Almost Dead (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

Lizzy had been seeing her therapist, Linda Gates, for eighteen years now, beginning when she was a teen and had just returned from three months of hell. In all those years, the office had hardly changed: same couch, same executive-sized desk, same ergonomic chair—everything, including the walls, was in neutral colors. The best part was the large paned windows overlooking downtown Sacramento. If you stood at just the right angle, you could even glimpse part of the American River.

“Why don’t you tell me how you’re feeling.”

Lizzy crossed her legs. “My sister is driving me nuts. Why she let that asshole move back in, I’ll never know. It makes no sense. My niece shouldn’t have to listen to their constant bickering. It’s—”

“Lizzy.”

“Yes?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“I am?”

“Yes. How are
you
feeling?”

“Feeling?”

“Yes.”

Lizzy’s shoulders dropped. “Under the circumstances, I’m doing fine. I’m exercising and eating OK. Between work and my self-defense program, I’m keeping busy. The teenagers I’m teaching right now are great.”

Linda sighed.

“What?” Lizzy asked. “Why do I get the feeling there are right and wrong answers to your questions?”

“There are no right or wrong answers, you know that, but I’ve known you for a long time and I’m concerned that you may be trying to move on as if nothing has changed. And that’s not moving on at all.”

“You think I’m in denial.”

Linda nodded. “I know you are. In a matter of weeks you killed a man in self-defense, then lost your father, and now your fiancé lies comatose in a hospital bed and you’re being asked to make a difficult decision.”

“The decision was made before the first bullet hit Jared’s chest,” Lizzy said. “The advance directive Jared signed putting me in charge of his care was for exactly this purpose. But Jared’s
family has decided to bring the matter to court. They want to keep Jared on feeding tubes and ventilators, everything Jared didn’t want.”

“It doesn’t help that his family and you don’t see eye to eye,” Linda said. “I think it would be in your best interest—”

“Don’t say it,” Lizzy said, cutting her off. “I have too many people as it is telling me how to handle the situation. I’m dealing with things the same way I’ve dealt with everything that’s happened in my life.” She uncrossed her legs and sat up straight. “I take it one day at a time. I get out of bed, get dressed, brush my teeth, and go to work. I can’t say I’m stopping to smell the roses, but I’m here, aren’t I?”

A deafening silence came between them.

“I’ll be fine,” Lizzy added.

“When are you planning on moving back into your house?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Why not?”

“Too many memories.”

“You can’t run from them forever.”

Lizzy looked at the clock on the wall. “I need to get going.” She stood. “I’ll see you next week.” Lizzy pointed a finger at Linda, who still sat on the couch, unmoving, her brow severely puckered. “I’m not holding back,” Lizzy told her. “I will be fine. We’ll all be fine.”

CHAPTER 3

Tonight, Hayley was working with Kitally on the Steven Dow case.

His wife, Mrs. Beverly Dow, had hired Lizzy Gardner Investigations to find out if her husband was cheating. Lizzy didn’t usually take on infidelity cases, but for whatever reason, when Beverly Dow had shown up at the downtown office, Lizzy hadn’t balked. She had merely drawn up a contract, asked the woman to sign on the dotted line, and forgotten all about her.

If Lizzy’s work ethic continued on this way for too long, Hayley knew she would be forced to talk to her about it. But for now, Hayley kept track of every move Lizzy made and did her best to clean up after her.

After watching Mr. Dow on and off for the past two weeks and getting nowhere, Hayley and Kitally decided to do things a little differently tonight.

Hayley sat in her Chevy, slumped down behind the wheel, her gaze set on the club across the street. Kitally was tonight’s bait, and she had been inside the dimly lit place for forty-five minutes already. Lizzy would not be pleased to know what they were up to—their plan to catch Mr. Dow in the act might be considered entrapment by some—but Hayley really didn’t give a shit. The man was a skank. Period. He needed to be taught a lesson.

According to Beverly Dow, at least twice a week, Mr. Dow told his wife that he had to meet a business client. Sometimes he wouldn’t return home until sunrise. Beverly wanted to know what her husband was up to—that meant recordings and pictures, too.

Boredom set in, and Hayley’s thoughts drifted back to Lizzy. She’d shown up at the office every day, in between funerals and hospital visits. If she wasn’t in the office, she was teaching kids self-defense and trying to act as if nothing in her world had changed. She was obviously just going through the motions, and it was difficult to watch, knowing that any moment now she was going to slam into a wall and it was going to hurt bad. Nobody could keep his or her emotions bottled up forever.

But Hayley didn’t think she should be the one to tell Lizzy it might be a good idea to let some of those emotions out instead of hoarding them all inside, pretending everything was just fine. That would be hypocritical—Hayley herself wasn’t exactly in touch with her own feelings, and she was fine with that—so she said nothing.

She’d just arrived at this conclusion when she saw Kitally stumble out of the nightclub. Her body swayed; the long dreadlock hanging down her back did, too. She bumped into the side of the building and had to catch herself. Hayley was about to go after her when she saw Mr. Dow exit the bar, rush forward, and put a hand around Kitally’s waist, leading her away, keeping her from falling on the sidewalk.

Figuring Kitally was putting on a show, Hayley grabbed the camera, zoomed in, and took a couple of pictures. When Kitally nearly toppled completely over, the sleazeball scooped her into his arms, his hands all over her as if he were trying to steady her.

Something was wrong with this picture. Kitally could handle her alcohol and this was no act, which meant Mr. Dow had slipped something into her drink.
Shit.

Hayley took another picture, then set her camera on the passenger seat and turned on the engine. When Mr. Dow pulled out onto the road, she was ready to go. She followed his black Mercedes to a stoplight. Although this had been the plan all along, the plan had not included the man slipping something into Kitally’s drink.

Her nerves were jangled. More than anything, she wanted to slam her car into the back of his shiny black luxury car. Instead, she held in her anger, determined not to lose her cool or, more importantly, Kitally.

When the light changed, the Mercedes shot away from her with a screech of wheels.

He was wise to her.

Hayley’s Chevy Impala was a piece of shit, but the tires and the suspension were solid, taking curbs as if they were nothing more than a rough patch of road. He was going close to sixty on a narrow street packed tight with cars parked on both sides. Usually she wouldn’t worry so much about Kitally. She was a tough girl. She could handle herself when she was sober, but not like this.

Hayley sped up, almost caught up to him when he took a sharp left.

More screeching of tires. She yanked hard on the wheel. Her Chevy felt as if it might topple. The road took her straight up a ridiculously steep hill. On both sides of her the landscape was open fields dotted with trees and shrubs and covered in waist-high grass after the recent rains. She knew this area. Although she’d never come this way, at the top of the small mountain was what the kids called Makeout Hill.

Her Chevy puttered a bit on the incline, and she lost sight of his taillights. She leaned forward, as though that might give the old car a little help.

As she continued up, she caught sight of a dark shadow heading downward through the middle of the hill to her left where there was no road to speak of, just a foot trail. His lights were off.
That son of a bitch!

An old, dilapidated wood fence was the only thing stopping Hayley from being able to do a little off-road driving and follow him.
To hell with it.
She turned off her headlights, then turned toward the fence, surprised when she was able to plow right through. The terrain was bumpy, but if she was careful not to hit any trees or rocks, she might be able to catch up to the asshole.

There he was. She caught a glint of chrome in the night and then could see the shadowy silhouette of his Mercedes hiding in the blackness beneath an oak tree with wild, gangly branches that shot out in every direction. Her lights still off, she banked sharply and shot toward him through the tall grass. She didn’t let up on the gas. Her body felt like a broken piston as she was joggled over the uneven ground; she could only hope nothing big enough to stop her was hidden in the grass. If he saw her coming, he certainly didn’t do anything about it. She ground her teeth together right before she rammed into the driver’s side of the Mercedes.

In the last instant before impact, it occurred to her that Kitally was in the car. She hit the brakes. Then the crash. And then silence and a bit of steam curling out from under the hood of her Chevy. Its engine stayed on, though. The thing was a tank. She threw it into park, grabbed her baton, and leaped from the car.

The air bag had not deployed, and she could see Dow behind the wheel. She tried to open the driver’s door, but it was locked. The window had cracked upon impact, and she only needed a little help from her baton to shatter glass.

Dow appeared dazed. A trickle of blood oozed down the side of his face, either from the Chevy’s impact or the flying glass from the shattered driver’s window.

She reached through the window, unlocked, and then yanked open the door. She grabbed a fistful of shirt and heaved him out onto the ground. For a few seconds, he remained facedown, eating dirt. He pushed the upper half of his body upward, seemed to gather his wits enough to feign outrage. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

It was all she could do not to permanently crease his head.

Instead, she pulled his keys out of the ignition and tossed them into the high grass. Then she opened the back door and saw Kitally crumpled on the floor.

Hayley touched her shoulder. “Kitally, are you all right?”

Kitally moaned.

She was alive. A spurt of relief was quickly replaced with raging hot fury.

Mr. Dow had managed to get to his feet.

“You sick fuck,” she said as she extended her baton and whipped him across the cheek. More blood. She didn’t care.

He held up both hands.

She smacked him across the wrist.

He was back on the ground, screaming in pain.

She raised the stick high in the air. “What did you give her?”

“Nothing, I swear.”

“Bullshit. Was it Rohypnol? Tell me what you gave her or I swear I’ll break both your legs.” She sighted down the baton at one of his knees, then raised the stick high again, ready to strike.

“Gamma 10. I didn’t give her much.”

Leaving him alone, she returned to Kitally, hooked the strap of her bag over her shoulder, and then pulled her outside into the fresh air. With one arm around Kitally’s waist, she led her, stumbling, through the high grass to the Chevy’s passenger door.

Once she had Kitally inside and the seatbelt latched, she got behind the wheel, turned on the headlights, backed away from the Mercedes, and drove slowly away, following the trail of flattened grass until she found the spot where she’d knocked over the fence.

Back on the road, she stopped to take a breath.

Kitally opened her eyes and groaned. “Did we get him?”

“Yeah,” Hayley said before driving off. “We got him good.”

CHAPTER 4

Jolted awake, Lizzy sat up in bed and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost eight in the morning. She hadn’t fallen asleep until well after three.

She could hear shouting downstairs. Cathy and Richard were fighting again.

Her eyelids felt heavy from lack of sleep. She couldn’t take any more of their crazy fights. Her sister’s ex-husband, Richard, was a bona fide dick. Her sister, Cathy, had zero confidence and couldn’t stand not having a man, so she’d allowed the two-timing son of a bitch back into her life. It was hard to conjure up much sympathy for her sister, though. No wonder her niece spent most weekends at her friend’s house.

Lizzy slid out of bed, went to the door, and opened it so she could hear what they were fighting about this time.

“I’m not going to tell you again,” Richard shouted. “You’re not going anywhere!”

“Please keep your voice down,” Cathy said. “Lizzy’s been to hell and back, and she’s finally resting.”

“I don’t give a shit. She’s been trying to drive a wedge between us since the beginning of time. And if you really want to end this discussion, all you have to do is call your friend and tell her you’re not going.”

“I don’t understand what your problem is. Just because
you
had an affair doesn’t mean I would do the same thing. I’m going shopping with Stella. You’ve met her before. You have nothing to worry about.”

“Stella is a slut. The only thing she’s shopping for is a man.”

“So what if she is? She’s single.”

“My mind’s made up. You’re not going.”

With a shake of her head, Lizzy turned back to the room where she’d been living for the past three weeks. What was she doing here? She needed to get out of here, find a hotel—anything but this. She thought about the house she’d shared with Jared. She wasn’t ready to go back there yet. Her therapist might think she was in denial about everything that had happened, but that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t in denial. She just had zero desire to spend time in a house that would bring back nothing but memories of her time with Jared. Despite wanting to hold out hope like everyone else, she knew what the deal was—Jared was in a vegetative state and would most likely never awake from a coma. As soon as the doctors made that official, she would do what they’d each promised the other they would do if this situation arose: sign the necessary papers that would let him slip away. Until then, though, she just wasn’t ready to think about a future without him. Given the line of work they were both in, she and Jared had talked many times about the possibility of something bad happening to one or the other. But that didn’t mean she wanted to live in the house they’d once shared and have the memories thrown in her face every time she turned around. When she was ready to deal with those emotions, she would go back to the house. Until then, she would find somewhere else to stay.

She replaced her T-shirt with a fresh one and slipped on a pair of jeans. She retrieved her suitcase from the closet, then opened the dresser drawers one at a time, gathered her belongings and tossed them into the luggage. Once her toiletries were packed up, she was ready to go. If Cathy wanted to live with the douche bag, let him boss her around and tell her when she could take a pee or go to the store, that was her problem. Lizzy refused to stay another minute under the same roof with that man.

She went to the window and looked out.

The street was quiet.

He
wasn’t there.

She had no idea who the dark figure was. She’d seen him watching her at Heather’s funeral and then at the hospital just the other day. All she knew about him so far was that he stood well over six feet, and that he was following her. Which gave her one more reason she needed to leave, since she didn’t want to put her sister or her niece in danger.

Lizzy snapped on her holster and gun, grabbed her suitcase, and headed down the stairs. She took quiet steps, figuring she wouldn’t bother saying goodbye since she didn’t want to get in the middle of their squabble. But the
SMACK
followed by glass shattering against the tile floor stopped her cold.

She set her suitcase at the bottom of the staircase and headed for the kitchen.

Richard had Cathy shoved against the refrigerator.

Red in the face, Cathy beat her fists against his chest, trying her best to get him off her.

A frenzy of emotion curled up inside Lizzy as she unlatched her gun from its holster.

“Lizzy, don’t.”

She shoved the barrel into the back of Richard’s head. “Get your hands off my sister or I’m going to blow your fucking head off.”

Seemingly unafraid, he let go of Cathy and turned on Lizzy instead. “You’re a psycho freak. Get out of my house or I’m calling the police.”

“This is my house, too,” Cathy said. “She can stay as long as she wants.”

Lizzy kept the gun aimed at him, but then she saw a family picture, Brittany front and center, smiling, happy to be with both of her parents. She sucked in a long breath and counted to three, something she often did when she needed to regroup and focus. Feeling defeated, she put the gun away and went to the phone instead. “I’ll call the police for you.”

“Please don’t,” Cathy said, her voice a whisper.

“What are you doing?” Lizzy asked her sister. “Do you really want this man knocking you around and telling you how to live your life?”

“This right here,” Richard said, motioning between the two sisters, “is what’s really fucked up.” He pulled his keys from his pants pocket. “I’m going for a ride so I can cool off. If you’re not here when I get back,” he told Cathy, “I’m having the locks changed.”

They watched him walk out the front door and slam it behind him.

Lizzy looked at her sister. “He’s hitting you now?”

“No, of course not.”

Lizzy shook her head. “Of course not. You have red indentations from his fingers on your neck after that little scene. And you don’t think I’ve noticed the fingerprints he leaves on your arms or the black-and-blue eyes beneath the dark sunglasses?”

Familiar silence fell between them.

Lizzy walked to the front door, picked up her suitcase, and added, “Brittany isn’t stupid, either. Your daughter knows exactly what’s going on. And this is
your
house, Cathy, not his. He gave up his rights a long time ago. Kick his ass out of here before one of you does something you’ll both regret.”