by T. R. Ragan
Jessica Pleiss, psychology student at Sacramento State and brand new intern that Lizzy didn’t need or want, but who she’d “hired” because Jessica had a knack for talking people into things they didn’t need or want, dropped her hands to her side and said, “Jersey didn’t work out, so I thought I’d spend my week off from school organizing these files. Did I leave the door open again?”
Lizzy nodded, too tired and too cold to bother lecturing the girl.
Jessica bent down to gather the papers she’d scattered across the floor. The girl had only been working with Lizzy for six weeks—and only when Jessica’s busy schedule permitted, which wasn’t often. Mostly Jessica ran to Starbucks and got them lattes and mochas.
Now that Lizzy thought about it, the girl was costing her more money than she was worth...or could afford.
Jessica pushed herself to her feet. “That gun’s not real, is it?”
Lizzy had already put the gun away. She nodded. “It’s real.”
“Cool. It’s probably a good thing you carry one, considering all the weirdos you work for.”
Lizzy didn’t know which of her clients Jessica referred to, but neither did she care. She also knew she should probably ask Jessica why her trip to Jersey hadn’t worked out—boyfriend problems, lack of funds perhaps—but she really didn’t want this “relationship” to turn into some kind of girly-girl, talky-talk social thing. Although Jessica had school and homework and family, underneath it all, she was clearly a needy, lonely young woman.
It took one to know one.
Lizzy didn’t want anyone looking up to her, counting on her, confiding in her, because sooner or later that person might really need her, and then what the hell would she do? She’d feel guilty, that’s what. And feeling guilty was right up there with always being cold. And afraid. It sucked.
Lizzy headed back to the front room. “So, did we get any phone calls?”
“Two. Mrs. Kirkpatrick from Granite Bay High School wanted to know if you could give a talk to three hundred students. And a guy named Victor called—wouldn’t give his last name. He asked a lot of questions about hiring somebody to follow his wife. I told him we didn’t do that sort of thing, but he’s one of those guys who can’t seem to take no for an answer.”
We? The girl hadn’t yet clocked in twenty hours and she was already using sentences with we. “Did he leave a number?”
“Nope. He said he’d call back later.”
Five hours later, Jessica was gone and Lizzy was typing in her journal for the day. She didn’t like writing down her feelings, but her sister had asked, make that begged, her to give it a try. Write anything you want, Cathy had said. Anything at all. Let it all hang out. Okay, Lizzy thought, here goes.
Day Five: I hate writing in this journal. It’s cold and foggy today. Not misty fog but the thick kind you can’t see through. I prefer the other sort.
This wasn’t a journal—it was a damn weather report.
I really like the sign my sister had professionally etched on my door. It’s real nice.
Lizzy chewed on her pencil as she thought about what to type next, and then dropped her fingers to the keyboard.
There’s this girl taking my defense class. Her name is Hayley Hansen. She’s tough. I like her. She reminds me of me. What’s not to like?
She stared at the screen and tapped her fingers on her desk. She was getting really good at making a galloping noise with her fingertips. She sighed, and forced her fingers to the keyboard.
Writing in a journal sucks big wampums. How is typing “this sucks” over and over every single day going to help me become whole again? Was I ever whole? Who knows. Until next time, Liz.
Lizzy hit the Save button, shut off the computer, and breathed a sigh of relief. Writing in a journal came just under sitting alone in the dark when it came to the list of things she didn’t like to do.
The screen turned black.
Cathy was right. Lizzy felt better already. Not because of anything she’d written, but because she was finished writing in her journal for the day.
Lizzy snorted and tossed the pencil into the jar. The phone rang. She picked up the receiver and listened to a man ask for her by name. “Yes, this is her. What can I do for you?”
Hmmm. It was Victor, the caller Jessica had mentioned earlier. Lizzy propped her feet on her desk. “Yes,” she answered, “Jessica told me you called. I’m afraid I’m not going to be able—three hundred dollars a day?” She raised her legs and plopped her feet to the ground, listening to Victor rattle on about his wife and his daughter. Lizzy didn’t do domestic cases. Mostly because they made her feel anxious, bad, and depressed. She did car accident investigations and product liability cases. Slip and falls were her favorite—helping companies deal with people who went around the country pouring oil on the floor, then slipping and falling and pretending to be hurt so they could sue large companies for even larger sums of money.
But a girl had to eat. And she’d have to be pretty stupid to turn down three hundred dollars a day to sit in her car all day and watch a woman betray her husband. Lizzy grabbed a half-chewed pencil from the jar and took notes while he talked. When he was finished she said, “Why don’t you give me a cell phone number where I can reach you. I’ll sleep on it and call you in the morning.”
“I’ll call back in a few days,” Victor said. A click and a proceeding dial tone followed.
“Okay, never mind, Victor. Don’t give me your number. And maybe I won’t sleep on it.” She hung up the phone.
She read over her notes. Victor said he was an attorney. He talked like an attorney—fast and full of himself.
Lizzy shrugged. Something told her he wouldn’t be calling back. She crumpled the note and tossed it in the wastebasket under her desk, then leaned back in her chair. Her gaze connected with her desk drawer. The same drawer where she kept all her private files...all of her secrets.
The phone rang again. She let it ring for a moment, and then picked it up on the fifth ring. “Listen, Victor, I don’t appreciate your hanging up on me.”
“I’ve missed you, Lizzy.”
It definitely wasn’t Victor. “Who’s this?”
“You promised you’d never leave me.”
A cold chill swept over her. “Who is this?” she asked again.
“Because of you, nobody’s safe, Lizzy.”
She kept the phone to her ear, but didn’t say a word. Instinctively, she reached for her Glock and looked out the window. Her gaze swept over the gray building across the street, and then over the cars parked at the curb—all empty. About a block away, a woman exited a hair salon, pulled keys from her purse, climbed into her BMW and drove away. Whoever was on the other end of the wire was still there. She could hear his faint breathing.
She held the mouth piece away and took a deep breath, regained control of herself. “Is this you, Spiderman?”
A short caustic laugh sounded on the other end of the line before he said, “You shouldn’t have gotten away, Lizzy, and you never should have taken something that didn’t belong to you. Too bad your mother didn’t teach you any manners before she moved so far away. If I’d known you were a liar and a thief, I would have taken care of you long ago.”
The line went dead.
“Shit.”
She yanked open her bottom drawer and retrieved a file. She opened it and skimmed page after page of notes. Why couldn’t she remember details of her time with that crazy man? What did he look like? All she had to do was close her eyes to remember waking up in the room with an aquarium full of spiders and then finding that poor little girl...and almost escaping. Almost. Close, but no cigar. Why hadn’t she looked at the couch before she ran out the sliding glass door with that girl? If she had noticed he was no longer sleeping, she could have thrown a chair through the front window or maybe found a telephone to call for help.
She clamped her eyes shut. She could have locked him out of his own damn house. But she hadn’t done any of those things.
And now all of those days spent with him...all that time...the two months following her attempt at escape were as thick and hazy in Lizzy’s mind as the fog outside her window. Two months of hell, and yet the only time she saw glimpses of the horror she experienced was at night, after she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer.
Chapter 4
Monday, February 15, 2010 4:00 PM
Back at her apartment, Lizzy opened the door and looked inside. She readied her gun as she listened and waited.
The only sounds were the padded footfalls of her cat, Maggie.
“Meow.”
Her sister Cathy did not like Lizzy living alone, so she’d given Lizzy a cat as a birthday present two years ago. Lizzy hadn’t wanted a cat, and she had done everything in her power to keep her distance from Maggie, refusing to let the animal anywhere near her bedroom for the first six months. But Maggie was a determined feline, and she had persevered, making a permanent home for herself on a wide cushiony chair in the corner of Lizzy’s bedroom. It was Maggie’s chair now. Maggie was her alarm clock, too, waking Lizzy up every morning at six o’clock, give or take a few minutes.
It irked her to know Cathy had been right. Again. Because the truth was, Lizzy didn’t know what she would do without Maggie. Maggie had become her friend, her family, her life...yet one more reason why she still needed therapy.
Maggie circled her ankles, wrapping her tail around Lizzy’s leg as she meowed. She was hungry.
“Any visitors today, Maggie?”
“Meow.”
Lizzy stepped inside and flicked on the light. “Okay, if you say so.” She locked the door, latched the chain and slid one of the deadbolts into place.
The phone rang.
She jerked about and aimed her gun at the phone on the kitchen counter. Swallowing the knot lodged in her throat, Lizzy moved slowly toward the phone. For a moment, she just watched it ring. Finally, she decided to ignore the incessant ringing of the phone and feed Maggie instead.
She laid the gun on the counter and opened the refrigerator door, determined not to worry about who might be calling. Let it go, she told herself, afraid of what would happen if she allowed herself to believe Spiderman was back.
Retrieving an open can of cat food from the second shelf, she used a fork to scoop out the rest of the can onto a glass dish. She even hummed a little tune while she worked. The ringing finally stopped.
Thank God.
“There you go, sweetie.” She stroked Maggie’s soft fur.
The phone rang again.
Damn.
“Okay, Spiderman,” she said aloud. “Let’s have it out once and for all.” She picked up the receiver. “What do you want!”
“Lizzy, is that you? It’s Jared.”
She couldn’t think. She was a jumble of nerves. “Jared Shayne?”
“That’s the one. Lizzy, how are you?”
A wave of emotion swept over her. She hadn’t seen Jared in a very long time. Maybe a dozen times since Spiderman bashed her over the head and took her to his lair fourteen years ago. She’d gotten away from him, too. After spending two months in hell, she’d gotten away by using her brain. Mostly she’d used words, lots of words. All bullshit. She’d made the killer think she honestly cared about him, the oldest trick in the book, and then she’d gotten away.
And now, only weeks after her therapist said she was seeing progress, Spiderman called. And now Jared was calling her, too. Coincidence? Or just bad timing? Maybe if she could get more than two hours sleep at night she might be able to function like a regular human being.
She rubbed her temples. Night after night she heard nothing but endless moaning, crying, sawing, and drilling. There was nothing she could do about it then, and there was nothing she could do about it now.
“Lizzy, are you there?”
Every single day she asked herself the same bullshit question: what would it take for her to be able to lead a so-called normal life? And every day she came up with the same answer: she wasn’t going to get any sleep until she knew for sure that Spiderman was dead.
“Lizzy?”
“I’m sorry, Jared. Is it really you?”
“It’s me, Lizzy. I’m sorry I haven’t called before now. How are you?”
After returning from the bowels of hell, she’d told Jared to leave her alone. For the first six months, he’d ignored her request and stayed at her side, day and night. But in the end, he’d given up and did as she asked. “I’m great,” she lied.
There was a pause before he said, “I’m glad. It’s good to hear your voice. Unfortunately, I’m calling because we’ve got a situation here in Auburn. A missing girl. Is there any chance you can head out this way?”
She inwardly laughed. She couldn’t help it. She’d heard from her sister that Jared Shayne had graduated from USC with a degree in psychology. Instead of becoming the best damn psychologist in the country though, he’d surprised everybody by applying and being accepted into the FBI Academy. Nothing could have shocked her more. Although Jared believed in truth and justice and everything his father believed in, he’d made it clear back when she was dating him that hell would have to freeze over before he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. His father had been a police officer, an FBI agent, and a judge. Who would have guessed Jared would swim up the same stream?
“Are you there?” he asked.
“I’m still here. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I quit my position as a board member of the Missing and Exploited Children’s organization two years ago. I knew if I had to hear the details of one more kidnapping, had to watch one more family fall apart, I’d lose it for good.”
She heard his exhale through the telephone line. Jared was having a hard time spitting it out. That wasn’t like him. At least it didn’t used to be like him. Why now after all this time? It didn’t make sense. “I’m sorry,” she said again because she didn’t know what else to say. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” And then I’ll apologize again and turn your offer down.
“We’ve got a missing fifteen-year-old girl. Her name’s Sophie Madison. The perpetrator came in through Sophie’s bedroom window, took the girl, and left a note.”
“Well that’s promising. They don’t usually leave notes. Maybe that’s a good sign and he’ll be calling for a ransom.”
“I wish it were that easy, but the note is addressed to you, Lizzy.”
Monday, February 15, 2010 4:15 PM
Cathy Warner stepped out of the car and instantly got a feel for what the local weatherman had been talking about. The air was chilly, the kind of cold that seeped into her bones. On the news she saw a warning for wind chills in the Sacramento area, a combination of cold air and strong winds that would have the potential of causing hypothermia for those who stayed outside too long.
Cathy followed the other parents into the Aquatic Center, past the front desk and through double doors leading to the indoor pool area. Steam hovered over the water. The scent of chlorine was overwhelming. Most of the girls on the swim team stood on the pool’s edge, wrapped in towels. A few girls lingered in the water.
Her daughter, Brittany, stood at the back of the group. Brittany’s towel was wrapped tightly over hunched shoulders, her gaze directed at the ground while she sucked on the corner of her towel. Cathy wondered if her daughter was nervous about something.
Coach Sullivan stood a good foot and a half over the girls. He was powerfully built, in good shape for a man in his mid-fifties.
Although Brittany had been swimming competitively since she was five, the coach was relatively new. After finishing his spiel, Coach Sullivan shared a few words with each girl individually before they left for home. By the time Cathy reached Brittany’s side, it was her daughter’s turn to talk with the coach.
Cathy listened as Coach Sullivan talked to her daughter about what she needed to work on in the coming months. The first time Cathy met Coach Sullivan was two months ago. He had been personable and friendly and especially
great with the kids. Brittany tended to be shy, an introvert who had a difficult time making friends in school. Lately, she’d been spending too much time on the computer. Her daughter needed the kind of camaraderie that a team sport provided.
“Brittany is way ahead of the pack,” Coach Sullivan said directly to Cathy, yanking her from her thoughts. “Today she broke the record in the 50-meter freestyle and in the 50-meter backstroke.”
“Wow,” Cathy said, embarrassed by Brittany’s apparent disinterest.
He smiled. “Now for the bad news. Unfortunately, as I told the other parents, I need to collect another hundred dollars from each swimmer due to increased rent at the Aquatic Center.”
Cathy turned toward Brittany. “Dad’s not going to be happy about that.”
Brittany shrugged. “Dad’s never happy.”
Despite the chill in the air, heat spread over Cathy’s face. “Not a problem,” she assured the coach. “We’ll bring a check to the next practice.”
Once they were out of earshot, Cathy gave her daughter a stern look. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m tired and these braces are killing me.”
Cathy sighed. She’d forgotten about the braces. Of course Brittany would be in pain. As she waited outside the locker room for Brittany to change out of her bathing suit, she thought about what her daughter had said about Dad not being happy. Part of the problem stemmed from Richard’s long hours. It didn’t help that the economy was spiraling downward. She and Richard had been arguing a lot—usually about her sister Lizzy. Richard didn’t like Lizzy spending time with Brittany. He thought her sister was crazy, which wasn’t fair. Poor Lizzy. She’d been to hell and back.
Brittany was right. Dad wasn’t happy. Lizzy wasn’t happy. She wasn’t even sure if she was happy any longer. And the worst part was that Cathy didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
Monday, February 15, 2010 9:00 PM
Brittany Warner signed onto her computer and saw that i2Hotti was logged on. Her insides did flip-flops. She instant messaged the boy known as i2Hotti, boldly asking him where he’d been for the past two days.
