Chapter 22
Cissy looked at the clock for the fourth time in as many minutes. Jack had been gone over an hour, and she hadn’t heard a word. Nor had the police called or stopped by. She chanced a peek through the blinds, and, miracle of miracles, the van that had been parked up the street for days was gone.
Had the FBI seen Jack leave and taken off after him? Had they considered him a risk to the investigation and arrested him? Where was he?
She paced in front of the fire, barely noticing the flames licking the porcelain logs or her own reflection in the mirror. What if she lost them both? Not only B.J., but Jack as well? She felt sick inside. Jangled. Her restlessness was making her crazy, her nerves wound tighter than a watch spring. She had to do something.
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?”
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.
“Goddamn it, Diedre! She’s dead, and I think she has been for a long time.”
She was shaking her head, but the headache, the fog, returned. Through the rising mist she remembered the argument, the gun in her hand…a loud bang and Marla falling, spinning, turning, her face twisted in shock. Now she blinked rapidly, clearing her head. That was a dream. Surely. But Jack was reaching into his jacket, pulling out a videotape wrapped in a plastic bag.
“I thought you would try to deny it,” he muttered, turning on the older model television and VCR, shoving the tape in the recorder. She stared at the snowy screen as he adjusted some of the knobs. “Here we go.” He hit the play button, and a jerky image of a woman reporter standing in front of the bungalow showed on the screen.
The newswoman was holding a microphone in the rain, wincing a little with the blast of wind. “…prison escapee Marla Cahill was found dead this afternoon in the house you see behind me…”
“That’s not right,” Diedre murmured. She had dreamed of killing the bitch, but she’d never actually pulled the trigger…right? She hadn’t killed Marla….
“…partially decomposed body from the house…”
A stretcher covered by a body bag appeared rolling from the back of the house, the rear porch Diedre recognized, to a waiting van from the coroner’s office.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“She wasn’t supposed to die yet, not until we could frame her for the murders. You stupid, stupid bitch, what were you thinking? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
She glared at him. Instead of being proud of her for all the things she’d done for him, he was pissed as hell. Furious, he snapped off the television and the VCR. The house was suddenly silent. Still.
“You were not supposed to kidnap my grandson,” Jack said, so angry he was shaking. “He’s the link. I fought like hell for my son Jack to meet Cissy, and then when they were married, I thought I’d won the lottery. Then she started talking divorce, and you…you messed things up but good. I don’t know why I ever bothered with you.”
“Jack—”
“It’s Jonathan,” he said coldly, denying her the nickname she’d given him, the one like his son’s. She’d thought it cute and playful, and he’d put up with it. Until now.
She leaned against the bed. Everything was changing, swirling in her mind. Did she actually kill the bitch then delude herself into believing that the corpse was actually alive? God, her head ached. She rubbed her temples, trying to think. She remembered several conversations with Marla. Her mother had sat in her chair or on the bed, not speaking, either smirking or pouting…or was it decomposing? But they’d had conversations, about the baby, about Rory, about her damned hair. Diedre remembered trimming her nails, listening to Marla whine in her low voice…that was it…always in the low voice. And only after she was in the room in the basement. That’s when she’d started whispering. Was it possible she hadn’t been complaining? How many times had Diedre wondered why Marla’s voice had been so soft, why she’d spoken when Diedre’s back was turned, why her lips had barely moved.
Oh, God!
WAS IT POSSIBLE?
Had she…Jesus, had she taken the kid into the house to visit a dead woman? When B.J. had complained of the smell, had it been the stench of decay and rotting flesh?
Images flashed behind her eyes. Horrible images of a decomposing body—maggots visible, flesh falling away—cut through her vision of her mother’s beautiful face…oh…oh no…Her stomach revolted, bile rising, and she was trembling inside.
“You killed her too early!” he said again, snapping Diedre back to the present. Sweat broke out on her skin and the headache, that damned excruciating pain blasted through her. “What kind of idiot are you? Marla needed to be alive until after you took care of the people who needed to die…Eugenia and Rory and Cherise. That was the reason you threw suspicion on her. Remember? To prove that Marla was the killer? How the hell are you going to get out of it now?”
“You mean us,” she said dully, fighting the pain. “How are we going to get out of it?”
“I should never have trusted you,” he said, rage pounding in a tic under his eye. How could he talk to her this way, this lover who now wanted to be called Jonathan? This man she slept with, made love to, loved with all of her heart? “I knew it. This was a mistake from the get-go.” He raked his hands impatiently through his hair. “What the hell were you thinking? After all the time we spent finding a way to spring her? To get our hands on the money? You go and kill her too soon!”
There it was again. The image of Marla lying dead on the floor, blood pooling from her brain. An accident…if it had actually happened. But now, Jack was saying they had planned to kill her. Her head was pounding so hard she could barely think. “This—you and me—wasn’t just about money. You and I…we’re going to get married. You’re leaving your wife for me…”
“I’m not married. What did you think this was about?”
“It was about love.”
“Oh, give me a fucking break, Diedre.”
He, like Marla, sniggered at her thoughts of love. That’s not how it had always been. He’d found her. While working as a donation solicitor at Cahill House, he had gone through old records and learned that Marla Amhurst had come to the home to have her baby and give the child up for adoption. Using the information, Jonathan located her and ultimately seduced her. Or was it the other way around? She too had been searching for her birth mother, and then this handsome, sexy, intelligent, older man had shown up. Flirting with her. Making her feel so much better after her loser of a husband, Gene, had divorced her.
He’d spent years planning it, the ultimate score. He’d even set up his son to meet Cissy, to gain him the grandson and access to both the Cahill and Amhurst fortunes. B.J. Holt stood in line to inherit millions. But Diedre had believed Jack loved her. It had started out slow, their love affair, just a little flirting over coffee, then he offered to drive her home when her car hadn’t started one night. Over time, he’d admitted that he’d known who she was, and when he came up with a way for her to meet the mother she’d never known, she leapt at the chance. Eventually, he’d suggested they help Marla escape, and together they’d hatched their plan, which now seemed hazy. All of her communication with Marla had been through her cell mate at the first prison. She and Diedre had never met until the day that the plan went into motion, and then, the first time they’d looked eye-to-eye, Marla had smiled.
They’d driven back to the city together. “You look like me,” she’d said, tilting her head and studying Diedre. Diedre had been pleased until Marla added, “Much more like me than Cissy does.” Her smile had been sincere. “Thank you.”
Diedre had felt tears welling in her eyes, and then she’d outlined the plan to Marla…how to get their hands on the Amhurst money. Rory would have to die, of course, and James up in Oregon, eventually, and then there was Cissy. Marla had balked a little at that idea, at least at first. But prison had hardened her, and Cissy had turned her back on her mother. Eventually, Marla had gone along with the idea of the killings, though, of course, she didn’t know that Jonathan had ultimately intended to blame her and either kill her or send her back to prison. Diedre had thought that she could talk him out of it by staging Marla’s death, having it look as if she were dead or on the run in Oregon, away from the Bay Area. She’d already talked to Sam, the man she’d hired to scare Cissy at the coffee shop, and he’d agreed to do whatever was necessary. Except nothing had turned out as she’d planned. Now Marla was dead.
How had she let herself believe Jonathan had ever loved her? How had she ever thought that Marla would love her as a daughter?
You’re a fool, that’s why. Just like that bitch of an adoptive mother had always said.
Now, Jonathan glared at her as if he actually hated her. “You screwed everything up. Everything. This had nothing to do with love. Ever. You and I, we were just using each other. And now, because you’re such a stupid idiot, we’re both going to go to jail for a long, long time.”
“You bastard!” she hissed, snapping.
Smack!
She slapped him. Hard. Leaving a red mark on his face.
“What the hell?”
Rage, hot and wild, exploded deep inside her, and she saw Jonathan for what he was. How had she ever thought she loved him? He was a generation older than she, a man who had never forgotten his wife, never stopped loving Jill.
“I always suspected you were nuts,” Jonathan sneered, clenching a fist.
Before she could answer, he struck, his fist crashing into her chest. Pain exploded in her ribs, the wind rushed out of her lungs, and she doubled over.
Fury rose with the speed of a demon. She looked up at him and saw the hatred glinting in his eyes. “You are such a lowlife,” she said.
“A little late for name calling,” he spat. “Now what the hell are we going to do?”
She didn’t think twice. Her purse was hanging from the bedpost. She lunged for the leather bag. In one quick movement, she reached inside and pulled out her .38.
Her heart thudded, reverberating through the pain in her skull. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, Jonathan,” she snarled, aiming at his heart. “But I’ve got work to do.”
“NO! Diedre—”
She fired. Point-blank.
With a startled cry, he stumbled backward. His handsome face was a mask of shock. “Diedre, no…” he whispered, disbelieving, starting to fall.
Blood ran from the wound in his chest, staining his jacket as he dropped first to one knee, then the other.
“You should have loved me,” she said as he tried vainly to catch himself, smearing blood on the floor.
She blinked.
Realized what she’d done.
Dear God, no. This was all wrong. She loved him.
And yet he’d attacked her!
Her mouth went dry as she remembered how she’d met him, how he’d sought her out, how she’d envisioned a perfect life with him, even thinking she would become his wife. That, of course, had been a pipe dream, the kind of childish fantasy her adoptive mother had always teased her about.
Now she looked down at him, the man she’d loved with all her heart, watching as he bled out. Had he ever really cared about her? He’d said so, but words were cheap.
It had been his idea to not just shake down the Cahills, who were in control of the money, but the Amhursts as well. He’d offered it up and she’d thought it brilliant; he’d told her he loved her, and she, fool that she was, had believed him.
Liar! Prick! She sacrificed everything for him. For them. For his plan. She took all the risks, and now…now she realized that he loved his damned grandson more than he ever loved her!
“What have you done?” he said, staring up at her, trying to lever up on one arm and then falling back, his head cracking against the floor.
“What I should have done from the beginning.”
Diedre fired again, and his body convulsed, blood showing at his nostrils and one corner of his mouth as well as spreading in a dark red stain across his chest. He was already dead. She knew it. But she shot him one more time.
The son of a bitch. He deserved it.
Cissy drove like a maniac through the streets, her gaze scanning the rain-washed sidewalks, her eyes searching for anything that might give her a clue. She tried to call Rachelle again, but still no one answered. Think, Cissy, think, she told herself as she pulled up to a light near a low-slung car with rap music blaring from its speakers, the throb of the bass a counterpoint to her own beating heart. Of course. The coffee shop was probably closed at this hour. The police were probably now at Diedre’s apartment, but she wouldn’t be that stupid, that obvious. The house in Berkeley was cordoned off, so that wouldn’t be where she’d run with Beej.
“Come on, come on,” she told herself. Where would she go? Where? She wanted to be you. She thought you lived a charmed, pampered life. So where would Diedre go. Cissy thought hard. If Diedre had always wanted a life of privilege, like the Cahills, she would run to the estate on Mt. Sutro, though that was too risky. No. There must be someplace else…someplace she would feel safe…someplace connected to the life she wanted.
“Oh God,” Cissy whispered, her pulse jumping as the wipers slapped at the rain and the light changed. The low-slung car beat her from the stop and roared around her, but Cissy barely noticed. Her mind was spinning wildly. Diedre didn’t think of herself as a Cahill, but an Amhurst; therefore, she would take B.J. to—
Her cell phone rang, and she snatched it from her pocket, saw that it was Jack and flipped it open.
“Tell me you have Beej!” she cried.
“No.”
Her heart dropped.
“Can you get away from the police and pick me up?”
“I’m already out,” she admitted.
“Oh…good. Then pick me up at my father’s place.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, desperate for answers.
“I’ll tell you when you get here.”
“I’m on my way.” She did a quick U-turn at the next corner and stepped on it, making her way to Jack’s father’s condo in record time. Traffic was light, but the streets were wet, the wind gusting as she pulled into the short drive.
Jack was waiting and dripping wet.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as he opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.
“I came to borrow a car. It didn’t work out. Dad isn’t here.” He said it bitterly, then added, “Let’s go. Drive. North.”
“To Sausalito?” she asked, glancing at him. She was already backing out, heading toward the Golden Gate Bridge. “To the Amhurst mansion, right?”
He gave her a surprised look. “You figured it out?”
“I don’t know why Diedre killed Gran, maybe because she knew the truth, but she killed Rory because he was an Amhurst. Marla too.”
“And Cherise?”
“Oh…I don’t know…” Cissy shook her head, but she wouldn’t be deterred. “I just think she would go to the house.”
“And, if Diedre’s out to get all the Amhursts, you, your brother James, and B.J. aren’t safe,” he said solemnly as he pulled out his cell phone. “I’m calling Paterno.”
“What if we’re wrong?” she asked as she eased her car onto the bridge and felt the rolling gusts of wind buffet the Acura.
“Then we look like fools. Still—no harm—no foul.” He left a message with the detective, then snapped his cell phone shut as Cissy drove through the stormy night, over the neck of water separating the Pacific from San Francisco Bay, seeing the winking lights of the city in her rearview mirror.
She felt Jack’s worry and drove steadily onward. “How did you figure it out?” she asked, guiding her car up the hills of Sausalito. “I thought you were going to Jannelle’s.”
“I decided I didn’t need the inquisition or the grief. I called Sam and couldn’t get hold of him, so I jogged over to Dad’s.”
“It’s another mile or so.”
“Two and a half,” he said, “but who’s counting? Anyway, Dad wasn’t in, but I went inside. I know a window that doesn’t quite latch. I was drying off, trying to figure out what to do, whether to wait for him, call you, the police, or what. I was running out of ideas, but as I was in his bathroom off the bedroom, using a towel, I saw his computer monitor. It was on, and Beej’s face was smiling up at me. It’s his wallpaper. So I touched the keypad, and his computer opened to his e-mail. There were hundreds of messages, all written by someone named Elyse, love letters, every one addressed to ‘Dear Jack.’”
“Elyse…Who’s Jack?” She blinked. “Your father?”
“Some people call him Jack, only a few, but apparently she did. Most of them were cryptic, but I figure they were in a hot love affair and that Dad was in on Marla’s escape and the murders, too.”
“Your father…and Diedre…?”
“Sick, I know, but apparently Dad has stooped to a new low. They headed up the long narrow road to the old Victorian manor built high on the cliffs. It should have been empty, but there were a few windows where they could see slats of light cutting through the blinds.
Parked in the cracked, uneven lot was Jack’s father’s SUV.
“Perfect,” Jack said. “I’m going in.”
“Me too.”
“Either wait here for me or, better yet, drive back to town and keep trying to get hold of someone at the police department.”
She cut the engine. “My son is probably in there, and I’m not waiting outside. You told Paterno what’s up, now let’s go inside.”
He hesitated, then reached into his pocket. “Then take this.” He handed her a small pistol.
Cissy violently shook her head. “I don’t even know how to shoot a gun. Where did you get that?”
His lips twisted. “Dad’s closet.”
“It’s loaded?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Then you use it. Really. I would never be able to pull the trigger. I brought a knife. My Pomeroy 5000, all in one.”
“All right, I’ll take the gun,” Jack said grimly. “Stick close to me.”
They each slipped out of the car and closed the doors quietly. Here, on the cliffs over the sea, the storm raged, screaming inland, battering the house and rocks. A shutter banged loudly. Cissy followed close on Jack’s heels. Fear pounded through her brain, but she didn’t let it stop her. Inside this old, deteriorating home, her deranged half-sister, more murderous than their mother, held her child captive. Quietly, they walked up the rotting steps to find the front door unlocked.
Stealthily, nervous sweat drenching her body, Cissy followed Jack inside.
The feds and the crime unit techs had crawled all over Diedre Lawson’s apartment. They’d discovered items connecting her to the crimes, shells for a .38, various disguises and wigs that had hairs that were certain to match those found at Cherise Favier’s home. There were notes and a computer—a laptop—that had already been taken as evidence.
But no Diedre.
No baby.
Paterno walked outside and popped an antacid as the rain poured from the sky. The feds had been so certain they’d caught her that they’d pulled their van from the street in front of Jack and Cissy Holt’s house.
But she wasn’t here.
There was already a BOLF on Diedre’s car and her picture was being circulated to the media, but he was disappointed that they hadn’t nailed her.
Pulling out his cell, he listened impatiently to his messages, hearing a few he dismissed, then, lastly, a call from Jack Holt. “Holy crap,” he said and rounded up Quinn.
“What’s up?”
“We’d better get our asses up to Sausalito. Jack Holt’s decided to be John Wayne.” He quickly explained what he knew. “We’ll call for backup if it turns out to be something more than a wild-goose chase.”
She didn’t argue, just got behind the wheel of her Jetta, and, as Paterno slid inside and pulled the door shut, she circled in a quick one-eighty and sped north.
The minute Cissy stepped into the foyer, she heard the muffled sound of a baby’s cry. Over the rattle of rain on the windowpanes, the scream of the wind around the house, her own heartbeat thudding in her ears, she was certain she heard her child.
Her knees nearly gave way, and she motioned to Jack to climb the stairs that swept to the second floor above this wide foyer. The house was cold and dark inside, and though she had flitting little memories of playing here as a small child, they seemed in black and white, faded with the passage of time. There had been lush parties here once, and if she thought really hard she could imagine the ghosts of guests long gone, the tiny tinkle of glasses and laughter long forgotten.
But that was fleeting. A millisecond memory, for now Cissy was focused solely on finding B.J.
Behind Jack, she slowly mounted the stairs.
Near the second-floor landing, Jack stopped and tensed. He glanced at Cissy. The sound of a baby crying was closer. Nodding toward the big doors before him, he took the final steps. Biting her lip, Cissy opened the multi-bladed tool to its longest knife, wanting to force herself into the room. It was killing her to wait. She could hear the distinctive sounds of her baby crying, louder and louder, hiccupping and sobbing.
At least he’s alive!
“Mom-mee!” he cried. “Mom-mee!”
Cissy tried to rush past Jack, but he held her back and she felt it too, that this was too easy. Where was Diedre? Motioning for Cissy to step aside, Jack tried the door, slowly edging it open.
Over his shoulder, she saw the silhouette of her son. Standing at the edge of a playpen in the darkened room and crying, his body thrown in relief by a dim fire. “Mom–mee!” he yelled unmoving. She couldn’t see him clearly, but she knew he was upset.
“Oh baby,” she cried, rushing past Jack into the darkness. “Baby, I’m here.”
Jack tried to grab her, but it was too late. She flew into the room and tripped, landing on the floor and staring into the dead eyes of Jack’s father, Jonathan!
Cissy screamed, scooting backward as Jack entered the room. He paused at the sight of Jonathan Holt’s blood-soaked body, his pale skin, his lifeless eyes.
“Dear God,” Cissy whispered, terrified, as she scrambled to her feet.
Diedre had killed Jonathan and left him in the same room with her baby!
Jack’s stunned gaze lifted from his father as Diedre stepped from behind the open door on the landing, her gun trained on him. “Drop it!” she ordered. Jack didn’t comply. “Drop it or I’ll kill the kid! You, too. Let go of your knife,” she said. Unlike Jack, Cissy dropped the Pomeroy utility weapon. Diedre trained her gun on Beej.
“No!” Cissy screamed, still far enough away from Beej not to be able to console him, not to see his little features, only to hear his sobs. It was so dark in here. “Jack, don’t let her do this!” she ordered but felt something was wrong. Off. Jack tossed the gun onto the bed, then knelt at his father’s side to feel for a pulse as the loose shutter banged loudly. Bam! Bam! Bam!
“He’s dead.” Diedre said it without inflection.
“This is what you do to people you love?”
“He didn’t care about me,” she said and slid a glance at the corpse. “He tried to tell me my mother was dead.”
“She is. You killed her,” Cissy said and through an open doorway heard the rush of the sea, smelled the salt in the air.
“No…that’s a lie. She’s not dead, not yet…. She’s got to look like she did all the killings.” Diedre said, but her face changed as if she weren’t certain of what she was saying. In that moment, Cissy rushed toward the playpen to reach for her son, to hold him. She picked him up and let out an agonized scream. It wasn’t her son at all! It was a lifesized doll propped against the side of the pen, hiding a baby monitor which was emitting her son’s terrified cries.
“You bitch!” She whirled on Diedre. “Where’s my B.J.? Where is he!”
“The only Amhurst heir, beside you and that half-brother of yours in Oregon? Don’t worry about B.J.”
“Tell me where he is!”
“Ciss…” Jack warned.
But Cissy was livid and didn’t care that Diedre had aimed the gun straight at her heart. She wanted her kid, damn it.
“Step back!” Jack yelled, just as they heard the wail of sirens, faintly crying over the lash of the wind and the pound of the rain.
“You called the police?” Diedre demanded, stunned and furious, her voice rising over the wind and the crying of the baby.
“Yes! Yes, we called them!” Cissy suddenly threw the doll at Diedre. Oh God where was he?
Diedre caught the rag doll handily.
Jack rushed her.
With a wicked smile, Diedre turned, aimed, and fired straight at Jack, the muzzle of the .38 spitting fire.
“No!” Cissy screamed. “Oh God, don’t! No, nooo!”
Too late.
Jack stumbled backward. His face drained of color as he looked at her.
In a gasp of pain, he crumpled onto the floorboards.
“Jack!” Cissy dropped to the floor beside him and grabbed his head, forcing him to stare up at her. “Oh no, no, no…” She couldn’t lose him! She couldn’t! Quicksilver images of their life together flashed behind her eyes—their meeting at the boring party, his quick wit, the way he stared into her eyes when he made love to her, his joy at the birth of B.J., his pain when she’d insisted on divorcing him.
Now he was bleeding. Vainly, she tried to staunch the flow, to keep him alive, but it was impossible. Blood oozed upward between her fingers. There was just so much, so damned much. “I love you, Jack. Oh, God, how I love you. You can’t die. You can’t.”
“Oh, how pathetic,” Diedre said from her position in the doorway. Looming over them, gun in hand, she clucked her tongue. “I guess you’ve forgotten. A month ago you were going to divorce him.”
Ignoring the taunt, Cissy felt for Jack’s pulse, her sticky fingers touching his throat as she willed him to look at her, to hang on. The police were on their way. She’d heard the sirens. Fighting panic, her own choking fear, she willed her husband to focus on her. “Jack, don’t you die on me, do you hear me? Don’t you die! Look at me. Jack! Damn it, you look at me!”
“Don’t die,” Diedre mocked in a little-girl voice that irritated the hell out of Cissy. “Look at me, Jack! Jesus, Cissy, do you hear yourself?”
Blood was spreading over the floor, and still the baby was crying, calling for her. Her whole life was crumbling, all because of this hideous woman she’d thought was her friend. “Shut up!” Cissy turned to her husband. “Hang in there, you can do it.”
“Too late,” Diedre said.
Cissy ignored her, desperately trying to halt the flow as Jack lost consciousness.
“He’s gone.”
“I said, SHUT UP!” Cissy snapped. She had no time for this.
“I heard you, but you don’t get it, do you? He’s dying and you’re next. All of you are going to die. You’re going to join Gran, isn’t that the stupid name you gave Eugenia? You’re going to die as easily as she did, or that moron Rory, or Cherise—that one was a surprise to both of us. She saw me, you know, right after I scared you at the mansion. Couldn’t let her get away with that.”
“Go to hell.”
“Funny, that’s where I think you’re going, sister.”
Cissy worked desperately to save Jack. “Sister?” she repeated, praying for the sound of the police breaking into the house. “You’re not my sister.”
“Same blood.”
“You’re a monster. You killed everyone related to you including your own mother. Why was that? Spring her from prison just to kill her? Because she gave you up? Is that it? Because she couldn’t love you?” Don’t antagonize her, a part of her brain warned, but Cissy couldn’t stop herself. Her nerves were frayed, her heart dying already at the thought of losing Jack, adrenaline pumping furiously through her system while B.J. wailed.
“I—didn’t…”
“What?” Cissy demanded, looking up to see a bit of confusion on Diedre’s face, a moment of hesitation. Diedre’s eyes clouded for a second. “Marla…No, I didn’t…” She raised the gun and aimed at Cissy.
This was it, Cissy realized. They were all going to die and poor B.J…. Oh, God, if that bitch harmed one hair on his head, she’d…She saw the knife. The one she’d dropped on the floor. Only inches from Jack’s body.
“You did, Diedre, you killed your own mother,” Cissy stated harshly.
“No!” Diedre was shaking her head, as if to clear her mind…
What was Cissy saying? That she’d killed Marla? Oh God, was that possible? Diedre couldn’t remember, couldn’t think, the roar in her head was deafening, the pain so tortuous that she gritted her teeth, had trouble holding onto the gun. Jonathan had said the same thing, and then there was the video, and she remembered, oh, God, she remembered pulling the trigger on that bitch who had given her up and borne another daughter. A daughter she’d kept. A daughter she’d loved and nurtured in…in this very house…this mansion…. No…that wasn’t right…it was the Cahill mansion where Cissy had grown up, the privileged daughter…wasn’t it?
“She loved me,” she said now and felt what?…Tears? Oh God, tears were running from her eyes.
Cissy didn’t wait. Without thinking she picked up the knife and rolled to the balls of her feet. Spinning low, gathering force, she slung the knife underhand straight at Diedre.
Diedre shrieked.
The slim blade slammed into her gut, sending her backward through the door. Shocked, her eyes suddenly clear, the gun in her hand wobbling slightly, Diedre fired.
White-hot pain exploded in Cissy’s side. She spun to the floor, could barely breathe. Blood flowed from the hole in her torso, hot and wet, but she didn’t care. She had to stop this madwoman before the bitch killed B.J., who was still sobbing.
Diedre stumbled onto the balcony. The fingers of both her hands grabbed at the knife in her abdomen. With a horrid sucking sound, she pulled the weapon free. Blood oozed from the blade as she stared dully at her wound.
Cissy struggled to her feet. Before Diedre knew what hit her, Cissy hurled herself toward her maniac of a half-sister. Together they fell against the fancy railing. Diedre’s back pressed into the heavy metal. The knife fell from her hand, slipping through the wrought iron, and falling two floors to clatter uselessly in the foyer.
Where the hell were the police?
Despite the blood running from her abdomen, Diedre fought wildly. She grabbed hold of Cissy’s wrist, twisted her arm so that she heard tendons popping. Blinding pain ripped through her. “You’re going to die, Cissy,” she hissed. “And you’re going to die tonight, and that little boy of yours, he’s going to be with me.”
“Leave B.J. out of this!”
“He’s what it was all about. Jonathan planned his conception long before you even thought of it.” She pushed harder, and pain screamed through Cissy’s shoulder.
“The police are on their way.”
“Too late for you and they won’t hurt me as long as I have him…”
“It’s over, Diedre. Give it up! Your plan failed. You can’t get the money now.”
“But I can get rid of you, and that’s worth it.” She gave Cissy’s arm another hard wrench. “You didn’t even know how lucky you were. Neither will your kid.”
Charged with injustice and fury, Cissy wouldn’t let her win. Couldn’t.
But Diedre was strong and determined.
With a violent twist, Diedre flipped them both around, and Cissy, bleeding, was bent over the wrought-iron railing. She sensed the century-old bolts give a little. She was weakening, and Diedre was stronger. Diedre, eyes glowing with victory, pushed hard and bowed Cissy over the railing so far that Cissy thought her back would break. The pain in her side burned hot, and she grabbed at anything she could, the top of the rail, Diedre’s hair, her neck.
“Die, you pampered little freak,” Diedre snarled. Cissy felt her body giving up, her strength failing. Twenty feet below was the hard floor. With an effort, she wound one hand on the rail and held, knowing that if she was pushed any harder she’d do a back flip and fall, to land with a bone-breaking thud. Like Gran.
Pain screamed up her spine, and she was certain it would snap.
Agony tore through her muscles. She felt ligaments pop, tendons tear, and all the while her baby was crying. Oh God, please help me, please…Jack…I love you…B.J., darling baby… The room spun, her brain swam. She flailed with one arm while holding on for dear life with the other.
Her shoulder shrieked with the pressure, and blackness played at the edge of her consciousness. Don’t let go. Whatever you do, don’t let go!
But she couldn’t think, couldn’t fight any longer. The sweet bliss of unconsciousness threatened to pull her under. All she could hear were her frightened baby’s cries and the pounding of her own heart.
It’s over, she thought. The railing shifted beneath her, and the hellish pain in her spine forced her to let go. As her grip loosened and she started to give up, she saw something big and dark and looming behind Diedre. His face was twisted into a mask of hate. Blood smeared his skin.
In those last moments of awareness, Cissy saw Jack blast the gun. Diedre’s body jerked. She shrieked and fell hard against Cissy, grappling with her, both of them careening for the stairs.
Cissy tried to scream, but it was too late. Diedre’s weight pushed her down. They spun down the stairs, screaming, Diedre’s body hitting the railing, Cissy’s tumbling after her.
Cissy tried to call Jack’s name, but then she was lost to darkness.
Bayside Hospital
San Francisco, California
Room 316
Friday, February 13
NOW
What’s this? A priest? Murmuring prayers over me, pleading for my soul? Oh, no…Please, Father, listen to me…. I’m not dead, I’m not even sure I’m dying…. There are other voices, whispers…. I’ve heard their voices before, and they’re saying their good-byes…. Who are they? People who care about me? People who love me? They think I’m dying. Oh, no, no, no…They come in and they sob, they cry and touch me, whoever they are. Familiar voices offering prayers for my soul.
Then there is silence, only the sound of the machines monitoring my responses…the damned machines that don’t show the fear that makes my heart pound or the ventilator that doesn’t register when I draw in a horrified breath…. I hear someone moving through the room, and a series of clicks…. Oh God, they’re turning off a machine. The ventilator? No…Oh no…I feel a weight…it’s hard to breathe…impossible, oh, please do not do this…stop!…Help me! Please! Dear Jesus, help me! I can’t hear anything anymore, nor smell. For the love of Christ, I can’t breathe…I…can’t…