Almost Dead (15 page)

But she couldn’t think of her now.

Not today.

Cissy turned back to Cherise with her big, pleading eyes. “So, what do you want to do to mend this, uh, ‘rift’?” Cissy asked, trying to keep the sarcasm from her voice and wishing there was some way to get out of the conversation.

“First, we should have a family get-together,” Cherise said, glancing at her husband as if for confirmation. That was the problem with Cherise. She wasn’t a bad person. Just weak. Always leaning on her husband, looking at him as if he might just be the embodiment of the Second Coming of Christ.

She couldn’t remember all the details, but there was something unsavory in Donald Favier’s past, something that had less to do with football and more to do with underage girls. Wasn’t that right? It didn’t matter to Cherise, obviously, as she was gazing adoringly at Reverend Donald, entwining her arm through his.

Donald was nodding. “Afterward we can hold a more formal meeting with family attorneys involved. There are still a few issues that haven’t been settled.”

“What issues?” Cissy asked cautiously.

“Oh.” Cherise lifted her shoulder. “You know, the family trust, that sort of thing. Now that you’re in charge.”

“I’m in charge?”

“Well, you’re the primary beneficiary of Aunt Genie’s estate.”

“I am?” Cissy asked. “And you know this…how?”

Donald smiled and held out his hands, his fingers open, several gold rings catching the light. “Of course we’ve talked to the attorneys.”

“Ahh…”

His thousand-watt smile was nearly contagious. “We’re family.”

Cissy turned her gaze back on Cherise’s near-desperate face, a face that was aging despite what Cissy guessed was the latest in plastic surgery. “You know, you were right when you said this was awkward and you thought maybe we shouldn’t discuss it now.”

“But we have to.”

“I don’t think so.” The more she thought about it, the less she liked it. “And no, I don’t think we’re going to have lunch or dinner. I’m not comfortable discussing any of it. Not now, and probably not at any other time.”

Dumbfounded, Cherise took hold of her arm. “Cissy, please, be reasonable. We both know things aren’t right. They haven’t been in a long, long while. I thought that you were different and that you would—”

“Would what? Write you a check? For how much? Ten thousand? Fifty? A hundred? Or maybe a million?” Her voice was rising at the audacity of the woman and her supposedly God-fearing husband. “Gran was just buried today, and here you are at the gathering after her funeral and you’re already bringing up the will and money and picking at Gran’s bones!”

“Oh, Cissy, no—”

“And you know why you’re doing it? Because you think you can steamroll right over me, and I’m too young to stand up to you and to you,” she said, turning her furious eyes on the reverend. “Well, you were both wrong.”

Cherise’s hand flew to her mouth, and Heather, who had been walking by, stopped in her tracks. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Just peachy,” Cissy muttered.

“You’re sure?” Heather asked, her smooth brow knitting.

“We’re fine,” Cherise’s husband said tightly, then, “Thanks for asking, Heather.”

Cissy’s gaze swung between them. “Do you know each other?”

Heather looked like the quintessential “California girl” with her blue eyes, deep tan, and blond hair streaked platinum, not an ounce of fat daring to show on her toned body. She and Cissy had met at USC, and now Heather taught third grade at a private elementary school in the Bay Area.

“Didn’t you know?” Heather asked, surprised. “I belong to the Holy Trinity of God Church. It’s just a few blocks from my apartment.”

“In Sausalito?” Cissy said, putting two and two together. She knew that Heather lived on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, but she didn’t have any idea that she was one of the Reverend Donald’s flock.

“I thought I’d mentioned it.”

“I think I would have remembered,” Cissy said and told herself it wasn’t a big deal. So what? The church had hundreds of parishioners, but Heather? One more odd connection.

“Heather doesn’t just belong to the church,” Reverend Donald said as he rained one of his charismatic smiles on Cissy’s college friend. “She’s being modest. She works with the church secretary, helps with the computers, makes sure there are no broken links in the prayer chain.”

“Is that right?” Cissy said, trying to think what she did know about Heather since they’d graduated from college. Other than hearing that she’d broken up with her long-time boyfriend, taught school, and liked green apple martinis, it wasn’t much. They hadn’t kept in close touch. Hadn’t Heather been involved in drugs during their four years at USC? Hadn’t there been ecstasy and cocaine use? But that had been years ago, and then there was something about Campus Crusade. Come to think of it, Cissy had known that Heather usually wore a gold cross on a chain around her neck, but she’d never been vocal about her religious views.

“Heather’s a big help to us.” Cherise nodded, her smile a bit less enthusiastic than her husband’s.

“So,” Heather said brightly, “are we all okay now?”

Before Cissy could respond, she heard a noise she recognized. Over the hum of the surrounding conversation, she heard B.J.’s distant voice. “Mom-mee! Get up! I get up now! Mom-mee!”

Thank God!

“Oh, gotta run,” she said without looking anyone directly in the eye. “My little guy’s awake.” Before Cherise or Reverend Donald or Heather could stop her, she bolted up the stairs. She was
not
going to lunch or dinner with her father’s cousin or her husband. Not ever. If Heather wanted to cozy up to them, fine. But as far as Cissy was concerned, if she never saw either Cherise or her husband again, it would be just fine. “Vultures,” she muttered softly, then, at the top of the stairs, took a deep breath, cleared her head, and shoved all her negative thoughts aside.

She pushed open the door of B.J.’s room. He was standing in his crib and pounding on the top rail. “Mom-mee!” he said, grinning widely at the sight of her.

“Hey, Beej!” Her bad mood disappeared in an instant. “How’s my guy?” Pulling him out of the crib, she hugged him so fiercely, he giggled. “Not a Grumpy Gus today?”

“Not grumpy!”

“Good.”

“Dad-dee downstairs?”

“That he is,” Cissy said. “So let’s get you changed, and we’ll go down and see him. But I gotta warn ya, he’s not alone. There are tons of people down there, and they’re going to fawn all over you.”

“Tons of people,” he repeated.

“That’s right.” She carried him to the changing table, and switched out his wet diaper for a dry one. He kicked and scooted, all part of the game, but eventually he was clean and dry, the new diaper in place. Once he was dressed and she’d finger-combed his curls, she carried him downstairs, where, it seemed, even fewer guests were mingling.

Good!

The Reverend Donald and Cherise were nowhere in sight.

Talk about a blessing!

“Is this the infamous B.J.?” Heather asked, grinning, her eyes sparkling. “You know, I haven’t seen him since he was a couple of months old.” To the child she said, “Come see Auntie Heather.”

“Auntie Heather?” Cissy repeated.

“Well, you know, I’m just trying to connect with the little guy. Come here, pumpkin.”

Connect with the little guy?
Everything Heather said was hitting Cissy wrong today. Was it her? The funeral? Or was Heather being a little weird?

Beej grinned shyly, but allowed himself to be hugged and cuddled by first Heather, then Tracy, who declared him “more handsome than his father.”

Even Sara was beguiled. “What a cutie!” she said and touched his button nose with a manicured finger before lifting another glass of wine from a passing tray.

Rosa was already helping clean up, but she took the time to coo over the baby, and Paloma offered a stiff smile to a child she’d seen often enough but had never warmed to.

B.J. put up with the attention and was eventually passed back to Cissy, but when he saw his father, he went nuts. “Dad-dee!” he cried, wriggling in Cissy’s arms again and struggling to get down. She set him on his feet, and he took off like a shot, running through people’s legs until he reached his father, who swept him into his arms.

“There he is!” Jonathan crowed, standing next to Jack. “I wondered when you were going to wake up.”

Cissy saw Jannelle and J.J. exchange glances and realized that not all members of the Holt family were as thrilled with Jack’s son as their father was. The look that passed between them was more than just boredom or irritation that their father was too into his grandson. It was darker than that, an acknowledgment between allies that there was an enemy in their midst.

Cissy experienced a chill as cold as all of December, but when Jannelle looked up and spied her sister-in-law staring at her, she just lifted a shoulder. “Never was a kid person,” she admitted. “Look, Jack talked to me. I’m going to take ‘Poppa’ home. He’s been hitting the booze pretty hard, even dipped into your stash of whiskey. Apparently he knows where it’s kept.”

“Maybe I’ll have to put it under lock and key.”

“Not a bad idea,” Jannelle said, then, “Okay,
Poppa
, you’ve had your fun, time to go home.”

“So soon?” Jonathan seemed distressed.

“It’s been a long day. Cissy needs to chill out for a while.” She linked arms with her father while Jack retrieved his son and J.J., spying Gwen standing alone, grabbed another glass of wine and zeroed in on the trainer. He was obviously looking for another score.

Would the day never end?

Jannelle anticipated what was going on and cut him off at the pass. “Don’t even think about it, bro. You and me, we need to get the old man home.”

“I’m not an old man,” their father protested, and, it was true, he looked no more than ten years older than his oldest son. “And, damn it, I want to be with my grandson.”

Jannelle sent J.J. another warning glance.

Or did she?

There was more than a small chance that Cissy was overthinking it all, letting paranoia creep in, observing nuances that didn’t exist.

Telling herself that she was imagining things, she suffered through the next hour as the last of the mourners eventually said their final good-byes, leaving only Rosa, Deborah, Diedre, Rachelle, and Jack to finish cleaning up. Beej was in his element, tearing around the rooms, playing with anything he could find. When, eventually, the house was back to some semblance of order, the sympathy cards and donations had been picked up, the extra food either meted out to friends or stored, the candles extinguished, and all the pieces of furniture returned to their original positions, Cissy set down her wineglass, feeling as if she might collapse. She promised the tearful Deborah, the last person out the door, that she would write her a letter of recommendation. Then, as the door closed behind Eugenia’s “companion,” she turned the lock. “No more,” she whispered, shoving her hair from her eyes. She was so exhausted she couldn’t even summon up the heart or energy to suggest that Jack leave.

“Go upstairs, have a bath, go to bed,” he said as he and B.J. settled onto the couch. “I’ll watch Beej; we’ll hang out, and then I’ll get him to bed. You just take it easy.”

It sounded like heaven. “And then what about you?”

“I’ll be around.” He gave her a smile, and she felt the ice around her heart thaw a bit.

“That would be great. I owe you.” Leaning over, she kissed her son’s head and then headed upstairs. She didn’t bother with the bath, just washed her face, changed into her favorite pajamas, and tumbled into bed.

She was asleep before her head hit the pillow, and, dead to the world, she never noticed when, hours later, Jack slid into the bed next to her.

“…I’m telling you, it was great!
Great!
No one suspected a thing! You would have been so proud of me! I walked through Cissy’s house as if I owned the place, and no one gave me a second glance.” Elyse was talking fast, exhilarated, still on a high as she explained to Marla what she’d done, how she’d mingled with the enemy and showed up not only at the funeral but at the gathering after the service. Her nerves were still jangled, and she felt breathless, as if she’d spent the last five hours in the company of hungry wolves. And she’d survived! Thrived!

“I should be proud of you?” Marla scoffed. “As if it was hard for you to blend in? Give me a break.”

Elyse stared. She’d expected praise.

During her last visit to the bungalow Marla had been pleased to hear that Elyse had killed Rory, just as Marla had requested.

“About time that half-wit got what was coming to him,” Marla had said with a little more animation than she’d shown for a week. “This is all working perfectly.” She’d actually ignored the damned television for once. “Do you know how much money it costs every month to keep him at that swank facility?”

Swank? There had been nothing swank or posh or expensive-looking about Harborside Assisted Living, but, of course, the kind of care Rory Amhurst needed hadn’t been cheap.

“He was lucky to be alive,” Marla had added. “I was there when dear old Mom ran over him. I heard the thump and the crunch of his bones.” She’d had the grace to shudder at the memory, but added callously, “But I guess he was an Amhurst. All of us are pretty thick-skulled.” She’d actually laughed and Elyse had felt strangely put off, even though, she was certain, she’d heard the same joke before.

“It was a freak accident. The poor kid…”

“Was it? An accident?” Marla had repeated enigmatically. “I guess dear old Mom didn’t set out to kill him, but you—defending him—when you baked him the brownies that killed him. What did you call him, ‘a poor kid’? He was a man; that accident was over thirty-five years ago! And don’t be acting all caring and warm and fuzzy. For God’s sake, you watched him die, you told me you did, and you
liked
it. That ‘poor kid’ didn’t know up from sideways. He’s better off dead.”

“I’m not sure that’s true.”

“Then why the hell did you kill him?”

“For you,” Elyse had blurted, stung. “What? Did you forget?”

“Oh, come on.”

“For the plan. Our plan.”

“You did it for the thrill,” Marla had said knowingly. “Because you could. It’s an incredible sense of power knowing you can take a life, even a pathetic one. Tell yourself it’s for our plan…we both know differently. But it was a good job. Now we can move forward.”

Elyse had let herself bask in Marla’s praise, grudging as it was. And Marla had been right. She had enjoyed the kill.

But now they were back to their same roles: Elyse trying to placate a testy, surly Marla. For God’s sake, the woman acted as if she were a prisoner, when Elyse had risked her neck to spring her. Ungrateful, self-centered bitch!

“You think you’re something special, don’t you?” Marla suddenly accused, as if reading her thoughts. “Because you killed two people who deserved to die. Oh, don’t deny it. I saw it on your face when you burst in here after killing Eugenia, and then Rory. You were on a high like no other. You felt invincible.”

Elyse was thunderstruck. Was it possible that Marla understood her better than she’d thought?

“But really,” Marla said stiffly, “just how invincible are you? Eugenia was tiny and old, had already taken her dose of Valium, right? She couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, and so you tossed her over the rail. Big deal. And then Rory, just an innocent boy in a man’s body, right? Not a mean bone in his body. Crippled enough that he used a wheelchair and you slipped him some doctored brownies. How much intellect or skill does it take to trick a retard?”

“You wanted me to kill them. You
told
me to,” Elyse burst out.

“Yes, I did. And it’s fine that you feel exhilarated with the kills, but let’s just keep it all in perspective, okay? You preyed on the weak and the helpless. Things are going to get harder. A lot harder.”

Elyse didn’t know what she’d expected but it hadn’t been a lecture on the finer points of murder, a discussion of what was morally right or wrong.

Jesus, what did Marla want from her?

“You know, if I could get out of here, everything would be already done.”

“These things take time.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not stuck in this hellhole. It’s a miracle I haven’t gone flippin’ insane down here!” she said, then continued to whine and feel sorry for herself again. After all Elyse had done for the bitch. All the risks she’d taken. While Princess Marla was fighting boredom. Well, who the hell cared?

The trouble was, it appeared that Marla was getting weirder by the day, more paranoid about being caught. Not once had she gone up the stairs. She usually just sat in her damned chair in front of the boob tube. This was getting bad.

Yes, Marla wanted to hear every last detail of the funeral and the gathering afterward, asking about people Elyse didn’t know, but Marla was pouting as well. They had talked about her attending the funeral with Elyse in disguise, but had decided against it. The cops would be looking for her, and no matter how good the makeup, padding, wigs, contacts, and clothing, there had been the chance that someone might have recognized her.

Elyse said now, “I’m certain the police are thinking you’re behind Eugenia’s and Rory’s deaths. Even though I gave your prison wear to the guy who’s going to leave it in Oregon, the authorities won’t buy that you’ve left the state unless we stop now.”

“We can’t,” Marla said fervently. For once, she seemed to understand. “Not yet.” She seemed upset now, fretting. “You just have to work faster. That’s it. Take care of everyone who’s in our way. Then send your man to Oregon. No, wait a minute. I’m going crazy here anyway. I’ll help.”

“How?” Elyse asked, not liking the turn of the conversation.

“I’ll leave here…go to a local hotel. I can take a taxi from there. Disguise myself, have the taxi put me near BART and I could take a bus or—”

“No!”

“Then I’ll drive the car,” she said with more animation than she’d shown in a long while. “I
need
to get out of here.”

“Not yet,” Elyse said, panicking. “You can’t leave yet.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Just show a little patience. Everything’s going according to plan.”

Marla glared at her.

“First go upstairs. See if you can handle being out of this damned basement. If you can, then we’ll see.”

“You’re like a damned warden!”

“I’m just making sense,” Elyse told her. She didn’t want to upset Marla, because there was nothing to prevent her from leaving if she so chose. Even if Elyse decided to lock her inside, Marla had keys, and she was a master at escape. No, Marla had to be convinced that she needed to stay inside for a while longer. Till they were both safe and the job was done. “Really, everything’s going perfectly.”

So don’t blow it!

Marla let out a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

That was more like it.

“I can stay hidden for a few more weeks. It’s god-awful, but it won’t be forever,” she said as if she were convincing herself. “I just have to keep telling myself that. This place is worse than prison. At least there I had people I could talk with.”

“You mean cons and guards?”

“I saw sunlight.”

“I know, I know, I’ll take care of it.” Secretly Elyse was glad to ratchet up the schedule. The highs of the killings didn’t last long, and she was anxious for everything to fall into place.

She picked up some of the garbage Marla let lie around…. Jesus, couldn’t she smell the rotting apple cores and bits of sandwiches? Maybe it was because she was trapped down here with it. She also, nonchalantly, cleaned the brush Marla used on her hair.

“Look,” she suggested, pocketing the snarl of hair when Marla wasn’t looking. “At least walk into the other room of the basement and stretch your legs. Go up and down the stairs and walk around on the other floor. I’ll go up there now and make certain the blinds are drawn. No one will see you.”

“I do need to get out.” Longingly, she eyed her coat draped upon a hook and the boots on the floor below.

“Absolutely. Go upstairs,” Elyse agreed, trying another tack to mollify the older woman. “I’d go stir crazy if I just sat down here all day and night.”

“But you’re not me, are you?” Marla asked, a sense of new-found pride in her voice. “You’ve never been penned up like an animal.” She smiled almost wickedly, her green eyes sparkling in the half-light of the little room. “You don’t have the same backbone I do, the same sense of purpose. That’s the difference between us.”

Not the only one,
Elyse thought, but held her tongue.
I’ve never been caught.

She left Marla, the weirdo, and took the garbage with her. She would put it in a bin in a park, as she didn’t have pickup service. She didn’t want to take the chance of someone going through it here.

Sliding behind the wheel of her Taurus, she glanced back at the house. What if Marla did leave? She could take off when Elyse wasn’t here and never return. Elyse would never know the difference, and Marla could screw up everything. Damn! Still lost in “what ifs” she jammed the gearshift into reverse, backing out of the driveway quickly.

BAM!

A thud echoed through the car.

“Hey!”

Elyse slammed on the brakes.

Somebody had pounded on the trunk of her car.

In her rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of a blur.

She gasped, looked again, just in time to see a bicyclist, one hand raised, middle finger extended, fly past in the glow of the street lamps. “Watch where you’re going, you lunatic!” he raved, and she paused a few minutes to catch her breath. Her heart was knocking so fast she couldn’t think. Sweat bloomed over her body, and she felt her insides tremble. She couldn’t afford to hit a bicyclist or pedestrian or dog or
any
thing. She couldn’t risk getting caught.
Could not!
She was too close to having everything she wanted.

Cautiously, her heart jackhammering, she eased out of the drive and onto the street.

What if the bicyclist remembered her license plates? What if those same plates had been caught on some security camera at the nursing home, or on the street near the Cahill home on Mt. Sutro? These days, everyone had a cell/camera phone which they carried with them. Tons of crimes were caught on camera. Yes, it was dark, but the blue glow cast from the street lamps was enough illumination to read her license plate.

Don’t panic. The biker was flying by too fast to catch the plate’s numbers, and so what if he saw you: you’re leasing this place, remember,
Elyse?

Inside she was quivering, but she set her jaw and regulated her breaths, her tense muscles relaxing a bit as she drove through the near-dark streets without another incident. No one stared at her. No one turned to follow the Taurus with their eyes. No one lifted a cell phone high and zoomed in to take a picture of her car. She wondered if the trunk was dented where the biker had driven his fist. She didn’t want any mark on the vehicle, nothing that would allow it to stand out or be identified.

Calm down, you’re safe. What you have to do is steal a license plate off another car, not switch it with the ones you’ve got now, just find another silver Taurus that looks similar, one parked in a Bay Area Transit station, and take the damned plate or two. They don’t have to match front to back; no one will ever know, and the driver of the car from which it’s stolen will just think his fell off somewhere and get a duplicate. You can do this. You’ll be fine.

Her fingers eased over the steering wheel. She clicked on the radio, listening to some smooth jazz. Cracking the window as she approached the bridge, she smelled the scent of the ocean, and she leaned back in the seat as she drove toward town, back to her real life. She thought about calling her boyfriend and making a date, but she knew that they were both tired. And he’d probably play that stupid cat-and-mouse game that seemed to be his favorite, as if he was always on the verge of breaking up with her, calling the whole thing off.

She knew better.

He was in too deep to back out.

“Silly man,” she chided as lonely notes from a saxophone drifted from the speakers. She would visit him another day. As much as she wanted to see him, to kiss him, to feel his hands on her, to straddle him and fuck his damned brains out, another time would be better. She needed to think things through, focus on her plan. Not Marla’s. Just hers.

She thought of Cissy Cahill Holt, the ultimate target.

God, she couldn’t wait to see the look on Cissy’s face when she realized she was about to die. Then there would be that other, unique moment of realization and recognition when she understood who “Elyse” really was. A little tingle of adrenaline slipped through her bloodstream again, a rush of anticipation. She licked her lips as the car’s tires sang over the bridge, the night-dark waters whipping by.

Yeah, Cissy. Just you wait
, Elyse thought as she drove toward San Francisco, where the city lights were winking seductively over the black water. Things were working out so well. She thought about the cell phone she had tucked in her purse and the key, two items she’d managed to pick up when no one was looking at the gathering of the bereft for poor Eugenia Cahill. She smiled to herself as she thought what she would be able to accomplish with Cissy’s cell phone and the key that was “hidden” by the staircase leading to the basement, a key probably no one would miss, not even Cissy herself. Elyse had left another key, one that looked identical. As long as no one tried to use it, no one would be the wiser that it was a dummy key, a decoy, just like those fake ducks hunters floated on a lake.

A pure stroke of genius.

But the cell phone was a different story. Cissy would miss it, freak out, and, when she didn’t find it, cancel her service. Elyse would have to work fast, use it before Cissy got wise.