The girl was beyond terrified, her soul aching, her every emotion rooted by fear. With each stroke of the brush, he felt as if he were transferring her inner being to the canvas. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so alive.
Kathryn Church’s house in Newcastle was set on a quiet road—a one-story on a good-sized lot.
Lizzy knocked on the door and then looked around. Had Jared come to see this woman? Had he walked this same path?
After a while, she knocked again, harder this time.
The porch light came on. “Who is it?”
“You know damn well who it is. I don’t like being hung up on.”
There was no response.
Lizzy calmed herself and said, “It’s Lizzy Gardner. I called you earlier. It’s very important that I talk to you.”
“It’s late. Go away, or I’ll be forced to call the police.”
“People are dying, Ms. Church, and there might be something you can do to stop it.”
No response.
“Jared Shayne was my fiancé,” Lizzy went on. “You talked to him, didn’t you? He was close to identifying a serial killer, a killer who has begun to strike much more often. We need to stop him.”
The door opened. “Come inside,” the woman said, “before you scare the neighbors.”
After Lizzy stepped inside, the woman quickly shut the door behind her, making sure to lock it.
The pictures Lizzy had seen of Kathryn Church on the Internet didn’t do her justice. Even barefoot, she appeared elegant and graceful. Tall and long-limbed, she possessed a heart-shaped face, long neck, and well-defined cheekbones. Her black silky curls brushed against the top of her shoulders.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important,” Lizzy said.
Kathryn’s smirk told Lizzy she wasn’t buying it.
And she was right. Lizzy really didn’t care. She glanced around the house, taking it all in: a baby grand in the living area, antique dining table and chairs, a crystal chandelier. She strained to listen, wondering if anyone else was in the house.
Kathryn gestured for her to follow her into the living area. “Why don’t we have a seat in here?”
Lizzy’s gaze settled on the woman’s blouse and pencil skirt. “Were you going out?”
Kathryn waved the comment away with a hand. “I haven’t bothered to change. Once I get started working in my office, I can’t stop. I do my best work at night, right here at home.”
“You’re a psychologist—is that right?”
She gestured for Lizzy to have a seat across from her. “Yes, that’s correct. I have my own practice. I also teach at the local college. Insomniacs like to keep busy.”
Deciding to cut to the chase, Lizzy looked the woman in the eyes and held her gaze. “You talked to Jared, didn’t you?”
She hesitated but not for long. “Yes. We were to meet first thing Monday after your wedding.”
“Why did you lie?”
“Why do you think? Because I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of what might happen if he ever found out that I spoke to you.”
“If who finds out?”
The woman fidgeted in the high-back chair, clearly out of sorts.
“Are you talking about your next-door neighbor?” Lizzy asked. “The boy you saw kill his little sister?”
Kathryn closed her eyes and gave a subtle nod. “I thought I had managed to get rid of any trace of the paper I wrote.”
“Is that why you wanted to talk to Jared? Because you thought your neighbor might’ve grown into the killer the police have been looking for?”
“Yes. My plan at the time was to tell Mr. Shayne what I had seen.” She swallowed and cast her eyes around the room, as though the killer might be hiding behind the couch or the heavy living room curtains.
Lizzy fought to hide her disappointment. “But now you’re having doubts about what you saw?”
“Not doubts, exactly. It just all began to seem so farfetched. The incident by the pool happened a long time ago. I was going with my instincts. I guess I was hoping that Jared, with his training . . .” She faded off.
“He could work wonders,” Lizzy said. “But yes. Something more tangible would be helpful.”
“Something tangible.” Kathryn sighed, then straightened in her seat. “I have something. It’s not much, but it is, at least, that.”
Lizzy followed her across plush carpet, past the kitchen, and down a long hallway that led them through open French doors into a massive study. The room was dimly lit. A desk, front and center, was covered with papers.
As Kathryn opened the top drawer, Lizzy noticed the oil painting hanging on the wall behind the desk. The female in the picture was done in a Picasso fashion with an arm where the leg should be and three eyes instead of two. The hair appeared to be stalks of wheat. Earrings decorated enlarged ears, and a melted clock dripped through the woman’s fingers.
Kathryn handed Lizzy a piece of paper.
After reading the note, which appeared to be nothing more than instructions on how to take care of some pets while the person was away, along with quite skillful sketches of a cat, a dog, and a bird in the margins, Lizzy said, “What is this?”
“It’s from the same boy who drowned his sister.”
“What’s his name?”
“Zachary Tucker.”
The name didn’t mean anything to Lizzy. “Why would you save this?”
“Because of the drawings, I think. And because Zachary did them.”
Lizzy lifted her eyebrows, telling her to go on.
“As you know, we were neighbors. When my mother offered to drive Zachary to school every morning, I was afraid of him at first.”
“Did you tell anyone what you had witnessed?”
“No. I was young, I was scared, and at first I thought he would kill me, too.”
“And then?”
“And then I met him face-to-face, and I decided he was just a normal boy. He was funny and cute, and little by little I convinced myself that my eyes had merely played tricks on me the day his sister drowned.”
Lizzy stared at the note. “I still don’t understand why you would save this.”
“I did what most girls do when they have a mad crush on a boy. I saved every little thing he gave me.”
“You had a crush,” Lizzy said, “on the boy you might’ve seen drown his sister.”
“Like I said, I had put that memory away by then.” She drew in a deep breath and then let it out. “I wasn’t very popular at school, but Zachary always made me feel special. I kept every note and letter in a shoe box I decorated with wrapping paper. As the years passed, I all but forgot about the box.”
However Kathryn might explain it, Lizzy was surprised the woman could feel anything for the boy after what she’d seen—or even suspected she might have seen. But just as she’d said, she’d been a child at the time, so Lizzy kept her thoughts to herself.
“I was an adult by the time the memories came back to me so vividly,” Kathryn continued. “It wasn’t until I attended a fund-raiser for families of murder victims that I saw Jared Shayne being interviewed about a killer in Sacramento and felt compelled to talk to him.”
“Why?”
“I felt a tremendous need to tell someone what I had seen.” She rubbed her temple. “There were other things, too, little things that Zachary would say and do.”
“For instance?”
“A few years after the death of his sister, dogs and cats were being slaughtered in our neighborhood. For months, people kept their pets inside. When I talked to Zachary about it one day, he had a smirk on his face that I’ll never forget. His reaction was nothing more than a shrug. And that’s not all. Once he had his driver’s license, he would drive me to school. I was looking for a pen in his glove compartment, and I saw a newspaper clipping about the murder of a little girl at a rest stop.”
“Did you question him?”