Aim to Kill (10 page)

“Penny for your thoughts.”

She jumped, almost forgetting where she was. Seattle. On a ferry. With a probing detective who wouldn’t stop looking at her. She didn’t know whether to be irritated, flattered, or worried.

She cleared her throat and rubbed her arms, trying to be discreet. She didn’t want Detective Travis to know how chilled she really was.

“I was thinking about something that’s been bothering me since I started piecing these cases together,” Olivia admitted. “I mean, you know as well as I do that most serial killers don’t want to be caught. They live for the hunt, they enjoy the kill, and they will do anything to avoid capture. But I was thinking about the BTK Killer, in
Kansas
. He slipped up and was caught. His crimes were spread over years, but he still only killed ten people. When you mentioned the Green River Killer, I was thinking about how he confessed to forty-eight killings, most of them committed nearly twenty years before he was caught.”

“Most of the cops on the case think he killed far more,” Zack said.

“So do I,” she said. “But the thing is, he messed up. It was his semen that led to his capture—decades-old DNA. We have this killer’s DNA—but it’s not matching anything. He was never arrested for a sexual crime. He hasn’t slipped up. He hasn’t made one of those mistakes that could set us on the path to capture him. For thirty-four years, he’s killed with impunity, hiding the pattern, keeping a low profile so that he can keep on killing these children.”

Olivia blinked. She hadn’t intended to say so much, and she took a deep breath. Zack was looking at her oddly. Had she blown it? She normally didn’t become so impassioned about, well, anything. But being here, so close to Missy’s killer, was doing something to her. She wasn’t thinking straight, letting both the circumstances and Zack’s intense perusal get under her skin. But having to keep her lies in order was far more difficult than she’d imagined.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

“I don’t understand.”

“Olivia.” His voice was low, deep, commanding. “Why
you
? Why are
you
here unofficially and not someone else?”

She swallowed and prayed he couldn’t see her raw nerves. These past weeks had been a living hell and it had become more difficult to keep her emotions in check. What could she safely tell him? She was an awful liar. She could skirt the truth—Chief Pierson hadn’t asked tough questions, because Greg had paved the way with a phone call the day before—but lying was next to impossible.

She’d probably still be married to Greg if she’d been able to lie about her feelings.

“I was involved with a case years ago where this killer got away,” Olivia said, carefully choosing her words. “An innocent man went to prison. I want to catch this guy. The real killer. End his reign of terror.”

Zack stared at her. She stared back, determined not to break eye contact. Keep her chin up. Never back down. Never show weakness.

“Guilt.”

She blinked. How could he get so close to her real feelings when she kept them so deeply buried? His inspection of her motives unnerved her. “Well, not so much—”

“Don’t try to get out of it, Olivia. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Guilt can be a powerful motivator. It also has the power to destroy you. You sent an innocent guy to prison; now you want justice because of your guilt.”

So close. Too close. She didn’t know what to say.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

Once again, Zack threw Olivia off balance. He’d brought too many feelings to the surface, then dropped the subject so swiftly that she floundered.

She began to protest, but he stared into her eyes and simply shook his head, a half-smile on his lips.

Without asking, he draped his worn leather jacket over her shoulders. It was far too big, falling over her hips and hanging past her fingertips. She felt like he’d wrapped her in a bear hug, his residual warmth caressing her. His scent of raw soap and leather permeated her senses. Warm. Intimate. Too intimate.

She tore herself away from his eyes. She bit her lower lip and looked out at the water. The island was much larger than it appeared from West Seattle. She focused on it and not on Zack, but she still pictured his dark, intelligent, probing eyes.

“Why’d you join the FBI?” Zack asked after several moments of silence.

She glanced at him. Mistake. He stared at her intently. If she lied, he’d most certainly know.

“I knew someone who was killed,” she said, looking away. “When an FBI recruiter visited my college campus, I felt compelled to apply after graduation.” There. The truth, of sorts.

“Who was killed?”

Why had she said anything? She was inviting questions she didn’t want to answer. “My sister,” she said quietly, looking at her hands clutching the railing, the sleeves of Zack’s jacket covering her fingers. Just thinking of Missy made her stomach clench.

“I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere. “I had a sister, too.”

She turned to him, surprised. “What happened?”

He paused. “She got involved with the wrong people. Ended up getting herself killed.”

“That’s awful. Was she young?”

“Twenty-two. In college.”

His voice was both bitter and hurt. Olivia couldn’t help but wonder what more there was to the story. But she wasn’t going to ask. He might start up with questions of his own, harder questions she couldn’t avoid.

“The young think they’re invincible,” she said after a moment. “Indestructible. Nothing can hurt them.” She’d believed that for the first five years of her life. And from her experience since, most kids grew into adults before realizing they weren’t superhuman.

Too often, they looked death in the face before coming to that conclusion. The unlucky ones didn’t get a second chance at life.

They were approaching the island. At first, it hadn’t looked like anything was there, just a dim sort of glow on the horizon. But as they came closer, the glow had turned to distinctive lights, and the island took shape against the dark sky.

Olivia turned her head to view the Seattle skyline to the east.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Zack said, his voice quiet and filled with awe. “Like jewels against the night sky. This is my favorite view of the city.”

Jewels against the night sky.
How beautiful! Yet beauty juxtaposed against the death scene that awaited them hit her hard and she closed her eyes.

She didn’t want to see the girl’s body. She didn’t want to be on the island deceiving anyone about her credentials. Especially a dedicated cop like Zack Travis. But there was no other way, and she admonished herself to get over her remorse.

She would do anything and everything to catch Missy’s killer. Maybe this time the killer had slipped up. Maybe this victim would give them the evidence they needed to find her attacker.

Olivia hoped and prayed for something—anything—that led to the killer.

Before another girl died.

CHAPTER

9

By the time Olivia and Zack arrived on Vashon Island, the girl’s body had already been taken to the morgue. The coroner would expedite the autopsy the following morning in hopes of confirming or ruling out that it was the same murderer who’d killed Jenny Benedict and Michelle Davidson.

Approximately twelve miles long and eight miles across at its widest spot, Vashon Island was a popular getaway spot for both locals and tourists. Miles of pine-edged country roads, pristine beaches, and a historic lighthouse gave the island an old-world feel. The artisans and crafters pretty much ran the place with monthly art shows, a local drama troupe, and numerous fine art galleries.

The island was a fun place. Now Zack would never be able to set foot here without thinking about a dead girl.

Jillian Reynolds had been dumped in a dense, wooded area in the middle of the island. Zack glanced at Olivia. She struggled in her pumps—certainly not made for scaling boulders or trekking through sand. But then again, neither of them had been expecting to attend a crime scene on the island in the middle of the night.

The three of them—Sheriff Rodgers, Zack, and Olivia—stood just inside the crime-scene tape, which was pulled around trees in a roughly hundred-square-foot area. High-wattage construction lights had been brought in, making the landscape harsh in the artificial brightness. Details seemed too sharp, faces almost colorless.

Olivia was thankful that it was warm under the lights. She was doing everything she could to stop her teeth from chattering. She’d returned Zack’s jacket without a word—it would be unprofessional to wear his clothing to the crime scene. The fact that she hadn’t brought a warm coat was her own fault—in her rushed departure from Virginia, which was enjoying an Indian summer, she hadn’t thought of checking the weather in Seattle before packing. Frankly, she hadn’t thought about much of anything but Missy’s murder during the last weeks since Brian Harrison Hall had been released from prison, but her oversight on appropriate clothing irritated her.

Standing under the warmth of the potent lights, Olivia watched the crime-scene technicians finish collecting potential evidence and itched to join them. She followed their every movement with a sharp eye—was that woman going to forget to collect a soil sample? Good, she saw the flash of a test tube. What about the tree branches? Perhaps the killer had snagged hair or skin on a protruding limb. Good, one of the techs was inspecting the foliage. But it had been three months since the murder; any biological evidence would be gone. She tried not to feel discouraged, but time and the elements were enemies of evidence.

“My people know what they’re doing,” Sheriff Rodgers said.

Olivia glanced up at the cop, detecting a hint of offense in his tone. It didn’t help that Zack had introduced her as “Agent St. Martin with the FBI.” She’d watched the sheriff bristle and straighten. He wasn’t as tall as Zack, but compared to her he was huge.

“They appear more than competent.” She gave him a smile. She wasn’t the villain here, but she had to tread carefully. This was uncharted territory for her, and she couldn’t afford to slip up.

“Have you notified her family?” Zack asked.

“It’s being done,” Rodgers said. “She wasn’t a local. Her family was on a weekend trip to the island when she disappeared. I remember the case. We’d conducted a search, believing she’d gotten lost. When she wasn’t found, she was listed as a missing person, but her mother said she couldn’t swim and she’d been last seen near the water. We all thought—well, the undertow is strong on the west side of the island.” He ran a hand over his stubble, looking tired and defeated. It had been a long night.

Olivia said, “How did you identify her? Three months outdoors, decomposition would have been advanced.”

“She was still wearing a medical bracelet for a penicillin allergy, which has her name on it.” He took a deep breath. “You’re right, there wasn’t much of anything else identifiable.”

Olivia had seen decomposing bodies weeks, months, and even years after death. They were difficult, emotionally, to work with. To see what death did to the human body always brought to mind one’s own mortality. Or, in this case, the mortality of loved ones.

“I contacted the sheriff down in Bellevue,” Sheriff Rodgers continued, “and he said he’d see the family tonight. The coroner will confirm her identity—we already have dental records as part of the missing persons case.”

“No one saw anything?” Zack asked. “Back when she went missing?”

Rodgers shook his head. “She wandered down to the shoreline, promised she’d stay out of the water, and it was a quiet Sunday morning.”

“Alone?” Olivia asked, incredulous.

“The island is safe, Agent St. Martin. We get a lot of families here on the weekend. Few problems. Nothing like this.”

No place is safe from those who hunt children.

“Safe.” She snapped out the word, the familiar tension bubbling under her skin as she fought her emotions.

Who was safe? Surely not innocent children, the most vulnerable in society, the ones we should be protecting. No one thinks that the average-looking man down the beach is a killer under that kind face. Everyone expects evil to be obvious at first sight.

Don’t they know evil looks like them? That sick perverts don’t have “child predator” written across their face? That killers don’t have “murderer” tattooed on their forehead?

“Olivia?”

It was Zack, breathing down her neck. Why did he come so close when she was ready to explode? She took a step away from him, a small step, but she felt him shift his stance. Ever since Olivia learned Missy’s killer was still at large, her emotions refused to stay contained. They fought the steel box she’d locked them in years ago, hammering away until the pounding was almost unbearable.

“
Liv
?” Zack’s voice was low. The sheriff had turned his back to them and was giving instructions to a deputy. “Are you okay?”

She made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They were assessing her, probing her, trying to see through the layers of control she’d painstakingly built over the years. Zack had a tough edge about him, his entire body on the verge of movement even when standing still. His square jaw covered with stubble and the hard lines of his face made him look far more formidable than his dark eyes, which watched her with concern and warmth.