The Kill by Allison Brennan Page B

kitchen with a pitiful refrigerator that didn’t keep beer cold and a two-burner stove top. A journal rested on the table, a ninety-nine-cent spiral-bound pad he’d picked up at the supermarket. Ninety-nine cents for this little piece-of-crap notebook with forty pages in it.
    He sat at the solitary chair and placed the gun carefully in front of him. Turning the page, he stared at the names of the people who had framed him.
    Hamilton Craig
. Damn attorney. Not only did he convict him, he argued six times against paroling him. Brian couldn’t find his home address, but he learned the asshole was
the
district attorney for the county. Brian knew exactly where he worked, and he’d never forget what the bastard looked like.
    Gary Porter
. The cop was retired, and Brian couldn’t find his address either, but he had an idea: First, take care of Hamilton Craig. Then follow the cop home from the funeral. If he was lucky, that bitch would be there too.
    The bitch who started it all:
Olivia St. Martin
.
    If it weren’t for her, he’d never have gone to prison in the first place. She lied to the cops, said she’d seen him take her sister, which was bullshit because he hadn’t. He didn’t give a rat’s ass that she was a little kid at the time; she had still lied, and that’s that. She would have to pay big time, the icy bitch. For the accusations every time she came to oppose his parole—like it was his fault her stupid mother had killed herself. She even said once that he should have been dead.
    “Had justice truly been served, this man wouldn’t be sitting here today; he would be buried in the cold ground after receiving a lethal injection.”
    Oh, yes, he had plans for Ms. St. Martin.
    First he’d take care of the damn attorney, then the cop.
    He would save the best for last. Olivia St. Martin would be sorry she’d ever lied about him.
    She would pay for her crimes.
     
CHAPTER 10
     
    Olivia hated autopsies, but she’d always held her own in the few she had observed. Sheer will to control her emotions enabled her to maintain a calm demeanor while watching the coroner take apart and put back together a dead human body.
    She’d never witnessed the autopsy of a child, but she would remain a professional. A scientist. She could do this for Jillian Reynolds and Missy and all the victims of whom the press now called
The Seattle Slayer
.
    She took a deep breath and glanced at Zack. He stared straight ahead at the door through which the coroner would emerge. His face was all hard angles and rigid, as if he, too, were waging an internal battle.
    If a man as strong and experienced as Zack Travis was having a difficult time in this room, how could she hope to observe, to be impartial?
    The doors opened and a small, elderly Asian man wheeled in a stainless steel gurney. He was followed by an attractive woman, tall, with dark hair pulled back in a band. The woman nodded at Zack and gave him a half-smile. It was easier for Olivia to watch that exchange and wonder how they knew each other than it was for her to look at the white sheet draped over the small body.
    The woman started laying out instruments while the man wrote in a log. The doors opened again, and a rotund, white-haired man who reminded Olivia of a short Santa Claus burst in, nodding to his staff as he crossed over to where she and Zack stood.
    “Detective Travis.” They shook hands. Even without smiling, the coroner looked jovial.
    “Dr. Sparks, this is Agent St. Martin with the FBI.”
    Dr. Sparks took her small hand in both of his. “We’ll get started here in a moment.” He looked from her to Zack. “This isn’t a pretty sight. We cleaned up the body the best we could—I sent what we’ve already collected to Doug at the lab—but the victim is in an advanced stage of decomposition.”
    “Let’s get it over with,” Zack said.
    Olivia wanted to stay. She wanted to see what the bastard had done to Jillian Reynolds. But as soon as Dr. Sparks removed the