The Kill (10 page)

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.

“I’m okay,” she mumbled, tearing herself from his steady gaze. Taking stock of the crime scene, she let the emotions fade away and put her control firmly in place.

The familiar ritual of evidence collection grounded her. She took a deep breath, gathered her strength, and tried to forget that Zack was still watching her. She could feel his eyes on the back of her neck.

She watched as a woman, not much taller than she, squatted to photograph possible evidence. The flash of the lightbulb comforted her. Familiar. Though she now worked primarily in the lab, at the beginning of her career, when she’d been a field agent, she’d been assigned to the Evidence Response Team out of the San Francisco field office. She’d worked some big cases. A cross-jurisdictional serial killer her largest.

But that was ancient history. She joined the Quantico lab nine years ago, leaving the FBI and fieldwork after only a year. Sometimes she missed it, like now, watching trained professionals doing their job. She wanted to be with them.

Right
. She didn’t work well in a team unit, which was why she’d joined the lab. True, it could be considered a promotion, and with her Ph.D. and science background, the lab was a better fit for her anyway. But had she functioned better in the group she would never have left the FBI. She found it hard to open up to others, and when you worked closely with the same eight or ten people in a high-stress operation, you needed to be able to relax, let off steam, shoot the breeze. Not Olivia. Ever. And the stress of keeping up her defenses almost tore her apart.

Quantico was better. Less interpersonal pressure, more independence. Solitary work, just her and the evidence. That was what Olivia was best at. Depending on herself to get the job done. Not on anyone else.

Olivia realized that Zack and the sheriff had been talking to each other for the past several minutes. She focused on the conversation.

“Since the coroner is downtown, do you want me to handle the autopsy?” Zack was asking the sheriff.

“Fine,” Rodgers agreed. “I’m sending my crime team to the Seattle lab with the evidence, instead of to the state lab. What’s mine is yours.”

“Likewise.”

They shook hands in agreement.

“What’s the Federal interest?” Rodgers asked Olivia, but he glanced at Zack.

“We suspect that this killer has been active in several other states for many years,” she said. “It took time to connect the dots, particularly since there were suspects for some of the crimes.”

“Do you—” Rodgers began, then shut his mouth as he gestured downslope at the approach of Vince Kirby.

Zack turned in the same direction. “Aw, shit,” he muttered. “How the hell did he find out about this so soon?”

“Not from my unit,” Rodgers said, disgusted. “But I wouldn’t put it past him to have a spy somewhere inside.”

The sheriff was probably right, Zack thought. The reporter had too much inside information printed in his rag to just be lucky. He had people on the inside, probably more than one. Bastard.

Kirby smiled at them, looking a little too long at Olivia, who was shivering in her heels and standing dangerously close to the searchlights. To keep warm, no doubt. Zack wanted to give her his jacket again, but he sensed she’d balk at the offer.

“This is a crime scene, Kirby,” Zack said.

Kirby stopped just on the other side of the bright yellow police tape and smiled like the Cheshire Cat, his features oddly shadowed and blue under the fringe of the lamps. “That’s pretty obvious.”

“What are you doing here?” Zack jammed his fists into his pockets, primarily to keep from decking Kirby. Every time the condescending prick approached, Zack itched to wipe the smirk off his long, narrow face with one well-placed blow.

But every time he wanted to hit Kirby, he wondered if it was because he blamed him for Amy’s death, or because he blamed himself.

“I’d think that would be obvious, too.” Kirby looked beyond them to where the crime-scene techs were finishing up their job. “Same guy?”

“No comment,” Sheriff Rodgers said. “I’ll be issuing a statement in the morning. Feel free to come by headquarters about eleven.”

“Hmm.” Kirby pulled out his notepad and pencil. “Let’s see—Detective Zack Travis out of his jurisdiction. Young girl’s body found. Blonde, or so my sources tell me.” He looked at Olivia and grinned. “Well, Travis, bringing your dates with you to murder sites. Didn’t know that was in the manual. But you’ve obviously moved up a notch. This one looks like she can read beyond ‘See Dick Run.’ ”

Zack pulled his hands from his pockets and took a step forward. “Get out of here, Kirby.”

“I need a statement.”

“I’ll give you—” Zack took a deep breath when he felt a firm hand on his forearm. Almost as quickly as Olivia had touched him, she pulled back, but the quiet power of her pressure halted his momentum enough to realize Kirby was baiting him.

He couldn’t let Kirby get to him. The past was the past; he couldn’t see Amy’s face every time he looked at her boyfriend. Sometimes, though, it was damn hard to forget and leave the past alone, especially when it made him bleed.

The sheriff stepped between him and Kirby. “I’ll give you a statement away from the crime scene,” Sheriff Rodgers said.

“But I think—”

“I don’t care what you think, Kirby. I will not tolerate contamination of my evidence by having you here. Take it or leave it.”

Kirby glanced at Zack, then Olivia. He winked. “When you’re done with Detective ‘Make-My-Day’ Travis, come by the paper and I’ll show you how a real man treats a lady.”

Zack shifted uneasily and glanced at Olivia. The last thing he wanted splashed across the front page of the paper was that the Feds were involved in the investigation. And Kirby wouldn’t let it stop there. He’d lambaste the police department, the sheriff’s department, and everyone else in between.

Olivia didn’t say a word. She arched a single eyebrow at Kirby, her expression cool, detached, and disapproving. It was Kirby who squirmed under her visual reprimand, and Zack couldn’t help but be impressed at the power Olivia wielded with a simple look.

Kirby cleared his throat. “I’ll come by the station tomorrow, Travis. Still on swing shift, right?”

“Talk to the chief, Kirby. I have nothing to say to you.”

“Right.” He winked at Olivia. “I was just teasing you, you know. Travis’s bark is worse than his bite. You could do a lot worse than him.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? Zack wondered. Kirby being
nice
?

“Let’s go.” Sheriff Rodgers led Kirby over the rocky ground to where they’d parked at the clearing below.

“Thanks for not saying anything,” Zack told Olivia, though he was still trying to figure out if Kirby was playing some sort of game where he didn’t know the rules.

“I have nothing to say to a reporter.” She sounded irritated.

“What’s wrong?”

She looked up at him, her face impassive. “Give me a little credit, Detective. The last thing I want is the press to focus on my presence instead of what’s important.

“And what’s important now is finding this killer before another child dies.”

Brian Hall stared at his reflection in the filthy, scratched mirror of his pathetic apartment. The bitches next door were going at it again, screaming at each other, using language Brian had learned only after being in prison. Bitch One, the chick who looked like a dyke, had lost her job as a busboy—busgirl?—and Bitch Two, the druggie, wanted money for her fix.

The mirror shook when something metal hit the common wall, and Brian wanted to go over there and pummel the two bitches into silence.

How could he think? How could he plan with the two of them going at it all the fucking time? At least in prison there was silence. Anything above normal conversation could get you dinged. Yeah, there were fights that broke out time and again, but at night—like now—it was usually quiet. Peaceful.

Brian put his hands on the wobbly dresser and peered closer at his face. He was old. His life was over. His face looked tired, his blue eyes too pale. Bloodshot, too, because he hadn’t been sleeping so good. He ran a hand over his buzz cut. He’d gone down and paid ten bucks to the barber—ten bucks!—for the cut. He had to. His hairline was receding and the shorter his hair, the less he noticed how little he had. In prison he hadn’t cared.

His mouth had turned into a perpetual scowl. He tried to smile at his reflection, but it was no more than a sneer.

He had no life. No one would hire him, except as a busboy in some greasy restaurant where the slop people actually paid for was worse than prison food.

No one gave him the time of day. It didn’t matter that he’d been proven innocent. He’d been in the joint for three decades. No one really
believed
he was innocent.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he stared at the top of the scuffed dresser. The dull blued steel of the .38 glinted at him in the artificial lamplight. He’d bought it off the street behind his god-awful dive apartment. He was shocked at how easy the deal went.

He picked up the gun with shaky hands and stared down the barrel. “My life is over,” he said, his voice hollow and tinny.