Aim to Kill (14 page)

None of that came to fruition, but by the next day they concluded she had likely drowned. The undertow was strong on that side of the island, and therefore she could have been dragged out to sea and her body would follow the current until she was washed ashore, miles away, or caught in a fishing net.

But the killer was methodical. He hadn’t removed her from the island. He’d known about the video surveillance on the ferries and at the docks. Taking her in a private boat would have been dangerous. Especially since he’d abducted her in the morning.

“Zack,” she said.

“Excuse me,” he mumbled into the phone. “What?”

She shook her head. “I forgot you were on the phone.”

“What?” he repeated.

“Jillian was abducted on the island and found on the island. It stands to reason she was killed on the island. It’s not a big place. We need to find out if she was stabbed to death there in the woods. If not . . .”

“The killer had a place to keep her.”

She nodded.

Zack finished up his conversation with Nashville and hung up the phone. “They’re still looking for all the records, but will send what they have. They’re faxing the reports and sending a copy of the entire file. Now let me call Doug Cohn and get him on the soil analysis ASAP. I’m going to owe him big-time when this case is over.”

Jenny Benedict had lived in
Sahalee
, an upper-middle-class neighborhood. Ten years ago, the area was little more than open space and gentlemen’s ranches; now young families seeking safety for their children and a quiet environment had built up dozens of home developments.

Olivia watched lawn after perfect lawn roll by, all identical green rectangles. Grand, two-story homes indistinguishable but for their alternating faces of brick, stone, or wood. Children rode bikes, though Olivia noted parents stood in attendance. A child had been abducted and killed from this very neighborhood that should have been safe. Parents were more vigilant. For a while, at least.

But one thing was certain: A stranger would stand out in this neighborhood. This killer didn’t. He looked like one of them. Watching for the perfect opportunity to act out his sick fantasies. Waiting for the perfect opportunity to kill.

“You okay?” he asked.

Olivia glanced at him. He didn’t look comfortable, but she didn’t know if it was because he was too large to be comfortable in the midsized sedan or because he had to face Jenny Benedict’s friends and parents.

“Olivia?” he asked again.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Really.” He glanced pointedly at her hands, then back at the road.

She quickly unclasped her hands, which had been clenched together as she internalized the rage over what had happened to Jenny Benedict. She smoothed down her skirt and stared straight ahead, consciously remembering to keep her hands apart.

Zack parked in front of one of the larger homes in the subdivision, its brick-and-stucco exterior similar to that of the other houses.

“I asked that the two witnesses meet here to make it easier on the girls,” he said. “I already took their statements separately, but I want to see if they remember anything else. They were both emotional at the time. After this I need to check in with Michelle Davidson’s parents. They’ve been calling the station for updates.” He ran a hand over the thick dark stubble on his face. “I don’t know what to tell them. We’re following up on every lead we can find, but each one is a thin thread.”

Olivia reached out and lightly touched his arm with her fingertips. The gesture felt awkward. She’d never been good at consoling anyone. “You’re doing everything you can. They’ll see it in your eyes.”

His dark eyes held hers. An unusual, strange feeling crept into her stomach. A fluttering. She swallowed involuntarily as she realized she was attracted to Zack. She’d easily put romance and sex at the bottom of her priority list. Bottom? Were they even on the list? After her amicable divorce from Greg, she no longer cared. The divorce had been a relief.

She still recognized this rare feeling. It went deeper than physical attraction. She’d noted when she first met him that Zack Travis was sexy in that dark, arrogant cop kind of way. He filled any room with the power of his personality, his mere presence, which had little to do with his build and everything to do with his raw appeal.

But the real attraction was his deep compassion for victims and dogged belief that good police work would catch the bad guys, that he was doing everything possible to bring justice for the survivors. Watching him think and question and care touched her heart.

She turned away. Unnerved, she reached for the door handle to get out of the suddenly too-small car when he grabbed her arm. She froze. She wanted to jerk away and tell him she didn’t like people touching her, but something stopped her. He held her firmly, then eased up as if he sensed her fear.

His fingers caressed her bare arm, his touch surprisingly soft, sensitive, intimate. A complete contradiction to his gruff demeanor. She resisted the urge to lean into his touch and she shivered.

She didn’t dare look at him, her emotions too close to the surface. He’d see how conflicted she was, how needy. How he jumbled her thoughts and feelings and confused her.

“Look at me,” he said.

She shook her head ever so slightly as she swallowed, gathering every ounce of control he so easily made her lose.

“Olivia.”

Taking a deep breath, she faced him. His expression had loosened somehow, lost the usual hard edge. All she could think about was burying her face in his broad chest and letting him hold her. His presence was so strong, so all-encompassing, for a brief moment she believed he could protect her not only from her nightmares, but from all the evil in the world.

Impossible. But her lip quivered, aching to taste him, and she bit it. What in the world was she thinking?

“What makes you tick?”

Her eyes widened. Where had that question come from? What did he want to know? Why?

“Justice,” she whispered. She cleared her throat. Go back to business. She had to rid herself of these unwelcome thoughts about Zack Travis. He was a cop investigating a murder. That was all.

He moved his head ever so slightly back and forth, holding her gaze. His eyes were bottomless, deep and probing. “I don’t think so.”

She broke eye contact, unsettled by the exchange, and pulled her arm from his grasp. She opened the car door. “I don’t care what you think,” she snapped and jumped out, slamming the door behind her, desperate to put distance between them and regain control.

Zack watched Olivia stride to the mailbox and stop. She wasn’t looking at him, but she was most certainly thinking about him. And he was thinking about her. He’d been so close to kissing her. Kissing? Hell, he would have devoured her. The way she looked at him, it wasn’t simple lust. There was a complexity of feelings buried beneath the controlled posture. He wanted to unwrap her and find out why she was so uptight, why she didn’t share anything about herself, why she didn’t like being touched. He wanted to hold her, thaw her. The cold personality was a façade; he’d seen her wrestle with her emotions. He sensed she burned from within but kept her feelings locked up tight.

He wondered what would happen if he found the key.

He got out of the car and kicked the door shut. Olivia St. Martin was hiding something, and while he found her sexy as hell, his number-one concern was the investigation. What could she possibly be hiding? She’d seemed so forthcoming at the lab, working with him and the evidence, her methodical notes on the white board—not at all like the woman who’d just vacated the car.

When he’d first met
Superagent
yesterday in Pierson’s office, he thought he had her all figured out. Now he had to admit he didn’t know what was going on with her. He remembered her reaction outside the coroner’s office. At the time he thought it was a personal issue, but while they worked together in the conference room she was all professional.

She was hiding something—but was it personal or professional? Or both?

He caught up with her at the mailbox at the end of the path leading to the house.

“If you’re hiding something about this investigation, I will find out,” he said, his voice low. “I won’t let anyone play games with my cases, especially this one. Take all the glory; I couldn’t give a shit about the press or recognition or credit. But don’t mess with the case.”

A flash of anger reddened her cheeks. “Glory?” Her voice was a mere whisper. “You think I care about
glory
? You bastard.”

She brushed past him, her jaw tight.

He’d made her angry, and he wondered what secrets she would spill if he really pushed her. Secrets. Yes, she had secrets. And he was damn well going to find out what they were.

They walked to the door in tense silence. The house belonged to Will and Dina Adams. Their daughter, Laura, had been Jenny’s best friend and a witness to her abduction.

Mr. Adams opened the door before Zack could knock. “Detective Travis,” he said solemnly as he opened the door for them to enter.

Zack introduced Olivia and Adams led them down a wide, tiled floor to the family room in the back of the house.

Laura Adams was a pretty girl of ten with a short brunette bob and large blue eyes that now
teared
. She smiled and blinked. “Hi,” she said shyly.

“Hello, Laura,” Zack said. He smiled at the other girl, who sat with her back straight and hands clasped tightly between her knees. “Hello, Tanya. You doing okay?”

“Yes,” Laura said while Tanya shrugged.

Tanya’s mother sat across the room next to Dina Adams. “How long is this going to take? Hasn’t my daughter been through enough? Why do you have to talk to her again?”

“Ms. Burgess?” Olivia inquired.

“Who are you?” Ms. Burgess said, wringing her hands.

“I’m Olivia St. Martin with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I know this is difficult for you and your daughter, and I promise we’ll be done soon.”

Olivia’s voice was both professional and soothing, with the cadence of a psychologist. She sat next to Tanya and smiled at Laura, who sat on her friend’s other side. “You can call me Olivia,” she said to the girls.

Zack would have questioned the girls, but a glance from Olivia told him she wanted to take a stab at this. He gave her the opportunity, curious. The anger she’d displayed toward him was gone or buried; her entire disposition and demeanor seemed softer, but confident.

Her quick turnaround intrigued him.

“Detective Travis told me that you saw the man who took Jenny,” Olivia said, her voice calm. “That must be hard for you to think about.”

“I’ll never forget,” Laura said, her large eyes watering. “I—I keep thinking he’ll come back.”

Olivia knew that feeling all too well. For years, she’d feared the exact same thing. That the mean man with the tattoo would crawl up the rose trellis outside her bedroom window and carry her away, just like he’d done with Missy.

She’d broken the trellis on Halloween, three years after Missy was killed. Her father thought it was the teenagers up the street who were known to engage in petty vandalism. She’d never told him the truth.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Laura’s father said, his voice rough with emotion. Olivia realized everyone was looking at her. How long had she been thinking about the past?

She cleared her throat. “It’s normal to be scared,” she told the girls. “No one blames you for being scared about what happened to Jenny. But you have parents who love you and will do everything they can to protect you.”

Mr. Adams sat on the arm of the couch next to his daughter and squeezed her hand, his mouth firm and his eyes moist.

“Laura, Tanya, I know you both already told Detective Travis and the other policemen what you saw. But sometimes, you might remember a little detail that didn’t seem important at the time, or you forgot because of all the scary stuff that was going on. If you think you can, I would like you to tell me what happened. In your own words. And anything you remember, no matter how little or unimportant or dumb you think it is, please share.”

Laura nodded, almost eager to tell her story, but kept glancing at her father for reassurance. She’d picked up on his discomfort at having her recite the tragedy. Will Adams probably thought how easily it could have been her—and how relieved he was that it hadn’t been. Then came guilt at that relief.

Olivia understood those feelings as well.

“We were playing at
Brown
Park
, the one around the corner. We usually ride our bikes, but mine had a flat tire and I didn’t want to get out the bike pump and get all dirty, so we walked. We always go there.”

“The neighborhood was so safe,” Mrs. Adams said. “I always thought it was safe.”

Having her mother break down wouldn’t do Laura any good, so Olivia said, “This is a beautiful neighborhood. Of course you felt it was safe.” She turned back to Laura before a conversation could develop. “So you walked. How long did it take?”

She shrugged. “I
dunno
. A few minutes. I don’t have a watch, and we weren’t rushing to get there. We only go there because it’s something to do, you know?”