“Hey, you.”
She backed up a few steps until she saw an old man sitting in bed.
“Yeah, you,” he said.
Kitally stepped inside his room. The place smelled like unwashed skin and disinfectant. She tried not to wrinkle her nose. “Do you need something?”
“Are you new around here?”
“I don’t work here, but I could try to find someone.”
“I just need you to get me an extra blanket.” He pointed across the room at the high dresser with the TV on it.
She opened one drawer after another: socks and underwear, adult diapers, T-shirts. No blankets.
“Nothing in there?” he asked.
“No.”
“Go back into the hallway and in the next room you’ll find an old broad named Betty Ackley. Tell her I need one of her blankets.”
“Maybe I should just ask one of the staff members for a blanket.”
“No,” he said firmly. “Next room on the right. Ask Betty.”
Kitally sighed. “Sure. OK. I’ll be right back.” Unlike the other rooms she’d seen so far, Betty’s room was larger. She even had a window, although the view of the parking lot was nothing to get excited about. Still, it was better than nothing. The TV was on, the volume turned up. A soap opera.
“What do you want?” the woman asked, loud enough to be heard over the TV.
“Um . . . the man in the next room needs a blanket. He said to ask you for one.”
“Are you his daughter?”
Kitally shook her head.
“Niece?”
“No.”
“Well, who the hell are you?”
“I’m just here for a tour. My mom and I are looking for a place for my grandmother.”
“Don’t bring her here. No matter what you do, don’t bring Grandma here.”
“Why?”
“Look around, honey. Open your eyes.”
“It really is that bad?”
“Worse than bad. I should have had children. Maybe then someone would break me out of this joint.”
Before the woman could say anything else, another woman wearing a green smock entered the room. “Got yourself a visitor, Betty?”
“I sure do. Dixie, I’d like you to meet my grandson’s girlfriend. Isn’t she pretty?”
“She’s gorgeous,” the nurse said without glancing her way.
As the woman in the green smock set up a tray of food next to her bed, Betty winked at Kitally and said, “Why don’t you go ahead and grab a blanket for Cecil?” She pointed to the dresser. “Bottom drawer.”
Kitally did as she said. On top of the dresser there was a calendar and an assortment of pens and stationery. Stationery with a squiggly design on the bottom right corner. The exact same stationery she had seen inside Lizzy’s file.
Could Betty Ackley be the one who wrote the note and had it delivered to Gus? Could Kitally have really stumbled upon the person she was looking for that quickly? No way. Nothing in life was ever that easy!
Kitally bent down, opened the bottom drawer, and pulled out a blanket.
After the orderly finished setting up Betty Ackley’s meal, she finally took a moment to look at Kitally. And that’s when the woman’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s your badge?”
“Badge?”
“All visitors must wear a badge.”
“Oh. It must have fallen off.”
“You can’t be in here without a badge.”
“My name is Kitally,” she said, more for Betty’s benefit than the nurse’s.
“Don’t care if your name is President Obama. You can’t be in here without a badge.”
“It’s OK, darling,” Betty said to Kitally. “Take Cecil his blanket and next time you come, make sure you wear your badge and bring me some chocolates, too.”
“I’ll see you in a few days,” Kitally said before making her exit.
Betty nodded. “I’ll be here.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Standing outside the door to her office downtown, fishing around inside her bag for the keys, Lizzy heard someone call her name and glanced over her shoulder. It was Jessica Pleiss, her very first employee, now ex-employee and rookie FBI agent, running toward her.
“What are you doing here?”
“I just flew in an hour ago,” Jessica said, catching her breath. “I rented a car and came straight here. I have a meeting in an hour, so I thought I’d see if you were here. After I didn’t see your car, I decided to get a coffee, but then I saw you and here I am.”
They embraced, and then Jessica pointed to the coffee shop up the street. “I’ll go get us both a coffee. I’ll be right back.”
“Nothing for me,” Lizzy said. “My stomach has been acting up.”
“Have you had a checkup recently?”
Lizzy gave her a don’t-mother-me look. “Go get your coffee,” she said, shooing her away. “I’ll put away my things and heat the place up so we can talk and you can tell me why you’re here in Sacramento before you run off.”
“Sounds good.”
Lizzy used to stop to admire the etched sign on the door: LIZZY GARDNER INVESTIGATIONS. But not any longer. The sign, the business, everything about the place left a bad taste in her mouth. She would sell the business today if she didn’t need it as a cover for their extracurricular activities.
Hurrying inside, she dropped her purse in the bottom desk drawer, then put away any files or notes that might raise a red flag. Jessica had no idea what she, Kitally, and Hayley were up to, and Lizzy planned to keep it that way. Jessica was a law-abiding citizen, a straight shooter who happened to work for the FBI.
Jessica returned five minutes later, coffee in hand. “Did you know that the Bernsteins sold the coffee shop?”
Lizzy shook her head.
“According to the new owner, they were robbed. Twice. They couldn’t take it any longer and they moved away. Clear across the country.”
“I can’t blame them.”
“What? Don’t tell me you’re thinking of moving.”
“I’m just taking it one day at a time.”
Jessica sank into the seat in front of Lizzy’s desk. “How are you doing, Lizzy? How are you holding up?”
“I don’t want to talk about me. Tell me why you’re here.”
Jessica’s gaze roamed over Lizzy’s face as if she was searching for answers. Finally, she exhaled and said, “I’m sure you’ve heard about Mark Kiel’s daughter. Killed while taking a run through the park.”
Lizzy nodded.
“I can’t say too much, but there are at least two other homicides that occurred in the past few months that are being reexamined for connections.”
“And they wanted you on the case because . . . ?”
“Because the FBI is getting involved and Jimmy Martin asked me to help him out. It will be good for me to get some early exposure to these sorts of crimes.”
“What about Quantico?”
“I still have a few weeks of training left. I’ll be flying back and forth.”
Lizzy nodded. “Good for you.”
“There’s more. Another body was found during my flight over here this morning.”
“Where?”
“Right off of the American River trail. Not too far from Kitally’s house in Carmichael.”
Lizzy stiffened.
“With Brittany getting into Sac State and with you taking your morning and/or evening runs, I thought you should know.”
“I appreciate it.” Lizzy rubbed her chin. “How did you know about Brittany getting into Sac State?”
“She called me.”
Silence.
“Your niece is worried about you. You should call her.”
“I will. Do you have a place to stay?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”