Almost Dead (27 page)

Lizzy took the knife from him, finished what he’d started. Then she put a hand on his shoulder before returning to Shelby and helping her to her feet. She and Jimmy had known each other for a while now. He had two daughters. He’d taken down his share of monsters. Hell, he’d survived cancer. But she knew why he was getting a little sentimental. He’d come to the hospital the other day to see Jared. And for the past ten minutes, he’d worried about Lizzy, too; she’d seen it scrawled in every line of his face before she’d walked off toward the cabin.

The nameless man in black who’d brought Lizzy halfway up the hill came inside then, made sure Lyle was contained/dead, and then told a dozen people behind him to hold off.

“How the hell did you take him down?” he asked Lizzy.

“Teamwork,” Lizzy said.

He lifted a questioning brow.

“This brave young girl caught him off guard, kicked him my way so I could use the shank hidden in my bra.”

“I thought I told you no weapons.”

“I believe you did.”

“It’s OK,” Martin told the man. “You didn’t know who you were dealing with. Lizzy Gardner doesn’t listen to anyone.”

CHAPTER 64

“How long are you planning on keeping me here? Holding me hostage in my own apartment?”

Hayley watched her smoke ring float upward. It made it within two inches from the ceiling before it disintegrated. “This apartment does not belong to you,” she told the scumbag.

“Then why are all of my belongings in here?”

“Because the law-abiding citizens of Sacramento pay taxes, this apartment belongs to the taxpayers.” Hayley took another long drag on her cigarette and then said, “I pay taxes, so we’ll just agree that this is
my
apartment. And I want it back.”

He chuckled. “You’re going to get caught, and they’ll put you behind bars where you belong.”

“And who, exactly, is going to catch me?”

“My probation officer,” he said smugly. “She has a thing for me.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod, “that’s right. What day is it?”

“Thursday.”

He licked his lips. “She’ll be coming around later today to get laid. She likes it hard and fast, right against the wall over there.”

“Too bad for her.”

“Why’s that?”

“Unless she has a key to your place, she won’t even realize you’re home.”

“She’ll see my car parked outside. That’ll be enough to make her kick the door down if she has to.”

“Your car isn’t out there. Remember the underage girl you were going to rape before I interrupted your little party?”

“You’re talking gibberish. That girl was at least twenty-five, and she climbed into my car of her own will.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Well, good, because the truth shall set you free,” Hayley said, then coaxed out another smoke ring and watched it roll up toward the ceiling. This time it made it all the way before it vanished. When she looked back at him, he seemed uncharacteristically agitated. “What is it?”

He was trying to wriggle free, but that wasn’t going to happen. Hayley had used his own personal roll of duct tape that she’d found in his car to bind him to the radiator.

Thank God for old buildings. Nothing like a cast-iron radiator to anchor a hostage securely.

His ankles were also duct-taped, but they weren’t attached to anything, and he kept kicking the floor, which was why she’d also duct-taped his calves and feet to a pillow. The hollow thumps he raised with all his thrashing were comical.

“Where are the keys to my car? If you did anything with my ride, I’ll be forced to fuck you in the ass.” His face reddened; his brow scrunched as he struggled to get loose. “I’m going to make you pay, you motherfucking bitch of a whore.”

Hayley smiled. “You are a ballsy one, aren’t you? All tied up and making threats.”

“You’re going to regret ever showing your face to me. I’ll make sure of that.”

“That’s my line.” She stood and made her way into his bedroom. On top of all its other odors, the room smelled moldy. The stench was nearly unbearable. She needed to step up her pace and get this over with. On top of his dresser she found another roll of duct tape, ropes, a dildo the size of a small cannon.
What a fucker.

“You never told me what you did with my car! Get back in here right now and tell me where it is.”

He was becoming belligerent. She never should have removed the duct tape from his mouth.

She left his room and made her way to the kitchen, grabbed a plastic bag filled with a few random grocery items, dumped everything out into the sink, and then realized the plastic bag was too thin. She looked through a few more drawers until she found a thicker bag used for weeds and debris. She walked back into the room, where he was still thrashing about, and then pulled up a chair in front of him and took a seat.

“OK,” she said. “Let’s start. Tell me: Why do you rape people?”

“You are fucking insane. Let me go right now, and I’ll consider not pressing charges.”

“You’ve said it yourself,” Hayley went on. “You’re easy on the eyes; you know a thing or two about carpentry. Overall, I think we’d both agree that you could have a decent life. Is it about power?”

“Fucking cunts—all of you. Every woman I’ve ever fucked wanted it. Wanted it bad, enjoyed every minute. You’re no different than the rest of them.”

“You know damn well that no woman would want you. That’s why you have to drink and do drugs and go for the women you know you can easily manipulate and control.”

“You’re as stupid as the rest of them. You think I care what you say?”

“I’m going to give you one more chance to explain why you do what you do. Make it good, because somebody needs to stop you from raping women, and I really don’t want it to be me.”

“I don’t do anything the guy next door doesn’t do. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. Go fuck yourself.”

“Tell that to the eighty-two-year-old widow you left with broken ribs and bite marks. According to the newspaper, you kicked the shit out of her and spent three hours forcing her to carry out perverted sex acts.”

“That stupid bitch loved every minute of it. You should have heard her. She kept begging for more, practically wept with joy.”

“You really are one of a kind. And you’ve made it very clear. You’ll never stop degrading women, hurting people, making everyone else pay for your inner pain. You deserve to die.”

Hayley took in a sharp breath as she came to her feet and readied the bag.

“What’s that for?”

“You’ve given me no choice.”

“I do it for the fucking thrill,” he said, panic lining his voice. “There. I answered your question. Happy?”

Hayley set the bag to the side and ripped off two pieces of duct tape. She put one piece of tape over his nostrils.

“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “People have sex all the time.”

“Rape isn’t sex.”

“I bet you’ve been raped. And you liked it, didn’t you? I saw you watching the other night. You could have stopped me sooner, but you were enjoying yourself.”

“You’ve said enough.” She pressed the other piece of tape over his mouth.

The man was almost dead the minute she’d watched him carry the young girl into this dump, but he didn’t get that. He didn’t understand that Hayley didn’t have a choice. It had taken her years to come to grips with the fact that the police wouldn’t or couldn’t do anything about scumbags like him. It was up to her to stop him. She put the bag over his head and sealed it tightly around his neck.

He was screaming now, or trying to. His high-pitched shrieks were muffled beneath the tape. She forced herself to watch, waited until the deed was done, until he fell silent once and for all.

She wasn’t proud of what she’d done, but he needed to be stopped.

After she cut him loose from the radiator, she made sure everything she had touched was wiped clean and in its place, keenly aware of her actions, knowing she was walking a very fine line between reality and insanity. Between life and death. Between good and evil. But it couldn’t be any other way. She’d known that when she was twelve and her mother’s boyfriend had curled up next to her in bed and taken away her innocence along with her choice to choose a different path.

Deep down, she’d known all along that it couldn’t have ended any other way.

She stepped out into the night, didn’t pause to take a breath. She walked onward, head held high as she let go of the past—the burning anger that came with sadness, hurt, and blame flittered away like moths. It was time to move on.

CHAPTER 65

Lizzy sat in the corner of the hospital room where she had been for the past three days, ever since Dr. Calloway had called to let her know that Jared’s family had indeed gotten a second and third opinion and had decided to no longer fight Jared’s directive.

All ventilators and equipment had been removed from Jared’s room that same day. No more IV. No more tubes entering and exiting his body.

From that moment on, the warring parties had laid down their arms and shared their vigil at Jared’s bedside. Few words were spoken, but they’d treated each other gently over the past three days, bringing each other food and coffee, taking turns in the bedside chairs.

They were all there this morning: Jared’s father, mother, and sister in the chairs surrounding his bed, and Lizzy watching on from her seat in the corner.

Lizzy hadn’t realized until they unhooked Jared from the machines that she, too, had been hoping for a miracle—they all had. But now it occurred to her that perhaps the miracle was that she and Jared had found each other at all.

And then, after all the long waiting, it happened.

A heart-wrenching sob broke from Michael Shayne. Jared’s father stood so abruptly his chair fell over behind him as he bolted from the room. Jared’s sister followed her father out.

Jared’s mother brushed her son’s hair back from his forehead and kissed him lightly there, then looked across the room at Lizzy and gave one subtle nod of her head.

Was it over? It couldn’t be.

Eyes wide and fearful, heart pounding, Lizzy made her way across the room. She slipped her hand into Jared’s. He looked so peaceful, so beautiful.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. And then, without a word, his mother left Lizzy alone with the only man she had ever loved. She crawled into the bed with Jared, wrapped her arms around him, and held him close.

Thirty-six hours after Jared’s passing, Lizzy pulled up to the house she and Jared had once shared, turned off the engine, and sat quietly for a moment, hoping the chill coming through her open window would freeze her insides and put her into an unceasing state of numbness.

She hadn’t been back to the house since her wedding day.

It didn’t feel right coming here.

The house felt like sacred grounds, and she was about to trespass.

Jared had always been fond of telling her she was the strongest person he knew. For the first time since he’d fallen into a coma, she saw him in her mind’s eye. He was smiling at her, his eyes glimmering. She saw him clearly, so clearly she reached out to touch him, her heart beating rapidly against her chest.

But the tips of her fingers brushed against cold glass.

His image disappeared as quickly as it had come, but she was grateful to have seen him again, reminding her of happier times, if just for an instant.

She exited the car, her feet heavy—each step wearisome.

A white iris had bloomed despite the wintry cold—more than one. Somebody had been watering the plants.

She inhaled, aware of the air filling her lungs. She wanted nothing more than to turn around, get into her car, and never come back here. But this had to be done. Now. She couldn’t allow anyone else to go through Jared’s things. It took her a moment to find the right key on her ring. Her fingers clamped tightly around the handle, she pushed the door open.

Filtered daylight came through half-open blinds.

She stepped inside, expelled a long breath as she shut the door behind her. Not only had someone watered the plants outside; they had cleaned the inside of the house, too. The carpet was marked with perfectly even streaks from a vacuum. The house smelled like lavender, the kind that came from a can of room freshener. Nothing could cover up the familiar smell of
their
house, though, the house she and Jared had shared together.

They had sat on that very couch, drank wine, nibbled on cheese and crackers, and talked through the night. She could hear his voice, the laughter they’d shared. There had been many serious talks, too, conversations about what the future might bring.

She swallowed.

After setting her things on the coffee table, she made her way upstairs.

The bed was neatly made. More vacuum lines.

The closet door had been left open. Jared’s shoes were lined on the shelf above a row of starched buttoned-up shirts.

She walked to his side of the bed, pulled his pillow out from under the covers, and held it to her nose, trying to breathe in his scent, praying she would find some small remnant that told her she wasn’t imagining anything . . . the two of them, for a short moment in time, had had it all.

“Jared,” she said, her legs quaking before she fell to her knees by the side of the bed. “I can’t do it,” she cried. “I can’t go on without you.”

Tears held back for much too long came flooding forth.

Jared Shayne meant the world to her.

Jared understood her.

The fact that dreams of the life they would share together would never be fulfilled was too much to comprehend. She gulped for breath between sobs. Her arms curled around her waist, and she rocked.

While a future without Jared was not something she could consciously envision, in her dreams, she could see that world very clearly, and it was not a pretty sight. The world Lizzy inhabited had always been dark, but without Jared it was colorless—a vast expanse of scorched hillsides and splintered trees, a world without hope.

Lizzy wasn’t sure how long she remained on the floor, wrapped in grief, but it was quite a while before she could breathe normally.

She pushed herself to her feet, using the bed frame for support, and barely made it to the bathroom in time to puke until she had nothing left. She rinsed her mouth and washed her hands.

She walked back into the bedroom, glanced at the row of Jared’s shoes in his closet and then at the bed. Leaving the pillow where it lay on the floor, she worked the key to the house from her key ring and dropped it on top of the bed.

She left the bedroom, couldn’t stand to see any more.

With quiet steps, she made her way down the stairs, grabbed her bag, walked out the door and across the pathway to her car. She made no effort to extend so much as a backward glance before she climbed in behind the wheel.

They could do whatever they wanted with the house.

Burn it down.

She didn’t care.

With no clear idea of where she was going, she drove off. Not into the sunset but into the unknown—a black hole where no light could be found, only bleakness.