The Kill

CHAPTER 19

Zack drove by his house first because Olivia’s hotel was closer to the airport.

“Make yourself at home,” he said as he unlocked the side door and flipped on the lights. “I’ll only be a minute.”

The side door opened into a window-enclosed eating area, a room that promised to be sunny and cheerful in the mornings. The table was an immaculate fifties style with red Formica top and sturdy steel legs, the kind that twenty years ago was outdated, but now was trendy. Little pots of herbs and flowers filled a window box.

Framed pictures of fruit crate labels lined the one wall, and as Olivia stepped into the kitchen she found the quaint art filling every available space. She wandered from the kitchen-which matched the table in the nook except for the modern appliances-and into a formal dining room.

The furniture was old, obviously antique, but well cared for. Lace doilies that didn’t fit Zack’s personality clung to the surface of the buffet and table. She left that room and found herself in the living room, and knew this was where Zack spent his time when at home.

The dark leather furniture was soft and smooth. Pictures of the Pacific Northwest and ocean scenery lined the walls. Several antique paintings in gilded frames were set off by lights. Books were crammed two-deep into floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side of a brick fireplace. Stacks of books lined the corners-mostly mysteries, bestsellers, and biographies. But what surprised her most were the plants-lots of them. Several hung from the ceiling; there were two large floor plants, pothos if she remembered correctly, and several small plants of all kinds on the tables, all of them thriving. She wouldn’t have thought Zack Travis had such a green thumb.

The room was cluttered but not overly messy. Comfortable.

She walked over to a round table in the corner. Intermingled with the plants were a few photographs in antique silver frames. She recognized a young Zack immediately-his eyes were just as dark and intense when he was a child.

At first, Olivia thought the older woman in the photographs was his mother, but when she saw them together she realized the tall, elderly matron was his grandmother.

She wondered why he had no pictures of his mother in the house.

A girl showed up in several of the pictures, possibly ten years younger than Zack. There was no doubt they were brother and sister-Amy, he’d told her. And she was dead.

Olivia wondered what had happened to her. She’d been a beautiful child and lovely young lady.

She heard Zack’s footsteps on the hardwood floors and turned so he didn’t think she was prying. “I like your house,” she told him.

“Thanks. It was my grandmother’s.”

“She died?”

“Sixteen years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

He looked over at one of the pictures on the table and smiled wistfully. “I called her Mae. Short for Margaret. She didn’t like being called ‘Grandma’ or anything like that. She was a hoot, and I couldn’t have been raised by a better woman.”

“What happened to your parents?” Olivia asked, then put her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m prying.”

Zack waved off her apology. “My mother didn’t want to be burdened with kids. She left me here when I was nine. I guess I was a handful. Mae took me in-she hadn’t seen me since I was a baby; my mother and Mae didn’t get along. But Mae never took it out on me. Then, three years later, my mother came by again, pregnant and penniless and heartbroken. She moved in and she and Mae bickered constantly, but they wanted to make it work.

“Then she had Amy, and left four weeks later with some guy she’d met the night before. We never heard from her again.”

“Oh, Zack, that’s awful.” Olivia didn’t know what was worse, to be abandoned by your mother physically like Zack, or emotionally like she’d been after Missy died.

“When I was eighteen I tried to track her down. More for Amy than anything. Amy constantly asked about her, wanted to know when she was going to visit. I think it was hard on her having an old woman for a mother and a teenager for a brother. So I did some research, looked at some public records, and I think I figured out what happened.”

“What?” Olivia couldn’t help but ask.

“She died in a drunk-driving accident.” He laughed, but there was no humor in his voice. “She was driving, she was drunk, and she killed two innocent people in the collision.”

He hoisted a bag over his shoulder. He’d showered and shaved, Olivia noted-his hair was still damp and a fresh, soapy scent surrounded him. “The police never contacted us because they didn’t know who she was. I found her in a Jane Doe database with the help of a Seattle cop. They were very helpful-I wasn’t the easiest kid to deal with. A lot like our witness Sean Miller. Chip on the shoulder and all that. It was after finding out about my mother that I decided I wanted to be a cop. I said goodbye to some bad influences, went to community college, and the rest is history.”

“What about Amy?”

Pain and conflicting emotions clouded his face, but he looked like he wanted to tell her. She held her breath, but didn’t know why. She had a feeling this was important to Zack, and sensing he wanted to share it with her opened her heart. It was as if they each had taken an emotional step closer to something she couldn’t recognize or define, but a place she yearned for. Trust? Understanding? She didn’t know.

“She got herself in a mess and ended up dead.”

He had chosen his words carefully. There was more to the story than what he’d said, but Olivia didn’t push.

Instead of elaborating, he changed the subject. “We’d better get a move on. Our flight leaves in ninety minutes.”

The intimate moment was broken, but the connection didn’t disappear. Olivia wondered if Zack noticed anything different between them, or if it was a figment of her imagination.

On the drive to the hotel to pick up her overnight bag, Olivia ran through every conceivable way to tell Zack about why she couldn’t go with him to California. She had to. She couldn’t juggle all the lies anymore.

He pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine. He was about to open his door when she touched his arm.

“Wait.”

He turned to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go with you.”

He looked at her for a good minute, his expression unreadable.”That’s what you said at the station. What’s going on?”

She swallowed. Get it over with. “I told you my sister was killed and that’s why I joined the FBI. But I didn’t tell you the whole story.”

He tensed beside her but didn’t say anything.

Olivia took a deep breath. “Missy was nine and I was five. We were at the park and it was getting late. I wanted to go home, but Missy was reading. She always lost herself in books.” She tried to smile, but it turned into a grimace.

“I wandered off to the swings. I was mad at her because I was scared, but I would get in so much trouble if I walked home alone. We had to stick together. That was the rule.

“I looked over and a man was talking to her. I yelled, ran over to them, but he hit me and grabbed her and that was the last time I saw her alive.”

“Oh my God, Liv. I’m sorry. No wonder this case is so important to you.” He touched her cheek. It turned into a caress. She reached up and tried to push his hand away, but he took her hand in his and held it tight. “You’ve done remarkably well on this case even though it hit close to home. Sometimes, our personal fears drive our goals. That’s okay.”

“No, no. Let me finish.” Instead of making the conversation easier, his understanding tightened her heart. “Please.”

He nodded, not letting go of her hand.

“I can’t interview Brian Harrison Hall. I testified against him. I helped put him in prison. He was convicted of killing my sister.”

Zack blinked once, twice, as he absorbed what Olivia had just told him. He couldn’t have heard right.

“What?”

“I promise you, I’m objective. I’m not going to jeopardize this case.”

“You lied to me.” Why did it surprise him? Hadn’t he just said a couple of days ago that the Feds always kept important information to themselves?

He jerked his hand from hers and ran it through his hair. “Isn’t this just wonderful? Why didn’t you trust me?”

“It’s not that I didn’t trust you. I didn’t know you when I came out here. I didn’t know what I was really getting into. I’d done all that research, connecting the dots because of that wrongful conviction. If it weren’t for me, Jillian and Jenny and Michelle might still be alive today. I fingered Hall because I saw his tattoo. I testified against him. If I’d done something differently, maybe none of this would have happened today, the police would have kept open the investigation, something!”

During Olivia’s impassioned speech, Zack studied her. He saw the pain on her face, the anguish and fervor. She hadn’t openly shown her emotions, and except for her outburst at the lake after speaking to Brenda Davidson, she’d kept an emotional distance. Because she was too close to the case. The realization that she blamed herself for something that was clearly beyond her control further tempered his anger.

“I wish you’d told me at the beginning.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I wanted to, but I thought you and everyone else would think I was too close to the case.”

“Listen to me. You should have told me, because it explains a lot. Such as your outburst at the Davidsons’. If things had gone differently, we could have had a lot of problems with them. But you’ve been a vital part of this investigation, and I can honestly say I don’t think we’d be this close without you.” The cases she’d brought with her; interviewing Jenny’s friends that led them to the witness, Sean Miller. And Zack had thrived when bouncing ideas and theories off her. She was a fantastic sounding board. Except when she doubted herself.

“That’s what this has all been about-every time I asked you to give your opinion you hesitated. You didn’t want to share your opinion because of what happened with your sister’s investigation. Dammit, Olivia, you were a child! You saw what you saw. It’s up to the adults to decipher the information and figure out what it means. You should know that by now.”

“I do.” Her voice was quiet, and she wouldn’t look at him. “I know in my head I wasn’t solely to blame for what happened then. There was circumstantial evidence, a prosecutor, the police force-but in my heart I think about what I could have done or said differently. All those little girls… gone. Like Missy.”

Her words chilled him. He wanted to reassure her that everything would be all right, that they’d catch her sister’s killer. That she could put the pain behind her knowing she’d done something important to right wrongs she had nothing to do with making in the first place.

He reached for her, ran the back of his hand against her creamy, delicate cheek. When he’d first met Olivia, he thought she was petite with a spine of steel. Rigid, professional, all business. For the first time, fragile crossed his mind. He tucked her hair behind her ear and pushed her chin up, forcing her to look at him.

Her omission still disturbed him on a different level, but he couldn’t be angry with her.

“Liv,” he said softly. “I can’t take the years of pain from you, or the guilt since learning this Hall guy is innocent. But I can tell you that I think you’re pretty incredible. You were five years old and had your life turned upside down. I can’t imagine how that felt.”

“You understand I can’t interview Hall. I testified against him at his parole hearings. He wouldn’t want to help me, not after spending thirty-four years in prison.”

He nodded. “I understand. But I still need you down there. He may give us something to follow up on. Two are better than one, and we need to get back here as quickly as possible. And you know the case better than anyone. Will you observe the interview?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

“Good.” He glanced at his watch.

“But-”

“No buts. You’d better run upstairs and grab your toothbrush, or we’ll have to share.”

As Zack said it, he realized he wouldn’t mind sharing a lot more with Olivia than just a toothbrush.

Brian paced his rat-hole apartment late into the night. He didn’t want to meet with his attorney and a Seattle cop in the morning.

Especially not after what he’d done.

They didn’t know. They couldn’t know. He’d left no fingerprints, no one saw him, there was nothing to connect him to the killings. But his skin prickled and he couldn’t help but feel that his crimes were plastered all over his face.

His attorney had talked him into the meeting.

“Look, Brian,” Miles had said after Brian hemmed and hawed about going down to the police station, “I understand how you feel. I got the D.A.’s office to give you immunity. Nothing you say will be used against you. And if you help them catch this killer, you’ll be a hero.”

“But I don’t know anything! I wasn’t there. I didn’t know the girl. I told you I had nothing to do with it.”

“I believe you, Brian. But the cops think someone you knew may have framed you. Stolen your truck and used it in the crime. Don’t you want to know who’s responsible for your imprisonment?”

“The cops are,” he had mumbled. But ultimately, he agreed as long as he didn’t have to go to the police station. Miles arranged for them to meet at the public defender’s office in the courthouse.

Brian couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t get the thought out of his mind that someone he knew had sent him to prison. Who hated him that much? He didn’t have a lot of friends left in town when he’d come back from Vietnam. Those who didn’t go to war went to college or moved away or looked down on him. He didn’t hang out with the same guys anymore. Someone he worked with at the warehouse? One of the gang of vets he’d met at the club where he’d drunk too much that fateful day?

Dawn crested over the bay before he dozed off. A sick feeling ate at him throughout the night.

Had he killed two people for nothing?