“Who is it?” the woman asked.
“Lizzy Gardner and Hayley Hansen. We’re investigating the Wayne Bennett case, and it’s very important that we talk to your daughter.”
The woman unlatched the chain and opened the door. “Get in here before anyone sees you.”
They both stepped inside and then watched as the woman locked the door and hooked the chain back in place. The place was dark. It smelled like old socks and rotted food. It was times like this that Lizzy was glad she carried a gun.
The woman pointed a crooked finger at Lizzy. “I’m going to get Donna. When she appears, you will have five minutes to talk.” She put out a hand, palm up. “It’ll cost you one hundred dollars.”
“To talk to your daughter?” Hayley asked, confused.
This wasn’t the first time Lizzy had been asked to pay to get answers. She reached into her purse. “I have sixty-two dollars.”
The woman snatched the money out of her hand and then looked at Hayley. “We have to eat, and you want information. Pay or get out.”
“I never keep more than a twenty on me, but you can have it.” Hayley reached into her back pocket and handed the woman a folded twenty-dollar bill.
The woman took it and then disappeared.
Lizzy and Hayley stepped from the entryway and found a small, well-populated living room. A young girl, about thirteen, stood off to the side, leaning against the wall and watching them warily. She looked just like her eighteen-year-old sister, Donna, who Lizzy had seen on the video with Bennett. Three kids Lizzy guessed to be between the ages of ten and sixteen, all boys, sat packed together on a couch in front of a television turned to a sports channel. From his chair next to the couch, an older man with black hair, tipped with gray, watched Lizzy and Hayley closely. No one said a word. A minute passed before Donna’s mother entered the room with her older daughter in tow.
“Here she is. Your time starts now.”
The girl didn’t look anything like the young woman they had seen on the video. She was badly bruised. Her left eye was nearly swollen shut, and her lip was purple and yellow.
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Lizzy said. “It’s terrible.”
“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do it.”
“Because he’s not in prison where he belongs.”
“What do you want?”
“Will you testify against Wayne Bennett?”
The girl shook her head, but she didn’t deny that was the man who did this to her. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Kobi Millard is a good friend of mine. In case you haven’t heard, shortly after you talked to her in the parking lot, Kobi came home to find her ten-year-old daughter missing. Guess where her daughter was?”
Lizzy exchanged looks with Hayley and said nothing. Waited.
“At the neighborhood park with Mr. Bennett. Apparently they’d had a nice couple of hours eating ice cream and playing on the jungle gym. The little girl enjoyed herself so much that she asked her mom if she could do it again. Wayne Bennett just smiled at Kobi and told her how goddamn beautiful her ten-year-old daughter was.”
Donna paused for a breath. “It was a warning. Not just for Kobi, but for all of us. Which one of us here do you think is going to pay for this little visit of yours?” She gestured toward her little sister and then to her brothers on the couch. “Because one of us will pay—I guarantee it. Maybe we’ll all pay.”
Hayley stepped in front of Lizzy. “Before you continue on with that holier-than-thou tone, maybe you should stop and think about what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to. Lizzy isn’t getting paid to spend her days on the street, doing everything she can to see that fucker Bennett locked up behind bars. She spends her time working cases like this for one reason only. To help people like you. She doesn’t want your little sister over there to get assaulted by some asshole entrepreneur who thinks he owns the world. He’s already got you because you’re choosing to live in fear for the rest of your life. So fuck you.” Hayley looked around the room. “Fuck all of you. And, yes,” Hayley said, looking at Donna’s mother, “I’m pretty sure I just took an extra minute of your time, and I’m not paying you shit.”
Five minutes later, Lizzy and Hayley were in the car heading home.
“That went well,” Hayley said.
Lizzy’s hands were clenched tightly around the steering wheel. “Wayne Bennett is never going to stop, and there might not be anything we can do about it.”
“There’s only one way to stop him for good.”
Deep down, Lizzy had a horrible inkling that Hayley was right.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Five o’clock the next day, Hayley heard a knock on the door. Since she was on her way to the kitchen for chips for her bean dip, she stepped to the door and looked out the peephole. “Who is it?”
“Joey Rich.”
“That’s the father of Salma’s baby,” Lizzy said from the kitchen table, where she was sitting with her laptop.
Hayley opened the door. “What do you want?”
“Is Salma here?”
“Maybe. What’s your business with her?”
The guy looked as if he’d come straight out of business school or maybe accounting. Total geek. His hair was gelled and combed a little too neatly to one side. He wore the standard long-sleeved button-up white shirt, khaki pants, and a belt that looked cinched one notch too tight.
“A girl named Kitally sought me out and told me where Salma was living. I need to talk to her. I would like to meet my daughter.”
Hayley looked over her shoulder.
“Let him in,” Kitally said.
No sooner had she shut the door than another knock sounded.
“Are you kidding me?” Hayley returned to the door and peeked out. “It’s another guy,” Hayley said, “only this guy looks a lot like Salma.” She opened the door.
“I was told that my sister, Salma, is living here. I would like to speak to her, please.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Badar.”
Kitally rushed to Hayley’s side. “Come in,” she said.
Hayley shook her head. What the hell was Kitally thinking by telling everyone where Salma was living?
Kitally ushered Badar into the living area across the room from the other guy, and then she let out a long sigh before disappearing down the hallway. They could all hear her arguing with someone. That someone was Salma, and it wasn’t long before Kitally returned with the girl at her side.
Lizzy stood off to the side, her arms crossed. She was not happy.
“Have the two of you met?” Hayley asked Joey.
“No.”
“Well, great. Joey, this is Badar, Salma’s brother.” Hayley then turned to face the brother. “Badar, this is Joey, Salma’s boyfriend, and the father of her baby girl who has yet to be named.”
Neither of them looked happy or showed any sign of being gentlemen and shaking hands.
Salma looked at Joey. “Why are you here?”
His face turned red. “You’re kidding, right?”
She crossed her arms to let him know otherwise.
“I thought we had something good going, and then one day you disappeared from my life, and I haven’t heard from you since. You weren’t going to ever tell me that we have a daughter?”
Badar puffed out his chest. “You need to shut up,” he said. “Look at her! She’s much too young to be having babies, much less one of your babies.”
“Leave him alone, Badar.”
“Come on,” her brother said, gesturing toward the door. “I’m taking you home. Mother is ready to take you back. She’s worried sick.”
“If she was so worried, why did she kick me out of the house?”
“Because she was angry. She’s been disgraced.” He looked at Joey with hatred in his eyes. “And as I told you before, if I ever found out who dishonored our family’s name, I would do something about it.”