Allison Brennan: The Kill

“I believe they were wrongfully convicted. The release of Hall proves it in that case.”

“You want me to call the district attorney in those states and tell them they put an innocent man in jail? One of these guys is on death row.” Rick shook his head. “I can see the headlines now. We have a bad enough reputation with local police that we don’t need to criticize the way their criminal justice system works.”

“I never thought of you as one to back down from a challenge.” Olivia bit her lip. She couldn’t believe she’d said that. “I-I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

Rick’s eyes flashed first with anger, then compassion. “Olivia, I know Hall’s release has been difficult for you.”

“This has nothing to do with Hall.”

“Doesn’t it?” He held up the file. “This must have taken you a hundred hours to compile. You’ve found a couple of interesting threads, but it’s circumstantial and these cases are old. We have a backlog of work here, and I’m sure the local authorities won’t want to dig up cold cases. We have no jurisdiction, no authority to go in and take charge. There’s nothing we can do at this point.”

“Yes, we can!” she pleaded. “You can contact the Seattle bureau chief and have him take over the case. Or work with the local detectives.” She hoped she didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.

“In Seattle?”

She nodded. Rick was interested, she could tell. She leaned forward in her seat. “Two girls have been murdered there. Jennifer Benedict three weeks ago, and Michelle Davidson’s body was found this morning. It was the Benedict child that told me it’s the same killer. A witness identified a tattoo on her abductor’s arm.

“That’s two girls,” she continued. “If he follows his pattern, he’ll kill two more before he moves on. This is our chance to catch him.”

“Olivia.” Rick stood, walked behind his desk, and looked out the window. “I’d like to help you put your sister’s murder behind you, but this isn’t the way. I can’t tell Seattle to take over a local investigation. We are spread so thin now we can barely cover our urgent cases.”

“But it’s the same guy!”

Rick turned to her, a quizzical look on his face. “I can see you’re passionate about this. But there is no hard evidence in this file. While the information on the surface connects the crimes, and could prove helpful when the police find a suspect, nothing leads to an individual. It’s less than circumstantial. You have my permission to monitor what’s going on in Seattle. If they find a suspect, I’ll contact the local bureau and give them what we have. But right now we have neither the time nor the money to pursue cold cases.”

“But if we use our resources to test the evidence, take apart the carpet fibers-look here.” She stood and flipped the folder open to the middle, her hands shaking. “Carpet fibers from a different truck were found on virtually every victim. I think he steals the trucks, or maybe he works in a place with access to different vehicles. I didn’t have time to run auto theft reports, and because they’re not in a federal database I don’t have immediate access, but I can write up a memo for local authorities to compare theft reports to the vehicles the killer used, and then we can-”

“Stop.”

Olivia blinked. Rick’s voice was quiet, but commanding.

He walked over to her and took her hand. She was still shaking. She resisted the urge to pull away. “Please, Rick,” she said. “I know there’s something here if we just look deeper.”

“There’s nothing we can do until the local authorities ask us to get involved.”

“But-”

He squeezed her hand. “Your research is a good start, but it doesn’t give us anything to find this guy. I’m sorry, but we just don’t have the resources for an investigation of this magnitude without being asked.” He paused. “I need you here, on my team, working for victims who are just as important as those two poor girls in Seattle. You know I care about them. In a perfect world we would have the money and staff to pursue every investigation, cold or not. But we don’t have the time, resources, or personnel to tackle this. Leave it to Seattle. If they need us, if they want us, they’ll ask.”

She looked down, afraid to meet Rick’s eyes. He’d said no. “I understand.” She did, professionally. But her heart told her to do something, anything, to find this guy.

“Thank you for hearing us out,” Greg said. “I appreciate it.”

“I’ll keep my ears open. If I hear anything from Seattle, I’ll bend over backward to help them,” Rick said. “But until then-” He threw up his hands.

“I understand,” she repeated and stood. “Thank you.”

“Olivia, do you want to take a little time off? A week, go on vacation. You haven’t had a vacation in years.”

“I just came back from Montana.”

“You stopped at your friend’s wedding on your way to Hall’s parole hearing months ago. I don’t consider that a vacation.”

“I can’t. I need to work.” Working helped focus her on seeking justice by doing what she could for crime victims. Or it used to, anyway. Now, she didn’t know. She couldn’t stop thinking about the two girls in Seattle. She’d followed each case in the press. Seen their pictures. Olivia had looked into their eyes.

“Thanks again, Rick,” Greg said as they walked out.

It was the middle of the lunch hour and the building was quiet. Olivia closed her office door and collapsed into her chair, burying her face in her arms.

How could she live with herself? Missy’s killer had walked free for thirty-four years because Olivia had helped convict the wrong man. Now, she’d found evidence linking twenty-nine murders-twenty-nine!-and she could do nothing about it.

Missy’s killer was in Seattle. She was as certain of that as she was of the sun rising tomorrow. And he would kill again.

What could she do to stop him? She wasn’t a field agent, at least not anymore. She was a scientist. She needed more information. She needed to talk to the Seattle detective in charge and find out if there was a DNA sample. Expedite the analysis. Figure out how and when the killer steals the trucks so that they could focus on auto thefts and perhaps catch him that way.

She couldn’t do anything more from her desk three thousand miles away from the crime scene.

“Olivia, are you going to be okay?”

Greg stood in the doorway. She was definitely not okay, but she couldn’t tell him that.

“I’ll be fine.”

Vacation.

An idea crept into her brain. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the only thing she could think of that might work.

But she needed Greg’s help. “Greg, I want to go to Seattle.”

“What?”

She put up her hand, palm out. “Hear me out, please?”

He sat in the chair across from her desk and crossed his arms in silence, his face unreadable.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “You agree that the information I pulled together is solid, right?”

He shrugged. “It’s promising.”

“Greg, please.”

“It’s good circumstantial evidence, but without opening up those cases we can’t get the information we need.”

“Right. I understand that. And without that information, we can’t open the cases.”

“Catch- 22.”

“But if I go to Seattle, with my experience and my access and my reports, I can help focus the investigation. I know what they’re doing-all the right things to track a standard killer-but by the time they see the connection, he’s going to be gone. They need to see the big picture. I can give them that edge.”

“Rick said to stay out of it.”

“I know, but-”