Chapter 8
Marla was sitting on the bed, propped up by pillows, a book on the night table, the television turned on, but muted, a rerun of some reality cop show casting shadows in the poorly lit room.
And she wasn’t pleased.
Big, big surprise.
Nor had she gotten off her sorry ass and cleaned the upstairs, claiming that she might be “seen” by some nosy neighbor peeking through the blinds or windows.
What a crock!
Elyse had known dealing with Marla would be difficult, of course she’d known it! The woman was notorious for being self-serving and wanting to be treated like the princess she’d thought she’d been born to be. But she’d never been lazy before. And all during the planning of the escape, she’d done her part. Eagerly. Anxiously. Cleverly.
Now all her sly aggression had flown out the shuttered windows, replaced by idle ennui and sharp remarks. “I thought you’d be back earlier,” she accused. “I’m bored sick. And don’t start in with that garbage about me going upstairs and cleaning toilets or sweeping floors. I’ve had enough of that.”
Elyse bit her tongue. She didn’t know how much more of the woman’s complaining she could take. “After work I stopped by a couple of stores and bought you some things to wear, as a disguise.”
“You really think I’d risk that?”
“Not right now, but soon, yeah.” Elyse had carried two shopping bags down the rickety steps and behind the false wall to Marla’s room. “Take a look.” She felt a little zing of triumph as she pulled out the clothes, body padding and wig that would transform “Marla the Beautiful” into “Marla the Frump”: old-lady shoes, support hose, and an ugly brown housedress that was voluminous enough to hide the fat suit she would wear beneath. The wig she’d found was short and neat, somewhere between platinum blond and gray.
Marla gazed at the items, repulsed. “You’re kidding, right?”
Ignoring Marla’s sarcasm, Elyse placed each item of clothing next to the other. “No, I’m not kidding. They’re perfect! I found them all at the thrift store.”
“I bet. You know, maybe I’ll just stay in.”
“You can’t hide forever.”
“I’m not hiding!” she snapped. “I’m just being careful. Can’t you get that? I’m not going to wear any of those!” She sneered at the floral print in brown and gray. “God, it looks like you tried to find the ugliest clothes in the universe and succeeded!”
“I just tried to find you things that would make you blend in.”
“Oh, right, like this is the pinnacle of haute couture in San Francisco this year! Everyone’s wearing ugly prints and shoes that look like they came out of the sixties.” She threw a look of scorn at the plain, flat loafers. “You’re out of your mind.”
“You’re not going to be walking through the business district or having lunch at the Four Seasons,” Elyse replied with forced patience. “You’ll just be in the car, and we don’t want anyone on the street who has seen your picture on TV to recognize you. I thought you’d want to get out.”
Marla turned quiet.
Again.
She had the whole passive-aggressive act down to a science, and Elyse knew what this was all about. She’d altered the plan enough that Marla was still pouting. Punishing her. Giving her the silent treatment.
Elyse reached into her bag again, this time coming up with a sandwich from the deli just down the street from where she really lived. “You might like this: turkey, lite mayo, even some cranberries. Kinda like Thanksgiving.” She took the wrapped sandwich out of the bag and left it on the night table along with a can of diet soda, a pickle and a small bag of chips.
“You know I like beef,” Marla reminded her in that same cool soft voice that irritated the hell out of Elyse. The quieter Marla got, the stronger her words seemed to be. Oh, she was so sly, a master at the psychological game-playing.
“I just thought, after the hamburger, you might want something different.” But maybe not. Marla’s minifridge was stocked with salads and soups in cups that only required heating in the microwave. There were apples on top of the refrigerator and instant oatmeal along with the coffeemaker and special French roast blend that Marla had insisted upon, some kind of obscure coffee she’d had ten years earlier. Elyse had worked hard to find that stuff and had Marla even uttered one word of thanks? Of course not!
“Just try on the clothes and we’ll go out in a week or so, once they’re convinced that you’re in Oregon or Washington. I’ve got a guy who agreed to drop off your prison clothes at a rest stop on I-5, somewhere around Roseburg. The cops will think you’re heading north or making a run for the Canadian border. Either way, the heat will be off San Francisco.”
For once, Marla looked relieved. “Good,” she said, and actually showed some interest in the sandwich. “I don’t try to be a bitch.”
It just comes naturally, Elyse thought, but clenched her teeth and didn’t let the words pass through her lips. “And I’ll look for something else for you to wear.”
“Do I have to be fat?”
Here we go with the demands.
“It will help. No one will expect you to have gained weight. It’s just a disguise.”
“I’ve never been heavy in my life.”
“Exactly.” Time to experience new lows in self-esteem.
Marla gave up a long-suffering sigh, but didn’t argue.
“Look, we can start with your hair. Let me trim it a little,” and to her surprise, Marla didn’t argue. “Here, you can watch.” She found the hand mirror that Marla always kept near her and handed it to the vain woman, forcing it into her tense fingers.
“I don’t know…”
“Marla, please.”
“Not too much,” Marla warned.
“Just a trim…We can talk about color later.” She found a pair of scissors and began snipping carefully at Marla’s long, mahogany-colored tresses. She was careful with her scissors, clipping around the edges of Marla’s hair and sneaking a few locks into her pocket. Fortunately, Marla was too busy gazing at herself to notice.
Only when Elyse pulled harder, as if her finger had gotten caught in a few hairs, pulling them out by the roots, did Marla look up sharply, her gaze finding Elyse’s in the mirror. “Ouch!” she shrieked. “What’re you trying to do? Scalp me?”
“Sorry. Mistake,” Elyse lied.
“Well, for Christ’s sake, be careful!” Marla hissed in a low, angry whisper as she shot Elyse a baleful look full of mistrust.
“I said I was sorry, okay?” Elyse pretended to be wounded. “I’m just trying to help. See how nice this is going to look when I’m finished?”
“Fine.” She eyed her reflection critically, and Elyse held her breath. “So, tell me again about Eugenia,” she finally said, calmer now, nearly smiling, in fact. It was almost as if the pampering had mollified her.
God, the woman had an ego! And a temper.
Elyse felt a little niggle of trepidation. Marla could be so deadly. Elyse had witnessed Marla’s volatile mood swings with her own eyes. She reminded herself to watch her back. On the day that they’d made good on Marla’s escape, she’d been elated. There had been an almost manic jubilation on Marla’s part; her eyes had been as green and deep as the waters of San Francisco Bay, her smile absolutely infectious. No wonder men had fallen all over themselves to be with her. She was pushing fifty, but you’d never know it. She’d kept in shape in prison and even with minimal makeup she was beautiful. She’d let her hair blow free on the day of the escape, rolling down the window of the car that they’d picked up at a rest stop, drinking in the fresh, damp air despite the cold and fog that had socked in the entire Bay Area.
But now, of course, some of that euphoria had worn off. The gleam of triumph that had been so evident when Marla had slipped away from the prison in a delivery van had disappeared. She was paranoid. Hiding behind double locks in a dark basement, the jubilation having dissipated to become something akin to depression…silent, moody, dark depression. Sometimes Elyse had to work hard to scare up a smile, or even a word, from the woman.
Not for the first time Elyse wondered if the risk of springing Marla had been a mistake.
Well, there was no going back.
It was all part of the plan, all for the money.
Remember the money.
They had planned that she’d hide out here, and the escape had been years in the making. Years! Elyse couldn’t blow it now. Wouldn’t.
Marla had promised to bide her time, change her appearance, then leave once some of the fervor of the hunt had died down. But now Elyse sensed she wanted to speed things up, that she was getting impatient.
“I can’t stand it here,” Marla complained.
“I know, I know, but now we don’t have a choice. Remember, we talked this over.”
“But I didn’t know it would be so dark, so…alone.”
“I told you that you can go upstairs. Just keep the curtains drawn. You should move around more, get your blood pumping.”
“As if I could!” Marla said with a sneer. “Don’t you get it? Someone might see me. I may as well be back in prison!”
“No way,” Elyse argued. She couldn’t have Marla thinking that! Not after all the risks she’d taken.
Marla seemed somewhat mollified. “Fine. You were telling me about how you killed the dried-up old prune.”
“Your mother-in-law,” Elyse reminded her gently.
“Eugenia.” Marla made a moue of distaste at the memories of her mother-in-law. “So go on, tell me, did she recognize you?”
“Oh, yeah. It was great,” Elyse admitted, rubbing in her victory a bit, still feeling the thrill running through her veins. “She didn’t even see it coming.” Smiling down at Marla, Elyse said, “I wish you could have been there to see it, the way she flew over the railing, sailing and screaming and landing on the floor with such an incredible crack. It was so loud, it was like I could feel it in my body. Then it was silent, and she was staring up at me vacantly. I don’t even know if she was dead yet, but I picked up that stupid little dog so that the last image she had was of me stroking it.”
“Did you kill it too?”
“The dog?” Elyse recoiled as if she’d just encountered a horrid smell. “Of course not. I left it there, locked in a cupboard so it wouldn’t follow me, but the police or someone would find it.”
“I hate that dog,” Marla said.
“You hate everything.”
“I liked being a Cahill,” she said with sudden longing. “It was even better than being an Amhurst, let me tell you.”
“If you say so.” Elyse checked her watch. “Look, I can’t stay. I’ve got to keep up appearances, you know. But I’ll be back soon, when it’s safe.”
“It’ll never be safe,” Marla said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Sure I do.” She was nasty again. Angry. Pouting.
More trouble than she’s worth…. But that wasn’t true. Marla was worth a bundle…a damned fortune. If they played their cards right. And Elyse intended to. Along with a stacked deck, she had an ace up her sleeve. One Marla wasn’t privy to.
“Good-bye, Marla,” she said, but the other woman wouldn’t so much as look at her. In the blink of an eye, Marla had gone back into her morose pouting. God, her act was already getting old.
Too bad.
Elyse knew what she had to do.
She pushed the fake wall back into place and wound her way through the dank basement, then up the old stairs. She had to return to their original plan. It was the only way to keep Marla satisfied.
Well, so be it, she thought, locking the house with her key and hurrying to the Taurus.
Marla wanted her brother Rory dead.
So Elyse would take care of it.
The retard was history.
Cissy’s concentration was shot. She couldn’t outline the article she’d planned to write—the same article that had sat on her computer for weeks was still a bunch of jumbled notes. Four weeks earlier she’d interviewed a new, young candidate for mayor, but it was the same week Cissy had found out about Larissa and kicked Jack out. Not long after that, when she’d tried to pull her notes together, her psycho mother had escaped from prison. Now her grandmother had fallen to her death—or been murdered—and she was dealing with grief and guilt. Maybe the article wasn’t meant to be written.
Cissy sighed. Between the house phone and her cell, she must’ve fielded over twenty phone calls: all short, one-sided conversations about her grandmother. Family members, including her father’s cousin Cherise, whom she could not stand, had phoned. People who knew her grandmother from her civic work, or friends of Eugenia who had played cards or taken trips with her, even some woman from Sacramento who claimed to have roomed with Gran at Vassar had called. Cissy’s e-mail in-box was filled with inquiries and expressions of sympathy. Heather, a friend from her sorority at USC; Gwen, her personal trainer; and Tracy, who had ridden horses with her when they were in grade and high school—all of them had e-mailed or sent text messages to her phone. Of course, there was the press too: reporters fishing for some information about Gran’s death, and, if they got the chance, they asked about Marla as well. As promised, Deborah had e-mailed her the names of the Cahill attorneys and accountant, so Cissy was dealing with legal matters and tax issues as well. It was getting so overwhelming, she’d started screening her calls, avoiding those she didn’t want to take and just leaving them in her voice-mail box to access later. Ditto for the e-mail.
It was a flippin’ nightmare.
And things were only getting worse as the afternoon wore on. Cissy was working in her office, a little niche by the exercise room, while Tanya was supposed to be taking B.J. for a stroll before it got dark. The sun, setting low, was peeking from behind a veil of clouds, out for the first time all day. For the next forty-five minutes, if they were lucky, there would be some light. Since Tanya hadn’t gotten around to taking Beej out yet, Cissy decided it was time she and her son hit the streets. She clicked off the computer, nudged aside Coco, who had been sleeping at her feet, and stretched out of her chair. Snapping a rubber band around her ponytail, she then changed into jogging pants, finding her favorite running shoes in the back of her closet. After snagging a hooded sweatshirt for herself, she headed to B.J.’s room and grabbed his little down coat and stocking cap, another piece of headwear he detested.
“Tanya, I’ll take Beej out, I need the exercise,” she said as she hurried downstairs.
The front door opened as she reached the bottom step, and a gust of cold air and her estranged husband swept inside. Cissy instantly put on the brakes and tried not to notice that it seemed right for him to walk into the house after a day of work. Just like he had every weekday throughout their ill-fated marriage. She ignored any sense of nostalgia as he glanced up at her. “Did you forget you don’t live here anymore?” She shot Tanya a don’t-interrupt-me look when she saw an explanation or protest of some kind forming on the nanny’s lips.
“What?” he asked, in the cocksure way of his that irritated the hell out of her as he slid his arms out of the sleeves of his overcoat. “No martini waiting for me? No wife in a cute little French maid outfit?”
“Oh, excuse me. Let me run upstairs and change,” she said with an edge.
He laughed, and Cissy, who’d tried for sarcasm, found herself melting a bit. Damn the man.
Coco, slower than she once was, hopped awkwardly downstairs. Realizing there was an interloper in the house, she began to bark wildly at Jack in her high-pitched yip, growling and snarling at him as if he were a murderous intruder. Tanya, uncertain which way to jump, said quickly, “I’ll go get B.J.,” then hurried off to the living room.
Too late. Beej, who had been playing with a toy that made animal noises upon pressing a button, had already realized his father was home. He’d just hit the cow button, and the room echoed with a loud “Mmmmooooo” as he, squealing in delight, let out the predictable “Dad-dee home!” Like a rocket, he was on his little feet and scrambling to greet his father with uplifted arms.
“Hey, big guy! Glad to see you’re over your bad mood.” Jack hooked his coat over the curled iron arm of the hall tree, then grabbed his eager son and lifted him into the air. An eruption of giggles and “More! More! I want more!” came flying out along with wiggling legs and arms.
The dog was in a froth.
“Coco, hush!” Cissy snapped.
The terrier didn’t listen. As Cissy stepped into the foyer, the little beast hid behind her legs and kept up the racket.
“Miserable little rat-dog,” Tanya muttered under her breath as she gathered up her things. “I guess B.J.’s in good hands already, so I’d better go.” She found her raincoat and umbrella at the hall tree and with one eye on the furious little white terrier said reluctantly, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“See you then,” Cissy said, though she was already mentally replacing Tanya with someone who was nonallergic and animal-friendly.
Jack and B.J. had moved into the living room and were playing with the animal-sounds toy together. A cacophony of braying, growling, roaring, bleating, and peeping was erupting, one noise after the other, as if Noah had just dumped the contents of his ark in their living room. “Hey, how about this one,” Jack said, seated cross-legged on the floor with his son on his lap. He pressed a button and a loud “woof, woof, woof” echoed through the rooms.
“Doggy!” Beej said. “Like Coco!”
“Just like Coco,” Jack agreed, though the recorded dog bark sounded more like an eighty-pound German Shepherd than a tiny terrier mix.
It was utter chaos, and Cissy, filled with conflicting emotions, detached herself a bit. Through the window, and in the gathering dusk, she watched Tanya climb into her battered Subaru, light a cigarette, then take off, red taillights disappearing around a corner farther down the street.
Yeah, she was overdue for a new guardian for her child.
A lion’s roar reverberated through the house. “Does that thing have a volume control?” she asked.
“We like it loud.”
Cissy walked to a side chair and dropped into it. B.J. was delighted to be with his father. Of course. Was he more “into” Jack since he’d moved out? Had her son already missed his father? Guilt gnawed a big hole in her heart. She hated being the bad guy, and if she looked at it from her eighteen-month-old’s eyes, she was. She’d kicked Dad-dee out.
“So,” she said when the roar had died down for a second, “you came back here for a reason?”
As an elephant trumpeted, Jack said, “I wanted to see that you and B.J. were okay.”
“We are.” She clasped her hands between her knees and noticed that it was already getting dark. Too late for the stroller. “But even if you were coming here after work, you’re early. It’s not even five.”
“Well, I do have an ulterior motive.”
“This should be good.”
“Actually, it is.” He looked up at her, his expression serious. “I didn’t think you’d want to face my family alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“They want to stop by and offer their support. All of them. Dad, J.J., and Jannelle.”
“You’re kidding!” She couldn’t imagine facing any members of the Five Jays, as they referred to themselves, based on their same first initials. “No way. I don’t want any company.”
“I told them that, but you know how Dad is when he gets an idea in his head.”
“Then stand up to him, Jack. Man up! I do not want to deal with any member of your family, much less all of…oh damn!” She saw headlights flash against the living room window. “Too late,” she said as a snake hissed from Beej’s favorite toy. She shot her husband a look that said it all, the this-is-your-mistake-so-now-fix-it glare, as she carried Coco into the dining area and placed her into her kennel. “This won’t be for long,” she promised the dog, mentally crossing her fingers.
Holding B.J., Jack opened the door before his father could hit the doorbell. As Jack had said, both Jannelle, looking pissed off, and J.J.—Jon Junior, his I’m-cool-to-be-here expression neatly in place—were with Jonathan. They were all good looking, some Scandinavian ancestor having handed out tall bodies, blond hair, high cheekbones, and varying shades of blue eyes.
“Oh, honey,” Jack’s father greeted Cissy, arms outstretched. He crushed her to him.
“I’m okay,” Cissy said, barely able to breathe.
Jonathan’s face was remarkably unlined for someone near sixty, and he still had lots of hair, an ash blond color just beginning to gray. He was fit, tanned, and could pass for fifteen years younger than he was, which of course he loved. Cissy guessed that only the ages of his children prevented him from stretching the truth about the years.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said, releasing her, his eyebrows pulled together, sadness evident in those Nordic eyes.
“It’s a bummer,” J.J. said.
Jannelle rolled her eyes at her brother’s phraseology. “Dad thought we should come by and, you know, offer support, bond as a family, all that…sensitive bullshit.” She plopped into a side chair and crossed her long legs.
“Don’t go there,” Jack warned.
“Jannie, come on.” Their father was obviously irritated. To Cissy, he said, “What Jannelle said is essentially right, without the editorial comments. I know this is tough…so here we are.”
“One big happy family,” Jannelle chimed in. “Hey, when is that divorce final?”
“Enough!” The lines around Jonathan’s mouth showed white in irritation.
“I knew this was a mistake,” J.J. muttered, shoving a hand through hair that was long enough to curl over the collar of his leather jacket. He always dressed in what Cissy thought of as casual cool—trendy, but never too upscale. She really didn’t know him, didn’t much want to; another Holt male to avoid. Then she caught a glimpse of Jannelle rolling her eyes again. So, okay, she needed to avoid all Holts, regardless of gender.
“There’s Grandpa’s boy!” Jonathan motioned for Jack to step a little closer so he could get closer to his grandson. “How’re you, Bryan Jack?” he asked, but when he attempted to pry Beej from Jack’s arms, their son, independent kid that he was, said loud and clear, “No, Poppa!”
“Ugh,” Jannelle muttered under her breath.
J.J., looking uncomfortable, sat on the ottoman and stared at the nonexistent fire.
Yeah, this was a great idea, Cissy thought wearily. But she was stuck with it. “So, does anyone want anything? Coffee? A beer?” She glanced at Jack for help.
“Actually, we thought we’d take you out to dinner. Something simple. How about a place that deals with kids?”
“Are you talking McDonald’s?” Jannelle asked, horrified. “Really, Dad, I’ll pass.” She looked pointedly at the watch glittering around her wrist.
Though she wanted to tell them all to just get out and leave her alone, Cissy bit back the urge, saying instead, “You know, that’s really nice, but I thought Beej and I, we’d just kind of camp out here tonight.” She forced a smile at Jonathan, who had been so instrumental in her hooking up with Jack in the first place. “Thanks.”
“Good enough for me.” Jannelle shot to her feet.
“Me too.” J.J. wasn’t one for gooey family togetherness.
The older man was disappointed. “Come on now, we’re all here anyway.”
“It’s okay, Dad.” Jack walked to the window. “Jannelle, that’s your Mercedes. So, you drove?”
“Now look who’s the detective.”
“Jesus, Jannelle, stuff it,” J.J. said, irked.
“Why don’t you and J.J. take off? If Dad wants to stay, I’ll drive him home in a while.”
“Great idea!” Jannelle slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder, then made fast tracks, her high heels clicking over the hardwood as if she were afraid someone would change his mind. J.J., who so recently wanted to shut her up, was only one step behind, zipping his jacket and muttering phrases like “Hang in there. Things’ll get better. At least she didn’t suffer.” The usual platitudes that Cissy already found tiresome. Jannelle said only, “Let me know about the funeral,” and was out the door. A few seconds later a powerful engine sparked to life, and the Mercedes reversed, then tore down the street.
“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, and B.J., as if sensing his grandfather’s sadness, finally allowed the older man to extract him from his father’s arms.
“Hi, Poppa,” he said and patted the older man on his shoulder.
“Well, hi, yourself. So, the old man’s okay, huh?”
Cissy saw Jack’s father’s tenderness where B.J. was concerned and felt her heart warm a bit. She tried to forgive him the ancient history of cheating on his wife, though she couldn’t help thinking, as she walked into the dining area, if Jonathan had remained faithful, maybe Jack wouldn’t have crossed that same line.
Jack’s inability to stay faithful is Jack’s problem. Not his father’s. Not yours.
She let the little dog out of her kennel, and after a few sharp barks, Coco gave up the fight and hopped onto the chair Jannelle had so recently vacated.
“Why don’t you stay here with Cissy and Beej, and I’ll go get takeout,” Jack suggested. “There’s a great Thai place five minutes away.” He glanced at his wife. “Okay with you?”
“Why not?” Cissy capitulated. “You know me. I just roll with the punches.”
Jack snorted as he walked to the hall tree and snatched up his coat. “That’s you, Little Miss Mellow.”
Walking unnoticed into the assisted-living area of the care facility proved relatively easy. Elyse posed as a woman working with a local church group, and, wearing the same kind of disguise at which Marla had sneered, she’d visited the place enough during the past few weeks. There was a security code, of course, but it was simple enough to watch another visitor punch it in, then do the same thing herself. The front desk was usually manned by a woman who had duties that extended little beyond sitting in the same chair hour after hour. After five, the staff really thinned out as the office workers went home, and the phone system was switched to an answering service which networked with the adjacent brick building where the nursing-home patients required round-the-clock care and the staff was more vigilant.
The security cameras were no issue, and Elyse toddled slowly down the hall, saying “Hello” and “God bless you” to the few residents she met. She could feel her adrenaline spurt through her veins in anticipation.
This was it.
Her final visit to the retard.
Rory Amhurst. Marla’s brother. A healthy child who as a toddler had been in a horrible car accident, run over by his own mother. The result had been permanent brain damage.
Surely Marla, who had been in the car with Rory when her mother had dashed back into the house, leaving the car idling for just those few moments, hadn’t known what would happen. Rory, a toddler, had screamed, and older Marla had unlatched him from his seat restraint, let him outside, and closed the car door. When their mother, Victoria, returned, she didn’t notice the boy wasn’t in the backseat. She jammed the car in reverse and hit the gas, running over her own child as he crouched behind the car, presumably to look at an ant or some other insect on the pavement. Marla, a child herself, couldn’t have had any idea of the consequences of her actions that day. Right? Certainly she wasn’t born evil. That was a fiction, wasn’t it? Born evil?
Or was she?
Not that it mattered.
Now Marla wanted Rory dead.
And Elyse was her messenger.
Rory’s room was at the end of the hallway. As Elyse entered, she found him sitting up, staring at the television where a rerun of South Park was playing.
“Hi, Rory,” she said sweetly. “You remember me, don’t you? Mrs. Smith?”
He nodded, grinning, his eyes vacant, his head still a little misshapen. It was too bad, Elyse thought as she pulled the batch of brownies she’d made from her oversized purse with gloved hands. “Do you mind if I turn up the television? My hearing, you know.” She upped the volume to hide any sounds he might make, then grabbed a can of soda from her purse and, while he was watching television, added enough Valium to drop a racehorse.
She handed him the can. He smiled gratefully and drank it down.
Elyse felt a twinge of conscience as he swallowed. He really was an innocent and, as far as Elyse knew, had never hurt anyone.
But Marla had been insistent.
“That basket case has got to go, you understand me!” she’d said vehemently. “Do you know how much money it costs to keep him in that overpriced institution? All his physical therapy and speech therapy and God only knows what else. It’s a wasted life. Wasted. It’ll be a mercy killing. Who would want to live that way?”
“But he seems happy,” Elyse had argued, and Marla had pinned her with those furious green eyes.
“Because he doesn’t know any better.”
“Then what does it hurt?”
“Are you going to do this, or do I have to?” Marla had snapped. “I will, you know. Without a second thought. He won’t feel much pain…. Just give him the shellfish: disguise it in a brownie.”
“Shellfish?”
“He’s violently allergic. He’ll go into anaphylactic shock, but the Valium should knock him out. Just cover the whole thing in lots of chocolate frosting. He’ll eat it, trust me.”
Elyse had been skeptical as she’d baked the batch, then tasted one. The shellfish taste was masked well enough. The brownies tasted “off,” but not necessarily bad, and when slathered in goopy chocolate frosting were pretty decent.
“Here ya go, Rory,” Elyse said, looking over her shoulder, hoping none of the aides accidentally wandered in. Rory had a remote-alert device, a call button he wore around his neck that, if pressed, would notify the staff that he needed help. She couldn’t take a chance that he would use it. “Here, let’s put that on the dresser. You wouldn’t want to mess it up with all that chocolate.”
He looked up at her with trusting eyes and bit into the brownie. Would it work? There should be enough crab oil and ground shrimp to start a seizure and cause his throat to swell. If he ingested it. But that didn’t seem to be a problem. He ate one brownie and was reaching for another when it hit. He started convulsing, and Elyse hurriedly took his call button and put it in the bathroom. Then she carefully wrapped up the rest of the brownies and returned them to her purse. Fear and adrenaline zinged through her bloodstream. Her mind spun crazily as she realized how close she was to being found out, to being caught in the act of murder, to losing everything she’d worked so hard to achieve.
Rory, gulping and gasping, eyes rolling upward, exposing only whites, slid to the floor, his seizure wild. Elyse pushed his wheelchair and rolling table away from him so that his flailing arms and legs wouldn’t strike the metal, banging and creating a racket louder than the strangled noises coming from his mouth. Again she adjusted the volume of the television upward. She stepped into the hall, closing the door behind her. Strolling slowly, she had to fight the urge to run like crazy. Instead she smiled casually at passing residents as she headed toward the double doors at reception. The corridor was so damn long! It seemed to have lengthened to the size of a football field while she was in Rory’s little studio.
She passed by other rooms where elderly wheelchair-bound residents sat like automatons in front of televisions. A nurse spied her and smiled, and Elyse, behind her thick glasses and tinted contact lenses, smiled back and nodded. The fat suit was uncomfortable, the makeup making her sweat even more than her own sense of panic. It was all she could do to keep from looking over her shoulder. Crossing her fingers, she hoped the stupid floor nurse wasn’t going to Rory’s room.
At the main desk, an aide was arguing with a woman in a wheelchair who was refusing to return to her room.
Elyse slipped by. The aide glanced up briefly, catching her eye before Elyse could toddle through the double doors to the vestibule. She punched in the code to open the exterior doors.
Nothing happened.
What?
She tried again, her heart racing, and this time, thankfully, a green light and buzzer told her she had fifteen seconds to shove open the door.
Now to make good her escape.
Pulse pounding in her eardrums, she headed for her car. Slowly. Painstakingly. As if fear weren’t propelling her to run.
Just outside the door Elyse clicked the remote to unlock the car, but she heard the sounds of panic forming inside the building.
Running feet. Shouts.
They’d discovered Rory.
Too soon!
This was way too soon!
Fingers shaking, she ran to the car, pulling her purse to her chest. In her haste, she dropped the key ring, and it fell between the front seats.
Oh God.
It was too tight to get her hand through the crack.
Damn!
The keys were there—she just couldn’t reach them.
She was trapped!
She couldn’t go back inside. She had to flee. Now. As soon as they revived Rory or called an ambulance…it would be over. Think, Elyse, think. Heart pounding frantically, insides quivering, she tried to edge her hand down through the tight crevice again and ended up scraping her knuckles and breaking a nail. Somewhere in the distance a siren wailed. Blood bloomed on the back of her fingers, and her skin burned from the scrape.
She leaned over, the fat suit rubbing against the steering wheel as she forced the passenger seat back and scrabbled for the damned keys. Still, she couldn’t reach them.
Shit!
Desperate, she looked around for something, anything, to retrieve the key ring and spied a hanger on which the dress that she’d picked up at the thrift store had hung. Sweating like a pig, she snagged the hanger, crammed it between the seats, and, breathing rapidly, flipped her wrist, shooting the keys onto the floor mat of the passenger seat.
Thank God!
Quick as lightning, she snatched the ring up, jammed the key into the ignition, turned the switch. The engine fired, and she wasted no time throwing the car into reverse and backing up, then shoving the Taurus into drive.
Calm down. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t burn rubber or drive too fast. Keep cool.
Fingers wet on the wheel, Elyse drove out through the main gates. She had to pull to one side as a screaming ambulance flew by. Oh God, they must’ve seen her. Someone would know. The nurse would put two and two together and call the police and…
Stop it! Just drive! Away. Out of the city. South toward San Mateo. Put some distance between you and the institution. Then, drive to a park-and-ride and trade out license plates. Find a Taurus with similar plates and make the switch. Then you can go home.
Calming a little, she glanced in her rearview. No one was following, no police cars with lights flashing, sirens woo-woo-wooing. No one passing even looked her way.
Slowly her heartbeat lessened its frantic tempo as she joined traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway.
She was safe.
If Rory wasn’t dead already, he was as good as.
Marla would be pleased.
Maybe.