The Kill

CHAPTER 8

Wednesday night, the ferry to Vashon Island was less than half full. Zack flashed his badge and backed his car onto the ferry only minutes before its scheduled departure. Last on, first off. He shut off the engine.

“Let’s get out and stretch,” Zack said. The police-issue sedan felt tight, confining. He much preferred his Harley, but he couldn’t very well bring Agent St. Martin to a crime scene on his bike.

They walked up the stairs to the observation deck. Olivia tilted her face to the sky. He joined her. The stars multiplied over the water, brighter and closer, the distant and low-lying Vashon Island skyline reminding him why he loved the Sound. A clear night; the fog had yet to roll in.

Olivia rubbed her arms through the thin material of her suit. Zack took off his leather bomber jacket and attempted to put it over her shoulders.

She jumped a good two feet from him.

“Hell, Superagent, you’re freezing your butt off. I thought you might want a jacket. We can go up to the cabin if you want. I think it’s heated.” He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember ever going into the enclosed area above.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you, but I’m fine.”

Prickly, but there was something-different. Not fear, but something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She was obviously distracted by something. He wondered if it was personal-she’d called her ex-husband about the DNA tests while they drove-or professional.

“So, Superagent, any theories?”

She didn’t say anything for several minutes. The hum of the ferry, car doors opening and shutting on the deck below, passengers boarding, the call of crew members… the sounds lulled him, familiar. The cold salt air mixed with the ferry’s diesel fumes grounded him.

He glanced at Olivia. The breeze tossed her golden, chin-length hair around her elegant face. She impatiently tucked it behind her ear, but the gesture did little to stop the errant strands from dancing.

He watched her closely. Big mistake.

Olivia St. Martin was all feminine softness under a spine of steel. And there was a working brain under that shiny hair. A sharp mind and hot body. But every fiber of her being screamed don’t touch.

If there was one thing Zack Travis knew, it was women. When to touch. Where to touch. How to touch. Whether they liked soft kisses on their neck or a thorough devouring of their lips. Gentle caresses or urgent strokes. With one probing touch he discovered exactly where their erogenous zone was-not the obvious one, but their hidden sensitivities. A whisper in the ear. A kiss on the neck. A trail of warmth from under their knee down to their pinky toe.

He saw Olivia as one big erogenous zone. Her entire body begged to be held, but at the same time demanded that everyone stay away, don’t get too close. It was the way she hugged herself. The delicate tilt of her head. The darkening of her eyes when someone stood too close.

There was a fiery woman under that icy exterior. Suddenly, unbidden, Zack wanted to crack her shell and watch her melt.

Why did she not like being touched? Had something happened to her? On the job… or before it? Why did she keep herself so contained and controlled?

He saw in Olivia something unusual. Special. He wanted to learn more about her.

He shifted his stance, uncomfortable with where his thoughts led him, and turned once again back to the water. A whistle sounded, letting passengers know they’d be leaving in two minutes. The idling ferry rumbled as the captain prepared to depart.

Olivia spoke, as if the change in the ferry beneath them prompted her to speak. “In the ten cities where we know the killer has been, he’s taken up to six months between his first and last kill.”

While her words were matter-of-fact and her tone calm, Olivia’s entire body was on edge.

Any other woman, and Zack would have rubbed the tension from her shoulders. But he didn’t dare reach out for Olivia.

Instead, he said, “If Jillian Reynolds is in fact his first victim in Seattle, why would he have laid low for three months?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her skin pale under the artificial light.

“Give me the facts. We didn’t get a chance to run down each case before we left.” He already knew he’d be spending all night going over her files just to get up to speed.

“Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument he attacked here first,” Olivia said. “Three months ago. What day did Jillian Reynolds go missing?”

“June thirtieth.”

“June… then he kidnaps Jennifer Benedict the first week of September. That’s about nine, ten weeks. Michelle Davidson three weeks later.

“We’ll need to plot out each of the other cases,” Olivia continued, “but if I remember my notes correctly, he speeds up his attacks until he hits number four, then he disappears.” She frowned. “But not always. He doesn’t have a clear timeline. In Colorado he killed four girls in a six-week period. First one, he waited nearly five weeks, then killed three more in ten days. It’s almost like he has a sixth sense about when to kill, when to hold back, when to leave.”

“Serial killers have a strong sense of self-preservation,” Zack commented.

Olivia glanced at him. “You’re right. Maybe I should be asking you the profiling questions.”

“I learned a lot about serial killers when the Green River Killer was on the loose.”

“I remember that case. I worked on-” she stopped.

“You were here? Part of the task force?” Zack asked.

She shook her head. “I just consulted. It was a long time ago, and my role was small. I never came out here.”

Zack frowned. There was something odd in her voice.

The loud whistle startled Olivia and she jumped, then felt foolish when Zack said, “The ferry’s heading out. It’s a twenty-minute ride.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

Olivia gathered her wits about her. She’d almost blown it, and she’d only been working with Detective Travis for a few hours. She’d almost told him she’d processed trace evidence for the Green River investigation. If she wanted to stay on this case, she had to be more careful.

She stared out at the water, hugging herself. She wished she hadn’t said no to Zack’s offer of his jacket, but it wouldn’t have been wise to accept. She would have felt even smaller than she was. Detective Travis had an imposing frame-he was a good foot taller than her, and wide. Not fat by any means, just big. Like a lumberjack, all chest and hard muscles. And the way he looked at her, as if he could see under her clothes as well as under her skin, disturbed her to no end. No one had ever studied her so closely. So obviously. As if he were trying to figure out exactly what she was thinking, what she’d done in the past, what she was likely to do in the future. Assessing her.

His scrutiny unnerved her.

All she wanted was to stop the killer she had inadvertently let go free when she fingered Brian Harrison Hall for Missy’s murder. She wasn’t so naïve as to believe she was solely responsible for Hall’s conviction-there was enough circumstantial evidence to warrant it-but she’d read the reports and knew her identification was part of the decision. And because of that, a brutal murderer was roaming the country freely.

He crossed state lines at will, under the radar of the authorities. Four men had been suspected in some of the investigations, and three had been convicted. The last one was released for lack of evidence, but after looking at each case, Olivia knew they were all innocent. It was him, Missy’s killer, playing the system. Missy’s killer was smart. He knew what he was doing. Planned it. Reveled in it. He wouldn’t stop until he was in prison. Or dead.

“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.