Kitally grabbed her cell phone, exited the car, and ran to the corner to read the street signs. She called 911 and told them what was going on and where they could be found. Then she hung up and ran back to the car.
When she opened the back door and looked inside, she didn’t like what she saw. She knew how to make a bomb. Hell, she could sew a designer dress by hand without using a pattern and speak Mandarin and Italian fluently, but she knew nothing about bringing a baby into the world. The notion that she’d ever find herself in this predicament had never once come to mind. If the girl had been choking, she could do the Heimlich, but helping someone birth a baby was nowhere near her forte.
Whatever. Get a grip, she told herself.
Just then, Salma cried out in pain. The high-pitched shriek hit every nerve ending in Kitally’s body.
Salma was in a fetal position; her eyes were squeezed shut, her teeth clenched.
“Help is on its way,” Kitally told her between Salma’s squeals of pain. “Logic tells me you probably shouldn’t push yet.”
“Get out!”
“OK. Jeez. Just trying to help.” Kitally looked across the street, relieved to see Hayley heading back their way. She ran to the front of the car and waved her hands. “Salma has gone into labor. An ambulance is on its way.”
Hayley jogged across the street. “She’s having a baby in my car?”
“Hello? She’s having a baby. And by the way, your car is a dump. A little amniotic fluid isn’t going to hurt anything.”
Hayley opened the hood and plunked her hands on her hips. “I need to call a tow truck.”
“A tow truck? There’s a baby being born in the backseat of your stupid car, you selfish bitch. What don’t you get?”
Hayley gave her a quizzical look before she walked over and took a look inside. Her gaze connected with Salma’s. “That baby of yours isn’t going to wait for the paramedics, is it?”
Salma grunted. “I need help.”
“You got it,” Hayley said as she climbed in.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Thanks for letting me come along for the ride,” Jessica said as soon as they drove off. “I really need to talk to you.”
Lizzy stiffened. “She’s not a killer.”
“Who’s not a killer?”
Shit. Lizzy figured Detective Chase or Jimmy had talked to Jessica about Hayley. Wrong again. She needed to calm down and get her act together. Hayley was not a killer, and therefore Lizzy needed to stop freaking out about it. “Nothing. Never mind,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”
She could feel Jessica’s eyes on her.
“Are you OK?” Jessica asked.
“I’m fine. Just spit it out. What do you want to talk about?”
“The Sacramento Strangler.”
“What about him?”
“The killer works quickly. He strikes without leaving any evidence or witnesses. He appears to be getting more brazen, killing in broad daylight and in public places where lots of people are around.”
“So why are you telling me this?”
“Because it’s becoming clear the killer had a connection to Jared.”
“How so?”
“The night before what was to be your wedding day, Jared talked to the deputy assistant director and told him he was close to having a name. They were set to meet the following week to talk about it.”
“Are you saying the Sacramento Strangler could have something to do with Jared’s death?”
“No, I don’t think so. My point is Jared was killed before he had a chance to reveal what he knew about the Sacramento Strangler.”
“I see. Is Jimmy handling the case?”
“No. He’s involved, but Kenneth Mitchell is the man in charge.”
Lizzy said nothing. The name Kenneth Mitchell didn’t ring a bell, and she’d been too wrapped up in her own problems to worry about the Sacramento Strangler.
“They want to talk to you,” Jessica told her.
“Who? Jimmy?”
“And Mitchell.”
“It would be a waste of all our time,” Lizzy said. “Jared rarely talked about the cases he was working on. Mostly because I think he preferred to leave work behind when he stepped through the front door, since we both dealt with the darker side of reality all day long.”
“We need to find this guy, Lizzy. He’s now been linked to more than a dozen victims.”
“What have you found?”
“It turns out he’s been leaving a mark. His signature. He’s probably gotten a good laugh that nobody has figured it out.”
“What does his signature look like?”
“A symbol, a Z or an N with an extra line through it. It’s this mark that has allowed us to connect the older victims with the newer ones.”
“Sounds pretty obvious. What took them so long to connect the dots?”
“The killer’s mark isn’t always so apparent. Sometimes it’s so small, it’s hard to see. For instance, on one body, he left a tiny mark behind the victim’s ear. Recently, though, they have requested bodies be exhumed, and in many of the cases they are finding the mark on the scalp under the hairline, between toes, inside the mouth.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s exciting,” Jessica said. “A real game changer for this case. It turns out he didn’t just strangle his victims; sometimes he drowned them or cut their throats. Victims are mostly female. Recently, though, he’s picked up the pace, killing much more frequently and more randomly. And that tells me he’s either gotten bored or he’s decided to have fun with investigators.”
“Any witnesses at all?”
“Not so far. Nobody credible anyhow. And no forensic evidence, either. Mitchell believes there is more than one person involved.”
“And you?”
“So far, I’m betting on one man, aged thirty-four to forty, considering how long he’s been killing. He probably started at a very young age, maybe as young as twelve years old. I believe we’ll be digging up bodies for years to come.”
“What’s your reasoning for believing he started at such a young age?”
“The typical serial killer is male, between the ages of twenty-five to thirty-five. Our guy’s been at it for eighteen years, at least. Because of the changes in his MO and the lack of lust involved in the earlier killings, I believe he was very young when he first started killing.”
“Twelve years old,” Lizzy said, shaking her head.
“It’s not unheard of. Look up Mary Flora Bell and Norma Bell, no relation. They were caught before Mary could be considered a true serial killer by definition, but still, ten years old.”
“I don’t know why any of this would surprise me,” Lizzy said, “but it always does. In any event, it sounds like the guy’s getting reckless. At some point, they always do.”
Jessica kept her gaze on the road. “I think you’re right. The girl he found on the American River trail was probably his first attempt at getting messy.”
“He’s trying to get messy? Why do you say that?”
“Everything was still too precise.”
Lizzy said nothing as she waited for Jessica to elaborate.
“I’ve been examining pictures from the crime scene for days. It seems obvious the killer is trying hard to do things differently, but the mark isn’t the only thing he leaves behind. In fact, if he didn’t have the one thing most serial killers have, he might have thrown us completely off track.”
“What’s that?”
“A larger-than-life ego.”
“So what is it? What’s he leaving behind?”
“It’s peculiar, and I can’t possibly remember them all, but to give you an idea, he’s left a clock, a book, a candleholder, even a fasces.”
“Fasces?”