Almost Dead (20 page)

CHAPTER 46

“Where’s Kitally?” Lizzy asked, looking out the window toward the cars parked outside the downtown office. “Did she know we had a meeting planned?”

“She knew about it. I’ll give her a call.” Hayley left a message on Kitally’s cell, then hung up.

“I have class in an hour,” Lizzy said, “and I need to go over a few things, so we’ll have to do this without her.”

“OK, what’s first on the agenda?”

“I have good news and bad news.”

“Let’s start with the good.”

Lizzy opened the newspaper. There was an eight-by-ten picture of Jacque Victoria Mason, her dog, Gracie, and Kitally. The headline read, “New Hero! Pet Detective Saves Pug!”

Hayley smiled.

“The article talks about Kitally being the new pet detective in town. It’s great publicity.”

“We’re never going to hear the end of this from Kitally, you know?”

“I know.”

“So, now for the bad news.”

“The Dow case,” Lizzy said and then watched Hayley closely. Not too surprisingly, Hayley didn’t so much as flinch.

“What about it?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Dow have filed a suit against us.”

“On what grounds?”

“Mr. Dow claims you ruined his Mercedes and broke his arm. He’s claiming damages of over one hundred thousand dollars.”

“He’s an idiot.”

Lizzy tapped her pencil against the desk. “Did you drive your Chevy into his Mercedes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you use your stick on him?”

“It’s an expandable baton.”

“Did you use your expandable baton on Mr. Dow?”

“Yes.” Hayley stood. “I’ll be right back.”

Lizzy nodded. Waited.

Hayley returned with a file and a mini-cassette recorder. She set the recorder on Lizzy’s desk and pushed Play.

For the first minute or two, there was nothing more than muffled noises. Then they heard a man scream out in pain.

Lizzy winced.

The next voice was Hayley’s. “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.”

“Gamma 10,” the man blurted. “I didn’t give her much.”

More muffled sounds, car doors opening and closing.

Hayley hit the Off button and then opened the file and handed Lizzy photographs she’d taken of Mr. Dow exiting the club and then Mr. Dow helping Kitally outside the bar.

Lizzy leaned back in her chair. “Why is this the first I’ve heard of Kitally being drugged and taken captive? Not to mention you crashing into the man’s car?”

“You’ve been busy.”

Lizzy eyed her for a moment, then shrugged and said, “I’ll give his wife a call, tell her what we have, and see if she wants to come have a listen for herself. We’ll see where we go from here.”

“Any luck with the Shelby Geitner case?” Hayley asked.

“Not so far. Apparently Shelby has a friend who told Detective Chase that Shelby was spending time with a new boy in town. Nobody seems to know anything about him. As soon as I can figure out who the source of this new information is, I plan to get to the bottom of it. In the meantime, we’ll keep the cameras rolling around the perimeter of Kitally’s house and see if anything turns up.”

Hayley nodded.

“In other news,” Lizzy said, “Pam Middleton called today.”

Hayley sighed. “How’s her daughter doing?”

“Not well. And she’s not going to get any better unless a miracle happens and Christina Bradley decides to help her.”

“How’s Mrs. Middleton holding up?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess,” Lizzy said. “It’s tough to imagine what that might feel like—having a daughter so sick, and knowing there’s one person in the entire world who might be able to save her, but there’s nothing she can do to make it happen.”

“Maybe we should say screw it and give her Christina Bradley’s telephone number and place of work.”

Lizzy shook her head. “It would be unethical. And it wouldn’t guarantee a happy ending, in any case.”

“I have to say, I am surprised,” Hayley said. “I really thought Christina would step up to the plate and try to save her little sister. I guess I read her wrong.”

Lizzy knew what Hayley meant about reading people wrong. Lizzy had been off her game for a while now. It took her much too long to figure things out lately, even when the answer was right there in front of her, staring at her like an old cat, just waiting to be paid some attention.

The silence stretched out between them until it was deafening. Lizzy tapped her pencil against her desk and then heard herself say, “I miss hearing his voice.”

“I know,” Hayley said. And for the first time in forever, the tough girl looked slightly uncomfortable. “I miss him, too.”

“I don’t even know why I said that,” Lizzy said. “It does no possible good.
Talk.
Everybody wants me to talk about it.” She shook her head. “All I know is it’s not real. Not to me.”

Hayley gave her a nod of understanding.

“I’m feeling so damned helpless,” Lizzy said next. “Shelby’s out there somewhere. But where? Here we are, sitting in a warm office while she’s out there with some lunatic. And then what about the kill list? Two people on the list are still alive, but for how long? And what are we supposed to do about it? I can’t exactly move in with them. I feel as if my hands are tied.”

“I still can’t believe the authorities fell for the snake scene,” Hayley said. “It was
so
obviously staged. Two people don’t sit down to watch television and then let their longtime pet snakes sneak up on them. It’s ridiculous.”

The door to the office opened, and a young woman walked inside at the same moment the phone rang.

Lizzy picked up the call while Hayley went to talk to the woman.

“Is this Lizzy Gardner?”

“This is her,” Lizzy said into the receiver.

“This is Sandy, Dean Newman’s girlfriend.”

“Hi, Sandy. What’s going on? Did you hear from Dean?”

“No. He still hasn’t come home. I’ve been looking through his things, trying to find any clue that might tell me where he is. It took me a while to find his passwords. I finally found them, though. Long story short, I found a list of the people he planned to apologize to. I thought you might be interested in seeing the list.” The woman’s voice cracked. She was crying. “Are you still looking for Dean?”

“I am,” Lizzy told her. “The list that you have . . . can you email it to me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“My email is on the card I left with you. Do you still have my card?”

“I do. I’m looking at it right now.”

“If you could forward the list, that would be a big help.”

“You will call me, won’t you? You know . . . if you find Dean . . . you’ll call me?”

Lizzy cradled the phone. “Of course I will. You’ll be the first one I call.”

“Thank you.”

Lizzy hung up the phone. Dean Newman was dead, and they both knew it.

“Lizzy,” Hayley called from the door, “this is Christina Bradley, the person Pam Middleton has been looking for.”

Lizzy walked up to Christina and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” the young woman said. It was hard for Lizzy to get a fix on her attitude, beyond the fact that she looked as if she hadn’t slept in a week.

Hayley said, “Christina just told me that after I paid her a visit at the day care center, she went straightaway to a private lab to have blood work done. She just got the results back from the lab.”

Judging by the expressions on their faces, it wasn’t good. God, when would all this end? How would she break the news to Mrs. Middleton? How in the world do you tell someone that all hope is lost?

But then Hayley smiled, an occurrence so rare it never failed to take Lizzy by surprise.

“Looks like she’s a match,” Hayley said.

Chills swept over Lizzy. She looked at the girl standing next to Hayley, peered into her clear blue eyes, and realized she didn’t need to ask the question. The answer was right there in Christina’s eyes, shining as brightly as the northern lights. Christina Bradley was going to do everything she could to save Pam Middleton’s younger daughter . . . her sister by blood.

CHAPTER 47

Kitally huddled in the corner of the room, shivering and humming.

She wrapped her arms around her legs, as though that would actually warm her. She had no idea how much time had passed. She had kicked and clawed at every wall in the room, but these walls weren’t made of plaster and drywall. They were solid cinder block.

Mr. Chalkor had apparently gone out of his way to find the ideal place to keep her hostage.

What kind of monster was she dealing with?

Was he going to come back?

Was this his way of teaching her a lesson?

What if he didn’t come back?

Was she going to die in this tiny room?

She had no water, no food. She wouldn’t last more than three days without water—four or five, if luck was on her side. But how would anyone find her?

Her car.

They’d find her car. That might be her only chance. But then she remembered that she had driven here in her mom’s car. Her mom wouldn’t know she was missing for another week, when she and Kitally’s father returned from their trip.

If Hayley or Lizzy reported her missing and the police found Kitally’s car, it would be parked safely at her parents’ home.

Nobody would know to look for her mom’s car.

She raked her hands through her hair and then fiddled with her dread as though it were rosary beads. Looking heavenward, she realized she might see her brother, Liam, sooner than she thought.

Lizzy tossed and turned. It was no use. She couldn’t sleep. She got up, put on a terry cloth robe over her T-shirt and sweats and headed out of her room and down the stairs. On her way to the home office, she stepped into Kitally’s room. Looked around. The bed was made. The cat was curled into a ball on the middle of the mattress.

Kitally had not returned.

In the office, she turned on one small lamp on the desk and opened her laptop. As soon as it booted up, she took another look at the list of people Dean Newman planned to apologize to. There were forty-four people on his list—thirty-three women and eleven men.

What the hell did he do to all these people?

Once again she pulled out the list of suspects Melony Reed had given her. Not one person on Melony’s list of people whom she thought might seek revenge matched the list of people Dean Newman felt he needed to apologize to.

Damn.

What sort of club would purposely set out to mess with so many people?

She decided to combine the two lists and then, assuming the woman who had called her twice now was the person responsible for the deaths of the Ambassador Club, she would concentrate on the women first.

Joan Liskie.

She typed the name into her database. The woman had a record. Two DUIs and at the moment she was in jail for armed robbery. Joan had no background in anything to do with toxic chemicals or poisons. In fact, she never did graduate from high school.

Lizzy crossed Joan off the list.

An hour later, she had crossed off ten more names.

The twelfth female on the list: Dana Kohl.

Lizzy yawned, kept on typing, searching, reading. Dana had married her high school sweetheart, then divorced three years later. She was a biochemical engineer. Lizzy sat up straight.
Bingo.

“She’s still not home.”

Lizzy’s head snapped up. Her hand flew to her heart. “You scared me.”

“Didn’t mean to,” Hayley said. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes. Kitally hasn’t returned. I’ve left a few messages for her, but her phone must be shut off. I’m not getting a read on the GPS tracking application she downloaded on my iPhone.”

“Yeah, her phone is definitely off. Something’s not right. I called her parents’ number. No answer there, either. I’m going to take a drive to their house in El Dorado Hills.”

“It’s not even four in the morning. Some people shut their phones off for the night.”

“Yeah, some people do. But we won’t know for sure until I go there.”

Lizzy had never seen Hayley look so worried . . . or so tired. “Give me a call when you get there, will you?”

Hayley nodded and headed out.

CHAPTER 48

Lizzy said goodbye and hung up the phone. Hayley had found Kitally’s car parked at her parents’ house in El Dorado Hills, but no one was home. What to do about it? Lizzy’s mind drew a great big blank, a common occurrence of late.

She was halfway through the combined list of names of possible suspects in the Ambassador Club killings, and still the only name that stood out was Dana Kohl. Lizzy decided to pay her a visit. If she waited until eight o’clock and called Detective Chase, he would simply tell her they didn’t have the manpower to send someone to the woman’s house. Lizzy couldn’t just sit there and wait for the killer to take out another person.

Lizzy rubbed her eyes.

It felt as if she might never sleep through the night again.

Kitally was missing. Shelby was missing. A serial killer was getting away with murder. The entire world had shifted and was crumbling beneath her feet. She pushed away from the chair, grabbed a sweatshirt and her keys, and headed out.

Lizzy’s navigation system delivered her to Dana Kohl’s house in less than twenty minutes. She climbed out of her car, didn’t bother peeking through the windows or checking the backyard. She just walked up the flagstone path to the front entry and knocked three times.

She heard footfalls and then a woman’s voice ask, “Who is it?”

“Lizzy Gardner, private investigator.”

“You do realize it’s five in the morning?”

Lizzy stiffened. That voice. It was
her
—hearing the killer’s voice on the other side of the door jolted her. “It couldn’t be helped,” Lizzy told the woman as she reached for the gun in her holster. “It’s very important that I talk to you right away.”

Surprisingly, Dana Kohl opened her door.

Lizzy took full advantage of her carelessness and muscled her way inside. It would be months before Detective Chase decided to do anything about the Ambassador Club killer. Unlike the detective, Lizzy refused to sit on her hands and do nothing. She’d find proof that Kohl was her killer, and she’d find it now.

Asking questions would be a waste of time. Kohl would only lie to her face.

With her gun pointed at the ground, Lizzy went through the house, one room at a time: the living area, the dining room, the kitchen. She opened and closed drawers, looked inside the refrigerator and the dishwasher, anywhere she thought Dana Kohl might be hiding her collection of poisons or toxins.

Kohl had been chattering along after her every step of the way. Now, as Lizzy started toward the hallway to the bedrooms, she threw herself in Lizzy’s path. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, I’m getting warm, then,” Lizzy said, pushing past her. “I know who you are,” she said as she started down the hall. “I know what you’ve done.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Ambassador Club,” Lizzy said, refusing to stop and chat. The first bedroom gave up nothing. “Don’t play coy with me.”

“I want you out of my house this minute.”

“When were you planning on striking again? What were you going to use this time?” She was in the bathroom now. Small quantities of common prescription meds. Aspirin. The usual stuff. No, Kohl wouldn’t be stupid enough to store her supplies in there.

Again Kohl blocked her path, this time in the bathroom doorway. “You think I had something to do with those people’s deaths?”

“If you didn’t, I guess you wouldn’t mind if I checked the rest of your house, would you?”

The woman stepped back and pointed toward the front door. “Get out.”

“Just as I thought.” Lizzy headed down the hallway. She heard the woman pick up the phone and then pretend to call 911. “A woman claiming to be Lizzy Gardner has forced her way into my home. She is carrying a gun. She’s clearly out of her mind. Please send help!”

Lizzy opened hallway closet doors as she went. Nothing.

There was an empty guestroom.

Nothing there.

The next room to the right was a home office. Again, Lizzy rifled through drawers, looked under furniture, searched through closets.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

The woman was still on the phone, explaining what Lizzy was doing, step by step. She was almost convincing.

Another closet. Lizzy put the gun in her holster and made quick work of checking coat pockets. She stood on her tiptoes and checked the shelves, rummaged through boxes and a shopping bag. Again, there was nothing unusual—no weapons or wigs, pills or chemicals.

In the master bedroom, she found baby aspirin and sleep medication. It wasn’t until she got on all fours and crawled under the bed and found a steel box that her adrenaline kicked up another notch.

She slid it out from under the bed, came to her feet, and used her boot to stomp on the lock. The box came open. Inside was a revolver and enough pill bottles to drug the entire block.

Sirens sounded. Less than a minute later, she heard loud footfalls.

“Drop the gun and put your hands up where we can see them. Now!”

Dana Kohl really had made the call. There were actual cops in the doorway.

Lizzy lifted both hands. “My gun is in my holster.”

One of the officers kept his gun pointed at her chest. “I want you on your knees with your hands in the air! Now!”

She dropped to her knees. “Listen to me. That woman, Dana Kohl, is a cold-blooded killer. You’re talking to the wrong person.”

“Put both hands flat on the floor! One wrong move and I’ll shoot.”

She started to protest.

“Now!”

She did as he said.

The officer straddled her and patted her down. He took her gun from her holster and then pushed her chest flat against the carpet. She could feel his knee in her backside while he finished his search.

“There’s a gun and poisons in that box over there,” Lizzy said, her voice half muffled in the carpet. “Those belong to Dana Kohl. You’ve got the wrong person.”

Her hands were pulled behind her back and handcuffs snapped in place.

Another officer yanked her to her feet and escorted her out of the bedroom and down the hall.

Dana Kohl stood in the living room, a trembling hand on her chest.

If Lizzy hadn’t seen the gun and enough pills to take out an army, the look in the woman’s eyes might have made her question herself.