Page 116 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

She eased around to get a better look at her, her fingers fumbling for the light switch. She snapped on the fluorescents. Illumination flickered uncertainly.

Sybil’s mouth opened in a silent scream.

The woman seated calmly in the chair had been sitting there for some time. She gazed at Sybil serenely out of blank eyeholes. Her face—all her skin—was being systematically eaten by insects and larvae. The dead body was putrefying, melting into the chair.

But it looked as if someone had recently given her a manicure.

Sybil backed away as if burned, her fingers scrabbling on the phone, searching for 9-1-1. Screaming like a banshee, she stumbled up the stairs, through the house, out the front door, and, in full view of Tilda Owens’s house, threw up that damned salad all over her cream designer suit.

Bayside Hospital

San Francisco, CA

Room 316

Friday, February 13

NOW

I can’t believe that no one has come in to check on me. I only wish I had one more chance to tell Jack that I love him…. But it’s too late…. I know it now. The doctor says it’s time to take me off life support, that it’s best to let me die and harvest my organs.

Oh God, no!

No, no, no!!! I’m alive.

I strain with everything I’m worth. Panic spurts through me. Certainly it registers on those damned monitors, right? Can’t they see my heart rate soaring into the stratosphere? Don’t they know I’m responding?

For the love of God, check me! Shine that bloody light into my eyes and watch me flinch, my pupils react.

Give me time. I’m waking up. You’re giving up too quickly.

I struggle to move, to show them I’m alive, but nothing happens.

Stop this madness. Think of me.

Through all my fear, I hear the doctor say resignedly, “It’s time. I’ll call the family….”

Chapter 20

Paterno had seen a lot in all of his years on the force.

He’d witnessed man’s inhumanity to man, seen the effects of abuse, addiction, and rage. He’d never been surprised by how sick people could be to each other, but this…what he was viewing now, was something he couldn’t imagine.

He’d gotten the call from a Detective Lee in Berkeley, who had responded to a 9-1-1 emergency call from a frantic landlord who had found a dead body in the basement of one of her rental units. The uniformed cop who had responded had quickly called his homicide department, and the cop there, Detective Lee, had put two and two together and rung up Paterno. Paterno had driven over the bridge at lightning speed, his guts twisting, acid roiling, as he walked through the cordoned-off bungalow. Already the place was swarming with cops and crime-scene investigators, and around the perimeter were news vans and neighbors, people who had been passing by but were now standing outside the roped-off area, hoping to get a glimpse of what was happening.

“Detective Paterno?” a female voice called, and he looked over his shoulder to see Lani Saito, the attractive Asian reporter from KTAM with the glossy black hair who’d confronted him earlier. Her cameraman was with her, training the lens of his shoulder cam at Paterno. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but they’d already set a big lamp near the van to illuminate the area. “Could I have a word with you? Is it true that Marla Cahill is in this house? Is she alive?”

Paterno glared at the woman. How could she get information as fast as he could? “I just got here.”

“This one’s out of your jurisdiction, and since you’re working on murders in which Marla Cahill is a suspect, I’m guessing that’s why you’re here. Is Marla Cahill in the house?”

“I don’t have anything to say right now, Ms. Saito, but I’m sure the Public Information Officer will make a statement later, once we know what’s going on.” He forced a grim smile and managed not to s

nap the woman’s head off. Jesus, what did the press want from him? Turning his back on her and her cameraman, Paterno walked to the perimeter of the crime scene and flashed his badge at a uniformed cop. “Paterno, SFPD, Homicide. Detective Lee called me.”

“She said you’d be here. She’s inside. Probably in the basement. Just put these on.” The uniformed cop handed him a pair of shoe covers.

Paterno slipped the disposable covers over his shoes, then walked up the front steps to the little house that resembled all the other houses on the street. The yard was shaggy with winter, the shrubs needing a trim, the curtains drawn.

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