Evil Never Dies

“Nothing has come up. It’s as if he never existed.”

“What about the house on Canyon Road where the Tuckers used to live? Did anyone visit the current home owners to see if they knew anything?”

“Yes, of course,” Jessica said. “Mitchell sent one of his agents to talk to the owners. They said they did, in fact, buy the house from the Tuckers, but they never met them face-to-face. They know nothing about Zachary Tucker.”

Lizzy thought about Kathryn Church and what she’d seen as a young girl. It might be time to pay her another visit.

“Lizzy, I’ve put Zachary Tucker’s name through every available database. There’s nothing. But Jovan Massing is promising as hell. The years he spent in prison fit the gap where no victims at all turned up in the Sacramento area. At the time, investigators figured the Sacramento Strangler might be dead or in prison, which could very well be exactly what happened.”

“Where is Massing now?”

“They have yet to find him, but they’re confident they’re closing in and will have him in custody soon.”

“What about Kathryn Church seeing Zachary kill his own sister?”

“Think about it, Lizzy. There’s really nothing to link Zachary Tucker to any of this. You said yourself that Kathryn was just operating on a hunch. A ‘feeling.’ ” Jessica shook her head. “The woman obviously has some issues. And maybe for good reason—if she really saw what she thinks she saw, that would be a hell of a thing to witness when you were a little kid, and a hell of thing to keep to yourself all these years. But what did she expect Jared to do for her? It all happened thirty years ago.”

Lizzy scratched the back of her neck as she tried to think clearly.

“Lizzy, I understand your frustration. Maybe, just maybe, Jovan Massing was Kathryn’s neighbor. Maybe he is Zachary Tucker.”

“You would have checked that out already. You have Massing’s whole history, his every address.”

Jessica lifted her hands in question. “What else would you have me do?”

Hayley had been waiting in a recliner in Donald Holmes’s living room for over an hour when she heard the rattle of a key in the front door and slipped out of sight into a hall closet.

Just as she thought—he’d brought home the young woman she’d seen him talking to at the club earlier. The girl’s words were slurred but clear enough to be heard. “This isn’t my apartment,” the girl said. “Where are we?”

“It’s all right, sweetheart. I thought we could have one last drink and watch a movie.”

“You said you would bring me home.”

“Come on, baby—don’t be a drag.”

“I want to go home. Now.”

A scuffle ensued. The sound of a chair toppling over and then a grunt before all went quiet. Hayley readied the TASER and sauntered out to the front room.

Yep. It was the same girl she’d seen at the club. Holmes was standing over her where she lay on the couch, her body twisted at a weird angle, her face a bloodied mess. She was out cold but clearly breathing.

Holmes turned her way. “What the fuck?”

Hayley smiled. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

He pointed a stubby finger her way. “You’re that chick. The one who was in here with that other girl. You bitches broke my damn nose. In my own damn house!”

“Terrible thing,” Hayley said, walking toward him. She ducked when he took a swing, then stung him with the TASER—once, then again. He fell to the floor with a thunk. She worked quickly after that while the girl from the club sawed logs on the couch. After driving his car into the garage, she dragged him out there and hauled his heavy ass into the trunk. She was breathing hard by the time she climbed in behind the wheel.

The girl on the couch had a strange awakening ahead of her in the next hour or so, coming to bruised, bloodied, and memory-free in a strange, empty house. But she was safe, and that’s all that mattered.

Nora Belle Castor, also known as the Ghost, paced the bathroom floor, back and forth, in front of the mirror. Ever since being chased by that dyke bitch at the mall, she’d been antsy to release some of her frustrations. She spent most of the night on the street, waiting and watching. And then she’d made her move, but she hadn’t seen it coming: one of the homeless assholes got a jab in after she jumped him. Got her right in the eye with his dirty, disgusting finger. Made her look as if she had fucking pinkeye.

She leaned over the sink and tried to open her infected eye as wide as she could, but it was no use. The dirty asshole had done some damage.

She looked down.

The fucker had also soiled her shoes.

The stupid goon she was living with didn’t have shit for a washer and dryer, but his crappy appliances would have to do. She took off her sneakers and headed into the main room. Asshole was asleep on the couch with a can of beer still in his grasp.

She wasn’t sure how long she would be able to live with the douche. His dick was long and thin, like a fucking wand but without the magic fairy dust. Fucking the man meant going through the motions without ever knowing if there was anything inside her. A waste of time. A shitty five-minute workout, at best.

She opened the closet in the hallway, swept all his dirty clothes to the floor, put her sneakers in the wash, added bleach and detergent, and turned on the machine. Before she could take more than a few steps back the way she came, she saw a little girl standing in the hallway watching her, a thumb shoved in her mouth.

“Who the fuck are you?” Nora Belle asked. And then she remembered Michael telling her he had a kid and that he swapped weekends with his ex every once in a while. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time because, hell, she didn’t give a shit about Michael. He was merely another idiot to take advantage of for a few weeks, maybe months, if she could stand him for that long.

“Take that thumb out of your mouth,” she told the kid. “It’s disgusting.”

The kid kept sucking away, looking at her with big round eyes as if she really were looking at a fucking ghost. She hated the nickname she’d been given, but it was better than any of those assholes using her real name. The fu

She walked up to the little girl and yanked her thumb out of her mouth. “What’s your name?”

“Leah.”

“How old are you?”

“Four.” She held up four fingers as if that fucking confirmed it.

“OK, Leah, what do you want? Why are you staring at me like that?”

Thumb went back in her mouth. Tiny shoulder came up in a half shrug.

And then Nora Belle got an idea. “Hey, want to play a game?”

Suck. Suck. Suck.

That’s all the kid knew how to do.

Fucking idiot, like her father.

She clamped a hand around the kid’s shoulder and said, “Come on—we’ll get something to eat and then go in the other room and play some games. It’ll be fun. I have all night.”