The house was quiet. Salma was gone, and Hayley and Kitally were out doing who knew what.
Lizzy unfolded the piece of paper she’d found earlier. She had called the number half a dozen times today, but she picked up her cell and decided to try again.
“Hello?”
The voice startled her, so she spoke all in a rush. “Hi, this is Lizzy Gardner. I’m a friend of Jared Shayne’s. I found your number on a note scattered among his personal belongings.” She forced herself to slow down. “The message on the note says, ‘We must talk,’ and I was hoping you could tell me who the note might be from.”
“I don’t recognize that name,” the woman said after hesitating for too long. “And I certainly never passed on any note with my number.”
“Jared Shayne worked for the FBI. He was killed recently.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is there anyone else at this number?” Lizzy asked.
“No. Just me.”
“And who is this I’m talking to?”
“It’s late. I must go. Good night.”
There was a click, and the call was disconnected.
Lizzy was calling bullshit.
She had already looked up everything on the woman. She grabbed her laptop, sat on the bed, and pulled up the information she’d found earlier.
Kathryn Church.
She lived approximately thirty minutes away, in Newcastle. Satellite maps revealed a country road with lots of trees and rolling hills.
Who was she really, though? And why had she wanted to talk to Jared?
Earlier in the day, she’d put the woman’s name into every database available. The basics were easy enough to find: Caucasian, thirty-six years of age, born on May 26, 1978, brunette, brown eyes. She grew up in Sacramento, went to college at UCLA, where she studied psychology, and then moved back to the area and started her own practice.
As Lizzy searched further, she found an article written by Kathryn Church two years ago. The subject matter was repressed childhood memories. Apparently, the woman believed, like other psychologists, that repressed memories could be recovered through therapy. Colleagues argued that prolonged therapy in many of these cases only served to create false memories. But Kathryn remained adamant, convinced that her own repressed memories had come back to her more than a decade after the incident. According to the article, Kathryn had been hesitant to talk about the event she’d suppressed, but once she became an advocate for others in her position, she’d come forward with details of her trauma.
Lizzy scanned the article for some mention of those details.
Proponents of the existence of repressed memories believed that these traumatic events could be recalled decades after the event, usually triggered by something as simple as a particular song or taste. Skimming over endless citations and references, Lizzy finally found what she was looking for: as an adult, Kathryn Church had been watching her best friend’s child by the pool. A rubber ball rolling into the pool set off alarms and the memories came rushing back. Without warning, Kathryn was ten years old again. Her family had just moved into a neighborhood in Sacramento.
Left to admire her new bedroom on the second floor, she peered out the window, which happened to give her a bird’s-eye view of the neighbors’ backyard. They had a pool with a diving board. Excited at the possibility of new friends, Kathryn watched a little girl and an older boy, who turned out later to be the girl’s brother. The girl pointed to the red rubber ball that had fallen into the pool. They were on the far side, which gave her a clear view. The boy nodded his approval, and Kathryn’s heart raced as she watched the little girl go to retrieve the ball. After she fell in, the boy stood at the edge, watching as her little arms and legs flailed, churning the water’s surface. Finally, her head popped up out of the water, and her fingers grasped the edge of the pool.
Kathryn’s relief was short-lived. She watched in horror as the boy got down on his knees, pried the girl’s tiny fingers off the ledge, and then, with the palm of his hand flat on her head, pushed her under and held her there until her legs no longer kicked and her arms went still.
Frozen in terror, Kathryn had watched, along with the boy, as the little girl sank slowly to the bottom of the pool.
Lizzy sucked in a breath.
Had the woman truly witnessed such a horrific event?
Once again, Lizzy wondered why Kathryn Church wanted to talk to Jared.
And why was she lying about it now?
Lizzy came to her feet. She didn’t look at the clock, didn’t give a rat’s ass what time it was. She was going to pay the woman a visit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
He stood behind his easel and canvas, paintbrush in hand, palette ready. “Open your eyes, Claire.”
Instead, she screamed at the top of her lungs, a high-pitched noise that pierced his skull.
He clenched his teeth tighter.
After drugging Claire, he’d spent most of the day yesterday setting up the room, screwing in toggle bolts and chains that could easily support a heavy load. Claire weighed approximately 110 pounds. He had to drill holes big enough to accommodate the toggles.
The chains and cuffs seemed to be working nicely. They would hold her in place while he painted. The metal cuffs might cause her some pain, but that was the effect he was going for.
She was naked. Her arms were outstretched, above her head. Same for the legs, spread downward and apart. Despite being drugged, she’d managed to fight him every step of the way. He was exhausted. “Open your eyes. This is the last time I’m going to ask nicely.”
He waited, but she didn’t move a muscle. Her head hung low, her chin resting against her collarbone.
He placed his paintbrush on the table he’d set up to his left. Then he made a tsking noise as he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small plastic bottle, and unscrewed the lid. Calmly, he walked over to her, placed the palm of his hand against her forehead, and firmly pressed her head upward, holding it none too gently against the wall.
She tried to wriggle her head. “Stop it! Let me go! What are you doing?”
“I’m going to use some of this amazing wonder glue to hold your eyelids wide-open.”
“No! No! No! Please. I’ll do what you say!”
“Too late.”
More frantic wriggling.
“If you don’t hold still, you’re going to get glue in your eyes, Claire, and then you’ll be blind. Do you want to be blind?”
“Stop. Please. I’ll do what you want. I promise.”
He growled as he let her go. He put the glue away, his every movement jerky as he pointed at her. “Next time you disobey, there will be no second chance. Understand?”
She nodded.
“I want to hear you say it, Claire. Say it loud enough that I can hear you.”
“I understand. I will not disobey. I swear.”
“Better.”
He went back to his position behind the easel. He picked up his brush, dabbed it in paint, and then set his eyes on Claire’s face. “Give me a crazed look, Claire.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Not angry. I said crazed.”
Her eyes widened. She stuck her tongue out and frantically moved her head from side to side, her tangled hair flying in front of her eyes, her nostrils flaring.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Keep your eyes just like that, but stop thrashing about. Look at me, though, right here into my eyes, and don’t look away until I say so.”
She did as he said. Her eyes were steely glints of raw fear, like the fish in the painting.
He turned up the music as loud as it would go. A full orchestra began to play, starting with the silky keys of a piano, then gradually adding in strings, climbing unhurriedly, and then boom, hitting the emotions with throbbing oboes and powerful brass drums.