Page 44 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

She couldn’t go back inside. She had to flee. Now. As soon as they revived Rory or called an ambulance…it would be over. Think, Elyse, think. Heart pounding frantically, insides quivering, she tried to edge her hand down through the tight crevice again and ended up scraping her knuckles and breaking a nail. Somewhere in the distance a siren wailed. Blood bloomed on the back of her fingers, and her skin burned from the scrape.

She leaned over, the fat suit rubbing against the steering wheel as she forced the passenger seat back and scrabbled for the damned keys. Still, she couldn’t reach them.

Shit!

Desperate, she looked around for something, anything, to retrieve the key ring and spied a hanger on which the dress that she’d picked up at the thrift store had hung. Sweating like a pig, she snagged the hanger, crammed it between the seats, and, breathing rapidly, flipped her wrist, shooting the keys onto the floor mat of the passenger seat.

Thank God!

Quick as lightning, she snatched the ring up, jammed the key into the ignition, turned the switch. The engine fired, and she wasted no time throwing the car into reverse and backing up, then shoving the Taurus into drive.

Calm down. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t burn rubber or drive too fast. Keep cool.

Fingers wet on the wheel, Elyse drove out through the main gates. She had to pull to one side as a screaming ambulance flew by. Oh God, they must’ve seen her. Someone would know. The nurse would put two and two together and call the police and…

Stop it! Just drive! Away. Out of the city. South toward San Mateo. Put some distance between you and the institution. Then, drive to a park-and-ride and trade out license plates. Find a Taurus with similar plates and make the switch. Then you can go home.

Calming a little, she glanced in her rearview. No one was following, no police cars with lights flashing, sirens woo-woo-wooing. No one passing even looked her way.

Slowly her heartbeat lessened its frantic tempo as she joined traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway.

She was safe.

If Rory wasn’t dead already, he was as good as.

Marla would be pleased.

Maybe.

Chapter 9

“It’s Rory Amhurst,” Janet Quinn was saying from the other end of the connection, “Marla’s brother. DOA at Bayside.”

“What?” Paterno had been sitting in his recliner, beer in one hand, slab of takeout pizza in the other, when his cell had gone off. His eyes had been trained on his new flat-screen television, but his concentration on the basketball game stopped short with Quinn’s announcement. “You’re talking about the mentally disabled guy, right?”

“One and the same. Looks like someone left him with a lethal dose of chocolate. We won’t know for certain until all the lab tests come in, but the staff doesn’t know where the chocolate around his mouth came from. Probably a visitor, an older woman, one Mrs. Mary Smith. A nurse saw her in the hallway a few minutes before Rory was discovered.”

“Marla in disguise?”

“Highly possible. You wanna meet me at Bayside and we’ll go to the assisted-care center together? There’s already a unit there, and they’ve cordoned off Rory Amhurst’s room.”

“I’m on my way.” Paterno left his pizza, beer, and remote on the table, then found his service weapon, coat, and keys. His notepad and recorder were already in the pockets of his overcoat.

Would Marla kill a man who was mentally disabled?

She’d certainly been involved in killings before.

Corpse number two this week, compliments of Marla Amhurst Cahill.

He locked the door to his condo, the one-bedroom unit he’d bought after his wife died, then took the stairs two flights down to the garage. He didn’t much like the place, but he was rarely here, so he figured it didn’t matter much. His and his wife’s marriage had been rocky, her unhappiness stemming from the hours he’d spent at work, and they’d separated time and again, but, damn, he still missed her.

He shouldered open the door to the garage that was located underground. His Caddy was wedged into a tight spot between a Ford Focus and a Toyota, and he could barely get the door open, but he slid inside, turned on the ignition, and carefully backed out of his assigned spot. The Cadillac was just too big for newer parking spaces, but he couldn’t sell it, even though getting parts for it was growing tougher every year.

He drove slowly up a narrow ramp that wound up to the street. Waiting for the electronic garage door to open slowly, its warning system beeping loudly to make pedestrians aware that he was coming through, he thought about Marla. Obviously she was still in the area. Otherwise the body count of people she knew wouldn’t be going up.

And someone had to be helping her. Hiding her out. But who? He’d checked everyone she’d known on the outside and talked with her cell mates in that country club of a prison. No one purported to know anything. But someone did. Either someone was lying, or he’d missed a person close to her, close enough to harbor her and help her commit murder, someone with his or her own agenda. Someone who would benefit by Marla’s freedom and the resulting deaths.

Who?

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