“O.J. was guilty,” Rachael said. “I’m not.”
Liz pulled out the cork.
“Did you hear me say I’m not guilty?” Rachael said.
“Of course,” Liz said. “I was there when the jury brought in the verdict.”
“Damn it, Lizzie, that’s not what I’m asking. I said I’m not guilty, and you clammed up. Tell me the truth—do you believe I’m not guilty?”
“Rachael, I am so happy that you’re free and not in jail,” Liz said. “And that is the truth.”
Rachael shook her head. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “My own sister. You think I’m guilty of murdering Kimi, don’t you?”
“It’s been a long day. A little wine will take the edge off,” Liz said, removing the dead cork from the corkscrew and tossing it in the garbage. No sense saving it. The two sisters had never recorked a bottle in their lives.
“A little wine will not bring my daughter back,” Rachael said, and she flung the newspaper across the room. “I asked you a question. Yes or no—do you think I’m guilty?”
The door between the kitchen and the breezeway crashed open, and two masked men stormed in, guns in hand.
“I do,” one of them said. “Now get down on the floor. Both of you.”
Chapter 45
Liz still had the corkscrew in her hand. She lowered her arm and slowly let it drift behind her back.
“Drop it, bitch!” one screamed. “Do we look like fucking amateurs?”
The corkscrew clattered to the tile floor.
“Kick it across the room.”
Liz studied the two men. They were dressed in black from head to toe. The one giving orders was about six two. His voice was slightly muffled by the mask, but it sounded young, white, and deadly serious. Nothing about him said amateur.
Give in, but don’t give up, she thought as she kicked the corkscrew to the far corner of the kitchen.
“Both of you. Face down. Hands behind your back. Now.”
The women stretched out on the floor, their hands behind their backs. The man in charge holstered his gun, knelt beside Rachael, put a zip tie around her wrists, and yanked hard. She yelped in pain.
The second man was still standing, straddled over Liz. He holstered his gun and reached into his pocket for a zip tie. Liz made her move. In one swift, fluid motion, she rolled over onto her back and jammed her knee into his balls.
He doubled over as Liz reached up, pulled him to the floor, and began scrambling for his gun. His partner sprang up and kicked at her hand. He missed, and Liz grabbed his leg, toppling him to the floor.
She clambered to her knees and pummeled the downed man with her fists, looking for a vulnerable point. His temple, his throat, anything.
A boot struck her on the back of the head, and she pitched forward. A pair of knees dug into her back. The man on top of her grabbed a handful of hair, yanked her head back, and wrapped his arm under her chin.
“Don’t move or I’ll snap your bitch neck like a twig!” he yelled.
She let her body go limp, but the man kept the pressure on, cutting off her air supply. She knew he had her in a death hold.
“Enough!” the other guy yelled. “She’s not who we came for.”
His partner relaxed his grip, and Liz sucked in greedy mouthfuls of air.
One of them grabbed her arms and the other her ankles, and they carried her to the bathroom. The one who had almost choked her held her head over the toilet bowl.
“Any more shit from you, and I’ll drown you right here, and my partner will piss on you while you die.”
They laid her facedown on the floor, duct-taped her mouth, wrapped her legs around the base of the toilet, and zip-tied her ankles. Then they stretched her hands over her head and zip-tied them to a pipe underneath the sink.
One of them turned on the water and began filling the bathtub. Five minutes later, the other was back with every phone in the house, including her cell, and dropped them all in the tub.
“We should kill you just for harboring a child killer,” he said.
They turned off the lights and shut the bathroom door behind them.
Liz lay there on the cold tile floor, her arms and legs stretched painfully wide, the zip ties cutting into her skin, and she listened.
She could hear them carry Rachael out the back door.
Then a car door opened. Finally it shut, followed quickly by two more car doors opening and closing.
An engine roared to life, and the car pulled out.
And then silence. She heard nothing. Nothing except for the agonizing sobs that emanated from her battered body.
Chapter 46
Bridget Sweeney, the housekeeper at St. Agnes’s Church, was a large, robust woman with a bawdy sense of humor and an Irish brogue that was every bit as thick as it was the day she started working there forty-two years ago.