Read The Kill for Free Online

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—”
    “Olivia.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
    “Unofficially. I’ll take a week’s vacation. Go to Seattle and offer my help—unofficially,” she repeated, “and we’ll go from there.”
    “They’ll never go for it. Most local cops would rather drink acid than call in the Feds. They’ll laugh you right out of the police station.”
    “Don’t underestimate my ability to persuade them.”
    Greg frowned and readjusted his glasses. “No, when you set your mind on something, you usually win.”
    “This isn’t a game.”
    “I know.”
    “Well?”
    He sighed, and she knew she’d won him over, at least a bit. “What do you want me to do?”
    “Be my boss.”
    “Your boss?”
    “Call ahead to Seattle and tell them I’m coming.”
    “I don’t understand—oh, no.” He stood and started pacing. “No, I won’t let you put your job on the line chasing a theory. You’re not an agent anymore. You gave it up nine years ago to work here. I’m not an agent, either. I can’t just assign you to a case. No.”
    “This is important, Greg. I may not be an agent, but I know how to do the job and more important, I know evidence. I know this case better than anyone else.”
    She came from behind her desk, rested her hand on Greg’s arm,