The Kill

CHAPTER 13

It was after midnight and everyone in the conference room was exhausted. Zack, Olivia, Boyd, Cohn, and Detective Jan O’Neal had been reviewing every report Cohn had received from the labs in other states, plus the pages Nashville had faxed over while Zack and Olivia were talking with Mrs. Davidson.

“Okay, we all need to get some sleep,” Zack said, “but let’s run through what we have one more time and figure out what we’re going to do tomorrow.”

“We have a few more pages to go through, but we have six matches to households that own both types of trucks,” Boyd said. “Jan and I are going to check them out in person first thing in the morning.”

“Good work.”

“I have calls in to the other labs,” Cohn said. “I’ll follow up tomorrow morning. I’m pulling a couple of my lab techs into researching the marks. Maybe twelve signifies something, like in mythology.”

“We should contact the FBI and see if they have information about the marks,” Olivia said quietly, looking at Zack.

“Who? How can we expedite this?”

Olivia swallowed. She was going to be exposed; there was no way around it. “You should contact the Seattle bureau chief and ask for them to run the marks through the research unit, as well as the number ‘twelve’ to see if it means anything.”

“Ask your people to come in. Officially.” Zack ran a hand over his face. “You’re right. This could be the break we need. I’ll talk to Chief Pierson first thing in the morning.”

Olivia nodded. It was the smartest thing to do. She dreaded leaving Seattle. She wanted to be here when they caught this guy. She needed to see him, face him. Confront him.

But stopping him was her number-one goal. If exposing her fraud meant getting closer to finding Missy’s killer, then she would be exposed.

“I think we’re getting closer,” Zack said as if reading her thoughts. “There’s nothing more we can do tonight; it’s nearly one. Go home, get some sleep, and be back here at eight.”

Curly Bear had to come. And Bessie, her Beanie cow she got for her birthday last year from Auntie Grace. A sweater because it got cold at night. Extra underwear and socks in case it took a couple of days. Oh! Don’t forget money. She had eighty-six dollars in her Cinderella bank. She used to have one hundred and eleven dollars, but last month she bought Michelle a birthday present with her own money, an art set, because Michelle wanted to be an artist when she grew up.

Amanda swallowed back the lump in her throat and willed herself not to cry. If she cried her mommy might hear her and she’d never be able to find Michelle.

But last night when she cried, her mommy didn’t come. Maybe Mommy wouldn’t notice, no matter what Amanda did.

Amanda bit the inside of her cheek and sucked in her bottom lip. Daddy had cried. She’d never once in her entire life seen her daddy cry, but he’d cried three times since Michelle went to Heaven.

Amanda didn’t know exactly where Heaven was. Whenever Mommy talked about it, she said Heaven was in the sky. When they went to church on Easter and Christmas, the preacher guy in the long dress said Jesus was up in Heaven.

Amanda hadn’t been born when Mount St. Helens erupted, but she’d watched a show with Daddy about it one night a long time ago. She’d been scared that night and crawled into bed with Michelle.

“What if that mountain blows up and buries us?” she’d asked as she pulled Michelle’s pretty pink comforter tight around her.

“It won’t.”

“But the guy on the show said it could.”

“Only if God wants it to.”

“God? Why would he want to bury us?”

“Silly, when a volcano erupts it’s an act of God. That’s what Mommy said. So if it happens, it happens. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Amanda had to find Heaven and bring Michelle home. If she brought Michelle home, Mommy would stop crying and hug her again. Amanda feared God took Michelle because they argued about everything, like when Michelle took the biggest piece of pizza or borrowed Amanda’s new bicycle she got for her sixth birthday and then crashed it into Mrs. Hendrick’s rosebushes and bent the frame.

Michelle could have her bicycle and the biggest slice of pizza forever and ever. Maybe if Amanda said she was sorry for yelling at her sister, God would let her come back from Heaven.

She just had to find Heaven first. The only way she could think of getting to Heaven was to start at the place where God told the world He was mad. Mount St. Helens.

She hoped eighty-six dollars was enough money to get there.