CHAPTER 63
“I’m here at the house now,” Jessica said into her phone as she pulled up to the front of Kitally’s house. “We’ll be on our way in five minutes.” She clicked off, cut the engine, and jogged to the front door.
Kitally answered the door.
Jessica stepped past her. “Where’s Lizzy?”
“She’s upstairs. First bedroom on the left. What’s going on?”
Jessica ran upstairs. She found Lizzy sitting on a mountain of fluffy bedding, papers strewn and covering the entire mattress.
Lizzy looked up, her eyes sunken and tired. “What is it, Jessica?”
“They found her.”
“Shelby?”
Jessica nodded. “You were right. It took him some time, but Ben, her boyfriend, thought he knew what she was trying to say in the letter. Shelby taught him to sing ‘Joy to the World’ when Shelby vacationed with him and his family. She would sing every time she heard the croak of a frog. Shelby and Ben took a lot of hikes when they were there. Ben and his parents led us to the place. It’s near Auburn. It didn’t take them long to find them. It was right there—a tiny cabin—off the beaten path near Two-Face Rock.”
“Is she safe?”
“No. He still has her. We believe Shelby is tied up. He has a gun.”
“Were we right? Is it Frank Lyle?”
Another nod.
Lizzy had no words.
“He wants to talk to you, Lizzy.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, only you. Says he’ll kill her if we don’t bring you there now.”
Lizzy was already on her feet, grabbing her jeans and T-shirt. She started to put on her holster, but Jessica stopped her. “No weapons.”
Kitally had been standing by the door the entire time. “Wait!” she said to Lizzy, “I have something for you.” Then she ran off, her footfalls skittering down the stairs in record time. By the time she was running back up, she passed Jessica on the stairs going down.
“I’ll be in the car,” Jessica shouted, clearly annoyed. “Try to hurry!”
Five minutes later, Lizzy jumped into the passenger seat.
Jessica didn’t wait for her to buckle up. She put her foot on the gas pedal and gunned it.
Once they were on the highway, Jessica asked, “What was Kitally’s problem?”
“No problem,” Lizzy told her. “She was concerned, that’s all.”
“You two have grown close.”
“You’ll always be my first assistant,” Lizzy said with a smirk, hoping to change the subject.
“Thanks. I was worried.”
Awkward silence followed. They were both worried about Shelby, but they had a fifteen- to twenty-minute ride in front of them, too, and it wouldn’t do much good to sit and stew in fear of what might lie ahead when they arrived at the scene. “How’s the FBI program working out?” Lizzy asked.
“All is well. No regrets.”
There was a moment’s pause before Jessica said, “What about Hayley?”
“What about her?”
“Still wandering the streets at night?”
“Not so much,” Lizzy lied. “I think she’s finally moving on.”
“How so?”
“She registered at the local community college.”
“Really? What class is she taking?”
“Art.”
“The Art of Weaponry?”
“No, smart-ass. Painting and drawing.”
“Hmm.”
And that was it. That’s all the chitchat they could handle considering the circumstances, both knowing that a young girl’s life was at stake and that anything could happen.
Going well over the speed limit, it still took them twenty minutes to get to the area in Auburn where it seemed every media van and emergency vehicle in Placer County had set up camp. A long line of dark sedans and police cruisers dotted the area.
“SWAT has been set up,” an agent said in greeting as soon as they climbed out of the vehicle, “but there’s only one window, and they can’t get a visual. Perpetrator said he’ll shoot her if anyone throws a smoke bomb. He’s not going out without a fight.”
They were on foot now, ignoring the journalists who shoved microphones in front of their faces.
The federal agent held up the crime scene tape and led them up the hill. They stayed on a path for a while until another agent took over and led them off the trail, through trees and thick brush that had been marked with small white flags. The ground was thick with dead leaves and pinecones, but the flags were easy to see.
The grade got steeper as they went, and they hiked for much longer than Lizzy had anticipated they would. It was cold and drizzly, but by the time she got within a hundred yards of the cabin, she was sweating. It was good to see Jimmy Martin at the front of the group, talking on his radio. He clicked off as Lizzy reached him.
“I thought you retired a long time ago,” Lizzy said.
“So did I.”
Jimmy gave Lizzy a hard look. He didn’t like this one bit. “He wants to talk to you. Wants you to walk up to the cabin, knock three times, and then say your name.”
“Let’s do it, then.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I absolutely want to do this.”
Another man, a guy in a helmet dressed in black, the upper half of his body covered with a thick bulletproof vest, looked at her and said, “Ready?”
“Ready.”
“No weapons on you, right?”
“That’s right.” She’d left her gun with Jessica. She held up her arms. “I’m clean. Let’s do this.”
They set off.
Lizzy followed the nameless man in black.
Behind her, she could hear Jimmy Martin back on his radio, barking orders. She glanced over her shoulder, made eye contact with Jessica before she slid out of sight behind a tree. She’d managed a smile, but it was tenuous at best.
Stay focused, she told herself. Despite the drizzle, the leaves on the forest floor had been protected from the rain by the trees and crunched beneath her feet.
“Just the woman,” a man shouted from the cabin as they approached.
She didn’t recognize the voice, but she knew it was him.
It felt as if Spiderman were back from the dead, his copycat wannabe trying to make a name for himself.
“Step back!” he ordered the man in the vest. “All the way back until you’re with the rest of your guys.”
The nameless man hesitated.
“I’ll be fine,” Lizzy told him.
He turned and followed the same trail back.
The sound of birds surprised her for some reason. Lizzy inhaled a breath of fresh pine air and continued on toward the cabin. She made her way to the door and was about to knock three times as instructed, but then she heard wood scratching against wood. The door had hardly opened before he had her arm and yanked her inside, tossing her across the room so violently there was nothing to do but roll with it until she crashed into the wall, her head and the back of her neck striking hard enough to leave her momentarily dazed.
And then she saw Shelby—sitting on the edge of the narrow bed against the far wall, her eyes wide and scared. The girl had been beaten down and bruised, hardly looked like Shelby at all. Her hands were behind her back. She was gagged; her ankles had been bound with duct tape.
Lizzy pushed herself to her feet.
Before she could go to Shelby, Frank Lyle stepped between them with his gun trained on her. “Stay right where you are.”
She did as he said.
“Take off your clothes.”
She hesitated.
“Now!”
She took off the hooded sweatshirt Jessica had handed her in the car on the way there and laid it on the floor.
“Kick it over here!”
Her eyes never left Shelby’s as she did as he asked. She wanted Shelby to know that everything was going to be OK. They both needed to stay calm. Needed to keep clear heads.
“Everything!”
She took off her shoes and then her socks. She purposely slowed down the process in order to give herself time to take in her surroundings. Her breathing calmed. She looked at the bed, took a closer look at Shelby’s ankles. Her feet weren’t secured to the bed, which meant Shelby could use her legs if she needed to.
Lizzy slipped off her pants, slowly, then kicked them over with everything else she’d removed so far.
Her T-shirt came off next.
She was down to her bra and underwear. She wrapped her arms around her waist, stood there barefoot and half-naked, shivering and praying he wouldn’t make her remove anything else.
He checked the pockets of her pants and then kicked the pile of clothes to the side.
Lizzy continued to keep eye contact with Shelby, trying to convey that they were not going to give up easily.
She thought Shelby understood. She looked frightened but determined, too. Shelby hadn’t given up the fight yet. Lizzy could see it in the rigid set of her jaw.
Frank Lyle stepped close to the bed and brushed his hand over Shelby’s leg as if he wanted to let Lizzy know he could touch her where and whenever he wanted and there was nothing she could do about it. His fingers continued up and over Shelby’s stomach.
Shelby closed her eyes for just a second, then found Lizzy’s gaze again.
“So, what do you want?” Lizzy asked him.
“It’s not obvious?”
“No.”
“I know how you hate to watch others suffer,” he said, “so I thought I would bring you here so you could watch me kill the bitch.” He moved the gun to Shelby’s head.
Shelby cried out through the gag.
Lizzy started forward, and he let her come, swinging the gun toward her and raising it until he pressed the muzzle against Lizzy’s forehead. “Move another inch and I’ll kill you first and then take care of her.”
“You’re not going to get out of here alive,” Lizzy told him.
“Step back,” he said.
Lizzy did as he said.
He laughed. “You’re not as smart as I thought you were. Why couldn’t any of those guys take you down?”
“Do you mean Spiderman?”
His eyes were bugged out and bloodshot. His smile was crooked. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“Why don’t you fill me in?”
“You’re only here because I wanted you here. I bet every news van in the country is out there right now, everyone wanting a piece of the action, a piece of me!”
He hooked an arm around Shelby’s neck and pulled her so close her face was pressed against his body.
Shelby’s eyes were open. Her breathing had slowed. She was focused again. She didn’t struggle to get away, just locked her eyes on Lizzy’s. She was ready for whatever was about to happen.
“I wanted you here because I wanted to show the world that I’m the guy.” He let go of Shelby and slapped the palm of his hand against his chest.
Lizzy’s heart was racing, beating hard against her ribs.
“I’m it! I’m the guy everyone is talking about—the one who finally took Lizzy Gardner down. And guess what?”
Lizzy pretended to shiver from the cold, willing him to believe she posed no threat to him.
“After the two of you are dead,” he went on, his gun flailing as he talked, “after I’ve had my fun, I’ll walk out of here, head held high. And yeah,” he said with a laugh, “I might spend ten or twenty years behind bars—better yet, the rest of my life! And then everything will be how it should have been all those years ago, before you came into the picture and ruined everything. People will know my name again. There will be interviews and whole books written about me—Frank Lyle, the predator who did things his way. My face will be on every news station across America.”
Lizzy shot a look at Shelby, used her chin to gesture. Now.
Shelby picked up both feet and slammed them hard into the backs of his legs, sending the big man sprawling toward Lizzy.
She ripped the Velcro from the lining of the bra Kitally had given her, grabbed the thin metal shank Kitally had fashioned in her warehouse cell, and jammed it into the side of his neck.
The gun dropped from his hand.
He fell to the floor, blood spurting from his neck.
Lizzy dropped to the ground, scrambled around on her hands and knees, looking for the gun. It was under the bed. As she reached for it, Lyle turned, managed to grab hold of her arm and twist hard.
Lizzy shrieked in pain.
Shelby raised both legs again and drove her heels into the man’s face, busting his nose wide-open.
He let go of Lizzy’s arm. Blood was spraying everywhere now.
Lizzy stretched out for the gun, but it was just out of reach. As she struggled to close those final inches, she felt Frank Lyle’s hand grip the arm he’d already injured. The electric jolt of pain launched her away from him. Using her other hand, she reached for the gun, then twisted and fired—once, twice, three times—before his body went still.
Keeping the gun aimed at the man, she checked for a pulse.
Frank Lyle was dead.
Lizzy used the edge of the cot to pull herself to her feet.
She pulled the gag from Shelby’s mouth before working on removing the tape from around her wrists. Between sobs, the girl tried to catch her breath.
At this rate, Lizzy knew it would take forever to get the tape off. She got up and made her way to the sink, careful not to slip on the blood-slicked floor, and found a knife. On her way back to Shelby, she removed the wood slat from the door.
“You’ll be free soon,” she told her as she cut at the tape.
Jimmy was the first to enter the cabin. He saw that Frank Lyle was dead and put a hand up to stop anyone else from entering.
Lizzy continued to saw at the tape, finally cutting through.
Shelby rubbed her wrists.
Lizzy looked at Jimmy and held up the knife for him to take.
He knew what to do. He went to work on the tape around Shelby’s ankles while Lizzy put a blanket and her arms around Shelby.
“We did it,” Shelby said between sobs as they held one another tight.
“You did it,” Lizzy said.
“Was it the letter?” she asked, her voice hoarse, her body so frail within Lizzy’s embrace.
“Yeah,” Lizzy said. “Ben figured out what you were telling us. I’ve never been so proud.”
A few minutes passed before Lizzy pulled away and looked over her shoulder at Jimmy. She was about to ask him if he was almost done there, but he’d lost his cool. Jimmy Martin was having a difficult time cutting through the layers of tape with a blunt knife. One of the tough guys, he was also having a difficult time holding it together. His eyes were red and brimming with something that looked a lot like tears.
Lizzy took the knife from him, finished what he’d started. Then she put a hand on his shoulder before returning to Shelby and helping her to her feet. She and Jimmy had known each other for a while now. He had two daughters. He’d taken down his share of monsters. Hell, he’d survived cancer. But she knew why he was getting a little sentimental. He’d come to the hospital the other day to see Jared. And for the past ten minutes, he’d worried about Lizzy, too; she’d seen it scrawled in every line of his face before she’d walked off toward the cabin.
The nameless man in black who’d brought Lizzy halfway up the hill came inside then, made sure Lyle was contained/dead, and then told a dozen people behind him to hold off.
“How the hell did you take him down?” he asked Lizzy.
“Teamwork,” Lizzy said.
He lifted a questioning brow.
“This brave young girl caught him off guard, kicked him my way so I could use the shank hidden in my bra.”
“I thought I told you no weapons.”
“I believe you did.”
“It’s OK,” Martin told the man. “You didn’t know who you were dealing with. Lizzy Gardner doesn’t listen to anyone.”