m sorry as hell this has happened.”

  She raised her chin, unwilling to admit that she’d shown weakness, and poured herself a cup of coffee.

  “They don’t have any other suspects, do they?” she asked, as she stirred sugar and cream into the cup.

  “They don’t have anything but what you gave them. They wouldn’t even know that Marsha Benton was missing if you hadn’t turned in the report. All of this is because of you. The fact that her body was found somewhere other than Dallas doesn’t change the fact that she went missing from here. Dallas P.D. will be involved in the case in whatever capacity they need to be.”

  Cat was silent, absorbing the information. “So…how long do you think it will
be before they release her?”

  “You mean her body?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not sure, and for all I know, it’s still back in Tyler. However, you know they’ll only release her to family.”

  “I’m her only family,” Cat said.

  “I know,” he said softly, and laid his hand on the back of her head. “But it will have to be after the autopsy, and we have no way of knowing how backed up they are at the coroner’s office.”

  “My God,” she said. “Imagine a job where everything you do depends on someone dying.”

  “I couldn’t do it,” he said.

  “Me either,” she said, then stepped back and wiped her face with the palms of her hands, trying not to think about the brutality of an autopsy. “When they finally release her, it will have to be to me.”

  “I’ll tell Flannery to make a note of that,” Wilson said.

  Cat looked up at him then, unaware that every ounce of heartbreak was there on her face for the world to see.

  “I also know I’m a hard-ass and stubborn and rude…but thank you for taking the time to come tell me this.”

  “I don’t need an apology.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  “Fine then,” he muttered. “I’ve got to be going.”

  Cat walked him to the door. “Have a nice day.”

  Have a nice day? She had to be kidding.

  He glared at her, then strode out of the apartment without looking back, slamming the door behind him.

  Penny Presley was perfect in the part of devastated wife. No one had ever witnessed them having a disagreement, let alone making threats to end their marriage, so her distraught behavior seemed right in line with what anyone would have expected.

  When they’d admitted Mark to ICU, a huge weight had disappeared from her shoulders. Marsha Benton was dead, and she really was sorry about that. She’d liked Marsha tremendously and never would have wished that anything bad would befall her. However, if she had been pregnant with Mark’s child and Mark had truly killed her, then what had happened to both of them was of their own doing.

  Penny had a broken nose but was free of any responsibility. After all, she was the injured party here in more ways than one. She’d been cheated on and suffered unexpected abuse at the hands of the man who’d promised to love her forever. It was obvious that Mark had chosen to ignore the meaning of his vows—or, at the least, had been manipulating them to suit his own needs.

  The company had already issued a press release regarding his condition, with absolutely no mention of his possible involvement in the murder of an ex-employee.

  Mark was in ICU, which meant Penny’s visits were extremely limited. She’d spent the night and part of the next morning at the hospital and been allowed to see him a total of four times. Each time she’d talked to him—even prayed over him—and gotten no response for her trouble.

  On her fourth visit, the doctors had assured her that Mark most likely knew she was there but just couldn’t communicate. Penny had wept at the news and kissed him gently. Then, once the doctors were gone, she’d leaned over and whispered the truth of her feelings into his ear.

  “If you fathered Marsha Benton’s child, you are a true son-of-a-bitch.”

  The fact that the heart monitor hooked up to Mark’s body didn’t register any kind of fluctuation was not lost on Penny.

  “And if you had anything to do with her murder, I will help them convict your sorry ass.”

  The heart monitor registered a small spike, then suddenly flat-lined.

  Penny stared at the machine for a second, then turned around and screamed.

  “Nurse! Nurse!”

  She was ushered out of ICU as a crash cart and extra medical personnel headed for his bed.

  Penny stared at the door they’d closed in her face. For a moment the enormity of what was happening hit her. Had she just killed him? Had her threat been the last straw, breaking the tie holding him to this earth? She thought of all the wonderful times they’d shared and of the perfect life they’d had, and actually worked up some real tears.

  A reporter who’d snuck into the hospital snapped a picture of her, black eyes and broken nose in plain sight as she turned from the doorway.

  Momentarily blinded by the camera flash, she held up her hands as if warding off a blow. By the time she could see clearly, he was gone.

  It was night. Mark knew it because the shift had changed again. He pretended not to know anything or see anything, but he knew what was happening, right down to the fact that the DNA test they’d run on the fetus in Marsha Benton’s body had shown that the child was his. He knew it because Penny had hissed the news in his ear on one of her visits to the ICU.

  At the time, he’d wanted to grab her by the throat and squeeze until that whining voice was silenced forever. But at this point, revealing his resurrection wasn’t in his best interests. As long as the police thought he was comatose, they were going to leave him alone.

  He’d heard them talking to Penny earlier about moving him out of ICU to a private room. He prayed that they would. It had to happen, or he wouldn’t be able to make his escape. He’d never seen or heard so much action in his life as went on in the ICU.

  Someone was moaning in the opposite corner of the room, and whoever was in the bed next to him was dying.

  Poor bastard. Mark could hear it in every strangled breath that he took.

  His nose itched. He wanted to scratch it in the very worst way, but any movement from him and someone was bound to see it.

  As he lay there, he heard the doors open near the nurses’ desk, signifying visiting hours, which lasted for five minutes on the hour with no exceptions.

  Penny wouldn’t be back. She’d told him as much when she’d left earlier, so he thought nothing of the footsteps coming toward his end of the room. To his surprise, they stopped right beside his bed. He figured it was a nurse, but he wanted to open his eyes, just to see who was there. He waited, although there was no sign of movement. He knew it was a woman, because he could smell the lighter scent of a feminine shampoo and some sort of bath powder.

  The sounds of her breathing seemed a little erratic, as if she’d climbed the stairs rather than taking the elevator. He didn’t know a woman who was willing to break a sweat that way and decided that his instincts for guessing gender might not be so sharp after all.

  Then she spoke.

  Her voice was low and husky—like someone coming down with laryngitis—and he came so close to opening his eyes that he heard the heart monitor skip a beat as he remembered to practice restraint.

  Cat had moved back into the stream of living with all the reluctance that came from overwhelming grief—angry when her stomach growled for food, ashamed when something made her laugh unexpectedly, crying over a tiny paper cut while opening her mail. She was a wreck with not a lot of hope for rebuilding. The authorities in Tyler had released Marsha Benton’s body to the Dallas P.D. The medical examiner’s report stated that she had suffered a cracked skull but had died from a multitude of internal injuries. It hurt Cat’s heart to learn that there were no wounds on Marsha’s hands to indicate she’d had time to fight back. She was guessing that Mark had rendered her unconscious, then flown out to the Presley oil lease and finished her off there.

  Cat Dupree’s vehemence kept them from assuming that Marsha would have gone willingly with Presley, thus providing an explanation for the head injury and how she’d gotten from Dallas to the bottom of a ravine outside Tyler without a fight.

  Oddly enough, in searching the surrounding area, the sheriff’s deputies had found a large sheet of blue plastic floating in the water of an abandoned rock quarry nearby.

  It was uncertain whether it could be tied to the murder, but Sam Lohman had theorized that it would be one way to move a bloody body without leaving evidence behind and ordered divers to the quarry. After a half-day’s work dragging the water, they’d found a pair of coveralls, a cap and a large mechanic’s wrench, all rolle
d and tied up together. The DNA evidence that might have been left on the objects had, of course, been ruined by the water, but the coveralls were like the ones worn by the mechanics at the private airstrip belonging to the Presley corporation, and there was a wrench missing from a set at the airstrip just like the one found in the quarry.

  Adding that to the fetus’s DNA match to Mark Presley and having Marsha’s body turning up on Presley property, and they had enough circumstantial evidence to arrest the man for murder.

  What they didn’t have was the man in any kind of condition to be interrogated, let alone be arrested or stand trial.

  They were at an impasse, and Cat was making herself physically ill by dwelling on it. It had occurred to her that maybe, if she saw the condition Mark Presley was in, she would stop thinking that he’d escaped justice. If she could see him now and accept his loss of function as the punishment it was meant to be, then maybe she could get past her rage enough to bury her friend and get on with her life. But she didn’t know, and wouldn’t know for sure, until she saw him for herself.

  It was with that purpose in mind that she’d dressed in what could only be construed as a disguise and headed for Dallas Memorial.

  She had arrived with her shoulders slumped to the point that the dress and coat she was wearing appeared not to fit her body. She wore tennis shoes instead of heels, and had braided her hair, then fastened it at the back of her neck. With overdone makeup and a pair of out-of-style glasses, she looked like a caricature of herself. She sat quietly and motionless in the waiting room until she was completely certain that no one else was there to visit Presley, then, when the time came, moved with the others in the room to go into ICU.

  She’d had to sign in, and had no qualms about using a fake ID and name. Presley had dark hair. So did she. It stood to reason that they could be related. And with that in mind, Laura Presley Conti signed in to visit her cousin Mark.