Page 129 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

Diedre stared down the curving steps to where her lover stood in the foyer below. Jack was angry? With her? Why?

“You blew it,” he said, his blue eyes snapping fire as she descended the staircase.

“I did no such thing.” The nerve of the man! He was just stressed. They both were.

“You didn’t stick to the plan.”

“Hey, I’m the one taking all the chances,” she reminded him, irritated. “I’m the one who has to put up with Marla’s whining! If you think that’s fun, then you go ahead, babysit her for a while.”

“It’s a little too late for that, don’t you think?” he said, looking around the darkened rooms. “Where’s B.J.?”

“Here.”

“Where, damn it?” He turned on her then, anger seeming to pulse from him. She saw it in the throb at his neck, the twist of his lips.

“He’s upstairs, sleeping like a, you know, baby.”

“Show me.”

“Oh, for the love of Christ—”

“Show me!” he insisted and grabbed her arm roughly, jerking it hard. His hair was wet, his face flushed, and he glared at her as if she were a demon straight from hell.

“Chill out!” she declared, yanking back her arm and cocking her head toward the stairs. “I said he’s upstairs in the nursery sleeping.” She started marching up the sweeping stairs in front of him, but he brushed past her, mounting the steps two at a time. At the curved landing, he looked down the unfamiliar hallways.

“Where?”

“The nursery.”

“Which room is the damned nursery?”

“Oh, for the love of God. Relax.” She reached the landing and led him along the hallway, which was really a gallery that cut in a semicircle above the foyer. Each of three doors opened to the gallery: the master suite, of course; a library on one side; a music room on the other. And farther down on each curved wing was another bedroom, one of which Diedre had designated the nursery. “Do not wake him up; he’s been cranky all day.”

He walked to the door that was ajar and pushed it open. It creaked a bit, and she hurried to catch up with him. “Damn it, Jack,” she whispered, “do not wake him up.”

But she needn’t have worried. Her lover, it seemed, didn’t have the heart to disturb the boy sleeping so soundly with his stuffed animal. Once he was satisfied that the kid was fine, he backed into the hallway and grabbed her wrist, pulling her toward the master bedroom. Now this was more like it! She felt a tiny rush in her bloodstream, sensed his warm fingertips on the inside of her wrist, as if he could feel her pulse.

Once inside, he closed the doors behind them, and she, smiling, said, “I thought we could have a private party up on the deck of the turret.”

He stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “There’s a storm raging out there!”

“All the more fun, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that you’ve gone too far. It was not in the plan to kidnap the baby, and what the hell did you do to Tanya? You killed her!”

“I met her in the park and told her that I needed something she’d borrowed from me—an umbrella that I had at the coffee shop, for crying out loud. She got caught in a rainshower one day. So, I insisted that I needed it immediately. Tanya didn’t want to bring B.J. back to her place, but I told her it would be just for a second, I really needed the damned umbrella, and then I followed her there.”

“And shot her dead,” he charged, his hand, stiff as a claw, shaking in the air beside him, as if he wanted to strangle her.

“How else was I going to keep her mouth shut? It’s not as if she would just hand him over to me, now, is it?”

“But you weren’t supposed to kidnap him! The point is that he’s the one who inherits everything.”

“Why bother with him? I’m Marla’s daughter. If everyone else is dead, then I inherit.”

Jack’s face turned deadly. “You mean to tell me that you want to kill the baby?”

“I want to kill that bitch, Cissy,” she retorted. When she saw his shocked expression, she rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you care about her? She’s in the way. I’ll take care of it. And don’t worry, I’ll make it look like Marla did it. I’ve left her DNA at all the crime scenes, and she didn’t even realize it,” Diedre said, proud of herself. “Fingernail clippings, hairs. And she has no alibi. I figure it’ll be back in prison for her for the rest of her life.”

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