The island was a fun place. Now Zack would never be able to set foot here without thinking about a dead girl.
Jillian Reynolds had been dumped in a dense, wooded area in the middle of the island. Zack glanced at Olivia. She struggled in her pumps-certainly not made for scaling boulders or trekking through sand. But then again, neither of them had been expecting to attend a crime scene on the island in the middle of the night.
The three of them-Sheriff Rodgers, Zack, and Olivia-stood just inside the crime-scene tape, which was pulled around trees in a roughly hundred-square-foot area. High-wattage construction lights had been brought in, making the landscape harsh in the artificial brightness. Details seemed too sharp, faces almost colorless.
Olivia was thankful that it was warm under the lights. She was doing everything she could to stop her teeth from chattering. She’d returned Zack’s jacket without a word-it would be unprofessional to wear his clothing to the crime scene. The fact that she hadn’t brought a warm coat was her own fault-in her rushed departure from Virginia, which was enjoying an Indian summer, she hadn’t thought of checking the weather in Seattle before packing. Frankly, she hadn’t thought about much of anything but Missy’s murder during the last weeks since Brian Harrison Hall had been released from prison, but her oversight on appropriate clothing irritated her.
Standing under the warmth of the potent lights, Olivia watched the crime-scene technicians finish collecting potential evidence and itched to join them. She followed their every movement with a sharp eye-was that woman going to forget to collect a soil sample? Good, she saw the flash of a test tube. What about the tree branches? Perhaps the killer had snagged hair or skin on a protruding limb. Good, one of the techs was inspecting the foliage. But it had been three months since the murder; any biological evidence would be gone. She tried not to feel discouraged, but time and the elements were enemies of evidence.
“My people know what they’re doing,” Sheriff Rodgers said.
Olivia glanced up at the cop, detecting a hint of offense in his tone. It didn’t help that Zack had introduced her as “Agent St. Martin with the FBI.” She’d watched the sheriff bristle and straighten. He wasn’t as tall as Zack, but compared to her he was huge.
“They appear more than competent.” She gave him a smile. She wasn’t the villain here, but she had to tread carefully. This was uncharted territory for her, and she couldn’t afford to slip up.
“Have you notified her family?” Zack asked.
“It’s being done,” Rodgers said. “She wasn’t a local. Her family was on a weekend trip to the island when she disappeared. I remember the case. We’d conducted a search, believing she’d gotten lost. When she wasn’t found, she was listed as a missing person, but her mother said she couldn’t swim and she’d been last seen near the water. We all thought-well, the undertow is strong on the west side of the island.” He ran a hand over his stubble, looking tired and defeated. It had been a long night.
Olivia said, “How did you identify her? Three months outdoors, decomposition would have been advanced.”
“She was still wearing a medical bracelet for a penicillin allergy, which has her name on it.” He took a deep breath. “You’re right, there wasn’t much of anything else identifiable.”
Olivia had seen decomposing bodies weeks, months, and even years after death. They were difficult, emotionally, to work with. To see what death did to the human body always brought to mind one’s own mortality. Or, in this case, the mortality of loved ones.
“I contacted the sheriff down in Bellevue,” Sheriff Rodgers continued, “and he said he’d see the family tonight. The coroner will confirm her identity-we already have dental records as part of the missing persons case.”
“No one saw anything?” Zack asked. “Back when she went missing?”
Rodgers shook his head. “She wandered down to the shoreline, promised she’d stay out of the water, and it was a quiet Sunday morning.”
“Alone?” Olivia asked, incredulous.
“The island is safe, Agent St. Martin. We get a lot of families here on the weekend. Few problems. Nothing like this.”
No place is safe from those who hunt children.
“Safe.” She snapped out the word, the familiar tension bubbling under her skin as she fought her emotions.
Who was safe? Surely not innocent children, the most vulnerable in society, the ones we should be protecting. No one thinks that the average-looking man down the beach is a killer under that kind face. Everyone expects evil to be obvious at first sight.
Don’t they know evil looks like them? That sick perverts don’t have “child predator” written across their face? That killers don’t have “murderer” tattooed on their forehead?
“Olivia?”
It was Zack, breathing down her neck. Why did he come so close when she was ready to explode? She took a step away from him, a small step, but she felt him shift his stance. Ever since Olivia learned Missy’s killer was still at large, her emotions refused to stay contained. They fought the steel box she’d locked them in years ago, hammering away until the pounding was almost unbearable.
“Liv?” Zack’s voice was low. The sheriff had turned his back to them and was giving instructions to a deputy. “Are you okay?”
She made the mistake of looking into his eyes. They were assessing her, probing her, trying to see through the layers of control she’d painstakingly built over the years. Zack had a tough edge about him, his entire body on the verge of movement even when standing still. His square jaw covered with stubble and the hard lines of his face made him look far more formidable than his dark eyes, which watched her with concern and warmth.
“I’m okay,” she mumbled, tearing herself from his steady gaze. Taking stock of the crime scene, she let the emotions fade away and put her control firmly in place.
The familiar ritual of evidence collection grounded her. She took a deep breath, gathered her strength, and tried to forget that Zack was still watching her. She could feel his eyes on the back of her neck.
She watched as a woman, not much taller than she, squatted to photograph possible evidence. The flash of the lightbulb comforted her. Familiar. Though she now worked primarily in the lab, at the beginning of her career, when she’d been a field agent, she’d been assigned to the Evidence Response Team out of the San Francisco field office. She’d worked some big cases. A cross-jurisdictional serial killer her largest.
But that was ancient history. She joined the Quantico lab nine years ago, leaving the FBI and fieldwork after only a year. Sometimes she missed it, like now, watching trained professionals doing their job. She wanted to be with them.
Right. She didn’t work well in a team unit, which was why she’d joined the lab. True, it could be considered a promotion, and with her Ph.D. and science background, the lab was a better fit for her anyway. But had she functioned better in the group she would never have left the FBI. She found it hard to open up to others, and when you worked closely with the same eight or ten people in a high-stress operation, you needed to be able to relax, let off steam, shoot the breeze. Not Olivia. Ever. And the stress of keeping up her defenses almost tore her apart.
Quantico was better. Less interpersonal pressure, more independence. Solitary work, just her and the evidence. That was what Olivia was best at. Depending on herself to get the job done. Not on anyone else.
Olivia realized that Zack and the sheriff had been talking to each other for the past several minutes. She focused on the conversation.