by T. R. Ragan
She lit up a cigarette and took a drag. “Is it true that you once had a brother?”
“Who told you about Liam?”
Hayley had been meaning to talk to Kitally about her brother for a while now, but there never seemed to be a good time. “Maybe Tommy mentioned it,” Hayley said as they walked along. “I don’t recall. What happened to him?”
“Long story short . . . my family was visiting a foreign country and he was taken.”
Although Kitally talked a lot, she rarely spoke about herself. Hayley felt compelled for some reason to draw her out. “Your parents must have offered a hefty ransom to get him back.”
“They did. They go back to Buenaventura, the main port of Colombia, every year. Usually when children are taken, it’s for money. The authorities have no idea what happened. They suspect he was sold to the highest bidder.”
“How old was he when he was kidnapped?”
“Liam was six and I was eight. One minute he was walking next to me, and the next he was running across the street. It all happened so fast. He’d be sixteen now. If I had just run after him instead of trying to find my parents first, he never would have been taken.”
“You would have both been kidnapped.”
“Maybe so, but Liam wouldn’t be alone.”
“That’s not true. I doubt those types keep siblings together.”
Kitally was quiet.
“You better not be blaming yourself for something you couldn’t do anything about.”
“My dad blames me enough for both of us.”
“I bet he’s angry at himself, not you.”
“Why?”
“Are you kidding me? Because he didn’t have the good sense to keep his six- and eight-year-old kids within sight in a foreign country.” After a long pause, Hayley added, “You’re a good person, but you’re obviously a little off, if you know what I mean.”
That got a laugh from Kitally. “Maybe someone needs to look in the mirror.”
“We all know I’m fucked up. I am beyond repair. But you,” Hayley said, “you have a chance, if you can get your shit together and get past it. I bet your dad started screwing around after your brother was taken. Your family still has a chance to turn itself around, but someone, probably you, needs to push to make it happen.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m in therapy?”
“Because I don’t think you understand how lucky you are to have a mom and a dad who love you.”
“I promise to think about everything you said,” Kitally told her. “Are you done?”
Hayley didn’t answer; she just let the conversation drift away. They both did. There wasn’t anything more she could say or do to lessen Kitally’s pain. Life wasn’t fair. That wasn’t ever going to change.
It was a while before they reached the center of the park.
Hayley heard a noise, stopped, and looked around. Kitally was checking something out farther back, standing still and peering into the night. She must have heard the same thing.
A scuffling noise sounded to Hayley’s left. There was movement behind a patch of dense shrubbery. Bending over, she put out her cigarette, then unsnapped the sheath around her ankle and pulled out a three-inch blade. She took a careful step toward the brush. Better to be on the offense rather than be caught off guard.
“Who’s there?” Hayley called out.
The noises stopped. No rustling of leaves or crackling of twigs.
“Step out of there or I’m calling the police.”
“Leave me alone.”
It was a female voice. Young. Whoever it was sounded exhausted, as if she’d just run twenty miles. Hayley marched forward and spread open the thick brush, surprised to see a girl lying on her side in a makeshift bed of dirt and leaves.
Kitally joined them. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
Hayley guessed the girl’s age to be about sixteen, maybe older.
The girl struggled to get to her feet. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“Except we’re not alone,” Kitally pointed out.
She was olive-skinned. Her long dark hair was a tangled mess. Her eyes were dark, too. Kitally looked at her sideways. “Are you pregnant?”
“Maybe.”
Hayley snorted. It was obvious she was pretty far along. Probably in her last month or so.
“Maybe we should take her to the hospital.”
“Leave me alone.” The girl shooed them away. “I can take care of myself. And I don’t need to go to a hospital. I’m pregnant—I’m not bleeding to death.”
“Why are you out here?” Kitally asked.
“None of your business.”
“How old are you?”
“Same answer.” She picked up a flimsy bag, heaved it over her shoulder, and started to walk away.
Kitally stayed on the girl’s heels. “I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in, but we’re not leaving without you. We can take you to a friend’s house. Or maybe you have a relative living nearby. If neither of those options sound appealing, my friend will be forced to call the police.”
The girl twirled about. “Why?”
“Because there’s no way we’re leaving you here in the dead of night all by yourself,” Hayley said.
“It’s dangerous out here,” Kitally added.
“You two are unbelievable. Sure,” she said, struggling not to drop her things. “You can take me to my sister’s place a few blocks from here.”
“Can you at least tell us your name?” Kitally asked.
The girl kept walking. “Why do you need to know? You haven’t told me your names.”
“I’m Kitally, and this is Hayley.”
“OK. Fine. My name is Salma. There, are you happy?”
Kitally gave Hayley a look.
The girl bitched and complained all the way to the car.
They drove in silence for more than a few miles toward the address she tossed off, but Hayley suspected the girl had no place to go. If she really had a sister living nearby, why was she sleeping in the park?
“So what’s your sister’s address again?” Hayley asked.
“Drop me off right here. This is close enough.”
Hayley ignored her, made a left on Sixteenth and then turned right and merged onto Interstate 80.
“Where are we going?”
“Since you obviously don’t have any place to go, I’m taking you home with us.”
“I believe that would be considered kidnapping in most states.”
“We live with one other woman, Lizzy Gardner,” Hayley went on, ignoring Salma’s sarcasm. “There’s an extra room. At least you’ll be safe.”
“I don’t want your handouts.”
“You look like you could pop at any moment. Do you really want that happening behind a bush in the park?” Kitally asked.
That seemed to do the trick. Salma sank back into the seat and kept her thoughts to herself for the rest of the drive.
CHAPTER FIVE
Wearing a brown cotton robe and white socks that came up to his knees, he made his way across the hardwood floors. He caught his reflection in the refrigerator and laughed. His hair was all over the place. With the Sunday paper tucked under his arm, he sipped his morning energy drink as he made his way to the kitchen table. Drinking too many of these energy drinks was said to cause restlessness, palpitations, and shaking, just to name a few of the top ten side effects, but he wasn’t worried. Like anything else, it was all about moderation.
It was the weekend. He’d slept late. After taking a seat, he slid the rubber band off the newspaper and unfolded it. He took another gulp as he read today’s headline in the Sacramento Bee: “Sacramento Strangler Strikes Again! Businessman and Philanthropist Mark Kiel’s Daughter Found Dead in Capitol Park.”
Wit
hin a heartbeat, his surprise turned to amusement. Who would have thought the billionaire’s daughter would be running alone late at night? The nights were chilly and dark this time of year. She had been asking for trouble.
He shook his head.
Damn. Mark Kiel’s daughter. This would change everything.
The public outcry. He could hear it now.
The mayor and every other official who received “contributions” from Kiel would have most of the city’s law enforcement on the case sniffing every bloody trail, perhaps digging up cold cases, dead bodies here and there, victims who had been denied justice, random killings whose faces he could still see in his mind’s eye. There were so many and yet here he was, enjoying the view from his balcony.
If Special Agent Shayne were still alive, things might be different. That man had been hot on his trail and yet now he would never know how Shayne had managed to get so close. He had attended Shayne’s funeral, watched as people closest to him grieved. Agent Shayne’s fiancée had stood stoically to the side while an elderly woman he assumed was the agent’s mother fell to her knees, her arms draped over her son’s coffin, and wept.
Lizzy Gardner. The thought of her sparked an idea. Perhaps he would check up on the gal and see how she was holding up. After keeping track of Jared Shayne for so long, he felt as if he knew her, rather quite like the dead sister he once had.
It hit him then—felt as if he’d been clunked on the head with a stick.
A moment of clarity was all he’d needed.
Everything happened for a reason, and everything was playing out exactly how it was meant to be.
He’d been on a downhill spiral of late, hadn’t understood what he was feeling, didn’t know what was wrong with him. He absolutely did not appreciate the heavy waves of overwhelming melancholy that hit without notice. Definitely a new experience for him.
When it came to killing, he’d done his homework. He liked to think he was extraordinarily careful, but the truth was he’d left clues on or around every single one of his victims. What made him do that? Was he looking to get caught? Did he want recognition, after all?
Perhaps now was the time to change things up.
He folded the paper neatly in front of him. He would strike quickly and randomly over the next few weeks, over and over, often enough to make the investigators’ heads spin.
A dead body here, another one there.
They wouldn’t know which way was forward and backward, let alone up and down.
Maybe he would find someone to bring home for a while.
Excitement burst open inside him as a plan began to form.
If he were to do that—bring a potential victim home, that is—he would need a place to keep her. He lifted a brow. He would need a dark room . . . windowless . . . a place where—
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.
He walked to the front entry and looked out the peephole. Saw the neighbor kid, Landon, and opened the door.
“Good morning, sir. My mom was wondering if she could borrow a cube of butter. She’s making oatmeal cookies, and I’m supposed to tell you we’ll pay you back after she goes to the store. I’ll bring you some cookies, too. If you pick out the raisins, they’re pretty OK.”
This wasn’t the first time the neighbor kid had come for a visit. He had to admit the kid was sort of cute. He especially liked that the boy showed respect by calling him “sir.” He leaned his head out the door, looked both ways. Neither of the child’s parents was hanging around. Interesting. Other than waving hello every once in a while to the adults, he’d only ever had a conversation with Landon. Opening the door wide, he said, “Come on in.”
Without a care in the world, the kid stepped inside. He craned his neck as he looked at all the artwork covering the walls in the entryway. “Wow,” Landon said. “Did you paint all these pictures?”
He shut the door. “I did.” He guessed the boy to be about ten or eleven years of age. An all-American kid with a mop of tangled brown hair and freckles that looked like blood splatter across his nose and cheeks.
“Why does everyone in your paintings look dead?”
He looked the kid in the eyes. “Maybe because they are.”
Landon’s big brown eyes doubled in size. “Really?”
He felt a tightening in his chest. Really. Then he smiled and said, “Nah, just pulling your leg, Landon. Come on, let’s get Mom some butter.”
Detective Chase was on the phone, but he waved Lizzy into his office and into a seat in front of his desk.
After being shot in the left shoulder, the detective had ended up in the hospital for nearly a month. He’d lost a lot of blood and for a while there the doctors weren’t always sure he was going to make it. She’d known better than that. Although she had to admit he looked like crap. He had a sling around his left arm, dark circles under his eyes, and he looked as if he’d lost at least fifteen pounds since she’d seen him last.
As soon as he hung up the phone, she said, “You wanted to see me?”
His sigh came out sounding like a dying engine. “Nice to see you, too.”
“I’m glad to see you pulled through,” she told him. “I had no doubt you would make it.”
“Because of my stubborn and determined will to live?”
“Something like that.”
With his good arm, Chase pushed a manila file across the desk.
Lizzy opened it up and looked through a half dozen eight-by-ten color photographs. The date stamped on the back told her the pictures were taken three months ago. A man with a bag over his head. Dead. Suffocated. A close-up revealing duct tape over his mouth. Red markings around his wrist.
Confused, Lizzy looked across the desk at Chase. “What’s this about?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Listen. I know you don’t think what I do is important, but I take my clients and my job very seriously, and I have a hell of a lot of work to do. I don’t have time to play games with you. I’ve never seen this man before. So, for that reason, I ask again . . . what is all this about?”
“It’s about Hayley Hansen.”
“What about her?”
“We have reason to believe she might be involved.”
She grabbed one of the pictures and held it up. “With this? Involved how?”
He shrugged.
“Hayley would never hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Do I need to remind you that she sliced a man’s penis off?”
Lizzy poked his mahogany desk with her finger for emphasis. “Brian Rosie deserved what he got, and you know it. She did her time for that. Everything that girl does is for the good of others. She has been handed a shit-for-nothing life, and yet she does all she can to make other peoples’ lives better.”
“Well, the guy in the pictures here might argue with you about that. I have a witness who can put her in the area within an hour of that scene you’re looking at.”
“Judging by these pictures, I would say this is a suicide.”
He sighed. Rubbed his chin. Sighed again. “Listen to me,” he said at last. “I’m going to be as blunt with you as I can. I’ve been hearing stories about you and your girls trying to take the law into your own hands. I don’t like it, and I won’t allow it to go on. You and your whole merry band need to stand down.”
And that’s when Lizzy saw a telltale sign in the detective’s eyes. This wasn’t about the man in the photo or Hayley. This was about something else altogether. It was about Wayne Bennett. The detective was trying to pull a fast one on her. He wanted Lizzy to think he had the goods on Hayley, something to throw in her face and get her to behave. “He talked to you, didn’t he?”
“Who?”
“Oh, don’t give me that innocent look,” Lizzy said. “You know who—Wayne Bennet
t.”
He fidgeted just enough so that Lizzy knew she was right. “And what did you tell him, Detective? That you would give me a good talking-to, let me know that Mr. Wayne Bennett is off-limits? I have pictures of him talking to Miriam Walters, the girl who was in his program and who is now missing. And yet he told me he’d never met her in his life.” Although Lizzy had yet to see any actual pictures of Wayne and Miriam together, she’d heard they existed. They better, because she was banking on it.
Detective Chase scratched the side of his head. “Bennett works with hundreds, maybe thousands, of young people in Sacramento. You think he would remember every single young woman he ever met? Be reasonable.”
“Miriam Walters isn’t the type of girl you would forget. She’s tall and statuesque—a young Beyoncé. A guy like Bennett wouldn’t forget a girl like that.”
Detective Chase leaned forward and then squinted in pain and quickly readjusted his posture. “You’re right,” he said, apparently giving up on his other tactic. “I’m telling you to lay off. Miriam Walters is a troubled young lady. Everything we’ve learned about her points to her being a runaway.”
“That is such bullshit. What happened to you anyhow? What’s that Top Cop award all about? Why are you here in Sacramento? What did you do? Shoot your partner? Take a bribe?”
He stiffened. “I’m not going to let you get to me, Gardner. You’re having a difficult time dealing with the loss of your fiancé. I get that. The world is a dark, unfriendly place filled with people who feel they are owed something. Everyone else is just plain sad. They have given up on the world, maybe life. But you fall into another category. Something between the evildoers and the people who have lost all hope. You need to pull yourself together, Gardner. It’s time for you to sit down and take a long hard look at what you’re doing and where you go from here.”
Before Lizzy could respond, he added, “This thing with Bennett is complicated, and I really don’t need you sticking your nose in other people’s business.”
Lizzy kept her gaze on his. “Thanks for the sermon. Are we done here?”
“Not until you promise me you’ll stay away from him.”