Almost Dead

  She’d tried to call Rachelle, but the number at Joltz rang on and on.

  Again, she checked the street.

  Once more, there was no van in sight.

  Leave now! This is your chance! They might be back. Now, they won’t know that you took the car out of the garage. You know there isn’t going to be a phone call for ransom; Diedre or Elyse or whoever the hell she is plans on harming Beej, even killing him.

  She grabbed her keys and threw on a jacket, and, as she walked to the garage, she twisted her hair away from her face and slipped a rubber band around the short ponytail. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew that sitting here in the house made no sense whatsoever. Sliding into the Acura, she spied Beej’s car seat in the back. She almost lost it, her knees like water, pain cutting through her heart so deeply she swore it was physical.

  She didn’t dare call Jack for fear it might startle him. If he hadn’t remembered to turn his cell to vibrate or silent mode, it might alert anyone he was stalking of his whereabouts. Even a text message might make some sound.

  So where to? she asked herself as she hit the garage door opener and it ground open, the gears seeming so loud she cringed, the automatic light exposing the fact that she was in the car. Too bad. The FBI could just damned well follow her if they wanted. She was doing nothing illegal. In fact, she was somehow going to find her child. She just had to be careful to maneuver around Jack’s Jeep, then close the garage. She didn’t know how, but she intended to track Diedre Lawson to the ends of the earth.

  Diedre is your half-sister.

  Marla was her mother too.

  God, how twisted was that?

  She put the car into reverse and inched around Jack’s Jeep, her tires sliding off the cement into the yard. As soon as she was clear, she hit the garage door opener and the door ground down. Backing into the street, she threw the Acura into drive and headed into the city.

  She thought about Diedre or Elyse, a person whom she’d known for several years. How could she do this? Why?

  It’s because she’s your half-sister. You heard her voice on the phone. She hates you, Cissy.

  But why?

  Because, in her distorted mind, you were the golden child, the chosen one. You lived with your mother. Marla didn’t abandon you. You became a Cahill.

  But Diedre had her own parents—two people who loved her.

  But she’s screwed up, and she wants what you have, including your baby.

  “Not for long,” she murmured, hands flexing on the wheel. She only had to figure out where, in all of the Bay Area, the monster was hiding her child.

  Diedre stared down the curving steps to where her lover stood in the foyer below. Jack was angry? With her? Why?

  “You blew it,” he said, his blue eyes snapping fire as she descended the staircase.

  “I did no such thing.” The nerve of the man! He was just stressed. They both were.

  “You didn’t stick to the plan.”

  “Hey, I’m the one taking all the chances,” she reminded him, irritated. “I’m the one who has to put up with Marla’s whining! If you think that’s fun, then you go ahead, babysit her for a while.”

  “It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?” he said, looking around the darkened rooms. “Where’s B.J.?”

  “Here.”

  “Where, damn it?” He turned on her then, anger seeming to pulse from him. She saw it in the throb at his neck, the twist of his lips.

  “He’s upstairs, sleeping like a, you know, baby.”

  “Show me.”

  “Oh, for the love of Christ—”

  “Show me!” he insisted and grabbed her arm roughly, jerking it hard. His hair was wet, his face flushed, and he glared at her as if she were a demon straight from hell.

  “Chill out!” she declared, yanking back her arm and cocking her head toward the stairs. “I said he’s upstairs in the nursery sleeping.” She started marching up the sweeping stairs in front of him, but he brushed past her, mounting the steps two at a time. At the curved landing, he looked down the unfamiliar hallways.

  “Where?”

  “The nursery.”

  “Which room is the damned nursery?”

  “Oh, for the love of God. Relax.” She reached the landing and led him along the hallway, which was really a gallery that cut in a semicircle above the foyer. Each of three doors opened to the gallery: the master suite, of course; a library on one side; a music room on the other. And farther down on each curved wing was another bedroom, one of which Diedre had designated the nursery. “Do not wake him up; he’s been cranky all day.”

  He walked to the door that was ajar and pushed it open. It creaked a bit, and she hurried to catch up with him. “Damn it, Jack,” she whispered, “do not wake him up.”

  But she needn’t have worried. Her lover, it seemed, didn’t have the heart to disturb the boy sleeping so soundly with his stuffed animal. Once he was satisfied that the kid was fine, he backed into the hallway and grabbed her wrist, pulling her toward the master bedroom. Now this was more like it! She felt a tiny rush in her bloodstream, sensed his warm fingertips on the inside of her wrist, as if he could feel her pulse.

  Once inside, he closed the doors behind them, and she, smiling, said, “I thought we could have a private party up on the deck of the turret.”

  He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “There’s a storm raging out there!”

  “All the more fun, don’t you think?”

  “What I think is that you’ve gone too far. It was not in the plan to kidnap the baby, and what the hell did you do to Tanya? You killed her!”

  “I met her in the park and told her that I needed something she’d borrowed from me—an umbrella that I had at the coffee shop, for crying out loud. She got caught in a rainshower one day. So, I insisted that I needed it immediately. Tanya didn’t want to bring B.J. back to her place, but I told her it would be just for a second, I really needed the damned umbrella, and then I followed her there.”

  “And shot her dead,” he charged, his hand, stiff as a claw, shaking in the air beside him, as if he wanted to strangle her.

  “How else was I going to keep her mouth shut? It’s not as if she would just hand him over to me, now, is it?”

  “But you weren’t supposed to kidnap him! The point is that he’s the one who inherits everything.”

  “Why bother with him? I’m Marla’s daughter. If everyone else is dead, then I inherit.”

  Jack’s face turned deadly. “You mean to tell me that you want to kill the baby?”

  “I want to kill that bitch, Cissy,” she retorted. When she saw his shocked expression, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you care about her? She’s in the way. I’ll take care of it. And don’t worry, I’ll make it look like Marla did it. I’ve left her DNA at all the crime scenes, and she didn’t even realize it,” Diedre said, proud of herself. “Fingernail clippings, hairs. And she has no alibi. I figure it’ll be back in prison for her for the rest of her life.”

  “Diedre,” he said softly, his eyes troubled. “Marla’s dead. You know that, don’t you?”

  “What are you talking about? She’s hiding out in Berkeley.”

  He gasped. Appeared thunderstruck. Shoved his hair from his eyes with both hands. “Haven’t you seen the news?”

  “Why? What are they reporting?”

  “They found Marla! In the house in Berkeley.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “When was the last time you went to see her?” he asked, and his shock seemed to give way to something else. Fear? Disgust?

  “Earlier today…or maybe…yesterday?” She tried to shake the cobwebs from her mind.

  “And she was alive?”

  “Yes!” she said, but something in his words triggered a memory of a fight, of Marla’s arguments, of her insistence that she couldn’t live cooped up “like a damned convict” again. Isn’t that what she’d said?


  Diedre tried to think, but her head was pounding, the images distorted. She remembered parking the car and shuttling Marla inside.

  “This is where I’m supposed to stay?” Marla had asked as she’d looked at the small bungalow. She’d shaken her head in dismay. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, really, it’ll be perfect,” Diedre had insisted, unlocking the door and glancing across the street to the house where an old lady was picking her mail out of the box and glancing toward the cottage. “Come inside, I’ll show you.” She’d finally unlatched the door and pushed it open and Marla, dressed in the jeans and sweater Diedre had picked up for her, had walked into the darkened interior. The house had been cold, of course, and dark with the gloom of winter twilight fading. All the blinds were dusty and closed. “You’ll have to stay downstairs for a few days. I’ve got it set up, just until we know no one’s seen you.”

  “Downstairs? As in a basement?” Marla grimaced. “Wonderful,” she said sarcastically.

  “No, it’s all set for you…I’ll get more furniture for up here, but it’ll take some time.”

  “Jesus, this place is awful.” Marla had snapped on a light and seen no beauty in the patina of the old hardwood floors, no charm in the built-in bookcases and fireplace. “Someone will see me here.”

  “No, no…we’ll keep the blinds drawn.”

  “Great.”

  “Only for a little while, until we set the rest of the plan in motion,” Diedre had pointed out. “We just have to get rid of anyone who stands to inherit the money that your father intended for you.”

  “My father,” Marla muttered, walking to the fireplace where a mirror was still mounted over the mantel. Her gaze found Diedre’s in the reflection. “My father was an A-number-one chauvinistic bastard. Always concerned about the boys. You know, he wouldn’t have had a thing to do with you. Women were only good for screwing and breeding. Male heirs. That’s why I had to come up with a son…oh, Christ, it’s all ancient history now.” She ran a finger over the mantel. “There’s no furniture.”

  “I know, I know…I haven’t had time.”

  Marla whirled to face her. “You’ve had all the time in the world. We’ve been planning this for years! The least you could have done was come up with a chair or two. And where the hell am I supposed to sleep?”

  Diedre’s hands fisted. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go. “Just give me a little time.”

  “For what? A sleeping bag?” Marla snarled.

  “Look, Mom, I tried and—”

  “Mom?” Marla repeated, facing her. “MOM?”

  “You’re my mother.”

  “I’m not your mother. I might have given birth to you, but that was it, okay? Remember that.”

  Diedre felt a rip in her heart. “I know you had to give me up way back when, but I thought, now that we finally found each other—”

  “You found me,” Marla reminded firmly. “I never came looking for you.”

  Diedre couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Wait a minute. Because I ‘came looking’ for you, and because I found you, and stuck my damned neck out for you—that’s why you’re here now, out of prison, free as a bird.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Without me, you’d still be in prison.”

  “Looks like I already am.” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Look at this place,” she said, walking closer to Diedre. “I’m used to living in mansions with servants, not hidden away in some crappy little run-down bungalow! Jesus, Diedre, what were you thinking?”

  “That you might be grateful,” Diedre snapped. “And it’s been a long time since you lived in a mansion, or have you already forgotten about the last, what? Nine or ten years when you were in a tiny cell?” She moved closer to this cold-hearted woman who had borne her. “You just have to wait a little longer, until we get our hands on the money. We have a plan, remember? First we have to get rid of a few people.”

  “I hope you include Eugenia on that list.”

  “She’s not an Amhurst.”

  “But she knows about you.” Marla walked to the short hallway leading to two small bedrooms. “We’ll never be safe if she’s around.” Her mouth twisted in disgust. “You have to get rid of everyone who could blow it for us, and you have to make certain that the cops think I’m long gone, or better yet, dead. The prison clothes—they should be left somewhere, with some of my blood on them, so that when they’re found the authorities will think I’m wounded…you know, maybe even dead.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “That would be the best,” she said, the wheels turning in her mind.

  “So you’ll stay here,” Diedre said, resenting the fact that she’d done so much and her ungrateful mother didn’t seem to give a damn.

  “I don’t see that I have much choice until you find something better.”

  “I can’t do that until we get the money.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, can’t you come up with something? My God, didn’t your parents leave you anything?”

  “It’s expensive to—”

  “Excuses!” Marla snapped, folding her arms across her chest. “It’s so cold in here.”

  “If you could quit complaining for a second, I’ll take care of it.” Diedre marched to the thermostat, adjusting the temperature, trying to tamp down the anger that kept rising. “I thought we were in this together. A partnership. Whether you like it or not, I’m your daughter.” The furnace rumbled to life, air blowing through the vents.

  “Don’t start with that.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Is that what you think? Don’t tell me that you sprang me from prison because you thought that you and I had some kind of bond…a mother-daughter thing going, because that’s not how it is. I gave you up at birth because you were inconvenient in my life, get it?”

  The headache Diedre had been fighting began to throb. Through her ears a great, rushing sound nearly drowned out the hated words. Still, she heard them, watched as Marla’s red lips formed the syllables.

  “Giving you up for adoption wasn’t some great sacrifice because I loved you and thought you deserved a better life. I was just not ready for a baby, and I’m not really sure who your father is, okay? It was a time in my life I’d rather forget, but you came looking for me and offered me a way out of prison, so I took it. End of story.”

  Diedre couldn’t believe it! How many years had she gone to the prison, pretending to be a person of faith, like Mary Smith, and met with another inmate, one who had passed the information on to Marla? How long had she worked in that joke of a job at the coffee shop, just to get close to Cissy? All this was part of Jack’s plan…for the Amhurst money…that’s what it was all about. “I–I’m your daughter.”

  “You’re not my daughter. I wasn’t there for you and I didn’t want to be. I’m not about to sugar-coat this and claim that I pined away for you all my life. The truth of the matter is that I spent a few months thinking about you, and then I decided to pretend that you were dead, that I’d never see you again. I had a life to live; one without you. And I had another child, one I cared about, whose father I married. Cissy’s my daughter, Diedre, the girl I raised. You’re a stranger.”

  Diedre was shaking her head, disbelieving, fighting the fury that was burning through her. “I’ve done so much for you so we could be together.”

  “Oh, save me.”

  Pain boiled through Diedre. Despair darkened her heart. Anger exploded in her brain. She was being rejected all over again. “You don’t mean it,” she said, but she knew. Marla was right. She’d used Diedre, played with her emotions, had never felt a pang of love for her firstborn.

  “For the love of God, don’t go through some freaky, maudlin routine with me. I’ve got no time for it. We’ve got things to do.” She was walking from one end of the room to the other, pacing, thinking, her shoes tapping on the hardwood, echoing in sharp painful jabs in Diedre’s brain. “Now, do I have a bed in this hellhole or what?”
br />   The words rang through Diedre’s head. The sharp click of Marla’s heels cut through her brain. She winced, tried to keep her thoughts straight, but for the first time she realized Marla, her own flesh and blood, her damned MOTHER, had played her for a fool. She’d used Diedre’s emotions against her. “Don’t you love me?” she whispered. Her adoptive mother hadn’t loved her, either.

  “Enough! This is not about love.”

  “Of course it is!”

  The rush in her head became louder. “You’re my—”

  “I used you to get out of prison,” Marla cut her off. “You did it because this is the only way you’ll get any chance at the Amhurst money. That’s all there was to it.”

  “No!”

  Marla let out a disgusted puff of air. “Sorry if I destroyed any of your fantasies.”

  Diedre didn’t realize she was reaching into her purse, her fingers fumbling for the gun. She pulled it out and lifted it, pointing it straight at Marla.

  The woman who was supposed to be her mother gazed at her with disgust. “Oh, for God’s sake, don’t go all overly dramatic on me.”

  “I risked everything for you,” Diedre whispered, her hand shaking as she held the gun. “Everything.” Tears slid down her face. “And you didn’t care about me at all.”

  “Put the gun down.”

  “Say you love me.”

  “What?”

  “Tell me that you’re my mother and that you love me,” she said, the damned gun wobbling all over.

  “Diedre…oh, for the love of God, you don’t have the guts to pull the trigger,” Marla said as a car backfired on the street. Marla turned, faced the window, and Diedre fired. One quick shot to the back of her mother’s head. “I loved you,” she whimpered. “I always loved you…so beautiful…why…Mama…Why…?”

  Now, at the Amhurst house, with the wind rising and screaming outside, Diedre stared at Jack. She blinked. Shook the image out of her head. It had been a dream, only a dream. A nightmare.

  Right?

  She’d visited Marla plenty of times since then…and…and…Her throat tightened. In her mind’s eye, she remembered falling to her knees, holding the dead woman, crying and rocking. “You’re not dead,” she’d whispered over and over, “You are not dead. We have so much to do…” And she’d carried her mother downstairs to the room she’d prepared and Marla had slept and…and…she’d gotten better…that was the way it was. Diedre had visited her and spoken with her and fed her and…surely…oh…of course Marla was alive! She was just confused. And Jack, he was using it against her for a reason she didn’t understand. She focused on him now, standing in front of her, half-crazed with anger. “Why are you lying to me?” she demanded, furious with him.