A Dark Mind (11 page)

He scanned the articles, skipping some, reading others more than once. Her business was booming and she was still located right here in Sacramento. He laughed for no particular reason. Maybe because private investigations seemed like such a silly business to be in; anyone could slap a sign on her door and call herself a private eye.

Jake Gittes, Jim Rockford, Sam Spade. Those guys were the real deal.

He laughed again and then continued reading.

Many locals considered Lizzy Gardner a hero for helping to take down a killer who had spread fear across Sacramento for too many years. A few saw her as someone who went looking for trouble, leaving chaos in her wake. At the moment, he tended to agree with the latter crowd.

Movement in the corner of the room caught his attention. He turned toward the woman sitting on the wood chair.

She looked tense.

Although in the beginning he’d used a heavy rope to secure her slim ankles to the front chair legs, he no longer felt the need to strap her down. She was allowed to walk around if she wanted to, but she never did, at least not when he was around. She had
snatched the granola bar he’d left by her feet and was now munching away.

“Hungry?”

She didn’t respond. In fact, she looked as if she might have gained a few pounds.

“I thought you said your family loved you,” he said. “If they really loved you, they would have found you by now.”

He shook his head. She was ignoring him again. If she wasn’t talking his ear off, trying to convince him to let her go or telling him what to do, she was pretending he didn’t exist. More than once he’d considered letting her go—he really had—but whenever he felt the urge, another thought took over his brain waves and prevented him from doing so. They both knew she would go straight to the police. Sure, he’d taken precautions—blindfolds, sleeping pills, yada yada yada—to make sure she didn’t know their location, but the truth was, as much as he tried to deny it, he was in love with her. Madly so, and had been for many years.

He could never let her go.

You’ll never get me. I’ll kill again. Then you’ll have another long trial. And then I’ll do it again.

—Henry Brisbon

Davis

Monday, May 14, 2012

Hayley opened another file, did a search on the Internet, and took some notes, but it was difficult to concentrate with Lizzy and Jared snuggling in the kitchen. Jared had returned last night, making Lizzy a little too saccharine for her liking. Jessica should be the one living with the two lovebirds, not her.

Kitally, a girl she’d met in the detention center, would be stopping by in an hour. Lizzy and Jared should have left for work already, but they were too busy catching up after being apart. She’d had enough. “Could you two take it to the bedroom, or do I need to put on my headphones?”

Jared laughed and said, “I’m just glad to be home.”

“I never would have guessed.”

He gave Lizzy one last kiss and then picked up his briefcase at the door. He turned to Hayley and said, “If you ever need anything, my number is on the fridge.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

He shook his head at her as he headed out the door.

After he was gone, she could feel Lizzy’s eyes on her.

“What?” Hayley asked.

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” she said as she picked up a business card for Lily’s Flower Shop and held it in the air for Lizzy to see. “I’ve been updating the electronic spreadsheets on all of the open cases. I found this card for a flower shop in the Simpson/Dalton file. I don’t think it belongs in here.”

Lizzy took it and examined it closer. “Are you sure this was in the Simpson file?”

“Yep. It was stuck between the pages of the signed agreement between your agency and J&M Realty.”

“Jennifer must have accidentally scooped it up and put it in the envelope before she handed it to me.”

“Is this the same Jennifer that was killed recently?”

“It is,” Lizzy said as she gathered her purse and tucked the card inside. “Do you have the Simpson file or did Jessica return it to the office?”

“It’s right here.”

Lizzy took the file and then headed for the door. Hand on the doorknob, ready to leave, she looked back at Hayley. “You’re sure you’re OK?”

Hayley looked her in the eyes. “I’m fine. Really.”

“OK. Lock up after I leave, all right?”

“Will do.”

Lizzy shut the door behind her.

Figuring Lizzy was probably standing on the other side waiting to hear the click of the lock, Hayley got up and slid the dead bolt into place. Then she leaned her forehead against the door and wondered if Lizzy would ever feel safe again.

Her next thought was about her mom. She couldn’t stop thinking about her. Already this morning, she’d called the house more than once, but nobody had answered. Hayley wondered if Brian was really out of her mom’s life. She looked at her phone. Maybe she could call Jessica and ask her to stop by her mom’s house.

Before she decided whether to make the call or not, there was a knock on the door. Hayley jumped up, looked out the peephole, and saw Kitally. She let the girl inside and then shut and locked the door behind her.

“Hey,” Kitally said. “How’s it going?”

“Not too bad. Thanks for coming.”

Kitally was seventeen, Asian, and stood about five foot five. She wore a retro couture red strapless dress that would never work on anyone but Kitally. The girl had strong cheekbones and a sharp, well-defined jawline. Her eyes were brown and framed with thick colorful eyeliner. Her head was shaved, leaving nothing but a soft downy layer of black fuzz.

Despite the fact that the girl reminded Hayley of a hyper puppy dog, she had liked Kitally straight off. Kitally was brilliant, but most people might not notice since she hid her intelligence behind an odd personality. Sweet one moment, tactless and gross the next. She could be blunt with her words as well as with her actions, which is why many of the kids in the detention center had steered clear of her.

She first noticed Kitally during her second week of incarceration when she was eating lunch. All the inmates ate their
meals together. Hayley, like everyone else, looked up when Abby, the biggest bitch in the place, began shouting at the lunch lady. The woman serving the food didn’t decide what food to serve; she was just doing her job. But Abby didn’t care. Abby needed to screech and holler at someone, and the woman serving the food just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While Abby held her plate to her side and cussed the woman out, Kitally strolled by and shot a snot rocket right into Abby’s plate of spaghetti. Nobody said a word before or after Abby sat down and munched down her spaghetti. But the lunch lady had a smile on her face for the rest of that day.

Rumor had it that Kitally was also part of a gang. She had broken a few legs, arms, even blinded a kid with a plastic fork. There were usually guards in the room, but everyone knew they didn’t carry guns. What good was a guard without a gun? Besides, the guards liked it when an inmate stirred the pot a little and added some excitement to their shift.

The day Hayley and Kitally became friends was the same day one of the security guards decided to pick on Hayley. He called her names and poked her with his stick. To this day she had no idea why, but he wouldn’t stop.

Kitally happened to be sitting nearby when Hayley glanced at the metal tongs in the salad bowl that had been left on the table. Kitally scooted closer to Hayley and advised her against using the tongs as a weapon. She then proceeded to give Hayley a mathematical equation that summed up the results of what her actions would be were she to follow through with her plan, a plan she had yet to verbalize.

The kid had fucking read her mind.

For the next six months, they sat together at every meal, until Kitally was released. She never did tell Hayley why she was in the place.

“Want something to eat?” Hayley asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m good.”

Before Hayley could reach the couch to take a seat, there was another knock on the door. Eyes narrowed, Hayley headed back that way.

What the hell was he doing here?

It was the boy who had helped Lizzy with her defense class months ago. Tommy. The same boy Lizzy had made a point of talking about when she came to visit Hayley at the detention center and then again when she picked her up to take her home. She’d been set up. “Shit.”

“What is it?”

“The lady I live with has a bad habit of trying to set me up.”

Kitally took a peek out the peephole. “Looks like the geek squad sent him. Does he use gel in his hair?”

Hayley agreed. Tommy Ellis was in a league of his own. His hair was neatly combed to the side. His lime-green shirt had zero wrinkles and a stiff collar. His pants weren’t exactly skintight, but they weren’t loose either. The only thing he was missing was a colorful sweater hanging loosely around his shoulders. She unlatched the dead bolt and opened the door before he could knock again. “What do you want?”

“Hey there,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.”

“Did Lizzy tell you I was coming?”

“Nope.”

“Ahh, I see. Well, she thought you could use some company.”

“Well, she was wrong.” She started to close the door, but he stopped her.

“Can I at least come in for a few minutes?”

“What’s your name again?” Hayley asked, not wanting to give him false hope of someday being her friend.

“Tommy Ellis. I teach kids self-defense at the Self-Defense Institute in Roseville.”

Hayley was about to send him away for the second time, when Kitally opened the door wider and said hello.

Tommy offered his hand, but Kitally ignored it.

Now Hayley was really worried. Just because she didn’t want to be his friend or let him inside the house didn’t mean she wanted to crush him like a bug before sending him away. And that’s exactly what Kitally would do. She didn’t like too many people.

Kitally was still looking him over, her gaze focused on his shoes, her expression filled with disgust, when suddenly her gaze shot past him and her eyes widened. “Is that your motorcycle?” She pushed past him and headed for his bike.

Tommy followed her.

Hayley crossed her arms and watched them both get all animated and weird over the thing. “I’ll be in here when you guys are done talking shop.”

Nobody responded. Hayley left the door open and headed for the couch.

They returned a few minutes later.

Hayley had already taken a seat, but after Tommy shut the door, she placed her foot on the coffee table and pulled the right pant leg to her knee so Kitally could take a closer look at her ankle monitor. She wanted the thing off—the sooner, the better. She refused to let Karate Kid get in the way. If he didn’t like it, he could leave.

Kitally took a seat on the couch next to her and examined the anklet.

“It’s a GPS ankle monitor—” Hayley began.

“Yeah,” Kitally said, cutting her off. “It’s passively receiving information from global positioning satellites that give the ankle bracelet the satellites’ position and time. When there are at least four active satellites, the GPS receiver can mathematically determine its own three-dimensional location. The in-home unit will poll the bracelet wirelessly and ask for its coordinates. The bracelet will then encrypt its information and send it to the in-home unit. This is where it gets a little complicated and very appealing to people like me. This ‘packet’ of information holds a few items in order to communicate effectively, one of which is a MAC address—Media Access Control address—which is unique for
every
device that communicates via an IP.”

Hayley didn’t like Tommy hovering over them, since she didn’t want him mentioning any of this to Lizzy or Jared, but she figured she could talk to him about that later. Threaten to break his leg if she had to. She glanced at Kitally. “Can you do it?”

Kitally turned Hayley’s ankle to the right. After a long moment, she shook her head and said, “I don’t know. This isn’t like the tracking devices I’ve seen before.”

“What are you trying to do?” Tommy asked.

Hayley sighed. “I’d rather not say.”

“A five-year-old could get that thing off you, but if you’re planning on leaving during the day, you don’t want to have to take it off and on. Too risky.”

“Thanks,” Hayley said. She looked at Kitally. “What do you suggest?”

Kitally looked at Tommy. “What do you think, Geek Boy?”

Hayley angled her head, waiting to see what Tommy would say next, figuring it was time for her to stop worrying about him. If he wanted to come over uninvited, then he would have to learn to fend for himself.

Tommy pulled out his iPhone and took at least a dozen pictures of the device. “I think I could do a MAC address clone on another device. Then you could just leave the real device at home.”

Hayley looked at him. “You’re shittin’ me.”

He took two more pictures before putting his phone away.

“You could do that?” Hayley asked.

He blew air out of his nose and said, “This is kindergarten stuff.”

Hayley didn’t trust what she was hearing. If Tommy could clone her monitor, she would have some freedom over the next six months or however long they made her wear the device. More importantly, she could keep an eye on her mom and make sure she was safe. She would be free to roam. “When can you get started?”

“Today.”

Kitally rubbed her hands together. “Well, that was easy.” She headed for the door.

“You’re leaving?”

Her smile looked more like a smirk. “Places to go, people to see.”

“What do I owe you?” Hayley asked.

Kitally laughed, a funny squeaky noise that sounded more like a sneeze, before she said, “My dad has more money than he knows what to do with, and I’m his princess. If you need me for anything else, give me a call.”

Tommy and Hayley both followed her outside.

She did a skip and a hop down the pathway, stopping at Tommy’s bike again. “If either of you ever wants a ride on a real bike, let me know.” She laughed and then climbed behind the wheel of a shiny silver Porsche and took off.