Page 42 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

“Now look who’s the detective.”

“Jesus, Jannelle, stuff it,” J.J. said, irked.

“Why don’t you and J.J. take off? If Dad wants to stay, I’ll drive him home in a while.”

“Great idea!” Jannelle slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder, then made fast tracks, her high heels clicking over the hardwood as if she were afraid someone would change his mind. J.J., who so recently wanted to shut her up, was only one step behind, zipping his jacket and muttering phrases like “Hang in there. Things’ll get better. At least she didn’t suffer.” The usual platitudes that Cissy already found tiresome. Jannelle said only, “Let me know about the funeral,” and was out the door. A few seconds later a powerful engine sparked to life, and the Mercedes reversed, then tore down the street.

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said, and B.J., as if sensing his grandfather’s sadness, finally allowed the older man to extract him from his father’s arms.

“Hi, Poppa,” he said and patted the older man on his shoulder.

“Well, hi, yourself. So, the old man’s okay, huh?”

Cissy saw Jack’s father’s tenderness where B.J. was concerned and felt her heart warm a bit. She tried to forgive him the ancient history of cheating on his wife, though she couldn’t help thinking, as she walked into the dining area, if Jonathan had remained faithful, maybe Jack wouldn’t have crossed that same line.

Jack’s inability to stay faithful is Jack’s problem. Not his father’s. Not yours.

She let the little dog out of her kennel, and after a few sharp barks, Coco gave up the fight and hopped onto the chair Jannelle had so recently vacated.

“Why don’t you stay here with Cissy and Beej, and I’ll go get takeout,” Jack suggested. “There’s a great Thai place five minutes away.” He glanced at his wife. “Okay with you?”

“Why not?” Cissy capitulated. “You know me. I just roll with the punches.”

Jack snorted as he walked to the hall tree and snatched up his coat. “That’s you, Little Miss Mellow.”

Walking unnoticed into the assisted-living area of the care facility proved relatively easy. Elyse posed as a woman working with a local church group, and, wearing the same kind of disguise at which Marla had sneered, she’d visited the place enough during the past few weeks. There was a security code, of course, but it was simple enough to watch another visitor punch it in, then do the same thing herself. The front desk was usually manned by a woman who had duties that extended little beyond sitting in the same chair hour after hour. After five, the staff really thinned out as the office workers went home, and the phone system was switched to an answering service which networked with the adjacent brick building where the nursing-home patients required round-the-clock care and the staff was more vigilant.

The security cameras were no issue, and Elyse toddled slowly down the hall, saying “Hello” and “God bless you” to the few residents she met. She could feel her adrenaline spurt through her veins in anticipation.

This was it.

Her final visit to the retard.

Rory Amhurst. Marla’s brother. A healthy child who as a toddler had been in a horrible car accident, run over by his own mother. The result had been permanent brain damage.

Surely Marla, who had been in the car with Rory when her mother had dashed back into the house, leaving the car idling for just those few moments, hadn’t known what would happen. Rory, a toddler, had screamed, and older Marla had unlatched him from his seat restraint, let him outside, and closed the car door. When their mother, Victoria, returned, she didn’t notice the boy wasn’t in the backseat. She jammed the car in reverse and hit the gas, running over her own child as he crouched behind the car, presumably to look at an ant or some other insect on the pavement. Marla, a child herself, couldn’t have had any idea of the consequences of her actions that day. Right? Certainly she wasn’t born evil. That was a fiction, wasn’t it? Born evil?

Or was she?

Not that it mattered.

Now Marla wanted Rory dead.

And Elyse was her messenger.

Rory’s room was at the end of the hallway. As Elyse entered, she found him sitting up, staring at the television where a rerun of South Park was playing.

“Hi, Rory,” she said sweetly. “You remember me, don’t you? Mrs. Smith?”

He nodded, grinning, his eyes vacant, his head still a little misshapen. It was too bad, Elyse thought as she pulled the batch of brownies she’d made from her oversized purse with gloved hands. “Do you mind if I turn up the television? My hearing, you know.” She upped the volume to hide any sounds he might make, then grabbed a can of soda from her purse and, while he was watching television, added enough Valium to drop a racehorse.

She handed him the can. He smiled gratefully and drank it down.

Elyse felt a twinge of conscience as he swallowed. He really was an innocent and, as far as Elyse knew, had never hurt anyone.

But Marla had been insistent.

“That basket case has got to go, you understand me!” she’d said vehemently. “Do you know how much money it costs to keep him in that overpriced institution? All his physical therapy and speech therapy and God only knows what else. It’s a wasted life. Wasted. It’ll be a mercy killing. Who would want to live that way?”

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