“She’s the one who sent you the note.”
His mouth was open, ready to spit out more venom, no doubt, but he swallowed his words.
“You look surprised,” Lizzy said.
“I am,” he muttered. “We never had a nice word to say to each other. Why would she help me?”
“Because she loved Helsie and thought of her like a sister,” Kitally said.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and then his eyes got all misty again.
“Betty is sure that something fishy is going on at Shady Oaks,” Kitally continued. “She believes the answers we need are in the file room at the nursing home, which is why I snuck through Betty’s bedroom window the other night.”
Lizzy frowned.
“Why did you do that?” Gus asked.
“Because Betty said nobody would be around at night.”
He shook his head. “She’s addle-brained, I tell you . . . a few clowns short of a circus.”
Kitally decided to let that one go. “After I climbed through the window, someone was coming, so I had to hide under Betty’s bed. I could hear the exchange between the orderly and Betty. The woman forces Betty to take a handful of pills every day, whether she wants to or not.”
“I think that’s a common practice,” Lizzy said. “And it’s not unusual for the elderly to try to avoid taking their medication.”
Gus waved off whatever Lizzy had to say, his full attention now on Kitally. “Go on.”
“Well, the orderly, or whatever the staff people are called, got very upset with Betty. She wanted her to take her sleeping pill like everyone else in the place. Betty told the woman in the green smock that she had, in fact, taken her medication, but I know that’s not true.”
“How do you know?” Lizzy asked.
“As I was hunkered down in the bushes waiting for Betty to open the window and let me in, I saw a bunch of tablets scattered about the ground. On my way out, I picked up all the pills I could find and brought them home with me. I thought maybe we could take the medication to a lab and find out what they are.”
Lizzy tapped the eraser end of the pencil against her chin. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m going to go back to see Betty later today to talk about how we can get into that file room.”
Gus struggled to get out of his chair. “Don’t just sit there,” he told Kitally. “Help me up.”
“You’re leaving?”
He poked the ground with his cane in frustration and said, “You’re coming with me.”
Kitally helped Gus to his feet and then handed him his cane. “Where are we going?”
“To the nursing home,” Lizzy said.
He pointed a crooked finger at Lizzy. “Maybe you should come instead.” He tilted his head toward Kitally. “Seems like the chimney’s clogged in this one.”
“Hey,” Kitally said, pretty sure he was making fun of her. “This is my case.”
“Well, then start paying attention.”
Kitally rolled her eyes.
“I saw that,” he said.
“We’ll take my car,” Kitally told him as they made slow progress toward the door.
“Not in my lifetime. We’ll take my car.”
Kitally winced. “Maybe I should follow you.”
“Maybe you should learn to follow orders.”
Kitally looked over her shoulder at Lizzy, but she wasn’t even paying attention. Her expression already grave, her thoughts had wandered to a different place and time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The first thing Kobi Millard noticed when she returned home after a long day filled with meetings and phone calls was that the door was unlocked. With her fingers clasped around the doorknob, she slowly pushed open the door. “Valerie?” she called as she stepped inside. “Val, are you here?”
Usually the television was on and she would find her ten-year-old daughter eating a pudding or some other snack she wasn’t supposed to eat before dinner. Her pace quickened as she made her way to Val’s bedroom. Her gaze fell on the backpack lying on the bed. “Val!” she said again. She unzipped the backpack. Val’s lunch had been eaten. Her papers were crumpled; everything appeared as it should.
Kobi’s heart dropped to her stomach. Valerie walked home from school every day. Though sometimes, if it rained, she would catch a ride with their neighbor, Gretchen Myers, downstairs.
Kobi whipped around and sprinted out of the apartment, almost tripped over her feet as she ran down the stairs and to the apartment beneath hers. She knocked on the door, didn’t stop until someone opened it.
“Kobi, what’s wrong?”
She stepped inside, looked around the kitchen, ignored all the surprised faces looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Is Val here?”
Gretchen followed her inside. “No. I haven’t seen her today.” She looked at her kids on the couch. “Have any of you seen Val today?”
Head shakes and grunts. None of them had.
“Her backpack is on the bed,” she told Gretchen as she headed for the door. “She ate her lunch.” Kobi willed herself not to fall apart. “Oh, God, where is she?”
“Take a breath,” Gretchen told her. “Remember that time when she went to the park on the corner without asking, and you just about ripped her to shreds after you—”
Kobi didn’t let her finish. She took off running again. Tears made it hard to see clearly as she ran down the street. “Val!” she shouted. “Where are you? Val!”
“Mom! I’m over here.”
Kobi wiped her eyes as she headed for the swing set. And then she saw him. Wayne Bennett was sitting on the bench, watching her daughter swing. He had a self-satisfied smile on his face.
She walked over to her daughter. “Get off the swing now. We’re going home.”
“What’s wrong? Have you been crying?”
“Why would you leave the house with a perfect stranger?”
“He said he knew you and that he was a friend of the family. He said he offered you a job with lots of money and that you were still thinking about it.”
Wayne Bennett joined them. He put a hand on Valerie’s chin and said, “Your daughter is so damn beautiful.”
Valerie blushed.
“Do you want to do that again sometime, Valerie?” Bennett asked her daughter. “We can go shopping and I’ll buy you some brand-new shoes or a pretty dress . . . anything you want.”
“Can I, Mom?”
“No. You can’t.”
“Stay on the swing for a moment, dear,” Bennett said, “and give me a minute to talk to your mom in private.”
Valerie looked at her mom.
“It’s OK,” Kobi assured her. “I’ll be right by the bench.”
“Next time you talk to someone,” Bennett told her when they were out of earshot, “you won’t ever see your daughter again.”
“I didn’t talk to anyone.”
“Not even in the parking lot at Grocery Mart?”
“Lizzy Gardner came after me, followed me from work. I told her to leave me alone and never come near me again.”
“What did she want?”
“She wanted me to testify against you in court. She also wanted to know what you did to me.”
“Did you tell her?”
Her mouth tightened, and she did everything she could to hold back the tears as she replayed bits and pieces of that night in her head. God, why had she risked telling Lizzy Gardner about Bennett’s planned interview with that girl from the program?
Because he was a psycho, and he needed to be stopped.
“How could I tell her anything,” she told him, lifting her chin and looking him straight in the eyes, “when I don’t recall ever going anywhere with you at all?”
He stood tall. “I hope, for your sake, she believed you. Your daughter is a pretty, pretty girl. If I were you, I would keep a closer eye on her.”