Allison Brennan - The Kill

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.”