Evil Never Dies

Maybe he would find someone to bring home for a while.

Excitement burst open inside him as a plan began to form.

If he were to do that—bring a potential victim home, that is—he would need a place to keep her. He lifted a brow. He would need a dark room . . . windowless . . . a place where—

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.

He walked to the front entry and looked out the peephole. Saw the neighbor kid, Landon, and opened the door.

“Good morning, sir. My mom was wondering if she could borrow a cube of butter. She’s making oatmeal cookies, and I’m supposed to tell you we’ll pay you back after she goes to the store. I’ll bring you some cookies, too. If you pick out the raisins, they’re pretty OK.”

This wasn’t the first time the neighbor kid had come for a visit. He had to admit the kid was sort of cute. He especially liked that the boy showed respect by calling him “sir.” He leaned his head out the door, looked both ways. Neither of the child’s parents was hanging around. Interesting. Other than waving hello every once in a while to the adults, he’d only ever had a conversation with Landon. Opening the door wide, he said, “Come on in.”

Without a care in the world, the kid stepped inside. He craned his neck as he looked at all the artwork covering the walls in the entryway. “Wow,” Landon said. “Did you paint all these pictures?”

He shut the door. “I did.” He guessed the boy to be about ten or eleven years of age. An all-American kid with a mop of tangled brown hair and freckles that looked like blood splatter across his nose and cheeks.

“Why does everyone in your paintings look dead?”

He looked the kid in the eyes. “Maybe because they are.”

Landon’s big brown eyes doubled in size. “Really?”

He felt a tightening in his chest. Really. Then he smiled and said, “Nah, just pulling your leg, Landon. Come on, let’s get Mom some butter.”

Detective Chase was on the phone, but he waved Lizzy into his office and into a seat in front of his desk.

After being shot in the left shoulder, the detective had ended up in the hospital for nearly a month. He’d lost a lot of blood and for a while there the doctors weren’t always sure he was going to make it. She’d known better than that. Although she had to admit he looked like crap. He had a sling around his left arm, dark circles under his eyes, and he looked as if he’d lost at least fifteen pounds since she’d seen him last.

As soon as he hung up the phone, she said, “You wanted to see me?”

His sigh came out sounding like a dying engine. “Nice to see you, too.”

“I’m glad to see you pulled through,” she told him. “I had no doubt you would make it.”

“Because of my stubborn and determined will to live?”

“Something like that.”

With his good arm, Chase pushed a manila file across the desk.

Lizzy opened it up and looked through a half dozen eight-by-ten color photographs. The date stamped on the back told her the pictures were taken three months ago. A man with a bag over his head. Dead. Suffocated. A close-up revealing duct tape over his mouth. Red markings around his wrist.

Confused, Lizzy looked across the desk at Chase. “What’s this about?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Listen. I know you don’t think what I do is important, but I take my clients and my job very seriously, and I have a hell of a lot of work to do. I don’t have time to play games with you. I’ve never seen this man before. So, for that reason, I ask again . . . what is all this about?”

“It’s about Hayley Hansen.”

“What about her?”

“We have reason to believe she might be involved.”

She grabbed one of the pictures and held it up. “With this? Involved how?”

He shrugged.

“Hayley would never hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Do I need to remind you that she sliced a man’s penis off?”

Lizzy poked his mahogany desk with her finger for emphasis. “Brian Rosie deserved what he got, and you know it. She did her time for that. Everything that girl does is for the good of others. She has been handed a shit-for-nothing life, and yet she does all she can to make other peoples’ lives better.”

“Well, the guy in the pictures here might argue with you about that. I have a witness who can put her in the area within an hour of that scene you’re looking at.”

“Judging by these pictures, I would say this is a suicide.”

He sighed. Rubbed his chin. Sighed again. “Listen to me,” he said at last. “I’m going to be as blunt with you as I can. I’ve been hearing stories about you and your girls trying to take the law into your own hands. I don’t like it, and I won’t allow it to go on. You and your whole merry band need to stand down.”

And that’s when Lizzy saw a telltale sign in the detective’s eyes. This wasn’t about the man in the photo or Hayley. This was about something else altogether. It was about Wayne Be

“Who?”

“Oh, don’t give me that i

He fidgeted just enough so that Lizzy knew she was right. “And what did you tell him, Detective? That you would give me a good talking-to, let me know that Mr. Wayne Be

Detective Chase scratched the side of his head. “Be

“Miriam Walters isn’t the type of girl you would forget. She’s tall and statuesque—a young Beyoncé. A guy like Be

Detective Chase leaned forward and then squinted in pain and quickly readjusted his posture. “You’re right,” he said, apparently giving up on his other tactic. “I’m telling you to lay off. Miriam Walters is a troubled young lady. Everything we’ve learned about her points to her being a runaway.”

“That is such bullshit. What happened to you anyhow? What’s that Top Cop award all about? Why are you here in Sacramento? What did you do? Shoot your partner? Take a bribe?”

He stiffened. “I’m not going to let you get to me, Gardner. You’re having a difficult time dealing with the loss of your fiancé. I get that. The world is a dark, unfriendly place filled with people who feel they are owed something. Everyone else is just plain sad. They have given up on the world, maybe life. But you fall into another category. Something between the evildoers and the people who have lost all hope. You need to pull yourself together, Gardner. It’s time for you to sit down and take a long hard look at what you’re doing and where you go from here.”

Before Lizzy could respond, he added, “This thing with Be

Lizzy kept her gaze on his. “Thanks for the sermon. Are we done here?”

“Not until you promise me you’ll stay away from him.”

“Not in a million years. Go ahead and arrest me for disobeying your orders because I’m going after that man with a vengeance. He’s been molesting and abusing women for too long. It’s going to stop. And you,” Lizzy said as she came to her feet, “should be ashamed of yourself. I wonder if you’d be telling me to back off if you had a daughter or a sister who had been assaulted by that pervert.”