by Lisa Jackson
Marla wanted to argue, but she couldn’t muster the energy. She was tired, her head beginning to pain her again.
“Carmen can help you upstairs.”
“I think I can make it on my own.”
“You shouldn’t overdo,” Eugenia advised, glancing at Marla’s empty wine glass. The older woman’s lips puckered in disapproval, but she didn’t admonish Marla any further. “Alex has hired a nurse, you know. He starts tonight.”
“I don’t need a nurse.”
Eugenia’s smile was patient as she straightened from her throne. “We’ll see,” she said, and clipped out of the room. Marla, though her head was beginning to throb, made her way up to the library on the second floor, picked up several photo albums and hauled them another flight to her room.
Dutifully she drank the juice sitting by her bed, hoping that the headache would lessen. She kicked off her shoes, then slid between the sheets and began paging through the leaves of the photograph albums. She’d seen the wedding and moved on to snapshots taken in the first years of her marriage with Alex. Pictures of her in a convertible with Alex by her side, holding a drink aloft while sunbathing at some tropical beach, hamming it up with her tennis racquet and then with Cissy . . . and the man she now recognized as her father. The baby on his lap, he staring into the lens without a smile. She didn’t like him. She knew that now. She’d never liked him. He was cold and distant and the woman who was her mother, she felt nothing for the wasp-waisted woman with the perpetual frown.
Think, Marla, think. There were pictures of the man standing on an expansive lawn and backdropped by a palatial brick house, Georgian style, complete with white columns, broad front porch, three square stories in the center, flanked by shorter wings of two stories. This was the home where she’d grown up?
Barely able to keep her eyes open, Marla flipped through other pages and each time she saw her father, something inside her recoiled, as if she were afraid of him, as if . . . as if whatever she’d done in her life, it wasn’t good enough for him.
“This is crazy,” she mumbled, blinking hard, but so damned tired she couldn’t stay awake a second longer. She shoved the albums aside and sank into the pillows. She’d just doze for a little while, and then when she was clearheaded again, she’d tackle the problems, but when she slipped into sleep she dreamed, and none of the people in the dream had any faces, they walked around her, spoke out of mouths connected to no eyes or noses, laughed and joked, never including her.
She was an outsider. Alone. Isolated. She heard voices, but couldn’t speak. It was as if she were invisible . . . somewhere far off a baby cried . . . and a voice, one she should recognize, saying, “I know, I know, but from now on, just jot down who called and I’ll give her the message. Don’t bring her the phone. It’s too soon and too embarrassing for her. She looks dreadful. The poor thing can barely speak with her mouth wired as it is. Really, it’s in her best interest.”
Marla wanted to protest . . . the woman was talking about her. The baby stopped crying and Marla, nestling into the bed, rolled onto her stomach. She was so tired, so blasted tired. When she woke up, then she’d fix things, the people would have faces again . . . when she woke up . . .
“So Tough Guy’s all right?” Nick asked, sitting on the edge of his hotel room bed and nudging off one shoe with the toe of the other. Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, he leaned back on the pillows and stared up at the tie-dyed canopy of his four-poster.
“Ye-up, as well as can be ’spected,” Ole said. “I’ve got him with me and he’s purty good, jes’ keeps lookin’ down the lane fer ya.”
“I thought I’d be back sooner,” Nick said. “Bit it might take longer.”
“It figures.”
Nick frowned as he thought how deeply he was getting ensnared in this Marla mess. But then, he supposed, his entanglement had been inevitable. As it always had been when it came to that woman. It was odd, though, seeing her in the hospital all battered and bruised, his bitterness at war with the pity he felt for her. Poor little rich girl. Or, more likely, Poor, wretched, rich bitch.
“Don’t ya worry about Tough Guy none,” Ole was saying. “I’m watchin’ him and the Notorious as if they was my own.”
“Thanks.” Stretching the phone cord, Nick walked in his stocking feet to the window overlooking Haight Street. “I’ll let you know when I’ll be back.”
“ ’Preciate it.” Ole hung up and Nick rubbed the crick from his neck. He’d been tense from the moment he’d seen Alex in the parking lot at the marina in Devil’s Cove. It had only increased with each passing day. He looked up the hill. Somewhere up there Marla was recuperating, hopefully starting to remember. His conscience twinged a bit for there were certain parts of his life that would best be forgotten. But they lingered, just under the surface where memories of dark corners, hot skin and the musky smell of sex was ever-present. Marla had been the most provocative woman he’d ever known.
The only one who had really gotten to him.
No matter what the circumstance, whenever they’d been together, passion had sizzled around the edges of their conversation, in the sultry glances she’d cast in his direction, in the butterfly soft touch of her fingers against his neck or chest. Never had any woman affected him so. Not before. Not after.
He’d been foolish enough to think that it wasn’t her, but them. The two of them with some kind of cosmic, unique chemistry. Of course, he’d been wrong. And he’d been old enough that he should have known better. Twenty-four wasn’t exactly a kid, but he’d lost all sense of sanity when he’d been around her.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath as he returned the receiver to its cradle. He was supposed to go up to the house for dinner. Eugenia had issued one of her commands masked as an invitation. He plowed stiff fingers through his hair.
Knuckles rapped softly against his door.
Scowling, he crossed the room and yanked hard on the knob. On the other side of the threshold, a tiny fist raised to beat on the door again, stood Cherise. “Oh, good, I was afraid you might not be in,” she said, and without an invitation, breezed in on a cloud of some kind of perfume he’d smelled before—a long time before. She was nervous, though she tried to play it cool in her black leather jacket, jeans and matching sweater. Her blond hair was swept up and pinned on the back of her head with glittery clips and she wore more makeup than she needed. Gold eyes, rimmed in thick black eyelashes, stared at him. “I came here because I have something I want to talk to you about.”
“Wait a minute, how did you know where I was staying?” Nick asked, and she lifted a shoulder as she set a damp umbrella under the table.
“Monty found out somehow.”
“How would he know?”
“Beats me, but . . . he has connections.”
Whatever that meant. But then Montgomery Cahill had always been on the sneaky side. Uncle Fenton had been known to say that his son had a little snake oil in his blood. Nick believed it. He also thought everyone named Cahill had been blessed with that same genetic flaw. Nick let the comment slide as Cherise dropped into a chair near the window and glanced through the half-drawn curtains.
“You want a drink?”
“No . . . I . . . well, I gave that up when I accepted Jesus.” She shook her head vehemently and the little clips in her hair twinkled in the lamplight.
Fine. “But you won’t mind if I have one?”
“Suit yourself. I try not to judge.”
“Good idea,” he said, remembering her as a teenager and her affinity for marijuana, speed and LSD. Eventually she’d become a cocaine addict and between husbands two and three had gone through treatment. Now, it seemed, she’d found the Lord, through her latest husband. Nick opened the minibar and grabbed a can of beer. “You said you came here for a reason.” He popped open the tab and sat at the foot of the bed.
“It’s about Marla.” Cherise perched on the edge of the chair as if she expected to bolt at any second.
&nb
sp; “What about her?”
“I was hoping you had talked to Alex about me visiting her.”
“I brought it up. He thinks she shouldn’t have visitors.”
“But we’re family,” Cherise complained. “You know she and I were always close.”
This was news. Or a lie. He took a long pull on the can. “I hadn’t heard.”
“Come on, Nick. You remember. We always hung out together when you . . . well, when you and she were together.”
“I really don’t recall.”
“Well, it’s true. I counted her as one of my best friends.” She fiddled with the clasp on her tiny purse as she talked, fidgety little fingers with purplish polish working the gold button. Click, click, click. “And now Alex refuses to let me see her. I don’t know if it’s just me or all her friends, but I don’t think it’s right.”
“I said he’s not big on the visitor thing. I doubt if I can change his mind.”
“Then go around him, for goodness sake. Tell Marla I want to see her.”
“This . . . affection or friendship you have with Marla, it has nothing to do with the fact that you and Monty are making noises that you were cut out of the inheritance?”
Was it his imagination or did her eyes narrow just a fraction? “I suppose that’s what Alex is peddling.”
“Among other things.” He drank half the can, watched her squirm a bit.
Her little face screwed up in vexation. “Wouldn’t you know?” Disgust contorting her pretty features, Cherise tossed one hand in the air. “That’s another issue,” she said in a long-suffering sigh. “I know Alex is your brother, but if I were you, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”
I don’t. “Why?”
“Because, because . . . he’s running the company into the ground and he’s a liar. Always has been and he won’t change now. He’s guarded. Secretive. And some of the secrets you wouldn’t believe.”
“But you know them?”
“Some of them,” Cherise admitted, her eyes darkening with challenge. “But not all. No one knows all of Alexander Cahill’s secrets. Not even his wife.”
“I suppose you think he could use a good dose of Christianity.”
“Everyone could.” Her smile was as phony as her eyelashes. She batted them coyly. “Even you, Nick.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Jesus forgives us all of our sins. Me. Alex. You.”
Nick’s jaw slid to one side as he eyed his cousin. “I don’t know, Cherise, my list is pretty long. It could take him a while.” To prove his point he opened his throat and chugged the Coors.
“Trust me. He’s a very patient man.”
Nick laughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. There was something about Cherise he’d always liked; then again she was a real pain in the butt. Chameleonlike, Cherise seemed to blend into her surroundings, whether it had been the Junior League, drug scene, or now, her latest venture, into the world of evangelism.
“I’d just like to see Marla,” she said, reaching for her umbrella as she stood. “I thought maybe you could arrange it.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“How is she?” Cherise asked as if she really cared, but Nick noticed it had taken her nearly fifteen minutes to ask.
“Comin’ along.”
“Good. Give me a call. I’m staying at the house right now. The number’s the same as it always was.” Balancing her umbrella with one hand, she dug in the small purse with the other, then withdrew a business card. “Here ya go.” She handed it to him, and Nick noted the praying hands embossed in one corner while her name, address and phone number, linked with the Reverend Donald, her husband’s, along with their church affiliation, adorned another. “And,” she said, placing a soft, smooth hand upon his, “know that I’m praying for Marla. For Alex. For you. Donald is praying as well.”
“Isn’t that heartwarming?” he mocked.
“It is, if you think of it.”
“Hell, Cherise, I think you’re wasting your breath.” He dropped the card onto the nightstand near the phone. “I’m a sinner from way back. Remember?”
“A lost lamb . . .”
“Or a damned wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“You can’t convince me not to pray for you, Nicholas.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I try.”
“I know.” She started for the door and Nick followed her in his stocking feet. “So . . .” she said, holding her umbrella in a death grip. “Next time I’ll try harder to convince Montgomery to come with me.”
“Do that. I haven’t seen him since I was a kid.”
“He’s still the same,” she said, her eyes darkening a bit. “Still playing the part of the bad boy. Still fighting his demons.”
“I guess he hasn’t found the Lord yet,” Nick said, remembering Monty’s fondness for fast women, fast cars and a variety of pharmaceuticals.
“I’m working on him. Donald is, too.”
Bully for Donald, Nick thought.
Cherise changed the subject. “It’ll be good to see Marla again. It’s been too long. She and Alex were having some rough times, you know. They’d split up a couple of times.”
“Is that so?” This was news to Nick.
“I think so. Once or twice maybe . . . but I shouldn’t gossip. It’s their business, but I do pray for them.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I’d just like to reconnect with Marla. She must feel awful. I heard on the radio that the truck driver died, too.”
Nick nodded. Alex had called him with the news. “I didn’t know that Alex and Donald were close,” he said.
She didn’t meet his eyes. Swallowed hard. “They’re not. But . . . well, Donald did some work at Cahill House, was even on the board of directors for a while. And he was the pastor at Bayside at one time. He’s wonderful, Nick, a true Christian. Always volunteering where there’s a need, you know,” she said quickly, then, as if she was suddenly anxious to leave, reached for the knob of the door. “Just see if I can visit her, okay?” She hesitated, then added, “It’s been good to see you, Nick. Really.” Biting her lip as if she was afraid she’d blurt out something she shouldn’t, Cherise touched a hand to his cheek. “Take care.” And then she was gone, out the door and down the hall, the scent of her perfume lingering in the air.
Nick finished his beer in one final gulp, then tossed the can into the wastebasket wondering what the hell Cherise really wanted. He just couldn’t buy into the sitting at Marla’s bedside and reading the Bible bit. No way.
He slid his wallet from his pocket and found a beat-up business card from his days of playing God with corporations. Turning it over he read several numbers scrawled on the back and, hoping that Walt hadn’t moved, Nick reached for the phone and punched the old number.
A gravelly voice picked up on the third ring. “Haaga here.”
“Walt, it’s Nick. Nick Cahill.”
“Well, I’ll be buggered, what the hell are you doin’ callin’ me after all these years?” Walt asked from his apartment in Seattle.
“I need some help. Want you to do some digging for me.” Nick heard the click of a lighter on the other end of the phone, testament to Walt’s three-pack-a-day habit.
“I thought you gave up the business,” Walt said.
“I have for the most part.” He gave Walt a quick rundown on just how he’d happened to land in San Francisco.
Walt barked out a laugh that ended in a coughing fit. “So it’s true. Blood is thicker than water.”
“Thicker than a lot of things in my case. Look, what I want is as much information as you can get on the accident, on Pamela Delacroix and I don’t know anything about her except that she’s got a daughter down at UC Santa Cruz. The kid could even have a different last name for all I know.”
“Y’know a social security number, or driver’s license or husband’s name. Even a friggin’
address would help.”
“That’s why I pay you.”
Walt sniggered.
“Okay, so get as much info as you can and fax it to me or send it through e-mail. I’ll link up my laptop here. Scan me photos if you can find them.”
“Is that all?” Walt asked, not bothering to mask his sarcasm.
“Not quite.” Nick was on a roll now, and he felt the same surge of adrenalin in his bloodstream as he had years ago when he’d made a healthy living as a consultant to companies in trouble. “I’ll fax you a list of the employees of the company tomorrow along with some family friends that I want checked out.” Nick stretched the cord of the phone to the window and peered through the curtains. He saw Cherise on the corner, glancing at her watch and holding her umbrella against the rain . . . or was it Cherise? She’d left his room over ten minutes earlier and the black jeans, boots and leather jacket were common garb here in the city. On top of that, it was dark—city dark, the lamplight weak and ethereal. She glanced back at the hotel just as an SUV pulled up to the curb and she shook out the umbrella. Her blond hair with those glittery clips caught in the illumination from the streetlights as she disappeared into the rig. She was still closing the door when the impatient driver gunned the engine, running an amber light, water spraying from his wide tires. “Check on all the members of my family,” Nick instructed Walt. “Alex and Marla, and my cousins, Cherise and Montgomery—he goes by Monty sometimes.”