Almost Dead. Lisa Jackson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Chapter 1

      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 СКАЧАТЬ