Almost Dead Page 7

  “I appreciate it.”

  Lizzy shook her hand. It was a done deal.

  She disliked Melony Reed, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to take on the job, but the idea that Detective Chase was responsible for this woman coming to her for help spurred Lizzy onward.

  Somehow, someway, she’d make the big man eat crow. Again.

  CHAPTER 14

  Eighty-year-old Donna Kingsbury talked faster than an auctioneer on speed. And louder, too, although she needed to talk loudly if she wanted to be heard over the television blasting in the other room. Mrs. Kingsbury stood in the middle of the kitchen in her trailer home wearing a flowery muumuu, nylon knee-highs, and slippers. The place smelled like old dishrags and cat pee, which made sense when an orange-and-white cat appeared from the other room and began to weave around her thick ankles, its tail curling around her calves.

  Hayley had been listening to her talk for ten minutes nonstop. Her cavernous mouth just kept running like a faucet that couldn’t be turned off.

  She couldn’t remember it ever being so difficult to get information out of someone. Adoption searches were usually easy. Hayley could do them with her eyes closed. But getting anything useful out of this crazy lady felt never ending.

  The good news was Donna Kingsbury lived in Citrus Heights. At least she hadn’t had to drive too far.

  Kitally and Hayley had learned from their short visit with Dan Blatt that he’d been unable to handle all the grief stemming from the death of his first wife and had asked his mother-in-law, now ex-mother-in-law, to take care of his daughter for a few weeks. A few weeks turned into a few months and a few months turned into years. At least, that’s what Mr. Blatt had told them. The man was slime. How could you give away your daughter as if she were a cat or dog and then never look back?

  “That child was the devil’s offspring,” the old woman assured her. “I always wondered if Barbara and Dan made a trade with some new-aged gypsies.”

  Hayley opened her mouth to speak, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  “I don’t have too many good things to say about Dan, either, you understand. That man couldn’t take care of a cactus, let alone his own wife and daughter. My Barbara deserved better. She would probably still be alive if it weren’t for that man taking advantage of her, forcing her to slave over him day and night.

  “As Mrs. Kinsbury droned on, Hayley found herself wishing she’d waited for Kitally to return from her morning surveillance, another workers’ comp claimant with an alleged neck injury. Kitally had patience, and she knew how to handle people like Mrs. Kingsbury.

  When the old lady finally paused for breath, Hayley jumped in. “Please, Mrs. Kingsbury, I need to know what happened to Debra Blatt.”

  “I told you already. I gave her away.”

  The words came out so fast, Hayley thought maybe she heard her wrong. “You gave her away?”

  “Damn straight,” she said, lifting her chin, daring Hayley to judge her. “She was nothing but trouble.”

  Another cat appeared. This one was solid black.

  “I had four cats at the time, and she used to pull on their tails. Once she started peeing in the bed, I couldn’t take it any longer.”

  “How long did Debra live here with you?”

  “Two hellish years. She must have been five or six when I finally called social services and told them they needed to take the girl or I was throwing her out on the street.” The woman snorted. “That did the trick.”

  “Do you know where she is now?”

  A spider skittered out from under the carpet and onto the linoleum. The woman was fast, though—she jumped on the thing, putting her whole body into killing it with the bottom of her slippered foot. “What do you mean do I know where she is?” She guffawed. “It’s been close to twenty years.”

  “You haven’t stayed in touch with your granddaughter?”

  “No. Why should I? She wasn’t my blood. I only took her in because Dan promised to pay me, which he never did.”

  Having heard enough, Hayley started for the exit.

  “She must be close to twenty-five years old now,” the woman shouted after her. “Wait. Did she die and leave me some kind of inheritance? Is that why you’re here?”

  Hayley had never been much for words, but it took everything she had not to turn and verbally rip the old hag to shreds.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” the woman screeched after her. “My granddaughter died and she wants to help out her ol’ Grandma.”

  Hayley stepped outside without bothering to shut the door behind her. Away from the stench, she inhaled.

  “You come back here right now and tell me how much she left me!”

  Hayley pulled a tape recorder from her back pocket and pivoted so that she was facing the old woman, who’d skittered after her as far as the doorway. “It’s true,” Hayley told her. “Debra married well. She had millions when she died, but her will specifically states that we can only disperse monies to the people who loved her most.” Hayley smiled and held the recorder in the air for her to see. “I’m so glad we had this talk. I can’t thank you enough for being so frank with me. I’ve got everything the estate attorney needs right here.”

  It was a ludicrous lie, but this was a ludicrous, awful old woman. It felt sweet to watch her mouth fall open, and sweeter still to hear no words come out of it.

  CHAPTER 15

  The house was a fortress, Lizzy thought, with never-ending hallways and a lot of unused rooms, wasted space. She had no idea where Kitally and Hayley were, but she wasn’t their mother and she wasn’t about to call and check up on them.

  She was a visitor, a temporary guest, nothing more.

  Lizzy left the office at the end of the house and headed for the kitchen. She wasn’t hungry, but she hadn’t eaten all day. She would force something down. Maybe some soup. She walked across the hallway, each step echoing off the polished wood floors.

  She felt suddenly very alone.

  A sharp creak froze her blood.

  She took a step backward. Right there, where the hallway transitioned from wood to stone.

  CREAK.

  A loose board. That’s all it was. Nothing to worry about.

  She stepped into the living room. Moonlight spilled in through high windows, shedding an eerie light over still unfamiliar terrain. Most of the furniture, in her opinion, was cold and uninviting. She’d never claimed to have any sort of flair for interior design, but the place needed a makeover—a throw rug and a few decorative pillows.

  In the kitchen, she looked out the window above the sink. One of the girls usually turned on the outside lights, but since neither of them was home, the lights weren’t on. It was pitch-black out there.

  A tap-tap on the window nearly brought her out of her skin. Instinct kicked in. Both hands shot up, her gun clasped unsteadily between them, her finger on the trigger.

  She saw nothing but the dark expanse of the lawn and the black trees beyond.

  She took a few breaths before finally pointing the gun at the floor. Hadn’t even realized she was carrying her gun around until that moment.

  Her heart pounded against her chest. She’d heard a tap; she knew she had.

  “Hayley, is that you?”

  No answer.

  She needed to calm down.

  She locked her gun in her holster and concentrated on finding a damn light switch. Once she located the first switch, she flipped on every one she could find in the place. By the time she was done, the front yard was lit up like Christmas.

  Better.

  She could see past the front lawn all the way to the mailbox.

  She unlocked the door and stepped outside, leaving the door open. A couple of acorns and a branch lay on the ground in front of the window. She looked up. A tall oak was the culprit.

  Back inside, she sucked in a deep breath.

  The cat circled her legs. Hannah. Where did you come from? She’d forgotten all about the cat. Never once in these past few weeks had she wondered or worried about Hannah’s fate.

  Lizzy sank to the floor and scooped the cat into her arms, holding her close. Hannah purred against her chest as Lizzy ran her fingers through soft fur. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not good at taking care of animals. I warned you right from the beginning, you know.”

  More purring.

  “Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Lizzy stood, leaving Hannah to follow her to the kitchen. Like the outside, the entire house was lit up, giving plenty of light as she searched cupboards and finally the pantry, where she found everything she needed.

  After feeding Hannah, she warmed up some vegetable soup. It had no taste, but she ate it because she’d told her therapist she was eating every day.

  Her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her back pocket and hit Talk. “Hello?”

  “It’s me . . . Kitally.”

  “Hey, where are you guys?”

  “I don’t know what Hayley’s up to, but I should be home in thirty minutes. I just thought I should let you know.”

  “Are you checking up on me, Kitally?”

  “No, of course not. Why would I?”

  “No reason,” Lizzy said. “Thanks for taking care of Hannah. I didn’t realize she was here until two minutes ago.”

  “She likes to hang out in my room. I keep dry food, water, and a cat box in my bathroom.”

  “Oh.”

  “How’s it going over there at the house?”

  “Fine,” Lizzy answered. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Well, OK, I’ll see you soon. If Hannah starts meowing, that means she’s ready to go down for the night. She sleeps in the bed with me. And she likes it if you turn on the television.”

  “You sleep with the cat
?”

  “Yeah, why? Is that a problem?”

  “No. Not a problem.”

  “OK, well, see you soon.”

  After Lizzy hung up the phone, she realized she didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think. Nothing made sense any more.

  The cat wouldn’t stop meowing, something Hannah never did before. Lizzy snapped her fingers as she led Hannah down the long hallway to the room where Kitally slept. The master bedroom was bigger than an apartment. The bed could fit an entire family in it. She leaned over, picked up Hannah, then settled her gently on the middle of the down comforter.

  Lizzy sat on the edge of the bed, even found herself smiling as she watched Hannah curl into a ball and settle down for the night. Lizzy picked up the remote from the nightstand and then joined Hannah on the bed. She rested her back against the soft pillows as she scratched Hannah between the eyes and pushed the Power button.

  Channel 10 News came on, the images on the screen a blur as she thought about Jared lying alone in the hospital. Nighttime was always the worst. Lizzy had asked the doctors and nurses if she could stay with him, but the hospital had rules and strict visiting hours.

  Jared was in coma.

  At times like this, the idea of it seemed surreal.

  During the first week that Jared was in the hospital, she’d left a portable radio close to his pillow, but the nurse told her he couldn’t hear anything. It wasn’t long before she’d overheard the nurses talking in private: Jared’s body was shutting down, one organ at a time. They were losing him. But before she’d had a chance to talk to Dr. Calloway and sign the necessary papers, Jared’s family showed up and chaos quickly became the norm. His dad started making threats, unable to comprehend that his only son had signed his life over to Lizzy. At least that’s how Mr. Shayne saw things. He had petitioned the court for guardianship over Jared’s health. Until the court decided what to do, it didn’t matter what Dr. Calloway had to say about Jared’s condition.

  Lizzy tried to think of happier times but saw nothing—a blank slate. It wasn’t happening, and she couldn’t seem to force it. She felt nothing. All of her senses had deserted her. No taste. No memories. No emotions.

  “Freak accident,” the on-site reporter said into the microphone. “Melony Reed died after slipping on her kitchen floor and landing upright on a cutlery basket.”

  Lizzy sat up and turned up the volume.

  A picture of Melony Reed, the same woman she’d met with flashed across the screen.

  “Melony Reed managed to get to the phone and dial 911,” the reporter said from outside Melony’s home, a house Lizzy recognized because she’d sat inside the living room with her just over forty-eight hours ago, “but she died shortly after arriving at Sutter General.”

  As soon as a commercial aired, Lizzy rushed to the other room to grab her laptop and the list of names Melony had given her. Back on the bed, Hannah curled up closer. Lizzy’s fingers clacked against the keyboard as she got to work. Melony Reed graduated from Parkview High School in 2002. There were over six hundred in her graduating class. Some of the school’s notable graduates included politicians, athletes, and a journalist. Lizzy scoured the Internet for anything she could find on Melony’s personal list of suspects.

  She read the scribbled notes next to each name: mentally unstable, suicidal, abused by parents, et cetera, et cetera, which in Melony’s narrow-mindedness made these particular people capable of murder.

  And now Melony was dead.

  As much as Lizzy hated to admit it, the woman had been onto something. The coincidence of another “accident” was just too damned far-fetched. Having access to a much broader database than Melony made it easy to cross a few people off the list. If someone had moved out of state, Lizzy put a dark line through their names and jotted down their new locations just in case she’d need it down the road.

  By the time she heard a car pull into the garage, half of the names had been crossed off the list.

  Big deal, Lizzy thought. No matter how many names she eliminated, it didn’t change the fact that once again she had failed someone. Melony had been right when she’d said Lizzy sounded like the police. Lizzy had taken the case for all the wrong reasons. Melony was dead, and Lizzy hadn’t done a damn thing to help her.

  CHAPTER 16

  A sliver of a moon shone above him, shedding little light. Not enough light to leave a shadow as he emerged from the depths of tall oaks. He made his way around the house, careful not to make any noise as he checked each door and window.

  He felt neither excitement nor fear. No emotion whatsoever.

  Sometimes he wondered if he was human.

  Since being released from prison, he’d been living outside among the stars and trees. He’d slept in parks and playgrounds, on rooftops and in abandoned buildings. Deep in the woods was where he kept his few belongings. To keep up appearances, he made a weekly trip to the public library, where he used the bathroom to shave and wash up. Food was easy enough to find if you knew where and when to look through Dumpsters.

  He was a Dumpster diver.

  He was a survivor.

  He was a killer.

  The truth was, he was also human, but his needs were mostly animalistic. He possessed an indifference to all but his physical needs . . . and now Lizzy Gardner, and his need for vengeance.

  When he was younger, when he actually cared what other people thought, when he had hopes and dreams, he was what one teacher called socially awkward. He was excessively shy, and he had a lot of anxiety back then.

  Retarded, moron, loser. He’d been called a lot of things in his lifetime, but that was because nobody had ever understood him. Nobody knew who he really was. Nobody cared.

  People liked to say that everyone in the world had a mother and everyone had a father. What a joke. Some people just weren’t meant to procreate. Period. He used to think his mother was a magician: one minute she was there and the next she was not. His father was the embodiment of anger and fear—a raised hand, a harsh voice, pain and suffering tied to everything he said and did. Together they raised a paranoid, confused kid who seldom went to school. Every once in a while, a nice young lady or man from the state would stop by to check up on him. They would ask his mother or father, or whoever the hell was around, a few questions as they filled out some forms. They always left with concerned expressions on their faces, but the same person never came twice. There was a short time, maybe a week or so, when he’d been dropped off at his grandparents’ on his mother’s side, and there was a golden moment in time when he’d hoped that they might be his saviors. But no sooner had his grandmother fondled him under the pretense of wanting to be sure he was healthy and whole than he’d found his grandfather down at the lake, drowning the kittens they’d found that very morning at the end of their driveway.

  That particular day was forever engraved in his mind.

  That was the day he’d lost all hope.

  Putting old memories behind him, he withdrew into the dark among the tallest trees in the backyard of the large house, where a creek ran along the back of the property. Everything was locked up tight, including the windows framing the downstairs bedroom, the only room with the lights on.

  She was in there.

  He was sure of it.

  He’d followed her here from her downtown office the other day. It seemed he’d been watching Lizzy Gardner for most of his life, or at least had known of her. In fact, he thought he knew everything about her, but he had to admit, he wasn’t exactly sure why she was staying at this particular residence. After the death of her fiancé, it made sense that she’d moved in with her only sister. But it made even more sense to see her move out, away from her brother-in-law. The man had the innate sort of stupidity that came from being born with inferior genes. He’d thought about killing him just for sport, but that would only serve to make Lizzy happy. The last thing he wanted to do was make her happy.

  Lizzy Gardner had ruined his life.

  She was a bitch, and he planned to fuck with her, starting with her students. He had one picked out. The one she obviously cared for the most. His greatest regret was that someone else had tried to kill her fiancé before he had a chance to. Lizzy deserved everything she got. She liked to meddle in other people’s business. His business.