Evil Never Dies (The Lizzy Gardner Series Book 6) (15 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Today, Kitally decided to help Lizzy at the downtown office. They had files at both the house and the office on J Street. This particular office was a mess, and Kitally figured she was the only one who cared enough to bother with straightening up the place. But that wasn’t the only reason she had wanted to come to the office today. She needed to talk to Lizzy about Salma, let her know she had taken a taxi from the hospital and she and her baby were moving in for a while. Before Kitally could start up a conversation with Lizzy, a man popped his head inside the door and waved a colorful flyer at them. “Mind if I hang this on your window?”

“I don’t know,” Lizzy said. “What is it?”

He stepped inside and let the door shut behind him.

Kitally guessed him to be in his late thirties. When he looked at her, it was his intense-looking eyes that struck her first. He was cleanly shaven—a preppy-looking guy with neatly combed hair, a crooked nose, and a square jaw.

He handed the flyer to Lizzy. As she read it over, he picked up a handcrafted pencil holder made of pottery and painted in fine detail and said, “This is striking. Exquisite, actually. May I ask where you found it?”

Although he was clearly going overboard with the praise, Lizzy decided to go with it. “My niece made that years ago. You’re right, though, she’s a creative genius.” Lizzy held up the flyer. “In fact, she might enjoy visiting some of these galleries. Go ahead and hang it up, and maybe we’ll see you there.”

“I appreciate it.” He looked around. “Do you mind if I hang it inside the window, so it doesn’t blow away?”

“Not a problem.”

He had to lean over Lizzy’s desk to get the flyer on the window. When he was done, he apologized for interrupting their workday. He was about to head out when Lizzy said, “Are you one of the artists who will be exhibiting?”

“How did you know?”

“You’ve got paint on your elbow.”

He looked at the spot and then laughed. “You’re very perceptive.”

“So I’ve been told. What’s your name?”

“Jake Polly.”

“Lizzy Gardner.”

“I know,” Jake said and then pointed at the etching on the door.

After he left, Kitally continued to watch Lizzy. That was the most normal she’d seen her boss since Jared’s funeral. It felt sort of good to see Lizzy carry on a conversation with a stranger. Her gaze fell to Lizzy’s stomach. She had on a baggy shirt, but still, she didn’t have an ounce of flab on her. There was no way Lizzy was pregnant.

“Do you want something, Kitally?”

“Who me?”

“Yes, you,” Lizzy said. “Nobody else is here, and I can feel your eyes boring a hole through the side of my head.”

“Sorry. It’s just nice to see you interacting with people again.”

“You worry too much.”

“Maybe you’re right. My mom says the same thing.”

Lizzy swiveled her chair around. “Out with it. What else is on your mind?”

“Jake Polly was right. You are perceptive, aren’t you?”

Lizzy said nothing. Instead, she waited for Kitally to spit it out.

“It’s about Salma,” Kitally finally said.

“Is her baby doing OK?”

“The baby is fine. The thing is, I did a little snooping around when she was living at the house, and it turns out her boyfriend is a guy named Joey Rich.”

“And?”

“And her family does not approve of him. Like, at all. She’s worried he’ll be harmed.”

“It’s not your problem, Kitally. Stay out of it.”

“Well, it is sort of my problem because she’s back at the house.”

“And what do you propose to do about it?”

“I’m not sure. That’s why I thought I’d ask you.”

“She’s young. She should be with her family. I refuse to make it my business. You should do the same. She needs to go home.”

“You’re probably right. I’ll talk to her.” Kitally stood. “I have something I want to show you.” Kitally ran to the back room and returned with a broom and a dustpan.

“Good job,” Lizzy said without enthusiasm. “I appreciate you keeping the place spruced up.”

“You think I’m just sweeping?”

Lizzy crossed her arms and sighed.

“A
ha
!” Kitally twisted the handle and the bristly part of the broom popped off onto the floor. Then she tripped a hidden lever and a lethal-looking spear point sprang out where the bristles used to be.

Lizzy leaned back in her chair, her hand at her heart. “That looks dangerous as hell.”

“That’s because it is. I made it myself. Pretty cool, don’t you think?”

Apparently Lizzy had no words to express her excitement for Kitally’s invention.

“About a month ago, I came up with this idea, and I couldn’t sleep. The next day I called this guy who works for my dad and asked him to put this prototype together. We have another one, too. We’ll keep one here in the office and one at home, just in case we ever get a surprise visitor.”

“I don’t have any plans to stop carrying a gun, but I’ll keep the broomstick in mind.”

“Absolutely works fine as a broom, too,” Kitally said proudly.

“Outstanding.”

There was a tap on the door. Through the glass, Kitally could see an old man. He was stooped over, and he held tightly to a cane. She put the broomstick back together and set it aside, then hurried over to the door and held it open for the man.

He grunted as he walked inside. When he looked as if he might trip over his own feet, Kitally put out a hand to help him.

“Leave me be,” he said.

She did as he said and backed off.

His hands shook as he pulled out the chair in front of Lizzy’s desk.

“Hello, Gus,” Lizzy said.

“I haven’t gotten a call since I was here,” the old man said. “We had a deal. I’m here for an update.”

Kitally kept waiting for Lizzy to tell the old man off. Since Jared’s death, she had zero patience. But she nodded and gestured toward Kitally with her chin. “Gus,” she said, “meet my assistant, Kitally. She’s the one working your case.”

Kitally pulled up a chair and offered Gus a hand. He ignored it. “Your wife was Helsie?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “I’ve heard nothing but wonderful things about her. I wish I could have met her.”

He looked uncomfortable. His eyes glistened.

“I’ve been to the Shady Oaks Nursing Home twice now,” Kitally told him.

He wore a short-sleeved brown shirt and khakis. His shirt had two big stains on the front. “Go on,” he said.

“I met Betty Ackley,” Kitally said, speaking loud enough for him to hear. “She told me she knew you. Do you remember her?”

“Stop shouting,” he said. “I’m not deaf. And of course I remember Betty,” he said angrily. “How could I forget? Everyone’s heard of that loudmouth woman. She’s always getting into other people’s business. She’s also the noisiest little bird I’ve ever met.”

“She’s the one who sent you the note.”

His mouth was open, ready to spit out more venom, no doubt, but he swallowed his words.

“You look surprised,” Lizzy said.

“I am,” he muttered. “We never had a nice word to say to each other. Why would she help me?”

“Because she loved Helsie and thought of her like a sister,” Kitally said.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and then his eyes got all misty again.

“Betty is sure that something fishy is going on at Shady Oaks,” Kitally continued. “She believes the answers we need are in the file room at the nursing home, which is why I snuck through Betty’s bedroom window the other night.”

Lizzy frowned.

“Why did you do that?” Gus asked.

“Because Betty said nobody would be around at night.”

He shook his head. “She’s addle-brained, I tell you . . . a few clowns short of a circus.”

Kitally decided to let that one go. “After I climbed through the window, someone was coming, so I had to hide under Betty’s bed. I could hear the exchange between the orderly and Betty. The woman forces Betty to take a handful of pills every day, whether she wants to or not.”

“I think that’s a common practice,” Lizzy said. “And it’s not unusual for the elderly to try to avoid taking their medication.”

Gus waved off whatever Lizzy had to say, his full attention now on Kitally. “Go on.”

“Well, the orderly, or whatever the staff people are called, got very upset with Betty. She wanted her to take her sleeping pill like everyone else in the place. Betty told the woman in the green smock that she had, in fact, taken her medication, but I know that’s not true.”

“How do you know?” Lizzy asked.

“As I was hunkered down in the bushes waiting for Betty to open the window and let me in, I saw a bunch of tablets scattered about the ground. On my way out, I picked up all the pills I could find and brought them home with me. I thought maybe we could take the medication to a lab and find out what they are.”

Lizzy tapped the eraser end of the pencil against her chin. “I think that’s a good idea.”

“I’m going to go back to see Betty later today to talk about how we can get into that file room.”

Gus struggled to get out of his chair. “Don’t just sit there,” he told Kitally. “Help me up.”

“You’re leaving?”

He poked the ground with his cane in frustration and said, “You’re coming with me.”

Kitally helped Gus to his feet and then handed him his cane. “Where are we going?”

“To the nursing home,” Lizzy said.

He pointed a crooked finger at Lizzy. “Maybe you should come instead.” He tilted his head toward Kitally. “Seems like the chimney’s clogged in this one.”

“Hey,” Kitally said, pretty sure he was making fun of her. “This is my case.”

“Well, then start paying attention.”

Kitally rolled her eyes.

“I saw that,” he said.

“We’ll take my car,” Kitally told him as they made slow progress toward the door.

“Not in my lifetime. We’ll take my car.”

Kitally winced. “Maybe I should follow you.”

“Maybe you should learn to follow orders.”

Kitally looked over her shoulder at Lizzy, but she wasn’t even paying attention. Her expression already grave, her thoughts had wandered to a different place and time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The first thing Kobi Millard noticed when she returned home after a long day filled with meetings and phone calls was that the door was unlocked. With her fingers clasped around the doorknob, she slowly pushed open the door. “Valerie?” she called as she stepped inside. “Val, are you here?”

Usually the television was on and she would find her ten-year-old daughter eating a pudding or some other snack she wasn’t supposed to eat before dinner. Her pace quickened as she made her way to Val’s bedroom. Her gaze fell on the backpack lying on the bed. “Val!” she said again. She unzipped the backpack. Val’s lunch had been eaten. Her papers were crumpled; everything appeared as it should.

Kobi’s heart dropped to her stomach. Valerie walked home from school every day. Though sometimes, if it rained, she would catch a ride with their neighbor, Gretchen Myers, downstairs.

Kobi whipped around and sprinted out of the apartment, almost tripped over her feet as she ran down the stairs and to the apartment beneath hers. She knocked on the door, didn’t stop until someone opened it.

“Kobi, what’s wrong?”

She stepped inside, looked around the kitchen, ignored all the surprised faces looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Is Val here?”

Gretchen followed her inside. “No. I haven’t seen her today.” She looked at her kids on the couch. “Have any of you seen Val today?”

Head shakes and grunts. None of them had.

“Her backpack is on the bed,” she told Gretchen as she headed for the door. “She ate her lunch.” Kobi willed herself not to fall apart. “Oh, God, where is she?”

“Take a breath,” Gretchen told her. “Remember that time when she went to the park on the corner without asking, and you just about ripped her to shreds after you—”

Kobi didn’t let her finish. She took off running again. Tears made it hard to see clearly as she ran down the street. “Val!” she shouted. “Where are you? Val!”

“Mom! I’m over here.”

Kobi wiped her eyes as she headed for the swing set. And then she saw him. Wayne Bennett was sitting on the bench, watching her daughter swing. He had a self-satisfied smile on his face.

She walked over to her daughter. “Get off the swing now. We’re going home.”

“What’s wrong? Have you been crying?”

“Why would you leave the house with a perfect stranger?”

“He said he knew you and that he was a friend of the family. He said he offered you a job with lots of money and that you were still thinking about it.”

Wayne Bennett joined them. He put a hand on Valerie’s chin and said, “Your daughter is so damn beautiful.”

Valerie blushed.

“Do you want to do that again sometime, Valerie?” Bennett asked her daughter. “We can go shopping and I’ll buy you some brand-new shoes or a pretty dress . . . anything you want.”

“Can I, Mom?”

“No. You can’t.”

“Stay on the swing for a moment, dear,” Bennett said, “and give me a minute to talk to your mom in private.”

Valerie looked at her mom.

“It’s OK,” Kobi assured her. “I’ll be right by the bench.”

“Next time you talk to someone,” Bennett told her when they were out of earshot, “you won’t ever see your daughter again.”

“I didn’t talk to anyone.”

“Not even in the parking lot at Grocery Mart?”

“Lizzy Gardner came after
me
, followed
me
from work. I told her to leave me alone and never come near me again.”

“What did she want?”

“She wanted me to testify against you in court. She also wanted to know what you did to me.”

“Did you tell her?”

Her mouth tightened, and she did everything she could to hold back the tears as she replayed bits and pieces of that night in her head. God, why had she risked telling Lizzy Gardner about Bennett’s planned interview with that girl from the program?

Because he was a psycho, and he needed to be stopped.

“How could I tell her anything,” she told him, lifting her chin and looking him straight in the eyes, “when I don’t recall ever going anywhere with you at all?”

He stood tall. “I hope, for your sake, she believed you. Your daughter is a pretty, pretty girl. If I were you, I would keep a closer eye on her.”

Shivers crawled up the back of her neck.

Kobi watched him leave, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop him from coming back. She walked back to her daughter and took Val’s small hand in hers.

“I’m sorry,” Val cried. “I never should have gone with him.”

“You and me both.”

Hayley sat on the couch, going through the videos from Bennett’s
rental homes, while Tommy held the baby and made silly noises. Salma was in the kitchen, making a dish called Lahori beef karahi. It didn’t smell too good, but Hayley decided to keep that to herself. Although she had to admit she was a little worried that Lizzy might walk through the door, take one whiff, and then kick Salma and her baby right out of the house. Everything seemed to annoy Lizzy lately. Maybe she really was pregnant.

But if she were pregnant, why would she keep it a secret?

Or maybe she didn’t realize it herself.

Hayley did some quick math in her head. If Lizzy had conceived within a week or two before Jared was killed, she could or would be almost four months along.

But how could she not know?

Hayley minimized the video application so she could do a quick Internet search instead.

It didn’t take long to find what she was looking for. The stats were insane: one in every 450 pregnant women didn’t know they were pregnant until week twenty. Approximately one in every seven thousand pregnancies was unknown to the mother until the moment she delivered her baby. And there seemed to be a lot of reasons for this: the position of the placenta, no morning sickness, denial, irregular periods, weight gain or weight loss, and stress.

But Lizzy Gardner wasn’t like most women. She would know. Hayley decided to drop the notion altogether. She looked at Tommy and said, “Could you stop that?”

“What’s the problem?”

“That noise you’ve been making with the kid for the past ten minutes is annoying as hell. I’m trying to concentrate.”

“You don’t have to be a bitch about it.”

She held back a smile. It was the first time he’d called her out. Ever. And for some reason, she liked it. The two of them had spent most of the day driving around looking for the Ghost. They were both tired. She clicked the video back on. After another five minutes, a room popped up. There was a couch and an end table with a lamp. Hayley sat upright as a woman appeared on the screen.

She fast-forwarded through the video, unable to believe what she was seeing. Once she got to the end, she hit Rewind until she was at the beginning and hit Pause. She looked over at Tommy and said, “We got the bastard.”

Tommy leaned over so he could watch.

Salma had stepped out of the kitchen to check on the baby, and now she hovered over them, too.

“We’ve got a hit,” Hayley said, “and it’s not pretty.” She moved the cursor to the arrow and started the video over.

There was no sound.

A young woman of about eighteen years of age, wearing a fuchsia dress and black heels, walked into the living area. She appeared to be alone. The camera had a full-bodied picture of her as she took a seat on the couch. She sat on its edge, her fingers entwined in her lap. She looked around the room. Her legs were drawn tightly together.

“She looks so nervous,” Salma said.

The girl looked to the right, to a place inside the house that they couldn’t see because of the angle of the camera. She smiled then, a nervous, tentative smile.

That’s when a man came into view. He was dressed in a dark fitted suit, and he stood directly in front of the girl, his back to the camera. He handed her a drink. They couldn’t see his face, but he had the same salt-and-pepper hair and big ears as Wayne Bennett.
Turn around
, Hayley thought to herself,
and show us your face
.

“Are they talking?” Salma asked.

“It’s hard to tell at this point,” Hayley said. “But I already scanned through the video. You’ll get the complete picture of what’s going on in a few minutes. You might not want to watch this.”

The man caught on tape walked out of the room, leaving the girl sitting alone on the couch once again.

“I’m going to fast-forward through part of this,” Hayley said. “The girl basically sips the drink as she looks around, her eyes darting from side to side. She definitely appears to be concerned about what’s happening. It won’t take long before you’ll see a change in her demeanor. I think it’s pretty clear she’s been drugged.”

Hayley moved the cursor on the bottom of the video, speeding through the video. When she stopped fast-forwarding, the young woman was slumped back onto the couch. The back of her hand went to her forehead. Her other hand grasped at the arm of the couch as if she was trying to pull herself upright.

The man with the salt-and-pepper hair entered the room again.

Only this time he was naked.

As he did the first time he’d entered the room, he came to stand directly in front of the woman. They appeared to be talking because you could see the woman using her hands as if she was explaining something to him. Her fingers then grasped the edge of the couch, and she again tried to raise herself to her feet. At that moment they had a clear shot of her face. She said the word
no
more than once and then tried to push him out of her way, but she looked confused and dizzy, clearly losing control of her motor skills.

The man placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back down on the couch. He then used those same hands to grasp the back of her head and pull her to him.

“Oh, my God,” Salma said, “he’s not going to—”

The woman was struggling now, still trying to push him away. She used her fingernails to claw at the back of his thigh, drawing blood. His right hand curled into a fist, and he drew back and punched her in the face.

Salma gasped and then scooped her baby out of Tommy’s arms and hurried away.

The woman in the video was lying on the couch, crying. Wayne Bennett looked toward the kitchen, giving the camera a full view of his face. He wiped his brow, turned back to her, and proceeded to undress her.

Hayley stopped the video there. “I think we’ve seen enough. I need to call Lizzy.”

Kitally hung on tightly to the grab handle and prayed for her life.

Gus could drive about as well as he could walk. He’d already gone through two yellow lights and had been honked at by three drivers. By the time they pulled into the Shady Oaks parking lot, she was just glad to be alive.

Kitally climbed out of the car and waited for Gus to do the same.

The trunk popped open.

“Don’t just stand there,” he said. “Get my walker.”

“Make up your mind,” she muttered.

“What’s that? Are you being difficult?”

She pulled out his walker, unfolded the metal legs, and made sure it was ready to go before she placed it in front of him. “I’m not being difficult, Mr. Valentine. I just think you need to decide whether you want help or you don’t want help.”

He grunted. “Right now I want help.”

“There you go.”

The way he shook made her wonder if he had the onset of Parkinson’s. Her phone vibrated. She pulled it from her pocket. There was a text from her mom asking Kitally to give her a call when she had time.

“Just what the world needs,” he said as he took short, gingerly steps.

“What are you talking about?”

“Those contraptions that young people hold so dear to them. Everyone is attached to machines all day long. Nobody wants to stop and enjoy the sun in their face or sit on a bench and just look around for a bit, maybe do a little people watching. People need to take a minute to breathe without worrying about that Internet nonsense.”

“It’s sort of fun being connected to the world,” Kitally told him. “You can play games with your friends in another country if you wanted to.”

“It’s nothing more than a tracking device. They’re watching you. Right now. Everyone knows what you’re doing.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Kitally asked him, trying to change the subject. “You do have one, don’t you?”

“We’re going to use the oldest trick in the book.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to distract them while you run into the room where they keep the files and get whatever it is you need.”

Kitally walked ahead and opened the door for him. “We need to talk to Betty first,” she said as he walked inside without so much as a grunt or a dirty look. “She’s the one who needs to tell me what exactly I’m looking for.”

“Fine. We’ll get the old badger first, but if she starts flirting with me, I’m gonna have to put a stop to it. All the old ladies in this joint like to follow me around as if they’ve never seen a man before.”

“Well, you are an incredibly charming man,” Kitally said.

“Is that sarcasm I’m noting?”

“Are you kidding me? If I were thirty years older, I’d be chasing after you myself.”

He chuckled at that.

Kitally followed him inside and let the door swing shut behind her.

Two hours after Hayley had called Lizzy with the news that they had video images of Wayne Bennett assaulting and sexually abusing a young woman, Lizzy walked into the office of Prosecuting Attorney Grady Orwell.

The man was short, with fiery-orange hair. His suit was wrinkled and his face was pale, probably due to too many hours behind a desk.

Grady shook Lizzy’s hand with a strong grip, then gestured for her to take a seat in the leather chair in front of his desk.

“Thanks for agreeing to meet with me on such short notice.”

“Not a problem,” Grady said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. When I was told you had some damning evidence against Wayne Bennett, you can bet I was interested to see what you had.”

“You sound passionate about this case,” Lizzy said.

“And you sound surprised.”

“I guess I am. Bennett has managed to get a lot of very important people in Sacramento to side with him. I thought maybe you might be one of them.”