Almost Dead (19 page)

The door slammed shut.

Cutting off Cissy’s view of her mother.

It couldn’t be! Marla wouldn’t have risked coming here! No way.

So what then, Cissy? Are you imagining things? Pulling up her image when you know she can’t be anywhere near?

On rubbery legs she raced down the stairs and out the front door. Rain was pouring from the sky, gurgling in the downspouts, puddling on the ground. Cissy stepped off the porch. “Mom!” she yelled. “Damn it, Mom, where are you?”

But she was talking to the wind.

She saw no one, heard no running footsteps.

It was as if a ghost had appeared, only to fade again.

No!

She knew what she’d seen. Damn it, if she’d only had her cell phone. Following the path to the back of the house, she searched through the gardens and shrubbery, but in the ever-darkening gloom, she saw no one. Not near the trellis, nor the arbor, nor…She saw the swing, hanging from its rotting wooden frame, slowly shifting to and fro, the old chains barely rattling.

The wind?

Or a hand that had swiped it as Marla had fled?

“Mom!” she yelled again, but her only answer was the soft rush of traffic down the hill, the sweep of fir branches in the wind, the plop of raindrops.

She turned, eyeing the big house rising four stories above the ground, mullioned windows dark and ominous.

Determinedly, she trudged to the front of the house. No one was here. Lord, had it been her imagination? Had all the talk of her mother’s escape finally gotten to her? With the murder of Rory and Gran, had she, Cissy, snapped? She wasn’t afraid of her mother. Never would be. Marla wasn’t the most loving mother on earth, that much was true, and Cissy had suffered from her share of neglect, but she didn’t fear her mother. Never would. Whoever had killed Gran and Rory was not Marla Amhurst Cahill. She wouldn’t believe it.

So what the hell had just happened?

With no answer, she locked the front door, pulled on the handle to make sure it latched, then walked along the brick path to her car. All the while she eyed the shadows and stygian umbras; the wet, shivering plants; the dark, sheltered nooks where the exterior corners of the house met.

But she caught no glimpse of a running woman, heard no frantic footsteps or rush of wild breathing.

Marla’s image was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

Cissy was alone.

Trembling, she rubbed her arms, finally noticing the rain that was running down her neck. Had she seen her mother?

Or had her stupid, twisted mind hallucinated, creating an image she secretly wanted to see?

“You’re a basket case,” she said as she climbed into her car. Inside she noticed the scent, the faintest fragrance that she remembered from her childhood, the odor of the perfume that her mother had worn.

“No,” she said and fought tears, denied that she might be losing her mind. “You are not going to haunt me, you bitch, do you hear me? I won’t let you.” Her mother had not been in her car. And the gates to the estate were closed. Locked. Marla hadn’t opened them.

Cissy hit the button on the remote lock and shoved the Acura into reverse, waiting as the gate’s old gears groaned and clicked. But the gate didn’t move. She hit the button again. Heard the same clicks and groan of grinding gears. In the mirror’s reflection, she caught sight of the slightest movement of the massive wrought-iron gate, as if it were trying to open but couldn’t.

“What the hell?” Disgusted, Cissy climbed out of her car and examined the gate. Deep in the latch, crammed into the release mechanism, was a rusted screwdriver.

A tool that hadn’t been there when she arrived, as the gate had swung open easily.

All the blood in Cissy’s body turned to ice.

Her mother’s image had been no ghostly apparition.

The perfume hadn’t been her imagination.

Marla Cahill had returned.

Cherise Favier checked caller ID before answering the phone. When Donald was out of town, as he had been since yesterday’s noon sermon, she was a little more cautious about answering either the phone or the door, or even going outside. It wasn’t that she was scared, not really, it was just that over the years of their marriage she’d ceased being just Cherise. She and Donald were like two halves of a whole. She was used to being with him, a part of something special, bigger than herself.

She liked being married.

She’d always liked being married, and this time, she wasn’t giving up. Third time was the proverbial charm, and she’d move heaven and earth to remain Mrs. Donald Favier forever.

Her life had been in turmoil before she’d found Donald, and she wasn’t going to let him slip away. Now she lived in a large house, supplied by the parish, of course. It was even larger than the last one they’d shared, which only proved how much the parishioners loved her husband.

Nonetheless, sometimes she was lonely, and her children, all three at college, rarely called, hardly ever came home for visits.

So she checked caller ID, saw that Cissy was calling, and almost didn’t answer, not after that hideous scene at her house after the funeral. Good heavens! Cissy had acted as if Cherise were asking for more than was her due! They all knew that was wrong, all realized that her father, and all of his progeny, had been scammed by that vile grandfather of Cissy’s.

She picked up the phone. “Hello?” she said, as if she didn’t know who was on the other end of the line.

“Hi, Cherise, it’s Cissy,” a raspy nasal voice responded, then erupted into a fit of coughing. “Sorry. I guess I strained my voice talking so much or something. Who knows? It’s mainly laryngitis.” Cissy sounded as if even speaking in a whisper was a real strain.

“Oh. I, uh, hope you feel better,” Cherise said. She was slightly mystified. Cissy never called. Never. She wasn’t phoning just to make conversation. There had to be a point to this.

“Look, I’m sorry about the other day. I didn’t mean to blow up at you like that. I was just overwrought, you know. Freaked out about Gran and all. I want to make it up to you.”

Cherise liked the sound of that, but she was suspicious. She’d known Cissy all of her life, and the younger woman wasn’t one to capitulate or change her mind. “You do?”

“Yeah…well, I don’t know. I just thought we should talk, and I promise I won’t freak out.”

That sounded better. Truer to form. “When?”

“How about tonight? I can get a sitter.”

“Oh, well…Donald’s out of town. I know he wants us all to get together for a family dinner.”

“Actually, I thought it should be just you and me anyway. Not Jack or Donald, because they’re not really Cahills.”

“I don’t make any decisions without talking things over with Donald.”

“What decisions? I just want to hear what you have to say, but if you’re not interested, then I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“No! I mean, of course we should talk. Tonight would be fine,” Cherise agreed quickly, her mind spinning ahead of her tongue. She couldn’t afford to squander this opportunity. She felt something wasn’t right about this, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. There was a chance that Cissy was up to something. But what? “What time?”

“You name it.”

“How about seven?” That way she could call Donald, tell him what was up, and have him let her know the best way to handle Cissy.

“I’ll come to your place. If you need to change anything, call me on my cell. I’m going to be out of the house all day.”

“Okay, I’ve got your number,” Cherise said, knowing that her phone had saved the number.

“Perfect.” Cissy hung up, and Cherise called her back, just to make sure.

“Hello?” Cissy answered, sounding just as raspy.

“Oh, Cissy, I was just checking to see that you know how to get here. Do you have the address?”

“Gran had it, and I’ve got her Rolodex. She never did trust computers.”

That sounded legit. Still, Cherise wished Donald were here rather than in Sacramento with a group planning a mission to Mexico. She should just say ‘no’ and insist Cissy wait, but as up and down as that girl was, Cherise knew she had to act fast, strike while the iron was hot. “Well, great, I’ll see you then.” She hung up; then, because she still felt weird about it, she called Cissy’s home, where Tanya informed her that Cissy was out for a while.

Everything checked out. So why was she being so paranoid?

Cherise gave herself a talking to. It looked like Cissy’s guilt was finally getting to her. Good, Cherise thought with a smile as she lit the candles in the living room, the same as she did every twilight. It just made the house so much cheerier. Next she sent up several prayers—one of thanks and one for Donald’s safety. Everything in her life was getting better.

So why did she still feel so nervous?

“You think your mother was here?” Paterno asked. Cissy Holt had called from her grandmother’s house and sworn she’d seen her mother. Paterno hadn’t wasted a second. He’d driven straight to the mansion on Mt. Sutro, where Cissy, arms wrapped around her torso, had met him in the living room, just a few steps from the foyer where she’d found her grandmother’s body.

He’d been to a lot of crime scenes, seen mutilated corpses, bloodied bodies, witnessed the most bizarre acts of cruelty done to one human being by another. But never had he felt such a sense of malevolence as he did in this house, not a feeling of out-and-out brutality, more a sensation of cold, calculating, psychological horror.

That’s what was happening here.

Marla was purposely terrorizing her.

And it pissed him off, even more than the keying of his car had…or, well, at least as much. He was still enraged at the dickwad who had scarred his beloved Caddy.

Cissy had told him a bizarre story about arriving here—how she’d thought she was alone, how she’d spied Marla Cahill in the doorway. She’d almost thought she was imagining it but for the smell of perfume in her car and the screwdriver jammed into the lock on the electronic gate.

Paterno, using a flashlight, had looked around. He bagged and tagged the screwdriver, looked for footprints in the earth, but the rain had pretty much taken care of anything solid. He wondered why Marla would risk coming here. Had she thought she could hide out? Why hadn’t she spoken to Cissy? And what was the deal with the elevator being sent to the second floor?

Nothing made sense.

He called Quinn, and they decided to ask the crime lab to come and look for clues. Eventually Tallulah Jefferson and Roger Billings, another tech, arrived. They made short work of the place, dusted the front door for prints, searched again for footprints, and collected what little evidence there was, even dusting Cissy’s car and vacuuming it in hopes of finding trace evidence.

“So has anything else strange been happening?” Paterno asked.

“Everything seems…off,” Cissy revealed. It was dark now; the rain had stopped, but water was still running down the hillside and into the grate in the middle of the driveway. “I’ve misplaced some things.”

“Such as?”

She seemed embarrassed. “Nothing valuable. My cell phone, a silver cup that Gran gave B.J. when he was born, and…oh, and my hairbrush, but I think they might all be at the house. There were so many people there the day of the funeral, things got moved.”

“Your cell?”

“It was turned off. I thought it was in my purse, but maybe it fell out. Everything else was there. I checked. Credit cards, ID, and cash. Right where I left them. Only the phone’s missing. I’ve called, thinking someone might have found it and would answer, but it goes right to voice mail. And no one’s called home to the landline which is listed in the cell’s phone book, in case someone found it and wanted to get hold of me. It’s a real pain, let me tell you. That’s where I store everyone’s number.”

“You think someone stole it?” he asked again, trying to understand.

She looked away over the iron fence on the lower side of the property to the city, where lights twinkled through a bank of fog. “I don’t know what to think,” she admitted. “My whole life is upside down right now.” Sighing, she checked her watch and said, “Look, I’ve really got to run. The sitter expected me fifteen minutes ago.”

“Okay. Just let me know if you think of anything else.”

“I will,” she promised, and for the first time ever, he sensed she trusted him.

Cissy’s nerves were jangled, stretched thin, her hands grasping the steering wheel as if she were afraid to let go. She drove down Mt. Sutro and merged into Stanyan, following the taillights of an SUV.

Ever since Gran’s death, her life had been careening out of control. People were dying. Things were missing. She felt as if she were being watched by unseen eyes, and now this…this sighting of her mother. Did that make any sense?

“No,” she said aloud, and as she stopped for a traffic light she thought about the impending divorce and how torn she was about that too. Had Jack had an affair with Larissa? Was he lying through his teeth, or, as he’d protested, had “nothing happened”? Did it matter whether he’d slept with her at all, or was it the fact that he’d ended up spending the night in the redhead’s apartment?

Ever since that one disastrous event, she’d suspected nearly every woman she knew of trying to seduce her husband. “That’s nuts,” she told herself, then glanced in the rearview mirror to see her own pained eyes staring back at her. Frightened eyes. Paranoid eyes. Oh God, was she losing her mind? She felt herself quivering inside and gnashed her back teeth together.
Get a grip, Cissy!

She eased around the edge of Buena Vista Park and turned onto Haight Street. She’d go home, play with B.J., make dinner, give him a bath. Once he was in bed, she would strip out of her clothes, cast off her cares, and settle into a tub of hot, scented water. She’d turn on the stereo to her favorite CD, light candles, and even sip some wine. Pamper herself. Find herself.

She wouldn’t think about her mother, the murders, her estranged husband, her missing things. No, she’d relax and de-stress.

At the house, she clicked her remote and drove into the garage. Hauling her purse and computer into the house, she called “Hello” but heard no excited little footsteps, no small voice calling excitedly “Mom-mee home,” no giggling. No frantic barking from Coco. In fact the house was silent as a tomb.