by Lisa Jackson
“What business is it of yours?” Marla demanded, of the older lady. So angry she was trembling, she demanded, “Who are you to interfere?”
“Someone who puts family solidarity before everything else,” Eugenia said stiffly. “I’ve been accused by Alex of being cold and unbending, but I only want what is best for the Cahill name.”
“You can’t run my life,” Nick said. “Nor Marla’s, nor, for that matter, Alex’s. Didn’t you learn that lesson from Dad? You tried to tell him what to do and it didn’t work, did it? A tight leash only made him want to pull further away. Telling him not to drink only served to make him pour more liquid down his throat. No one likes to be controlled, Mother. It’s against human nature.”
Eugenia’s lips quivered and she blinked against tears, but she staunchly held them at bay. Standing, her back ramrod stiff, she said, “I’ll see you both at dinner,” then left the room with as much dignity as she could muster.
“I should have known,” Nick grumbled and the look he sent Marla reminded her of a trapped animal. “Hell.”
From the foyer downstairs Marla heard the front door fly open to bang against the wall only to slam shut. Seconds later, in a thunder of footsteps Cissy, dressed in boots, jeans and a sweatshirt, appeared on the stairway. Her hair was a mess, her eyes bright, her cheeks rosy and she didn’t pause for a second at the living room level, but pounded up the stairs to the next floor.
“That’s my cue,” Marla said, and handed James to Nick. “Get to know your nephew.”
“But I don’t know how to do anything with him,” he said, holding the baby awkwardly.
She held out the half-finished bottle and Nick grabbed it with two fingers while he clutched James as if he expected the baby to squirm out of his arms, fall to the floor and shatter into a thousand pieces. “You’re a smart guy. You’ll figure it out,” she called over her shoulder as she took off after her daughter.
By the time she’d reached Cissy’s room, the girl was nowhere to be seen. The bathroom door was shut, the shower spray hissing and Marla decided to wait. She sat at the vanity and eyed the tubes of lipstick and bottles of nail polish in colors that seemed only appropriate for vampires and ghouls. “Don’t judge,” she told herself. “Remember how Mom hated what you wore.”
She froze. Stared into a mirror dulled by hair spray as she recalled a conversation of years past.
“. . . if you weren’t so wild, if you showed him just a little attention, then maybe your father would appreciate you.” Her mother’s voice rang in her ears and a faded image of a wornout woman who smelled of perfume and cigarette smoke, who tried to disguise the disappointment in her eyes, came to mind. She was thin, nearly bony as she stood in the doorway, her face in shadows, daylight slanting in through the Venetian blinds, shadows striping her floral skirt. In one hand she held a cigarette, the glowing red tip visible, the other rested wearily on her hip. “He’d recognize you for what you are.”
“I hate him,” she’d spouted.
“No, you don’t—”
“Yes,” she’d replied anger burning through her stomach. How old had she been? Ten? Twelve? “And he hates me!”
“Maybe you should try a little harder. He doesn’t hate you. That’s not a nice word, honey.”
She’d turned her eyes upward, caught a glimpse of desperation on her mother’s worn features. “He hates you, too.”
That woman had not been Victoria Amhurst. Marla would have bet her life on it.
“Mom?” Cissy’s voice brought Marla up short.
“What? Oh, hi,” she said, still shaken. She was certain she’d seen her mother in that inward vision, was convinced that she’d been raised by the thin woman in the shabby cotton skirt and sandals. “Cissy, I’m sorry, I—I guess I was daydreaming.”
Her daughter’s face was drawn in concern. Her hair was dripping wet and a huge yellow bath sheet was wrapped around her torso. She held it tight in one fist clutched to her chest. “About something awful.”
“Just . . . just a memory, I think,” she said, attempting to slough off the painful image. “From a long, long time ago. But it’s gone now and I wanted to talk to you.”
“Can’t it wait until I’m dressed? Jeez, Mom, this is my room, don’t I have any privacy?” She grabbed a pair of Capri pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt from a drawer, then turning on a bare heel, hiked in a huff back into the bathroom.
Marla waited. Carmen rapped gently on the door, announced dinner, and disappeared again. By the time Cissy emerged she was dressed, her hair combed, her face scrubbed. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked suspiciously.
“First I want to apologize for my actions that night I got sick. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Cissy lifted a dismissive shoulder.
“And I’m really sorry that I’ve been so out of it. Dr. Robertson changed my medication and I feel a lot better.”
“Great,” Cissy mumbled.
“It is. I want to go riding with you.”
“You said that before.”
“I mean it.” Somehow she had to connect with her daughter. “This weekend.”
“Isn’t that when the big party is?”
“Party?” Marla said, then remembered. “That’s the next weekend, I think. I’ll double check with Nana.”
“I thought you were supposed to be planning it,” Cissy said slyly, as if she had caught her mother in some sort of lie. The chasm between them was wider than Marla had imagined and she wondered if it would ever be spanned.
“I am. I mean, I will. I’ve been sick . . . well, you know.”
“Yeah, Mom, I do,” she said, rolling her eyes dramatically and scrunching up her features as if she was trying to figure out how she could possibly be related to this freak of a woman. “Okay, why not? But I’m gonna tell you, you’re scared to death of horses.”
“Maybe you’ll be surprised,” Marla said, and Cissy’s long-suffering sigh indicated that nothing her weird mother did these days would amaze her.
“Listen, Cissy, I know everything around here has been hard. Really hard. Especially for you and I want you to know that if I can make things easier I will.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it.” Marla sighed and lifted her hands in the air. “I love you, honey.”
“Well, that’s a switch,” the girl said angrily, but her chin wobbled slightly.
“I always have.”
“You think so. But you can’t remember squat, can you?” Cissy sniffed and looked away quickly. “You were always more interested in everything else, everything but me. I mean, sure you bought me tons of stuff, but big deal. Who cares?” She kicked at a CD that was lying on the floor, sending it flying toward the bookcase.
“Cissy, I—”
“You never cared, Mom. Never. But with James, it’s different.”
“Oh, God,” Marla said, seeing the pain on her daughter’s face. “I’m so sorry, if I’ve ever hurt you, ever slighted you, I didn’t mean to, I mean . . .” She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, fought tears. “You have to trust me. I love you.”
Cissy just stared at her. Her lips quivered. “I—I think we should go to dinner.”
“Please, honey, give me a chance,” Marla whispered. “Let me prove it, make it up to you.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“I know. But I want to. Doesn’t that make it all the better?” she asked, and saw some of the wariness in her daughter’s eyes fade.
“I dunno . . .”
“Just give it time.”
“You know,” Cissy said, keeping some distance between them as she sat at the foot of her bed. “You’ve been weird ever since you woke up from your coma. Different. Not like Mom at all.”
“I heard you say you didn’t think I was your mother.”
“I don’t! I mean . . . Shit, Mom, er, I mean, you’re acting way too nice.”
Marla’s heart bled. “Is that such a crime?”
; “I just don’t believe it.” Cissy cocked her head. “Maybe you’ve had one of those near-death experiences,” she said, her eyes rounding, “you know, those mind-altering things that make you a better person.”
“Let’s hope,” Marla said, offering a smile. She opened her arms wide and Cissy rolled her eyes.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. Come on.”
“Oh, God!” With an exaggerated sigh, Cissy got to her feet and accepted a hug. Marla clung tight, as if she never would let go. “I’ll make it up to you, honey, I promise.”
“Mom, don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said, but her arms circled her mother and Marla felt her shake a little, as if she was fighting breaking down, as if she couldn’t quite trust the woman who had brought her into this world.
“You’ll see.” Marla dropped a kiss onto Cissy’s forehead. “And I will ride those damned horses, one way or another.”
Cissy giggled despite herself. “Oh, God, Mom. I hope you bring a camera.”
Dinner was tense at best. Nick watched Alex from the corner of his eye. Usually smooth and charming, with a quick wit and a quicker smile, Alex appeared anxious, the lines of irritation around the corners of his mouth more pronounced, worry etched in the wrinkles on his forehead. Something was eating at him. Something big. The finances? Worry over his wife’s memory loss? Or something more?
For the first week of his stay in San Francisco, Nick had put Alex’s stress on the failing business.
Nick had sorted through the company records and it was obvious that Cahill Limited would have to divest some of its assets, or the lines of credit and outstanding bank notes would be called by the lien holders. The bankers had been stalled as long as they could be and Alex’s international investors hadn’t, so far, offered up a dime. As far as Nick could determine, the company’s assets still outweighed its debts but the ratio wasn’t all that great and unless a helluva a lot more income was generated, Alex would have to start laying off people and selling off some of the real estate holdings, many of which were mortgaged to the hilt.
Despite all that, huge donations were made each month to charities. Cahill House and Bayview Hospital benefitted the most and, though no one in this family seemed to accept it, the sorry facts of the matter indicated that Cahill Limited was about to go bust.
But money was only one of Alex’s problems, Nick guessed now.
“So you saw the police, gave Detective Paterno a statement,” Alex said after the small talk was dispensed with and Cissy had asked to be excused to do homework, which, Nick suspected, meant hanging out on the telephone or in an Internet chat room. She clomped up the stairs in platform shoes, leaving Alex, Nick, Eugenia and Marla at the table.
Marla pushed her half-eaten food aside. Nick figured she wasn’t used to having solid food and obviously chewing was still a strain.
“Anything new?” Alex asked, reaching into his pocket for a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
Nick decided to gamble. “Paterno thinks Marla’s life might be in danger.”
Eugenia dropped her fork. “For heaven’s sake, why?”
“Because the accident in the mountains could have been staged. Marla remembers a man standing in the middle of the road, trying to make her swerve, and the night she started throwing up, she could have been poisoned. She thinks there might have been an intruder in her room.”
“My Lord, is this true?” Eugenia asked, her mouth dropping open.
“Yes.” Marla nodded.
“But you never said anything . . .”
“I couldn’t remember the accident originally and I told Alex and Nick about the intruder, but I thought that I was dreaming, having a nightmare.”
“This is horrid. We have gates and a security system and . . .” Eugenia reached for her wineglass. “Certainly no one could ever break in.”
“It’s possible,” Alex allowed, though he frowned as he lit his cigarette and clicked his lighter shut. “But I hate to think so.”
“Well, we have to do something. In over one hundred years no one has ever broken into this house!” Eugenia’s spine stiffened at the affront. “Not once.”
“It might not have happened the other night,” Alex said guardedly to his wife. “You said yourself that you thought it all might be part of your confusion. That you might have been dreaming.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
Nick was having none of it. He kicked back his chair. “There’s a chance she was given something that made her throw up.”
“No . . . how . . . who would do such a thing?” Eugenia demanded.
“Someone who got into this house,” Nick insisted, leveling his gaze at his mother and realizing just how much she was aging. “I think we should have the carpet torn up where Marla vomited and have the fibers tested, see if there are any traces of drugs.”
“But we cleaned the carpet, it was shampooed,” Eugenia said.
Alex inhaled on his cigarette. Smoke drifted from his nostrils. “What good would that do? Either someone broke in or not. We’ll increase security, hire a bodyguard,” he sent Marla a pained expression, “if that’s okay with you, of course. You didn’t take too kindly to me hiring the nurse without asking you first.”
“I think a bodyguard is a little drastic,” Marla said quickly. She already felt housebound, trapped in this elegant cage. She wanted more freedom, more time to find out who she was. Someone watching over her would only stifle her every move. “I’m not going to live my life in fear. I’ll just be more careful.”
She caught the gleam in Nick’s eyes, but looked away, afraid her gaze would reflect the emotions that raged in her chest. She was falling in love with a man who was her brother-in-law, a man she couldn’t have.
“And I need new ID, credit cards, a checkbook. I stopped in to see Rory today and the nurse wouldn’t let me pass because I can’t prove who I am.”
“As soon as you’re well enough—” Alex began.
“I am well enough, damn it!” She slammed her fist on the table. “Stop treating me like a China doll or an imbecile or both!”
“Okay, okay. Relax. Of course you need everything from a passport to a gold card from Neiman Marcus,” Alex snapped. “I’ll put it at the top of my priority list.”
“No, I’ll put it at the top of mine. I can handle it, Alex.”
“Please, no more squabbling,” Eugenia said, flustered. “This is all so unbelievable. To think that anyone would break in and try to harm someone in the family—”
“Believe it. Something’s rotten here,” Nick insisted, “and it’s more than the company’s damned finances.”
Alex’s face was grim. He took a final drag on his cigarette and squashed the butt into a crystal ashtray. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my family safe. I’ll call a security company tomorrow and have cameras and a better alarm system installed. I’ll talk to Paterno, see if he can have a cruiser come up this street more often. I don’t want Cissy going out alone—Lars can take her and pick her up when she goes to school or to her riding lessons and someone is to be with James every minute. Every minute.” His face was ashen and a very real fear tightened his features. “No one’s going to threaten my family.”
“Amen.” Eugenia said.
“I think I need a drink.” Alex pushed away from the table and left the room. “Mother?”
“Maybe I will have a brandy. This is so . . . so disturbing . . . oh, Lord, my keys!” She swallowed hard and paled. “My keys are missing. Do you think the intruder took them?”
“No,” Marla said quickly, her heart a drum. “I saw them that night. You let yourself into Alex’s office.”
“Oh, yes . . . and I had them the other days. I let myself into Cahill House several times while you were recuperating.” Nervously she adjusted her scarf and reached into the pocket of her lavender jacket, her fingers searching for the missing keyring. “But now they’re gone.”
“We’ll have all the locks changed,” Alex said.
“Make a list of every key you had and what it opened.”
Marla panicked. She’d have to work fast. She’d have to break into Alex’s office the first chance she got. “I’ll need a set,” she said, forcing a calm smile. “Mine were lost the night of the accident.”
“I’ll ask about them when I call Paterno tomorrow,” Alex said. “Not that they’ll do any good as we’re going to change the locks.”
Marla didn’t argue but knew that she’d call the detective herself. If the keys belonged to Marla Cahill, then they should open every existing lock in this house. If the keys didn’t fit, then maybe she was, as Conrad Amhurst had insisted, an imposter after all.
Nick reached into his duffel and found his cell phone, then he headed down the back stairs and through a door off the kitchen. Taking a brick path leading through the trees, he made his way past the arbor and swing set, deeper into the estate to a sanctuary where he’d come often as a kid, a thicket of firs along the back fence, the place he’d climbed over whenever he was hell-bent on escaping the demands of being Samuel Cahill’s son.
God, he’d hated the old man, despised how he’d ruled the family with an iron fist that was sure to bend the laws and break his wife’s spirit. “Bastard,” Nick growled, flipping open the cell phone and retrieving his one message. It was from Walt Haaga, who only stated that he’d landed in San Francisco this afternoon. Nick called the Red Victorian, and asked to be connected to the room under his name.
“Yep,” Walt answered on the second ring.
“It’s Nick.”
“About time I heard from you,” the PI said. “I checked in at the hotel this afternoon and since then I’ve been busy.”
“You’ve found out something?”
“Quite a bit. Why don’t you meet me at the bar around the corner—what’s it called?”
“Ivan’s.” Nick checked his watch. “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”
He made it in ten. By the time Walt sauntered in, Nick had already taken a seat in a booth near the back of the pub and ordered a couple of beers. A few regulars were hanging out at the bar and a middle-aged couple was eating fish and chips in a corner booth. The floor was covered with peanut shells, compliments of the earlier after-work crowd, and a couple of pool tables, now empty, stood in the back.