Lizzy rushed around the house again, this time in search of Claire Kerley. She made her way back inside and down the hallway to the door of the front room where the window had been broken. It was locked. “Are you in there, Claire?”
There was a faint knock on the wall.
“I’m going to shoot the lock off this door. Knock again if you’re out of the way of the door.”
Another knock sounded.
Lizzy fired at the lock. The door swung open.
Inside the bedroom, lying on the floor between the bed and window, was the missing girl.
She had thrown every item in the room at the window. Glass crunched beneath Lizzy’s feet as she crossed the room.
The girl’s face was swollen and bruised. Her lips were cracked. She looked as if she were on the brink of death. She’d been stripped of clothes and every bit of her flesh was covered with cuts and bruises. Parts of her body had been painted. The monster had used her as a human canvas. Her wrists and ankles were raw and infected, but Lizzy did her best not to visibly react to Claire’s condition.
She pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed 911. Next she called Jimmy Martin and told him they had found Claire Kerley and gave him the address. After hanging up, she pulled a pillow from the bed and placed it beneath the girl’s head, then yanked off the sheet, too, and used it to cover her. “You did good,” she told Claire. “I need you to hang in there for a while longer. I’m going to take a quick look around, make sure no one else needs help. I’ll be right back—I promise. An ambulance is on its way.”
Lizzy walked briskly through the house. She stepped outside onto the balcony and peered over the railing at Jessica and Zachary Tucker, still flat on his belly in the grass with his leg canted at its freakish angle. “I found the girl. She’s pretty beat-up, but she’s going to be all right. I also called it in. An ambulance is on its way.”
“This one says his leg hurts,” Jessica said.
“Really? That’s too bad.”
“Yeah,” Jessica agreed. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“I’m going to go back and sit with Claire.”
“I should have listened to you from the start,” Jessica said.
“We’re here, aren’t we?”
Lizzy walked back into the house, then stopped to look at a painting propped on an easel in the corner of the living room. The picture was grotesque. Claire had been chained and cuffed to a wall. Her hair fell over parts of her face, but her eyes were wild and deranged, her teeth snapping.
Lizzy wanted to rip the canvas to shreds, but she couldn’t destroy evidence so she walked away. Drawn by a strong smell and afraid someone else could need her help, Lizzy made her way downstairs. It was damp and dark, and she had to use her shirtsleeve to cover her mouth and nose as she continued down the stairs. Inside a wine cellar, atop a dirty mattress and rolled partially within a bloody tarp, was a dead body. A woman. Her eyes had been carved out of her head.
Lizzy gagged as she ran from the room.
She needed to get Claire out of here.
By the time she got back to the room upstairs, Claire had crawled to the door. “Come on,” Lizzy said. “Let’s get you outside and get some fresh air.” The girl weighed next to nothing. Lizzy propped her on the edge of the bed and fastened the sheet around her again before carrying her down the hallway and out of this nightmare.
Sirens sounded in the distance, growing louder with each step.
“I’m going to live,” the girl whispered as Lizzy set her on her feet and they made their way down the walkway.
Lizzy held her close to her side. “That’s right. You’re a survivor, Claire.”
“I need to talk to Mom.”
“Let’s get into the car, and then we’ll give her a call, OK?”
As soon as Lizzy and Claire were sitting safely in the backseat of her car, they called Claire’s mother. Lizzy told her that her daughter was alive, and then she held the phone close to the side of Claire’s face so she could talk.
“I love you, Mom.”
They both wept.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Hours later, Lizzy talked to both Brittany and Cathy on the phone. She told them what had happened and that it was safe to come out of the house. They were shocked to learn that Jake Polly might be the Sacramento Strangler. For the hundredth time, her sister talked about moving to another state. Lizzy would talk to her later, convince her to stay. They needed each other.
As soon as Lizzy said her goodbyes, Jimmy motioned for her to come with him, letting her know they had Zachary Tucker back from the hospital with his broken leg set and they were about to interrogate him. She followed Jimmy deeper into the task force offices, to an already crowded ten-by-ten dimly lit room adjoining the interrogation room.
Behind the glass, she saw Kenneth Mitchell sitting at a table across from Zachary, whose leg was in a cast and propped stiffly on a chair to one side. A wheelchair was parked in the corner. Jessica, along with three other agents, sat up front in the observation room. Jimmy and Lizzy took a seat in the back.
“How long has Claire Kerley been staying with you?” Mitchell asked Zachary.
“I don’t recall.”
“How did she come to be in your house?”
“She was hitchhiking, so I thought I’d give her a ride. She told me she hated her family and her boyfriend and she wanted to get high. She’s a sassy one.”
“So you brought her home with you?”
“I did.”
“Tell us about the wine cellar.”
“What would you like to know?”
“It looked as if you did some renovating. Tell us about the bolts and cuffs that were found embedded in the walls. The ones with your fingerprints all over them.”
“Oh, that. It was Claire’s idea.”
“She asked to be hung by metal cuffs?”
“She certainly did.”
“You painted her portrait, is that right?”
“Of course. Lovely Claire wanted something different than the others, so I gave her exactly what she asked for.”
“Speaking of the others, let’s talk about some of them. I would like to start with Lorry Jo Raciti, the woman found near the American River, not too far from where you live.”
“I don’t recognize the name. Never met her.”
“Maybe this picture will help jog your memory.” Mitchell slid an eight-by-ten color photograph of her body in front of him.
“Ahh,” he said.
“You remember now?”
“Perhaps,” he said, transfixed by the photo.
“So, what were you thinking after you killed her?”
Zachary didn’t say anything. Merely leaned closer for a better look.
“We have your journal in our possession. No reason for you to keep it all bottled up. It’s over, Zachary.”
The killer had yet to take his eyes off the woman he’d killed by the river. “I was thinking how lucky she was to be one of the chosen ones.” Zachary looked up and smiled at Kenneth Mitchell. “Her eyes were so blue. They flickered between wild and fearful. I could see her heart pumping against her chest. She was magnificent. My plan was to paint her next—from memory, of course—once I was finished with Claire.”
Jessica looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with Lizzy.
Jimmy gave her the thumbs-up.
They had their man. He had just confessed to a murder.
There was a pause during the interrogation when Zachary asked for an energy drink, specifically a Red Bull. He refused to go on until his request was fulfilled.
The questioning went on like that for another two hours. Zachary Tucker/Jake Polly seemed more than content to talk about his victims as Mitchell held up one picture after another.
“So why did you kill them?”
“It’s my calling.”
“Killing is your calling?”
“Definitely. I am surprised it took you people so long to find me.”
“Why is that?”
“I left you enough clues.” He gestured to all the pictures scattered across the table. “It was all there, all these years, pointing in my direction.”
When Mitchell asked him about Gillian Winslow, the therapist his parents had hired and assigned as Zachary’s trustee, Zachary decided he’d given them enough information. “I think I’ll request a lawyer now. I want the same deal as the Green River Killer.”
“What deal is that?”
“I want life.”
“Anything else you want to tell us before a lawyer is appointed to you?”
“Yes. I want the world to know that nobody out there really gets it.”
“Nobody gets what, exactly?”
“Evil never dies.”
“Can you explain?”
“Of course. You can catch a killer like me and throw away the key, but there’s always someone else out there slicing and dicing, killing people just because they can. Me,” he said, pointing to his chest, “I am a natural born killer. I killed my own sister, and if given the chance, I would do it again.”