Almost Dead

Book 2: Cahills

by Lisa Jackson

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

A #1 New York Times best-selling author, Lisa Jackson has enthralled and titillated listeners with dark, erotic thrillers like The Night Before and Temptress. In Almost Dead, a disturbed, vindictive woman escapes prison and launches a murderous spree of revenge upon her family. Cissy Cahill, a member of that family, must do everything in her power to protect the lives of her loved ones. Her own life, however, may be in the greatest danger of all.

Release date: April 24, 2013

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 448

Sample

Bayside Hospital
San Francisco, CaliforniaRoom 316Friday, February 13NOW

They think I’m going to die.

I hear it in their whispered words.

They think I can’t hear them, but I can, and I’m listening to every single syllable they utter.

“No!” I want to scream. “I’m alive. I’m not giving up. I will fight back.”

But I can’t speak.

Can’t utter one damned word.

My voice is stilled, just as my eyes won’t open. Try as I might, I can’t lift the lids.

All I know is that I’m lying in a hospital bed, and I know that I’m barely alive. I hear the whispers, the comments, the soft-soled shoes on the floor. Everyone thinks I’m in a coma, unable to hear them, to respond, but I know what’s going on. I just can’t move, can’t communicate. Somehow, I have to let them know. My condition is bad, they claim. I understand the terms ruptured spleen, broken pelvis, concussion, brain trauma, but, damn it, I can hear them! I feel the stretch of skin at the back of my hand where the IV pulls; smell the scents of perfume, medicine, and resignation. The stethoscope is ice cold, the blood pressure cuff too tight, and I try like hell to show some sign that I’m aware, that I can feel. I try to move, just lift a finger or let out a long moan, but I can’t.

It scares me to death.

I’m hooked up to machines that monitor my heartbeat and breathing and God only knows what else. Not that it does any good. All the high-tech machines that are tracking body functions aren’t providing the hospital staff with any hope or clue that I know what’s going on.

I’m trapped in my body, and it’s a living hell.

Once again I strain…concentrating to raise the index finger of my right hand, to point at whoever next enters the room. Up, I think, raise the tip up off the bedsheets. The effort is painful…so hard.

Isn’t anyone watching the damned monitor? I must be registering an elevated pulse, an accelerated heart rate, some damn thing!

But no.

All that effort. Wasted.

Worse yet, I’ve heard the gossip; some of the nurses think I would be better off dead…but they don’t know the truth.

I hear footsteps. Heavier than the usual. And the vague scent of lingering cigar smoke. The doctor! He’s been in before.

“Let’s take a look, shall we?” he says to whomever it is who’s accompanied him, probably the nurse with the cold hands and cheery, irritating voice.

“She’s still not responsive.” Sure enough, the chipper one. “I haven’t seen any positive change in her vitals. In fact…well, see for yourself.”

What does she mean? And why does her voice sound so resigned? Where’s the fake, peppy inspiration in her tone?

“Hmmm,” the doctor says in his baritone voice. Then his hands are on me. Gently touching and poking, lifting my eyelid and shining a harsh beam directly into my lens. It’s blinding, and surely my body will show some response. A blink or flinch or…

“Looks like you’re right,” he says, turning off the light and backing away from the bed. “She’s declining rapidly.”

No! That’s wrong! I’m here. I’m alive. I’m going to get better!

I can’t believe what I’m hearing, and should be hyperventilating, should be going into cardiac arrest at the very words. Can’t you see that I’m stressing? Don’t the damned monitors show that I’m alive and aware and that I want to live? Oh God, how I want to live!

“The family’s been asking,” the nurse prods. “About how long she has.”

My family? They’ve already put me in the grave? That can’t be right! I don’t believe it. I’m still alive, for God’s sake. How did I come to this? But I know. All too vividly I can remember every moment of my life and the events leading up to this very second.

“Doctor?” the nurse whispers.

“Tell them twenty-four hours,” he says solemnly. “Maybe less.”

Four Weeks Earlier

Click!

The soft noise was enough to wake Eugenia Cahill. From her favorite chair in the sitting room on the second floor of her manor, she blinked her eyes open. Surprised that she’d dozed off, she called out for her granddaughter. “Cissy?” Adjusting her glasses, she glanced at the antique clock mounted over the mantle as gas flames quietly hissed against the blackened ceramic logs. “Cissy, is that you?”

Of course it was. Cissy had called earlier and told her that she’d be by for her usual weekly visit. She was to bring the baby with her…but the call had been hours ago. Cissy had promised to be by at seven, and now…well, the grandfather clock in the foyer was just pealing off the hour of eight in soft, assuring tones. “Coco,” Eugenia said, eyeing the basket where her little white scruff of a dog was snoozing, not so much as lifting her head. The poor thing was getting old too, already losing teeth and suffering from arthritis. “Old age is a bitch,” Eugenia said and smiled at her own little joke.

Why hadn’t Cissy climbed the stairs to this, the living area, where Eugenia spent most of her days? “I’m up here,” she said loudly, and when there was no response, she felt the first tiny niggle of fear, which she quickly dismissed. An old woman’s worries, nothing more. Yet she heard no footsteps rushing up the stairs, no rumble of the old elevator as it ground its way upward from the garage. Pushing herself from her Queen Anne recliner, she grabbed her cane and felt a little dizzy. That was unlike her. Then she walked stiffly to the window, where, through the watery glass, she could view the street and the city below. Even with a bank of fog slowly drifting across the city, the vista was breathtaking from most of the windows of this old home—a house that had been built on the highest slopes of Mt. Sutro in San Francisco at the turn of the century, well, the turn of the last century. The old brick, mortar, and shake Craftsman-style manor rose four full stories above a garage tucked into the hillside and backed up to the grounds of the medical school. From this room on the second story, Eugenia was able to see the bay on a clear day and had spent more than her share of hours watching sailboats cut across the green-gray waters.

But sometimes this old house in Parnassus Heights seemed so empty. An ancient fortress with its electronic gates and overgrown gardens of rhododendrons and ferns. The estate backed up to the vast grounds of the university’s medical center yet still sometimes felt isolated from the rest of the world.

Oh, it wasn’t as if she were truly alone. She had servants, of course, but the family had, it seemed, abandoned her.

For God’s sake, Eugenia, buck up. You are not some sorry old woman. You choose to live here, as a Cahill, as you always have.

Had she imagined the click of a lock downstairs? Dreamed it, perhaps? These days, though she was loath to admit it, her dreams often permeated her waking consciousness, and she had a deep, unmentioned fear that she might be in the early stages of dementia. Dear Lord, she hoped not! There had been no trace of Alzheimer’s disease in all of her lineage; her own mother had died at ninety-six, still “sharp as a tack” before falling victim to a massive stroke. But tonight she did feel a little foggier than usual. Unclear.

Eugenia’s gaze wandered to the street outside the electronic gates, to the area where the unmarked police car had spent the better part of twenty-four hours. Now the Chevy was missing from its parking spot just out of range of the streetlight’s bluish glow.

How odd.

Why leave so soon after practically accusing her of helping her daughter-in-law escape from prison? And after all the fuss! Those rude detectives showing up at her doorstep and insisting that she was harboring a criminal or some such rot. Humph. They’d camped out, watching the house, and, she suspected, discreetly followed her as Lars drove her to her hairdresser, bridge game, and the Cahill House, where she offered her time helping administer to unmarried pregnant teens and twenty-somethings who needed sanctuary.

Of course the police had discovered nothing.

Because she was totally innocent. Still, she’d been irritated.

Staring into the night, Eugenia was suddenly cold. She saw her own reflection, a ghostly image of a tiny woman backlit by the soft illumination of antique lamps, and she was surprised how old she looked. Her eyes appeared owlish, magnified behind her glasses, the ones that had aided her since the cataract surgery a few years back. Her once vital red hair was now a neatly coiffed style closer to apricot than strawberry blond. She seemed to have shrunk two inches and now appeared barely five feet tall, if that. Her face, though remarkably unlined, had begun to sag, and she hated it. Hated this growing old. Hated being dismissed as past her prime. She’d considered having her eyes “done” or her face “tightened,” had even thought about Botox, but really, why?

Vanity?

After all she’d been through, it seemed trivial.

And so she was over eighty. Big deal. She knew she was no longer young, her arthritic knees could attest to that, but she wasn’t yet ready for any kind of assisted living or retirement community. Not yet.

Creeeeaaaak!

The sound of a door opening?

Her heartbeat quickened.

This last noise was not a figment of her imagination. “Cissy?” she called again and glanced over at Coco, who barely lifted her groggy little head at the noise, offering up no warning bark. “Dear, is that you?”

Who else?

Sunday and Monday nights she was usually alone: her “companion,” Deborah, generally leaving the city to stay with her sister; the day maid gone by five; and Elsa, the cook, having two days off. Lars finished every night by six, unless she requested his services, and she usually didn’t mind being alone, enjoyed the peace and quiet. But tonight…

Using her cane, she trundled into the hallway that separated the living quarters from her bedroom. “Cissy?” she called down the stairs. She felt like a ninny. Was she getting paranoid in her advancing years?

But a cold finger of doubt slid down her spine, convincing her otherwise, and though the furnace was humming, she felt a chill icy as the deep waters of the bay settle into her bones. She reached the railing, held onto the smooth rosewood banister and peered down to the first floor. In the dimmed evening lights she saw the polished tile floor of the foyer, the Louis XVI inlaid table and the ficus trees and jade plants positioned near the beveled glass by the front door.

Just as they always were.

But no Cissy.

Odd, Eugenia thought again, rubbing her arms. Odder yet that her dog was so passive. Coco, though old and arthritic, still had excellent hearing and was usually energetic enough to growl and bark her adorable head off at the least little sound. But tonight she just lay listlessly in her bed near Eugenia’s knitting bag, her eyes open but dull. Almost as if she’d been drugged….

Oh, for heaven’s sake! She was getting away with herself, letting her fertile imagination run wild. She gave herself a swift mental kick. That’s what she got for indulging in an Alfred Hitchcock movie marathon for the past five nights.

So where the hell was Cissy?

She reached into the pocket of her heavy sweater for her cell phone. Nothing there. The damned thing was missing, probably left on the table near her knitting needles.

Turning back toward the sitting room, she heard the gentle scrape of a footstep, leather upon wood.

Close by.

The scent of a perfume she’d nearly forgotten wafted to her nostrils and made the hairs on the back of her neck lift.

Her heart nearly stopped as she looked over her shoulder. There was movement in the shadows of the unlit hallway near her bedroom. “Cissy?” she said again, but her voice was the barest of whispers, and fear caused her pulse to pound. “Is that you, dear? This isn’t funny—”

Her words died in her throat.

A woman, half-hidden in the shadows, emerged triumphantly.

Eugenia froze.

Suspended in time.

“You!” she cried. Panic crept up her spine, and the woman before her smiled, a grin as cold and evil as Satan’s heart.

Eugenia tried to run, to flee, but before she could take a step, the younger woman pounced, strong hands clutching and squeezing, athletic arms pulling her off her feet.

“No!” Eugenia cried. “No!” She lifted her cane, but the damned walking stick fell from her hands and clattered uselessly down the stairs. Now, finally, Coco began to bark wildly.

“Don’t do this!” Eugenia cried.

But it was too late.

In a heartbeat, she was hoisted over the railing, pushed into the open space where the crystal chandelier hung. Screaming, flailing pathetically, hearing her dog snarling, Eugenia hurtled downward.

The Louis XVI table and tile floor of the foyer rushed up at her.

Sheer terror caused her heart to seize as she hit the floor with a dull, sickening thud. Crack! Pain exploded in her head. For half a second she stared upward at her assailant. The woman stood victorious on the landing, holding Coco, stroking the dog’s furry coat.

“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” the woman gloated.

Then there was only darkness….

 

“Shhh! Beej, you’re okay, got it? You are okay!” Cissy Cahill leaned over the railing of the playpen and hoisted her eighteen-month-old son onto her hip. His face was red from crying; tears streaked down his chubby cheeks, and his nose was running something fierce. “Oh, baby, look at you.” Cissy’s heart instantly melted, and she kissed the top of his blond head while reaching for a tissue and dabbing at his nose. “It’s gonna be all right. I promise,” she said as she found his little jacket and the hat he hated with a passion. She somehow managed to dress him, grab the diaper bag, and head out the door of the old Victorian home she’d lived in for nearly two years. He’d been cranky all afternoon, probably teething, and when the pizza-delivery kid had showed up, for some reason Beej had ratcheted into full tantrum mode. She had no real idea why he was upset. Teething? Too cold because the friggin’ furnace had gone out? Too hot because his mother had piled on extra clothes? Whatever the reason, Cissy was convinced it wasn’t serious, and the baby would just have to deal with it. She was running late, and her grandmother would be angry.

“The price we all pay for being Cahills,” she confided to her son as she locked the door behind her and walked to the driveway, where her car, a silver Acura sedan, was parked, the pizza already cooling in a box on the floor of the passenger seat. In no better mood than he’d been in all day, B.J. wailed and clawed at his hat as she strapped him into the child’s seat in the back and climbed behind the steering wheel. It was dark out, a soft rain beginning to fall, the lights of the city a little blurry. She glanced across the street to the spot where the unmarked police car had been parked ever since she’d heard the news that her mother had escaped from prison, but, surprisingly, it was missing.

Gone too was the news van that had camped out for hours on the street, a reporter coming to her door three times and asking for an interview. As if she would ever talk to the press! Cissy had prayed they’d go away, and tonight she’d gotten her wish.

Good.

She was sick of being treated like she was some kind of criminal when she’d done nothing wrong. Nothing! It wasn’t her fault that her mother just happened to be a narcissistic, murderous bitch—which were some of the nicer adjectives Cissy could ascribe to Marla. As far as Cissy was concerned, the farther her egocentric nutcase of a mother stayed away from her and B.J., the better.

Don’t think that way…get rid of the negative thoughts…count slowly to ten…. Cissy’s shrink’s voice slipped through her brain, but she ignored it. She wasn’t in a forgiving mood tonight, and she was just grateful that the police weren’t following her to the Cahill estate, where her grandmother had resided ever since marrying into the family nearly fifty years earlier. Cissy’s life was in enough turmoil as it was; she didn’t need to deal with the cops. In her opinion, she’d already suffered enough melodrama and pain to last her a lifetime or two—compliments of Marla Amhurst Cahill, sick-o extraordinaire and her mother.

“Yeah, Beej, that’s your nana,” she said, weaving her way through the neighborhood streets rimming Alamo Square. “Nana Psycho.” She glanced into the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of her son, his wailing having stopped, his big eyes devoid of tears. For the moment, he’d stopped fighting the hat.

Relieved that the tantrum was over, she winked at him. “See, you just wanted a date out with Mom in a classy car, right?”

The light ahead turned amber, and she stepped on the brakes. There had been a time when she had run anything remotely yellow, but now, with Beej, she’d suddenly become a model driver and nearly overprotective mother. Who woulda thunk it?

Her rumbling stomach and the clock on the dash reminded her that she was late. Great. No doubt she was in for another lecture. Like she hadn’t had enough. She was a grown woman, for God’s sake.

Once again she looked into the rearview mirror. This time she scanned the traffic behind her, searching for signs of a cop car. Not that she could pick one out. But considering that ever since her mother had escaped, the police had planted themselves near her door, it was odd that they weren’t following her now. Though the detectives had been nothing but nice, she knew, behind the concerned words and patient smiles, they were suspicious.

As if her mother would contact her.

As if she would harbor a woman she hated.

“No friggin’ way,” she whispered. Every muscle in her body tensed. As a kid, she’d grown up with Marla’s cool, aloof attitude toward her. She’d accepted it, accepted the fact that her whole family was a set of cold weirdos. To survive, she’d simply rebelled in any and every way she could think of.

But now, as a mother herself, Cissy couldn’t imagine not feeling close and bonded to a child. From the first time she’d laid eyes on her son, she’d been a new person. Life had changed in that sterling instant. Throughout her pregnancy she’d talked to the baby, rubbed her tummy, even named him Juan because of her cravings for tacos or anything Mexican at all hours of the day or night, but it hadn’t compared to holding him and hearing him cry at the hospital. Yep, they were a team. Inseparable.

So where was her mother?

How the hell had she gotten out?

Weren’t prisons supposed to be escape proof?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Nine-one-one, police dispatch.”

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

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

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

“What is your address?”

“Send someone now!”

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

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

“Ma’am. What is your name?”

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

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

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

Or had it?

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

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

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

Adrenaline sizzled through her blood.

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

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

Calm down. You can savor this later….

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

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

Too bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relax!

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

Remember that.

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

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

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

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

Marla Amhurst Cahill.

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

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

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

Sometimes Elyse wondered if it was worth it.

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

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

Don’t freak out! You made it.

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

Click.

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

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

And Elyse believed her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marla barely looked up to greet her.

Oh God, she was in a bad mood.

Great.

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

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

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

“And go where?”

“Upstairs.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Look, I brought you something to eat.” Elyse held out the white paper sack. “A hamburger I pic. . .