Читать книгу Almost Dead - Lisa Jackson - Страница 12

The last thing Cissy needed right now, the very last, was to deal with her soon-to-be ex. Reluctantly, she rolled down the window. Along with a gust of rain-washed air, she caught a hint of his aftershave and a whole lot of unwanted memories. As upset as she was, she still noticed the hint of beard shadow covering his strong jaw and the laserlike intensity of his blue eyes.

“You okay?” he asked.

Stupid question. “Do I look okay?” She was shaking her head and trying not to cry. “No, I’m not. I’m not okay at all.” She wouldn’t break down, would not in front of him. “It’s Gran. She’s…she’s…Jack, she’s dead.” Her voice cracked over the last word, and she mentally kicked herself.

“Ciss,” he said quietly, and it got to her so much she had to look away.

“Dad-dee!” B.J.’s little arms shot straight up as if he could will his father to reach through the window and grab him. Marinara sauce streaked his face, the console, and the seat.

“How are ya, big guy?” Jack asked as B.J. waved his arms frantically in the air. “Here…” He walked quickly around the car, opened the passenger door, and, ignoring the grease and marinara sauce covering his son, unbuckled the seat belt and slid into the passenger seat. “You’re a mess,” he said, holding the boy, and Beej, the traitor, laughed and showed off all thirteen of his teeth.

“Dad-dee!” B.J. said again, his face shining with delight.

Cissy’s headache thundered.

“I’m sorry about Eugenia.” Jack touched her on the shoulder, and she tensed.

He seemed sincere, but then he’d always been able to play the part of the attentive boyfriend, romantic fiancé, or loving husband if he wanted to.

She wasn’t buying his act. She knew him too well and how pathetically easily he charmed her. Even now, when she was grieving and guilt-riddled, she felt that ridiculous male-female connection that had always been a part of their relationship. Damn him with his open-collared shirt, thick, mussed hair, and dimples that creased when he smiled. The trouble was Jack Holt was too damned good-looking for his own good. For her own good. She should have known better than to ever get involved with him. From the first time she’d set eyes upon him at that benefit party for Cahill House, a home for unwed mothers established by her family years before, she’d been intrigued. And doomed. She’d sensed he’d been the only man with a touch of irreverence in the whole damned ballroom, the only person, other than herself, who had found the stuffy affair boring.

Even after Jack’s father introduced them, Cissy had avoided Jack. She was just putting in her time at the affair. However, he soon figured out that she too wasn’t “into” it and kept trying to strike up a conversation with her. At first cool, she’d eventually had to laugh at his wry, self-deprecating humor. She’d even ended up flirting with him, and, of course, he’d responded. They’d escaped that damned party to start what should have been a short fling and ended up in Las Vegas a few months later with a quickie marriage and promises of love ever after.

What a joke!

A mistake of immense proportions.

Except for B.J.

Their son was the only part of their ill-fated marriage that was worth the heartache. As lousy a husband as Jack was, he did seem to adore his kid. The feeling was obviously mutual, and the one thing she hated about the separation and impending divorce was that B.J. wouldn’t grow up under the same roof as his father.

“What happened?” Jack asked, his brows slammed together, his blondish hair artificially darkened with rain.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think Gran fell down the stairs. She could have tripped or had a stroke, I guess. The thing is, she always took the elevator. I never saw her on the stairs. She didn’t even consider it. So how…?” Sighing, she leaned back against the seat and fought an overpowering sense of guilt. “I was late. Our furnace was acting up all day, and I couldn’t get a repairman out cuz it’s the weekend. Then B.J., contrary to how he’s acting now, was fussy as all get-out. Nothing made him happy. Nothing…well, except obviously you, now.”

Jack flashed her a grin.

“So I waited for the pizza-delivery guy to come, then drove over an hour or so later than usual, and…and…” In her mind’s eye she saw her grandmother’s tiny, broken body sprawled upon the tile floor, the pooled blood beneath her short hair. Cissy’s stomach churned. “And by the time I got here, I found her on the floor of the foyer. I knew she was dead, but I called 9-1-1 and…” She clenched her teeth. “I think that if I’d gotten here earlier, when I was supposed to…maybe things would have happened differently. Maybe she’d still be alive.”

“Don’t go there, Ciss. It’s not your fault. You know that.”

She nodded shortly, fighting emotion.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time when he touched the back of her neck, she didn’t shrink away.

She would like, for just a few minutes, to not reopen her eyes, to push the pain aside and let someone, even Jack, comfort her. Just until she could pull herself together.

“Can I get you out of here?”

“Blocked in.” Blinking rapidly and running a finger under her eyes, she shot a look through the foggy back window. The crime-scene van, Paterno’s car, a fire truck, and several police cars, their lights still strobing the night, were parked behind her, clogging the driveway and the street. More people had crowded around the gates—two neighbors whom she recognized, a jogger, and someone walking his dog—all congregating under the spreading bare branches of the ancient oak tree across the street. All their faces appeared ghostly in the watery blue illumination of the flickering streetlight that her grandmother had always complained about.

“My car’s out front,” Jack said. He smiled faintly at her in the darkness. “We can escape.”

Like Marla, she thought but didn’t say it.

“I think Paterno wants to talk to me again.”

“The homicide dick? The one who put your mom away?”

“One and the same.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed as the windows of the car continued to fog. “But I thought he left town. What the hell is he doing here? What’s he got to do with this?”

“I don’t know.” The headache Cissy had been fighting all day intensified, pounding at the base of her skull again. Lately, Jack had that effect on her.

“But homicide? As in murder? Jesus, what is this?” His jaw turned hard as stone.

“I said ‘I don’t know.’” She lifted a shoulder, realized he was still touching her, and looked pointedly at his hand.

Jack got the hint and pulled it back to wrap around B.J., who was still happily munching on his squeezed piece of pizza. Plopped as he was on his father’s lap, the kid was happy, really happy, for the first time all day. Great. Cissy didn’t want to think about the future and what that might spell.

“I’ll get you out of here.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He shot her a glance that begged to differ, and she realized she looked a mess, mascara running from her eyes, hair matted from the rain, grief probably etched all over her face.

“This’ll only take a second.” He started to get out of the car.

“Wait a minute,” she said, but resisted the urge to grab his arm. “How’d you get here so quickly?”

“I was looking for you. I called several times, but you didn’t answer. I knew you came here on Sunday nights, so I thought I’d surprise you.” For the first time since he’d shown up, there was a bite to his words, something more than just casual conversation.

“What was so all-fired important that you would interrupt my dinner with Gran?”

“Not interrupt,” he corrected. “Join.”

“Join?” She gave him a cool look.

His jaw clenched a little harder, and his intense eyes seemed to drill a hole right through her. “Because I was served today.”

Her stomach lurched. Of course. “The divorce papers.”

“Yeah. The divorce papers,” he said with more than a bit of acrimony. He shoved his damp hair out of his eyes, and a muscle began to work in the side of his jaw, just like it always did when he was angry.

She winced. “And you thought discussing it in front of Eugenia would be a good idea?”

“I don’t think anything about it is a good idea,” he said and reached for the handle of the door again. “I’ll talk to Paterno and see if I can get you out of here.”

“Jack, don’t do anything stupid.”

“Too late,” he muttered and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him and jogging up the path to the front door. She watched him through the windshield. He shouldn’t get involved. She shouldn’t have let him, and she should not be noticing the way his khakis hugged his butt as he ran. Damn it all, she’d always found him attractive, even now, when her grandmother was lying dead in the foyer. Sniffing loudly, she confided in her son, “Your mom’s a basket case.” She reached over and touched his nose. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s our little secret.”

“Secret.” He nodded, then looked through the window. “Where Dad-dee go?”

“On an errand; he’ll be right back.”

“Right back.”

“Um-hmm.” She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the rearview mirror and cringed. The woman staring back at her was a mess. Layered, streaked hair flattened by the rain, the whites of her eyes bloodshot, her nose red, and, along with the streaking mascara, her makeup a mess, lip gloss long gone, skin splotchy from crying, and a damned zit or two. Crap. She looked like hell.

And Gran’s dead.

A lump filled her throat.

She just wanted to go home. And not with either Paterno, and his damned questions and suspicious eyes, or Jack, who had a way of worming himself deep into her heart. “Help me,” she muttered, leaning back against the seat and trying not to be irritated that Jack, true to his nature, had decided he had the right to talk to the police as if he were still a member of her family. Couldn’t he just go away? She’d already suffered one shock tonight and was still dealing with the thought that her grandmother was dead.

Dead!

Her eyes burned again.

So what was Jack doing here, acting as if he were some kind of knight in shining armor, showing up as if he cared one little whit about their family? What a joke! She would love nothing more than to believe for one little second that he actually loved her and that she could draw from his strength. That, of course, was an idle and supremely ridiculous thought.

Jack Holt was a lot of things, a tower of strength not being one. She didn’t dare make the mistake of trying to lean on him again. Cissy sniffed loudly then caught B.J. staring at her, his little face puckering. She forced back her tears. “Hey, little man, gonna eat that?” she asked, opening his fingers and retrieving the squashed piece of pizza. He shook his head, and she scraped the remains of cheese and marinara sauce from his plump fingers. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get outta here.”

“Go home!” Beej said as she wiped sauce from his cheeks, leaving a reddish stain around his mouth.

“You bet, big guy. As soon as we can.” She turned on the engine, forcing a little heat into the car. “As soon as we can.”

“The husband. At two o’clock,” Quinn warned, barely moving her lips. She and Paterno were in the foyer of the massive old house, both squatting next to Eugenia’s body. But Quinn had looked up and out the open front door.

Paterno also recognized Jack Holt, editor and owner of City Wise, a slick rag about San Francisco, bearing down on him.

Just what they needed. “What’s he doing here?”

“Who knows? The wife probably called him.”

“I’ll cut him off at the pass.” Straightening, his bad knee popping a bit, Paterno ambled to the door to block the entrance to the house. “Sorry, potential crime scene.”

“I get it. I’m Jack Holt, Cissy Cahill’s husband.”

“Detective Paterno.” They’d never met before, but Paterno had seen Holt’s picture often enough, either smiling from the glossy pages of his magazine or in the local newspaper, his raffish image caught at whatever charity event was in the papers.

Jack Holt, somewhere around thirty-five, was definitely high profile, part of the see-and-be-seen crowd. Whether in a tuxedo or casual golfing clothes, the guy was just too slick for Paterno’s taste. Now, though, he was just a worried family member running through the rain, determination and sadness etched into the sharp-bladed planes of his face.

Holt swept in a sharp breath. Looking past Paterno, he obviously caught a glimpse of the dead woman. Momentarily, his expression jolted with pain.

“What can I do for you?” Paterno asked.

Holt forced his gaze back to the detective. “I want to take my wife and kid home. My car’s on the street. Not blocked in like hers. I can bring her back here later, maybe tomorrow, to pick up the Acura when you’re finished.”

Fair enough. “Shouldn’t be a problem, but I still may want to ask her some questions.”

Holt’s lips flattened. “I don’t know what more you want from her. Cissy brought our son for one of their weekly dinners with her grandmother.” Peering around Paterno to the crumpled body on the floor, Holt winced a bit, and Paterno wondered if maybe there was more to the man than he’d first thought. “Cissy was running late and found Eugenia at the bottom of the stairs. Then she called 9-1-1. End of story.”

Paterno didn’t like the younger man’s tone. Felt his patience slipping. “I’m just asking questions. Trying to get to the bottom of this. I’m sure your wife understands that we want to find out what happened to Mrs. Cahill. And to do that, I’ll probably be talking with both you and your wife again.” He stepped onto the porch. “So why don’t you tell me where you were tonight? You got here pretty damned quick.”

Because I was on my way over here already. To see Cissy… Every muscle in Holt’s body tensed. “Wait a minute,” he said, eyes narrowing as the wheels turned in his mind. The temperature on the porch seemed to fall another five degrees as rain gurgled in the eaves and trickled through the downspouts. “Eugenia fell. Tripped and lost her balance and ended up at the bottom of the stairs.” He glanced inside again, apparently mentally calculating the distance between the old lady’s body and the foot of the stairs. “You’re not thinking any foul play was involved?” But as he posed the question, he gave Paterno a penetrating look.

“We’re just figuring that out now.”

“You’re with homicide,” Holt pointed out flatly.

“We haven’t ruled out any possibilities yet. As I said, we’re working on it.” Paterno wasn’t giving up anything for the time being. At first glance it looked like the old woman tripped and fell, tumbled down the curved steps and broke her neck, but, these days, who knew? Eugenia Cahill was a wealthy woman. The Cahills had weathered a number of financial ups and downs, but it was no secret their fortunes were solid and currently on a steep rise. But the family had suffered their share of nutcases too. Marla Amhurst Cahill a case in point. It seemed like too much of a coincidence for Eugenia to wind up at the bottom of the staircase less than seventy-two hours from the time Marla, her murderous daughter-in-law, had escaped from prison.

Paterno scowled. The thought that Eugenia’s daughter-in-law had escaped really gnawed at his gut. He’d worked his ass off to put Marla away years before, and now recently, because of overcrowding and her stellar behavior as a model prisoner, she’d been transferred to a lower-security facility.

What a mistake! He wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Cahill fortune had been used to grease the skids on that little maneuver. Within two years of the transfer, Marla had found a way to break loose of that country club disguised as a lock-up facility. It hadn’t come as much of a surprise to Paterno, but it pissed him off. In all his years in law enforcement, Paterno would be hard-pressed to come up with a more calculating, murderous bitch than Marla Cahill. The way he saw it, she should have been locked away doing hard time for the rest of her life.

And now she was out.

And her mother-in-law, keeper of the family fortune, had just suffered a quick, untimely death.

Coincidence?

No friggin’ way.

Paterno just didn’t take much stock in coincidence.

Especially not where Cahills were concerned.

But right now he didn’t want to deal with Jack Holt, or anyone else. Not until he’d gathered a little more evidence. Besides, Holt was a member of the press, and at the moment Paterno wanted reporters far away from his crime scene. “Go ahead and take your wife home,” he agreed. “If I need anything else, I’ll call. And here—” He reached into his wallet, grabbed one of his business cards, and handed it to Holt. “If she needs to get in touch with me, she can reach me at any of these numbers, including my cell.”

“Okay.” Holt’s face was still grim. “If this is a murder, we want to know. Immediately.”

“You will.”

Holt turned and jogged through the falling rain, his shoes slapping on the wet bricks. He skirted a camellia bush, his shoulder swiping a near-dead bloom, a few red petals dropping onto the ground.

Watching him leave, Paterno couldn’t help wondering if Holt had married Cissy Cahill for love or money. That was the trouble with having millions stashed away in stocks, real estate, or the bank vault—someone was always after a piece of it. You could never be certain if they cared for you because they truly found you fascinating and really loved you, or if they were attracted to you because of the number of zeroes on your bank statement.

Greed, before, had cost a few people close to the Cahills their lives.

He made a mental note to check out Holt. Phone records, he told himself, might help. Credit-card receipts and bank balances. If the old lady had been murdered. He glanced through the open doorway, spying the broken body of the little dead woman, appearing, in many ways, like a nestling that had fallen from its nest. In life, Eugenia Cahill had been a force to be reckoned with. Sharp as a tack and definitely the matriarch, she’d run this family with tiny iron fists and an incredible will.

Had she suffered an unlucky fall?

Or was it murder?

With Marla Cahill on the loose, he was betting on the latter.

Cissy spied Jack running toward the car and rolled down her window. “What’s happening? Can we leave?”

“The police are still investigating. They’re not sure what went on with your grandmother, and they’re being careful, just in case this isn’t an accident.”

“Not an accident?” she repeated, her worst fears slicing through her.

“Nothing’s decided,” he said, standing in the rain, the shoulders of his shirt drenched, his hair dripping, his face a mask of concern.

Cissy gazed at him. Murder? “No way…no one would want to kill Gran,” she protested, though, deep inside, hadn’t she considered that Eugenia hadn’t just fallen? Her mother’s escape. The cops’ surveillance. Homicide detectives in the house. They all added up to the simple fact that someone was likely behind her grandmother’s death. She felt herself shaking inside, unspoken denials forming on her lips.

“Paterno gave me the green light to take you home.”

Cissy didn’t want to leave with Jack, but she had to get out of here, away from the creepy old house with its dead body in the foyer and secrets locked away in all the other rooms. Now lights were glowing in the windows of all four stories, as if a giant party was in full swing, when, instead, police, photographers, criminalists, and God only knew who else were crawling through the rooms where she’d spent so much of her life.

“Come on, I’m drowning out here. Let’s go.”

A van marked as belonging to the coroner’s office rolled to the end of the drive and parked between the other vehicles scattered haphazardly on the rain-slickened streets. A reporter, wielding her microphone like a weapon, flew out of a news vehicle and hurried up to the driver of the van as soon as he stepped a foot on the pavement.

Cissy watched in horror as someone she assumed was the assistant ME gave a quick little interview.

“Practice your ‘no comments,’” Jack advised, and she remembered that he too had once been with a newspaper, chasing down the latest story not only in Los Angeles, when he was first out of college, but in the Bay Area as well. Now he’d already opened the passenger door and was unbuckling his son. “Come on, big guy, let’s go home.”

Beej, the traitor, flung his hands up and down and grinned like a goof for his father, who it seemed just happened to be his most favorite person in the world.

Although she wasn’t crazy about spending any more time with Jack, she didn’t have much of a choice. And, believe it or not, Jack’s company was a lot less stressful than the detective’s. She hauled her purse, diaper bag, and disreputable pizza box with her. Together they wended their way through the emergency vehicles and police barricade. As soon as they stepped onto the street, they were immediately assaulted by the same determined female reporter that had chased down the assistant medical examiner.

“Miss Cahill!” Cissy heard her name, but ignored the newswoman. “Can you tell us what’s going on? Who died? Was it murder?” The woman hardly paused for a breath, and Cissy pressed on, right behind Jack and B.J., refusing to look into the blinding light held by one of the television station’s crew, or the camera she knew was following her every move. “Does your mother, Marla Cahill, have anything to do with this?”

Cissy bristled and had to bite her tongue, all the while waiting impatiently as Jack unlocked the door of his Jeep.

“Have you heard from Marla Cahill since her escape?”

The locks of the Jeep clicked. Cissy opened the passenger door, nearly knocking over the cameraman.

“Back off!” Jack shouted across the top of his vehicle. “No comment!”

Cissy slammed the door with the camera still rolling and with shaking fingers managed to snap her seat belt into place. She’d ridden in this very seat hundreds of times, and yet it felt awkward to be sitting here, staring straight ahead, trying not to meet the eyes of neighbors and the curious who had gathered. It was all so weird. Not just because of the bizarre media circus: police vehicles scattered about, walkie talkies crackling. And not just because her grandmother now lay dead in the big, old house. Her relationship with Jack was weird too.

She sighed. Now that she and he were separated, there was a little bit of “this is yours” and “this is mine” going on. While before it had been natural to share everything, and she’d never felt the least bit uncomfortable about driving his car, using his laptop, “borrowing” his toothbrush, or wearing one of his shirts as pajamas, now the rules had changed. Their way of interacting with their child, the division of their property, the days of the week when they could expect to see B.J., all this was now written in lawyer doublespeak and tied up with suspicion.

Jack strapped Beej into his car seat, then slammed the back door, jogged around his vehicle, and climbed behind the steering wheel. “The press,” he said with mock severity as he jammed his keys into the ignition. “All a bunch of vultures.” He offered her a self-deprecating smile, as they both knew he’d been a stringer for a local paper, then a full-blown reporter before coming up with the idea and backing for City Wise, his latest venture and the very magazine where Cissy now contributed.

She understood all too well about stories, spins, and angles, but she didn’t like it when the focus narrowed onto her and her family.

Jack cranked on the Jeep’s wheel and disengaged the parking brake as he pulled away from the curb. The SUV shot down the steep hill with its narrow, winding street, and Cissy, unaware that she was holding her breath, let out a sigh. “Thank God,” she whispered.

“Yeah, it’s good to be out of there.”

That was an understatement. Rubbing her temple, she sneaked a glance in his direction. Jaw rock hard, hands so tight on the wheel his knuckles bleached through, he didn’t seem to notice that she was studying his profile as the headlights from oncoming cars splashed bluish light into the Jeep’s interior, giving her short, almost strobe-light images of his honed features. Deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, rugged jaw, and thick hair that streaked blond in the summer. All he needed was a Stetson and boots and he could be Hollywood’s image of a modern-day cowboy. There was just something about him that whispered “rebel” and “independent” and “irreverent,” all the qualities in a man that attracted her…and now repelled her as a wife. Had he changed? Or had she?

Of course she’d been a fool to fall so fast and hard for him. He wasn’t the marrying type. She’d known it. All the warning signs had been there, right in her face, and she’d ignored every last one of them. She’d sensed he was a confirmed bachelor, a man who had wanted to play the field, a workaholic who spent countless hours on the job, ensuring the success and growing popularity of his local magazine. He’d worked with the Internet, rather than against it, when it had threatened circulation, and he’d been ahead of the game every step of the way.

He’d been described as a “rogue” publisher, ruthless and cutthroat with the competition, smarter than most.

And she’d loved every bit of it.

Until he’d stepped over the line.

Now, behind the wheel, he guided the Jeep downhill toward the financial district. As they merged onto Stanyan, she caught a familiar whiff of his aftershave and mentally kicked herself for remembering all too vividly how that scent, and the man, had turned her on. Even on the night when she’d first met him.

Cissy—in college and wondering what the hell she was going to do with her life—had gone to the benefit for Cahill House at her grandmother’s insistence. She’d intended to make a quick appearance at the stuffy old hotel on Nob Hill just to satisfy Eugenia’s need for “family solidarity,” then ditch out. Even though she thought Cahill House a worthwhile cause, Cissy saw no reason to rub elbows with the stuffed shirts on the board or make small talk with staid members of the several foundations who had helped fund the house.

Talk about boring!

What she hadn’t expected when she’d stepped into the grand ballroom with its cut-glass chandeliers, patterned carpet, and incredible view of the bay was Jack Holt with his tie already unbuttoned, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his hair messy from shoving his hands through it one too many times, and the scent of that clean aftershave. A drink in his hand, a cocksure smile on his lips, a square jaw, and a glimmer of irreverence in eyes that were a startling blue, he’d had the nerve to wink at her as she passed—as if the two of them shared a secret.

A player, she’d thought and written him off.

She’d run into him a couple of times more throughout the course of the evening, and each time there was something she found interesting, but it wasn’t until she was introduced to him by his father, Jonathan Holt, who knew her grandmother, that he’d gotten to her.

Maybe if she hadn’t been on the rebound from a rocky relationship with Noah Chandler, a soon-to-be lawyer she’d met at USC, she might not have fallen for Jack’s charms, but the truth of the matter was that she’d been looking for something or someone different. Someone edgier and fun. Maybe someone older.

It had hurt when she learned that Noah was seeing another law student, a smart, beautiful LA girl whom Cissy had met and sensed had more than a friendly interest in him. She’d known the girl had set her sights on him, though Noah, always playing the part of the innocent, had denied it and had even gone so far as to accuse her of being paranoid.

It’s hell always being right, Cissy thought with an inner snort.

A few days after graduation, she and Noah made a final break. A few days after that, Cissy was back in San Francisco and met Jack, all smiles and dimples and sexy eyes. He’d danced with her, drank with her, and, under his breath, made jokes about all the “stiffs” at the party. Ultimately, he charmed the socks—and her siren red dress—off her.

And it hadn’t ended that night. What started out as a hot one-night stand erupted into an incredible, heady affair ending with a wedding in one of those little chapels in Las Vegas being witnessed by complete strangers. The impulsive elopement had resulted in an incredible son and a marriage that seemed destined to fail from the get-go.

Cissy shut down the memory. What was the point? She stared out the windshield, watching the wipers slap away the thick raindrops as some old rock song drifted through the speakers. The lights of the city stretched out before them in a dazzling display, and beyond the grid of illumination, the inky waters of the bay stretched to the opposite shore, where more lights sparkled like jewels.

The beauty of the view was lost on her tonight.

She felt hollow inside. Numb. She’d never known life without her kid-gloved but iron-fisted grandmother, couldn’t imagine what it would be like now that Eugenia was dead. It could be easier in some ways, but it would certainly be less defined. Eugenia Cahill was nothing if not an autocrat, her rules unbending.

“You okay?” Jack finally asked.

“No.”

“I am sorry, Ciss.”

“I know.” She blinked against a new rush of tears. She could accept his callousness, even his fury, but not his kindness, not when they had no chance of reconciliation, which they hadn’t. “I just can’t help thinking that if I hadn’t been late, if I’d been there, she wouldn’t have fallen.”

“You think she fell.”

“Of course she did,” she said, denying her darkest fears once again.

“Then why the homicide dick?” Jack’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel nervously as he turned through Haight-Ashbury and past Buena Vista Park. He hit the brakes for a jaywalker, then, once the guy had crossed, said, “Paterno and his partner don’t just show up at every crime scene.”

“It’s because of my mother,” Cissy said darkly. “Ever since she escaped, the police have been all over the place. As if Marla would come running to me, or to Gran! That’s just plain stupid. She’s smart enough to know that the police would be waiting for her.”

“So you haven’t heard from her?”

Jack thought Marla had contacted her? She pinned him with an incredulous glare. “Are you nuts?”

“It’s normal that she would want to see you. She might even want to see James.”

“She doesn’t know where he is,” Cissy said, thinking of her brother, who was nearly eleven now, hidden away in Oregon with her aunt and uncle. “My guess is that she’s going to run as far away as possible. Maybe Mexico. Canada.”

“She’ll need papers. ID.”

Cissy sent him a don’t-be-so-naive look. “She broke out of prison. I think she can figure out how to avoid the police and get forged documents. If she didn’t know how to before she was arrested, I bet she does now. Surely some of her ‘friends’ on the inside know people on the outside who can get any kind of ID she’ll need.”

“She couldn’t get documents without help or money.”

“Well, she’s getting none from me,” Cissy stated positively. “And I think the police figure she had an accomplice working with her.”

“Who?”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” she said. It was one she’d been asking herself ever since learning Marla had broken out. “I can’t imagine who would want to help her.”

“Not everyone hated her.”

That much was true, she thought as they eased around a final corner before reaching her street. Her mother had always attracted flocks of people. Not only beautiful, but rich as well. But to help her escape? Not exactly the actions of someone she shopped or played tennis with.

Jack nosed his Jeep into the drive in front of the garage, and she felt a bit of relief at just being home. Had it been less than three hours since she’d unknowingly driven to her grandmother’s house? In that short time span her life had changed irrevocably. Now she slid out of the SUV and gathered her things while Jack carried Beej into the house and deposited him into his high chair.

It all seemed so natural.

The tiny nuclear family.

But it wasn’t. She couldn’t allow herself to be seduced into thinking things between her husband and herself had slipped back into the trust they’d vowed when they married. Even though it seemed perfectly normal for him to be standing in the kitchen, she had to remind herself that things had changed. Forever. A little bit of her heart tore, but she ignored it.

Before her husband could get too comfortable, Cissy said, “I think I can handle it from here. Thanks.”

His lips tightened at the corners. “Don’t do it, Ciss,” he warned.

“Do what?”

“Play the part of the bitchy ex-wife. You know, all prickly and able to handle life on her own no matter what kind of trauma she’s just been through.”

“But I can. Handle everything.”

“Even your grandmother’s murder?”

“Don’t be such a bastard.”

He inclined his head, taking the heat. “I just want to face reality.”

She slid a glance at their son, and her voice softened. “Let’s not discuss this now, okay? Little ears hear a lot, Jack. Maybe you should just go home.”

“This is my home.”

“No more. And I’m tired. It’s been a helluva week.” She slid another piece of pizza onto the tray of Beej’s high chair, then poured some milk into a sippy cup. “Careful with this,” she told her son, and he, so much like his father, grinned mischievously before taking the handle and swinging the cup to and fro, spraying milk on the wall, floor, tray, and Cissy.

Perfect.

“I was afraid of that. You just lost your ‘get out of jail free’ card, bud.”

She retrieved the cup, and he started winding up to wail before she distracted him with his favorite toy. A little rubber car with no moving parts. It did nothing except look remarkably like Jack’s Jeep.

“Dad-dee car!” he said gleefully, his attention diverted as Cissy dabbed at her sweater with a dishrag before swabbing the counter. She glanced up at Jack and saw him smothering a smile. “Don’t say it,” she warned, pointing at him and dropping the rag by mistake. “Crap.” She bent to pick it up and nearly cracked heads with Jack, who had also dived for the soaked towel. “I’ve got it!” Retrieving the dishrag, she mopped up the sprayed milk, then walked onto what had once been a porch and was now the sunroom. Opening a cupboard door, she dropped the rag into a laundry chute that channeled to the basement.

By the time she’d returned to the kitchen, Jack had retrieved two bottles of beer from the fridge. “Something I forgot when I moved out,” he said, then popped the tops. He handed her a bottle, tapped the neck of his to hers, and said, “To better days.”

A part of her wanted to argue and throw him out, though another part told herself to let it go for the night. She didn’t need another fight. She figured there were enough battles on the horizon. Reluctantly she offered him a conciliatory smile.

“Amen,” she whispered. “To better days.”

She lifted the bottle to her lips, but paused as a horrid thought hit her.

What if this was the best day?

What if from here on in, things just got worse? She took a long swallow as her son pounded his little car on the tray of his high chair.

Now, there was a happy thought.