Page 53 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

glanced at the mirror over the sink, cringing at the sight of her reflection. Red eyes, streaked mascara, flat and stringy rain-soaked hair. As quickly as possible, she executed a speedy makeup repair. With a wet cloth, she swiped away any trace of running mascara and tilted her head back as she added Visine to her eyes. Once some of the veins had disappeared in the whites of her eyes, she brushed on some waterproof mascara, then ran a tube of pink lip gloss over her lips and dusted her pale cheeks with a thin layer of blush. Finally, she rubbed a dab of hair gel through her bedraggled tresses. The result was somewhere between a 1980’s grunge rocker and someone who just woke up from a restless sleep, but it would have to do.

The truth of the matter was everyone expected her to look like hell today. She only had to get through another couple of hours.

In the hallway she nearly ran into Lars carrying up a stack of what she hoped was faux fur coats. She sidestepped him then headed downstairs. Halfway down she spied Jack, grinning, holding a glass of wine and talking with a woman who stood with her back to the staircase. Instantly Cissy’s neck muscles tightened. She would recognize that wavy auburn hair anywhere as belonging to Larissa White.

She felt the blood drain from her face as she walked down the remaining steps.

What in the world was Larissa doing here?

“Talk about brass balls,” a voice said as Cissy reached the main floor. Turning, she spied her sister-in-law, Jannelle, sipping wine at the foot of the stairs. Jannelle too was observing the interaction between Jack and Larissa. “You might want to piss on your husband, you know, like a dog, to mark your territory.”

“Last time I saw you, you made a crack about my pending divorce, so there’ll be no territory marking,” Cissy reminded her coolly. If anyone could give lessons in being an A-one bitch, it was her sister-in-law.

Jannelle lifted an eyebrow. “Touché. Guess I’d better extract my foot from my mouth and find another glass of wine.”

“Do that,” Cissy said, irritated. But since this was her house, and Jack was still her husband, she snagged a glass of wine for herself and walked up to Jack and Larissa, bold as brass.

Larissa took one look at Cissy, and the smile fell from her face. “I’m so sorry,” she said while Cissy’s guts churned. “You know I worked with your grandmother a lot at Cahill House, and she…she was such a great lady.”

Cissy nodded.

“I just wanted to pay my respects.”

“Really?”

Larissa looked uncertain at Cissy’s cool tone. “Well, I’ll see you later,” she said to both of them, casting a last glance toward Jack.

Cissy took a long gulp of her Chardonnay, her teetotaling grandmother’s drink of choice on the rare occasions when Gran actually broke down and had a sip of something alcoholic.

“I didn’t know she was coming,” Jack said.

“Odd, don’t you think?”

“She did know Eugenia.”

“That’s not what it was about, Jack, and we both know it. Paying her respects.” She snorted. “Larissa could have done that at the church. She came here to make a statement.”

“About what?”

“You,” she said and took another sip. “She’s staking her claim.”

“That’s nonsense,” he said, but watched as Larissa hurried upstairs to retrieve her coat.

“Don’t think so.” Cissy spied Dr. and Mrs. Yang heading her way and took advantage of the chance to break off the conversation that was quickly escalating into an argument.

Not here. Not now. Not in front of all these people.

Any heated discussion with Jack would just have to wait, but she was thankful to see Larissa stuff her arms into the sleeves of a long leather coat, wrap a scarf around her neck and walk to the front door.

Jack didn’t seem to notice, not even when she paused to look over her shoulder as she searched for him. Instead, her gaze met Cissy’s, and she didn’t even bother to smile, wave, or say good-bye, just opened the door and stepped outside.

“Good riddance,” Cissy said under her breath, not realizing that Sara had walked up to her.

“I can’t believe she had the nerve to show up here. What was that all about?” Sara sipped from her drink and glanced toward the door. “I went through this twice, you know. Both my exes couldn’t keep their hands off other women. But then none of those women had the guts to show up at my house.” She tossed another look at the closed door. “A good thing too. If any one of them had, I would have killed her.”

Chapter 11

“Let me guess, Marla didn’t show up at the funeral,” Quinn said when Paterno, after long hours at Eugenia Cahill’s funeral and grave-site service, returned to the station.

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