Latent Danger (On the Line #2)(54)

“You have a heart of gold,” Zach said.

“Whatever.” Another eye roll. “The day before he died, my dad was talking to him and my grandfather told him everything. The whole family always knew there was something wrong with Herschel, but they didn’t realize how far it went until they found out he’d been the one killing those girls. His father found him in the chimney room.” Her eyes lit. “I’ve never been able to figure out that room. I know the tunnels were put in when the house was built to let servants travel from room to room quickly. There are others, you know, not just the chimney one. There’s another channel of tunnels on the west side of the house. But the room was added later, I think. It wasn’t really a room. It was a shaft of some sort that they just sealed off, I think. But I couldn’t figure out why. Turns out, they made that room for him.”

“For Herschel?” Zach asked.

She nodded. She was so excited to be talking about him. “My grandfather said he would go into rages, screaming and throwing things, even hitting him sometimes. So, they built that space. My uncle was sent there when he was acting out. Sometimes for days. It sounded like my grandmother wanted to make him disappear—she was like that. She cared more about appearances than about anyone or anything. She likely put him in there so no one could hear his ranting. Eventually, he began to seek it out. Made the chimney room into his own space.”

“What did your grandfather find in the room?”

She seemed pleased that Zach wanted to know. “The rope, the lipstick. I bet you guys never knew he kept trophies.”

Zach kept his face blank. “Oh?”

“Yes. hair.”

Zach ran through the information in his mind. There was nothing about that in the file. If he’d cut a piece of the victims’ hair, wouldn’t the medical examiner have found evidence of that? “He did?”

The look of triumph on her face told Zach he might have made an error. He held his face steady and waited for her response. “Your girlfriend didn’t know, did she?”

“I guess not,” he said mildly.

“He did. He might have been off, but he was smart enough to do it without leaving evidence. Just a few strands pulled from each girl. He had them wrapped in little cloth pockets.”

“And your grandfather found all this?”

She nodded. “At the time, you couldn’t live in the area and not know all about the girls being killed. Everyone knew about the rope and the lipstick.”

She was right. They hadn’t held those details back from the press back then.

Liz continued. “Rather than turn him in, they hospitalized him. My grandfather cried to my dad on his death bed. Said he shouldn’t have done it. Then my grandmother and the doctor talked him into allowing the lobotomy. I don’t know what happened after that. Herschel came home for a short time, but went back to the hospital and stroked out and died. My grandfather ultimately died from a stroke, too, you know? Twisted, huh?”

“So you went and found the room yourself after that?” Zach asked.

“Yes. My dad and mom traveled more than ever after my grandfather died and none of the staff ever cared what I did.”

Zach did the math. She would have been thirteen. If ever there was a time a girl needed her parents. Then again, he wondered if anything would have changed what this girl was. She showed no remorse for what she’d done. In fact, she seemed to take pleasure and pride in what she was. Surely, she had to be born like that, Zach thought. Could evil like this be made?

“So, you used the same materials?”

“Not his knife. It was gross. All rusted. I cut the rope with one of the kitchen knives. But, yes, you have to admit, it was brilliant bringing out his things. Making the killings look like the Marsh Killer was back?”

Zach didn’t tell her they’d realized right off the bat that it very likely wasn’t the same killer. That they were dealing with an apprentice or someone with a connection to the original Marsh Killer. He would save that for later. Right now, he wanted her to think he respected her a little, even if only grudgingly.

Instead, he focused on getting some of the why answered. “But why did you need to bring him back at all? What did the girls do?”

Her whole face pinched. “They thought they were so much better than everyone.”

“Don’t you mean Sawyer thought they were so much better? So much better than you?”

“Shut up!” She covered her ears and screamed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

When she stopped, there was only the sound of her breathing.

Zach waited.

She made a show of calming herself, hands pressed to the table before speaking again. “I gave him everything. Everything. But he drugged them, so he could fuck their high and mighty little brains out. He had to have those tight-assed little bitches.”

“So, what? You went over to the clubhouse after he’d drugged them? Raped them?”

She shrugged one shoulder in a way that said, of course she had. “He left them there. I took advantage.”

Zach nodded his head, but then shook it, like he wasn’t getting the whole story. Because he wasn’t. “But that only could have been with Adrienne and Carrie.” It killed him talking about the girls so callously. “Hillary was there first. You didn’t want to kill her?”