No one gave him the time of day. It didn’t matter that he’d been proven innocent. He’d been in the joint for three decades. No one really believed he was innocent.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them he stared at the top of the scuffed dresser. The dull blued steel of the.38 glinted at him in the artificial lamplight. He’d bought it off the street behind his god-awful dive apartment. He was shocked at how easy the deal went.

He picked up the gun with shaky hands and stared down the barrel. “My life is over,” he said, his voice hollow and tinny.

He put the gun in his mouth, the metallic taste making him cringe. Tears streamed down his face. His entire body shook as his right hand curved around the gun in order for his index finger to reach the trigger. It felt awkward. Wrong.

But slowly he depressed the trigger. He felt the hammer pull back as the trigger reached the halfway point. It resisted, as if the gun itself told him wait, don’t do it, and then…

Click.

The gun was empty; he hadn’t loaded it. Sinking to the floor, he sobbed.

His mother was scared of him, but he blamed that on his cousin Toby. He had no home, no friends. Nothing was as it had been when he went to prison.

Angry, he wiped the tears from his face. Look what that bitch had turned him into! A whiny, sniveling old man.

“Stupid cunt, I’ll kill you!” Another piece of furniture hit the wall next door as the bitches continued to rant.

Pathetic. He was pathetic, sitting on the threadbare carpet that might have been beige years before, but was now brown from years of pathetic losers like him living in this pathetic flat.

Retribution. He had to do something to the people who’d destroyed his life. But what? What could he do to pay them back for the life they’d stolen from him?

He slowly stood and shuffled over to the lopsided Formica-topped table in the corner that passed for a 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.

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 sheet, she had to leave.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled to Zack and ran out the door.

She was almost outside the building when Zack caught up with her. “Olivia.”

She couldn’t look at him. What must he think of her? Wholly unprofessional. But if she had stayed, she wouldn’t have been able to control her reaction, and that was simply unacceptable.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

He clasped her shoulder, forcing her to face him. She thought she’d see frustration or anger or something in his eyes that showed he knew she was a fraud.

Instead, she saw deep compassion.

“Liv,” he said softly, using her nickname. “It’s okay. I understand. Take a walk. I’ll meet you right here in an hour.”

She nodded, afraid that if she spoke her voice would crack.

She left the building and walked briskly along the street busy with noontime traffic. All she wanted was to get away from the building, get away from death.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about what Jillian now looks like.

For a brief moment she wondered if the body would haunt her for the rest of her life. How could she be a scientist-a witness to many autopsies, dead bodies, and horrid crime-scene photos-yet be derailed by one victim?

Who am I? Who have I become?

Minutes later, she slowed her pace, not knowing how far she’d walked. She stood near a fountain outside a building she suspected was City Hall. Lunchtime walkers in skirts and tennis shoes strolled briskly around her in pairs or threesomes, chatting while burning calories. It was a lovely autumn day. Perfect, warm with a light breeze and clear blue skies.

A perfect day? Hardly. A nine-year-old girl lay in a cold autopsy room down the block. A child who would never again enjoy an autumn day.

She sat on a bench in front of the fountain and stared at the dancing water.