Almost Dead Read Free

but she ignored it. She wasn’t in a forgiving mood tonight, and she was just grateful that the police weren’t following her to the Cahill estate, where her grandmother had resided ever since marrying into the family nearly fifty years earlier. Cissy’s life was in enough turmoil as it was; she didn’t need to deal with the cops. In her opinion, she’d already suffered enough melodrama and pain to last her a lifetime or two—compliments of Marla Amhurst Cahill, sick-o extraordinaire and her mother.
    “Yeah, Beej, that’s your nana,” she said, weaving her way through the neighborhood streets rimming Alamo Square. “Nana Psycho.” She glanced into the rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of her son, his wailing having stopped, his big eyes devoid of tears. For the moment, he’d stopped fighting the hat.
    Relieved that the tantrum was over, she winked at him. “See, you just wanted a date out with Mom in a classy car, right?”
    The light ahead turned amber, and she stepped on the brakes. There had been a time when she had run anything remotely yellow, but now, with Beej, she’d suddenly become a model driver and nearly overprotective mother. Who woulda thunk it?
    Her rumbling stomach and the clock on the dash reminded her that she was late. Great. No doubt she was in for another lecture. Like she hadn’t had enough. She was a grown woman, for God’s sake.
    Once again she looked into the rearview mirror. This time she scanned the traffic behind her, searching for signs of a cop car. Not that she could pick one out. But considering that ever since her mother had escaped, the police had planted themselves near her door, it was odd that they weren’t following her now. Though the detectives had been nothing but nice, she knew, behind the concerned words and patient smiles, they were suspicious.
    As if her mother would contact her.
    As if she would harbor a woman she hated.
    “No friggin’ way,” she whispered. Every muscle in her body tensed. As a kid, she’d grown up with Marla’s cool, aloof attitude toward her. She’d accepted it, accepted the fact that her whole family was a set of cold weirdos. To survive, she’d simply rebelled in any and every way she could think of.
    But now, as a mother herself, Cissy couldn’t imagine not feeling close and bonded to a child. From the first time she’d laid eyes on her son, she’d been a new person. Life had changed in that sterling instant. Throughout her pregnancy she’d talked to the baby, rubbed her tummy, even named him Juan because of her cravings for tacos or anything Mexican at all hours of the day or night, but it hadn’t compared to holding him and hearing him cry at the hospital. Yep, they were a team. Inseparable.
    So where was her mother?
    How the hell had she gotten out?
    Weren’t prisons supposed to be escape proof?
    What will you do if she does show up at your door?
    “Don’t even go there,” she told herself. She didn’t need any more tension in her life. Wasn’t it bad enough that she was in the first stages of a divorce and that her son was quickly approaching the terrible twos and had been crabby all week? It didn’t help that the furnace had decided to go kaflooey now too. All in all, the last seven days had been hell.
    The light changed, and Cissy drove along the panhandle until she reached Stanyan, then headed steadily uphill. Her cell phone rang just as she was taking a steep switchback of a street that climbed Mt. Sutro. Pulling the phone from the side pocket of her purse, she checked the caller ID. She could plug the phone into the slot on her dash and talk hands free, but seeing the number on the LCD caused her to frown.
    “Not tonight,” she said aloud. She wasn’t going to deal with Jack—lying, cheating bastard that he was. Oh yeah, and he was still her husband. Well, not for long. Dropping the phone into its pocket, she concentrated on the narrow road that climbed ever upward past elegant old homes built a hundred