“One particular young woman has been extremely outspoken about the work you do. Her name is Tammy Walters. Her sister, Miriam Walters, has been missing for five days now.”
Bennett stiffened. Through the camera lens, Lizzy saw the muscles at the hinges of his jaws pulse. Stacey was holding her own, refusing to flinch. At the bottom of the frame, Lizzy saw his left hand roll into a fist. At first Lizzy worried he might take a punch at Stacey, threaten her at the very least, but his voice was calm when he said, “I think I read something about this in the newspaper, but I don’t know either of the women, so I really can’t add anything to the discussion.” He glanced at his watch. “Time has gotten away from me. I do need to run.”
He was not going to get away that easily. Leaving Stacey behind, Lizzy followed Bennett to the entrance. “Are you saying you’ve never met Miriam Walters?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He stopped short and turned, as if he’d just realized it wasn’t Stacey asking the question. He looked Lizzy over, his eyes hardening. “Do I know you?”
The double doors slid open, and Mr. Bennett slipped away without waiting for an answer.
“No,” Lizzy said, “but you will.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Kitally came through the front door with a newspaper in hand and a smile on her face. “We did it.” She laid the newspaper on the coffee table in front of the couch where Hayley was sitting. “It worked. Wallace is going to jail.”
Lizzy had just entered from the main hallway. She crossed the room to see for herself. “For how long?”
“Ten years.”
“Better than nothing,” Hayley said, clearly not overwhelmed with excitement.
“Are you kidding me? Ten years is a long time. Wallace will be sixty-two by the time he gets out.”
“This is a good start,” Lizzy said. “Our number five man is off the street. Cross him off the list.”
To make it happen, they’d targeted a well-known thief in the area, filched some already stolen merchandise, and then planted the goods in the rapist’s garage. It had been Kitally’s idea. Stealing from one criminal to put away another. Not a bad deal.
“We really did it,” Kitally said again, self-satisfaction scrawled across her face. “We put away a rapist without using violence.”
“You did good,” Lizzy agreed.
“What about Bennett?” Kitally asked Lizzy. “Any luck with that today?”
“Bennett isn’t going down easy. The man owns half the town—judges, cops, elected officials, you name it. Deep pocketbooks buy loyalty.”
“What did he have to say about Miriam Walters?”
“Said he didn’t know her, but the good news is that now we have it on tape.”
“What good will that do?” Hayley wanted to know.
“Bennett killed Miriam Walters. I’m sure of it. By the time they find her body, I plan to have enough proof to bring him in for questioning. If I can get my hands on a picture of the two of them, anything that will prove that Bennett knew Miriam Walters, I will have the video showing he lied. Why would the man lie about knowing the girl if he was innocent and had nothing to do with her disappearance?”
“I suppose,” Hayley said, then shook her head. “I don’t understand how the judge could let him off. Three different women were willing to appear and swear to his guilt. It makes no sense. Now that he knows who was willing to talk, he might use intimidation to shut them up.”
Lizzy said nothing. Bennett’s lawyers had ripped all three of the women’s reputations to shreds, convincing first the public, then the judge, that all three of them were after Bennett’s money. The lawyers harped on the fact that the women had waited a year to make any accusations. Why so long? Because they wanted his money.
Lizzy had talked to one of the women involved. Instinct told her she was telling the truth. But now they were all scared, she’d told Lizzy. One of their friends—Miriam Walters, a very pretty eighteen-year-old—was missing. And all three women had a good idea who was responsible.
It was midnight when Hayley drove slowly through West Sacramento. Her window was rolled down. The only noise was the rattle of her engine, and Kitally, who couldn’t stay quiet for more than a few minutes at a time.
“So who are we going after tonight?” Kitally asked.
“It’s the only woman on the list. They call her the Ghost, but the problem is we don’t have a name.”
“What’s the deal with her anyhow?”
“I used to spend a lot of time on these streets. A while ago, a shop owner in the area pulled me aside and told me that his people, as he likes to call the homeless in the area, were being harassed by a crazy woman. The police, if they’re even looking, haven’t been able to catch her, so I figured she needed to be put on our list.”
Kitally watched the road ahead. “She steals from these people who have nothing?”
“It’s worse than that. She attacks the homeless . . . usually while they sleep. Both women and men, young and old, it doesn’t seem to matter—beats the shit out of them. One elderly man almost died from head trauma. Apparently, she attacks for no reason at all. I talked to two different people who got a pretty good look at her, but we’re going to need to track her down somehow, see what else we can find out. She’s been described as slender-bodied. She has a thin face with high, pointy cheekbones and light-colored eyes. Someone else called her a sinewy white girl with spiky blonde hair, bushy eyebrows, and pale skin.”
“Sounds like she would be easy to spot, even in the dark.”
“I thought so, too, but I’ve been making the rounds for a while now and I have yet to get a glimpse of her. Apparently, many people in the area have heard of her. They’ve even rounded up a posse to look for her, but she’s elusive. She’s cocky, too. Comes back to the same exact places, time after time.”
“That’s a little freaky. She must have eyes in the back of her head if everyone is watching and waiting for her and yet she manages to show up at the precise moment when nobody’s paying attention.”
Hayley made a left at the stop sign, and then pulled to the curb, parked, and turned off the engine.
“What are we doing?”
“Just taking a stroll through the park, since one of the people I talked to spotted her here once. Long shot, but we have to start somewhere.”
They climbed out. Kitally hitched her bag around her shoulder and followed close behind.
Hayley had been to this same park many times before. It always felt like home. Tonight was a quiet night. If she didn’t know better, she would guess all the criminals and rapists in Sacramento had taken the night off. The thought made her smile. Not because she thought it was remotely possible, but because it was so damned absurd.
She lit up a cigarette and took a drag. “Is it true that you once had a brother?”
“Who told you about Liam?”
Hayley had been meaning to talk to Kitally about her brother for a while now, but there never seemed to be a good time. “Maybe Tommy mentioned it,” Hayley said as they walked along. “I don’t recall. What happened to him?”
“Long story short . . . my family was visiting a foreign country and he was taken.”
Although Kitally talked a lot, she rarely spoke about herself. Hayley felt compelled for some reason to draw her out. “Your parents must have offered a hefty ransom to get him back.”
“They did. They go back to Buenaventura, the main port of Colombia, every year. Usually when children are taken, it’s for money. The authorities have no idea what happened. They suspect he was sold to the highest bidder.”
“How old was he when he was kidnapped?”
“Liam was six and I was eight. One minute he was walking next to me, and the next he was running across the street. It all happened so fast. He’d be sixteen now. If I had just run after him instead of trying to find my parents first, he never would have been taken.”