Almost Dead (2 page)

So where was her mother?

How the hell had she gotten out?

Weren’t prisons supposed to be escape proof?

What will you do if she does show up at your door?

“Don’t even go there,” she told herself. She didn’t need any more tension in her life. Wasn’t it bad enough that she was in the first stages of a divorce and that her son was quickly approaching the terrible twos and had been crabby all week? It didn’t help that the furnace had decided to go kaflooey now too. All in all, the last seven days had been hell.

The light changed, and Cissy drove along the panhandle until she reached Stanyan, then headed steadily uphill. Her cell phone rang just as she was taking a steep switchback of a street that climbed Mt. Sutro. Pulling the phone from the side pocket of her purse, she checked the caller ID. She could plug the phone into the slot on her dash and talk hands free, but seeing the number on the LCD caused her to frown.

“Not tonight,” she said aloud. She wasn’t going to deal with Jack—lying, cheating bastard that he was. Oh yeah, and he was still her husband. Well, not for long. Dropping the phone into its pocket, she concentrated on the narrow road that climbed ever upward past elegant old homes built a hundred years earlier and surrounded by manicured gardens. Near her grandmother’s home, she pressed on the electronic gate opener and slowed as the old iron gates groaned open. She pulled into a spot in front of the garage, hit the button again and, once the gates were locked behind her, tried to figure out how she was going to haul B.J., the pizza box, diaper bag, and purse into the garage and upstairs without dropping the baby or ending up with melted cheese and marinara sauce everywhere.

“You win, Beej. You get to go first,” she said, tossing her purse into the oversized diaper bag. Slinging the bag over her shoulder, she walked around the car, ignoring the tantalizing scent of garlic and pepperoni as she unbuckled her son. “You can stay with your great-grannie while I run back down here,” she told the boy. She hoisted him onto the same hip she used to nudge her car door closed. Rubbing her nose into his ear, she heard him giggle. “Come on.”

Sometimes it was a real headache to visit Eugenia when the staff had the night off. It would be so much easier for Cissy to spend time at the old mansion when someone else was here to help with the baby. Then there wouldn’t be the problem of dinner, or the guilt that if she didn’t show up the old woman would be disappointed.

Carrying B.J., who was making loud smacking noises with his lips just to hear himself, she walked along a brick path through tall rhododendrons and ferns that still dripped from the rain that had stopped over an hour earlier. This old house, where she had grown up, held a lot of memories. Maybe too many. Some good and a lot that weren’t, but the brick, mortar, and shake walls, peekaboo dormers and sharp gables had endured two earthquakes and generation after generation of Cahills. For well over a hundred years it had stood on the slopes of Mt. Sutro, offering up commanding views of the city and the bay. Cissy didn’t know if she loved the old house or hated it.

Oh, get over yourself,
she thought, inserting her key into the old lock.

“Helloooo,” she called as the door opened. “Sorry I’m late, but…Oh God!” She bit back a scream and turned away, hiding her son from the sight of her grandmother lying on the marble floor, blood pooling beneath her head. “Oh God, oh God, oh God!” she whispered. She dropped her keys and the diaper bag, then, still holding B.J. close, fished in her purse for her phone. She was trembling all over, her fingers scrabbling for her cell. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she said over and over as she found the phone and punched out 9-1-1.

Beej, picking up on her stress, began to howl. Bracing herself, Cissy placed him on the bench on the porch. “Sit here for just a second, honey,” she instructed.

“No!” he screamed and began scrambling down as she hurried inside.

“Gran!” Bending down on one knee, Cissy reached to her grandmother’s neck, her fingers searching for a pulse, the phone pressed to her ear. She felt nothing beneath her fingertips, no sign of a heart pumping. “Oh, Gran, please be okay.” Her stomach cramped, and she thought she might be sick.

“Nine-one-one, police dispatch.”

“Help! I need help!” Cissy yelled. “It’s my grandmother!”

“Ma’am, please state your name and the nature of your emergency.”

“There’s been an…an…accident. A horrible accident. My grandmother fell down the stairs! She’s hurt. Bad. There’s blood everywhere. Oh God, I think she might be dead! Send someone quick. Oh God! Oh God, I can’t find a pulse!”

“What is your address?”

“Send someone now!”

“I need the address and the name of the victim.”

“It’s…it’s…” Cissy rattled off the address as she tried again to find a pulse, to hear even the shallowest drawing of breath. “My grandmother’s Eugenia Cahill. Oh, please send someone…. Hurry!” She glanced over her shoulder, out the door, and didn’t see her son sitting on the bench. “B.J.!” she yelled, panicking.

“Ma’am. What is your name?”

“Cissy Holt…er, Cissy Cahill Holt. I was coming over here to dinner, and oh, sweet Jesus, I found Gran, and now my son…Please just hurry!”

“A patrol car has been dispatched. If you could stay with the victim—”

“I have to find my son!” She hung up and yelled, “Beej!” But there was no answering response from a tiny voice. “B.J.! Where are you?” Frantic, Cissy jogged outside to the dark night where the rain was starting to fall again. There was nothing to do for her grandmother. Eugenia was dead. Cissy knew it. But her child…Oh God, where was he? He couldn’t have gotten far. She’d let him out of her sight for only a split second. “B.J.!” Panic gripped her to her very soul as she searched the night-darkened grounds. She tried to sound calm when inside she was out of her mind with worry. “B.J.? Honey? Where are you?” She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice, the sheer terror. “Beej?” Dear God, where could he have gone so quickly? The gate was locked…right? It had slammed shut behind the car.

Or had it?

“No,” Cissy whispered, running down the walk. New panic seized her. “B.J.! Bryan Jack! Where are you?”

In the distance, sirens screamed. “Hurry, damn it,” Cissy said, her heart pounding, her mind black with fear.
Don’t panic. He’s here, you know he’s here. He’s just as scared as you are. Calm down. Forget that you just saw your grandmother dead, forget that you might have prevented the accident if you had been here on time, forget that your mother, the psycho-bitch, has escaped from prison, and just FIND B.J.!

She couldn’t believe she’d actually gotten away with it!

Adrenaline sizzled through her blood.

When the old woman had finally looked at her, she’d almost lost it, but somehow she’d found an inner strength to go through with her plan.

Now, as the windshield wipers slapped away the rain, her heart drummed a million miles a minute. Triumphant, it was all she could do to ease off the accelerator of her Taurus. She couldn’t afford a speeding ticket, or any kind of interest from the police. Not now.

Calm down. You can savor this later….

Her gloved fingers curled over the steering wheel, but she couldn’t quite put aside, not even for an instant, the thrill of the kill and that moment, right before she’d pushed the old woman over the railing, that precise, magnificent moment of recognition when Eugenia had made eye contact with her.

In that smallest of heartbeats, Eugenia Haversmith Cahill had realized that she was about to meet her maker, that she was facing her own demise. Even so, the old bitch probably hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. She probably thought that there would be a way to talk, bully, or buy her way out of it.

Too bad.

Grinning to herself, she turned on the defroster, forcing warm air to blast on the interior of the glass and evaporate the condensation as she gazed through the windshield at the glowing taillights of the sporty little BMW zipping along in front of her. In and out of traffic he wove, his engine whining.
Go for it, you idiot,
she thought.
You get the ticket.

She remembered the old woman’s horror as she’d been pitched over the railing. Oh, Eugenia had fought and screamed, but she hadn’t been able to save herself. Her small body had slammed into the hard marble floor, the crunch of bones a sickening, satisfying thud.

Now she flipped on the radio and hummed along to an old song by Sheryl Crow. Staying within the speed limit, she headed over the bridge spanning the night-darkened waters of the bay, following a steady stream of taillights into Oakland.

Still feeling a bit paranoid, she checked her rearview mirror more than once, making certain she wasn’t being followed.

She couldn’t get caught. Not yet. Not when there was so much to do, so much to accomplish. Squinting against the headlights reflecting in her mirror, she saw nothing out of the ordinary, no red and blue strobe lights announcing a police cruiser pursuing her.

For God’s sake, no one’s tailing you! No one knows what you did.

Relax!

You got away with it! And the cops…they’re morons.

Remember that.

Once on the east side of the bay, she headed north toward Berkeley and calmed a little. She quit holding the steering wheel in a death grip and wasn’t quite as jangled, nor as afraid, nor as high. She exhaled a calming breath as she drove through the suburbs toward Wildcat Canyon, where the dense population gave way to little bungalows and quiet, treelined streets. One more time, just before turning down the road to her little rental house, she rechecked her mirrors. To be safe, she made a couple of quick right turns, watching behind her. Then, satisfied that she was safe from pursuit, she doubled back into an alley behind the two-bedroom cottage she’d leased under a fake name. She remembered handing the leasing agent her fake ID, biting her lip with anxiety, sure that when it was checked the agent would discover the Oregon driver’s license was a fraud. Instead, with a few quick clicks on a computer keyboard to double-check the credit report and job history of Elyse Hammersly, recently of Gresham, Oregon, and acceptance of a cashier’s check, she, as Elyse, had been handed the keys. Wonderful! Now she liked to think of herself as Elyse. Why, she
was
Elyse. Why not? It was perfect!

Chuckling to herself, she pulled into the drive. The bungalow had the basic floor plan of post–World War II, with two small bedrooms, single bath, a living area, walk-through dining room, tiny kitchen, and stairs that led to the most important feature of the house: a basement. With special amenities.

The basement was where this house, nearly identical to every other one on the block, got interesting. And perfect for what she needed.

Now, however, she had to face her new guest.

Marla Amhurst Cahill.

Or, as she liked to think of the woman she’d helped spring: Marla the Missing, or Marla the Escapee. Not that she would ever admit as much to her prickly new roommate.

The weeks before the actual breakout had been nerve-wracking, and they’d communicated through several different parties. Never once had she visited Marla in prison. Never had she called. The people who had relayed messages had known nothing of their plot, nor had they known her name. Elyse felt her anonymity was secure. Just for good luck, though, she crossed her fingers and braced herself for the confrontation she knew was brewing.

Though they’d planned this prison break for over two years, and it had gone off without a hitch, Marla, as ever, wasn’t satisfied.

Sometimes Elyse wondered if it was worth it.

Of course it is! Millions are at stake! Remember that!

Slinging the strap of her purse over her shoulder, she climbed out of the car and locked it. Nervous as a cat, she glanced this way and that, peering at the corners of the garage, the garbage can, and the long, sweeping porch, half expecting an ambush of FBI agents with badges flashing and guns pointed at her heart.

Don’t freak out! You made it.

She dashed up the overgrown cement walk to the back porch, where a now-leafless clematis wound skeletally and ropelike over the eaves. She fiddled with her keys until she found the one she needed and slipped it into the deadbolt.

Click.

Key ring jingling with her case of nerves, she found a separate key for the second lock and had to twist and jiggle it a bit before the ancient deadbolt slid back with a scrape of metal on metal. Using her shoulder, she pushed the sticky door open to be greeted by the smells of must and dead air. She reminded herself to get some of those air-fresheners, as the cottage had been unoccupied for eight months. Maybe there was a way to convince Marla to get off her ass and break out the Lysol and a mop. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t done just that kind of work in the big house, but Marla was still paranoid, afraid someone might see her.

“I’m never going back,” she’d confided in Elyse. “Not ever. They’ll have to kill me.”

And Elyse believed her.

She locked the door behind her, pulled a white sack out of her purse, and dropped the leather bag on the landing. Up half a flight of stairs was the kitchen, where the leaky faucet dripped and an old-fashioned wall clock ticked off the seconds of its life. But she wasn’t interested in what lay upstairs. Instead she double-checked to make certain both locks were latched, then followed the creaking stairs downward into a musty basement that seemed forever damp. The ceilings were low enough that a tall man would have to duck beneath some of the beams, and she’d found more than one nest of spiders hiding in the dark corners of the joists for the floor above.

Her skin crawled despite the fact that the place was perfect for their purposes.

Walking past a rusted washer and dryer, she approached what appeared to be the far wall of the dank room. However, it was not as it seemed. During the course of the last half century, one of the bungalow’s owners had made a false wall in one corner of the basement, creating a space for a hidden wine cellar. All of which was odd, as the basement was too damp to create the right atmosphere for anything worth drinking.

But then, she wasn’t using the space to hide her special bottles of Pinot Gris or Chardonnay or Merlot.

The fake wall with its dusty shelves and hidden door was a perfect hiding spot, if not for cases of wine, then at least for an escapee from a minimum-security prison.

Careful not to make too much noise, just in case Marla was sleeping, she softly rapped on the back of the shelf. Marla was probably exhausted from the tension of planning and executing the escape.

Elyse waited a second, then pulled on a hidden lever. With a click, the latch unhooked, and she was able to push one section of the shelving into the small room.

She whispered, “Hey, I’m here,” as she let herself into the windowless room currently lit only by the flickering bluish light of the television and a small bedside lamp. The compact area was stark: walls devoid of pictures; the only furniture a chair, bed, night table, and dresser to support the television.

Marla barely looked up to greet her.

Oh God, she was in a bad mood.

Great.

The euphoria of the escape had obviously seeped away. “Are you really watching this?” Elyse demanded, recognizing a popular reality show on the screen of the muted television.

Silently, Marla gave her a look that said it all. Somehow, in prison, Marla had gotten hooked on all kinds of weird TV. “I like it. It’s escapism,” she said and offered a hint of a smile, the old cagey Marla surfacing for a second.

“Okay, whatever. But I thought you’d like to get out of here.”

“And go where?”

“Upstairs.”

“Someone might see me,” she said in a tone that suggested Elyse was an imbecile.

“You can keep the blinds shut, but at least, at least it wouldn’t be like…”

“A cell?” Marla said, scarcely moving her lips.

“Yeah. Like a cell. Tomorrow, I’ll bring cleaning supplies and we’ll fix it up. It’s already furnished.”

Marla snorted in disgust, her eyes wandering back to a group of people locked inside a windowless house together. Well, at least Marla could relate.

“Look, I brought you something to eat.” Elyse held out the white paper sack. “A hamburger I picked up before I went to the house. Sorry it’s a little cold, but I didn’t want to stop afterward.”

“The house?” Marla’s interest was suddenly sharp, though she didn’t seem the least bit interested in the food.

“Yeah,
the
house. On Mt. Sutro.” She stepped closer to the chair and leaned down, whispering in Marla’s ear. “I killed Eugenia tonight. Just like we planned. Oh God…it was…perfect. She recognized me, too, the old bitch.”

“You killed Eugenia? First?” Marla ignored the bag on her lap and glared at Elyse. “That
wasn’t
the way we planned it.”

“Hey! Opportunity knocked, okay? And I got rid of her. I don’t see what difference it makes when they die or how they die, just as long as they die!”

“You little—”

“Don’t,” Elyse warned. “I risked my damned neck for you, so the least you could do is be interested or say ‘thank you’ or ‘good job,’ but do not, do you hear me, do not belittle me. I won’t stand for it.”

“Testy, aren’t we?” Marla muttered.

“Yes,
we
are. Both of us!”

Marla composed herself. “All right,” she said slowly. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just so damned tired of being cooped up.”

“That’ll change soon.”

“Not soon enough.”

Elyse scraped her hair away from her face in frustration. That was the problem with Marla, she was so damned moody. “Listen, I’m sorry. I should have told you, but I had to work fast when I learned that Eugenia would be home alone. Crap, it’s not easy, you know.”

“It’s not easy for me either. I’m the one who’s been in prison, and now…now this.”

“You knew you’d have to keep a low profile for a while.”

Marla frowned, but didn’t argue, thank God. “I think I just need some time to adjust.”

“Yeah, well, me too. Go on, eat and watch…” she glanced at the television. “Whatever it is.”

“
House Arrest.”

“Perfect.”

Marla laughed then at the irony of it all.

“I’ll be back. Tomorrow or the next day, whenever I can be free, and I’ll bring things we can use as your disguise. Then you can chance getting out again. How’s that?”

“Better,” Marla agreed as the show on the television broke for a commercial for some kind of light beer. “Next time you come, make sure the food’s at least tepid.”

“Right.”

As Elyse left she wondered why she even bothered with the bitch.

For the money, remember? The Cahill fortune? Just put up with her for a little while longer. She’s your ticket to wealth.

But you’re right: she’s a first-class bitch.

Live with it.

Heart in her throat, Cissy hunted for her eighteen-month-old son.
Please let him be okay. Please!

“Beej! Honey? Where are you?” Fear pounding through her brain, a dozen horrid scenarios flashing behind her eyes, Cissy jogged the grounds of her grandmother’s house. Her gaze scraped the undergrowth, searching in the darkness. Her heart pounded a horrifying tattoo as the rain began to fall in earnest.

What if she couldn’t find him?

What if he somehow slipped through the bars of the gate?

He was so small…so innocent.

Oh God, please let him be safe!

“B.J.?”

Where were the damned cops?
They could help!

For the last two days they’d been hanging out and…thank God! She saw the first set of flashing lights, flaring red and blue on the hill below. The sirens screamed ever nearer, just as she spied her little boy cowering under an azalea. “Oh, B.J.” She splashed across the cold puddles in the yard and scooped him into her arms, hugging him tightly. He was dirty. And clinging. And crying. His hat was tilted drunkenly on one ear, tied around his neck like a noose. She untied it and pulled it off. He was safe. Safe. She drank in that special B.J. scent of his and swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Me scay-o-ed,” he said, shivering in her arms.

“Me too, baby.” She kissed his now-wet crown and held him close. Tears burned the back of her eyes at the thought of losing him. “But you’re okay now. Mommy’s here. Everything will be all right!” She walked to the gatepost, pressed in a code on the electronic keypad, and, as the gates swung open, the first cop car—an old Cadillac with a light mounted on the dash—roared up the hill, stopping at an odd angle on the street, blocking the drive. The second car, a marked cruiser, found a spot on the crowded street. A fire truck and EMT vehicle were right behind, working their way up the snakelike narrow road.