Olivia’s heart leapt to her throat. “Steve? Does he have a last name?”

“Steve Williams. He’s been a server here for nearly two years. Ohmigod. What happened? He’s not in trouble?”

Olivia glanced around the restaurant, trying to spot Driscoll. “Is he working tonight?”

She shook her head. “No, he swapped shifts. He has a daughter who goes to college in Oregon and went down to visit her.”

Daughter? There was nothing in his records that indicated he had any children or had ever been married. It could be the truth, or a ploy.

“Do you know his daughter’s name?”

“Angel.”

Olivia sucked in her breath, but quickly recovered. “I need to see his employment records right now.”

“I-I don’t know if I’m supposed to do that.”

“I can get a warrant and come back in an hour, but in the time it takes me to return someone might die. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Denise looked like she was ready to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Come to the office.”

“One second.” She flipped open her phone and dialed Zack. “Bingo. Restaurant at the pier… the Crab Shack. I’ll be in the back office with the manager.”

Thirty minutes later, Zack and four sheriff deputies from the Vashon Island substation had the cottage rented by Steve Williams, a.k.a. Chris Driscoll, surrounded.

The small house sat on the edge of the woods where Jillian Reynolds’s body had been discovered less than a mile away. The property felt empty, but Zack didn’t take any chances. He had the deputies do a complete perimeter check, then knock on the door. When there was no answer, they entered the house.

Chris Driscoll had lived on Vashon Island for well over a year, but the cottage reflected nothing personal. No photographs. No pictures on the walls. When Zack had called the landlord about the property, he’d learned that it had been rented partially furnished. Driscoll paid cash rent and told the landlord it was from his tips. He never paid late.

The cottage was sterile, immaculate, without personality.

The garbage had been emptied. No dishes on the counter or sink. No plants in the window box. The glass-topped table had two chairs perfectly aligned.

The bedroom didn’t look slept in except that the bed had white sheets and two blankets tucked tightly in, military style. Zack feared Driscoll had already escaped, that he had no intention of returning after Nina Markow.

He checked the drawers, relieved to find clothing. Three sets of uniform clothes for the restaurant-black slacks and black polo shirt-were stiffly folded. Even Driscoll’s underwear and socks were orderly. There were no dirty clothes in the hamper; no clothes in the washer or dryer.

Because the room was devoid of everything personal, the lone picture stood out like a beacon.

Gloved, Zack picked it up.

The boy was Driscoll, age nine or ten. Blond hair cut in a short buzz popular in the fifties and early sixties. The girl was four or five, a beautiful little girl. A little girl who at nine would look remarkably like Michelle Davidson or Nina Markow. There was a woman kneeling between the two children, her arms around their shoulders. Smiling for the camera.

Zack turned it over.

Mama and Angel. February 10, 1960.

It had been taken six months before Bruce Carmichael killed Miriam Driscoll.

Oddly disturbed, Zack put the picture down and went to the closet. Inside was a briefcase of sorts, more like a large black box that one might see a traveling salesman use.

It was locked.

Could Driscoll have rigged the cottage with some sort of explosives? Zack didn’t have the tools to defuse them, and it would take the bomb squad at least thirty minutes to get to the island, even if they used the Coast Guard.

He called Doug Cohn. “Doug, I need you and your team out to Vashon ASAP. Bring George Franz with you.”

“Bomb?”

“Probably not, but I don’t want to take the chance of not seeing your ugly face in the morning.”

“Got it.”

Zack gave him the directions, then instructed the sheriff’s deputies to secure the cottage and let no one in until the crime scene investigators arrived. Then he looked for Olivia.

Where in the world had she disappeared to?

Had she seen something? She wasn’t stupid-she wouldn’t have gone off after Driscoll on her own! Would she? Had he read her wrong the entire time? Her heart and mind were so wrapped up in this case, between her parents and her sister and what had happened with the Davidson family.

No. She was a professional first.

But his heart beat rapidly and he drew his gun, holding it at his side as he circled the cottage.

He saw her in the moonlight, kneeling in the dirt on the edge of the woods. Relief flooded his body and he reholstered his weapon.

Olivia knelt on the ground, her legs unable to support her any longer, the beam from the flashlight dancing over the gray stone in front of her.

It looked like a gravestone.

The now-familiar dots and dashes had been carved deeply into the stone, as if the craftsman had spent hours and hours at work, then polished it until it was as smooth as river rock.

“Olivia!”

She heard Zack’s voice, but it seemed to come at a distance. Instead, she heard Missy’s voice, loud and clear.

“Just let me finish this chapter.”

The names and faces of thirty similar victims flashed through Olivia’s mind until she felt nauseated. Lives cut short, girls who didn’t have the chance to grow and learn and love and be loved.

Nor had Olivia ever learned to truly love. She had never accepted anyone’s love because she’d been trapped in the past, her heart dead.

No longer would she allow Missy’s murder to stop her from living. No longer would she be a prisoner of her regret and guilt.

Zack knelt on the ground beside her. “Liv, what’s wrong?”

He sounded worried. She pointed to the stone.

“It looks like a gravestone, but there’s no disturbed earth.” She shined her light on the garden that surrounded them. In the daylight, the area would seem to burst with color.

“It’s a shrine,” she said, “to his dead sister.”

Zack nodded. “I called in Doug Cohn’s people. They’ll be here shortly. I’ll point this out.”

“For so long I’ve let the past control me. The career choices I made, the friendships I fostered, my relationships with people.” She stared into Zack’s eyes, imploring him to understand her. She didn’t know how to express the revelation that had come to her as she stared at the sad stone half-buried in the earth.

“My father’s indifference, my mother’s grief, my own feelings of guilt. I’ll be forty next year and I feel like I haven’t led my own life.”

She stood and looked down at Zack squatting next to the marker. “No longer. My decisions are my own. My feelings are my own.” She touched his head, her fingers brushing against his ear, his rough cheek, her fingers skimming across his lips. He kissed her thumb, took hold of her hand, and stood.

“You know what I think?” he said, his voice low and smooth, sending shivers across her skin. He took her hands in his, his thumbs skimming along her palms. “I think every choice you made in your career has led you here to this place and time. To me. You can’t think about the past, what might have been. What is, is. What you’ve done, you’ve done. So many things are out of our control, Liv. Too many things. But the choices we’ve made, to be on the right side of justice, balance the scales.”

He kissed her lightly, all too briefly. “Let’s go meet Cohn at the docks. I hate waiting around, but until we have more information, we can’t do anything else.”

They walked away from the garden shrine.

“Thank you, Zack.”

“For what?”

“For helping me find myself.”

He shook his head. “You were never lost.”