“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, imploring him with her eyes. “Please, Greg. I’ll be careful. But I have to do anything I can to stop this killer. Please.”

Greg stared at her hand. She’d surprised herself: she didn’t like touching people. It had been a sore point in their marriage. She’d often jumped when Greg reached for her.

She loved him, in many ways. He was smart, very smart. Attractive, with light brown hair peppered with gray and intelligent blue eyes. Physically fit, even though he was nearly ten years her senior. They shared a love of science, a faith in facts. They were workaholics, both relishing problem solving and long days in the office. Their mutual love for science had kept their marriage intact for a time.

But Greg wanted more from her than she could give.

Why had she even married him in the first place? She often wondered. He was safe. He never pried, never questioned her, never challenged her quirky ways.

But she hated giving up her private space. Didn’t like sharing a house with someone. Sex was fine, but she couldn’t give herself over completely to him. Not just her body, but her mind. Her dreams.

Her nightmares.

When he’d said he wanted children, she wanted out. How could she bring another human being into such a violent world? How could she ever hope to protect her child from evil?

She would never take the risk. Never give birth to a beautiful child who could all too easily die a painful, brutal death.

She dropped her hand and turned away. She’d thought she convinced Greg to help, but maybe she really was on her own.

“All right,” he whispered. “Exactly what do you want me to do?”

Her heart rate raced. He would help her. “Call the Seattle chief of police and tell them you have someone familiar with the case willing to come out unofficially with information that might help them catch a killer,” she said quickly before he could change his mind. “They might hem and haw, but they’ll take the help-they have PR problems, too. If it ever got out that the FBI offered assistance and they didn’t take it, they’d get blamed for the next murder.”

Greg didn’t hide the surprise on his face. “That’s quite-Machiavellian,” he said.

“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to stop this predator.”

Greg took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Sighing, he put his frames back on and said, “I’ll do it. But don’t make me regret it.”

Zack Travis slammed the phone receiver down on his desk so hard the mouthpiece broke. He stared at the chunk of plastic and blinked. Why did he let Vince Kirby get to him?

He knew why, but didn’t like to think about it.

He looked up and saw a couple of the guys in the bullpen staring at him.

“Kirby,” he said, and several heads bobbed in understanding. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief that he didn’t have to explain further. Yeah, they all hated the reporter who portrayed their department as incompetent and overpaid (now, there was a real joke). But Zack’s reasons were more personal than the newspaper’s animosity toward the Seattle P.D.

Damn Kirby. Just talking to him brought back conflicting memories. Anger and deep sadness. Because every time he talked to Kirby, he thought of his dead sister. Having him reporting this case was going to poke at old wounds, but Zack was determined not to let Kirby get under his skin any more than he already had.

“What’s up?” Boyd asked, jerking Zack from his thoughts.

Zack picked the broken plastic off his crowded blotter and tossed it into the trash. “Kirby’s running with the damn serial killer angle.”

“Oh.” Boyd frowned and looked down at the pen he twirled between his fingers.

“What?”

“Maybe he’s right,” Boyd said.

“Hell, I know he’s right, but the last thing we need is every friggin’ mother picketing the station, or a copycat pervert snatching little girls off the street. One twisted killer is enough.”

Two girls, abducted, raped, and stabbed to death. One was nine, the other eleven. Both had blonde hair. Both were playing with friends and wandered only a short distance away. He wished he could picture them alive, playing, laughing. Instead, he could only picture them under the coroner’s knife.

The first, Jenny Benedict, had been in a park with neighborhood friends. She went to get water from the fountain and two girls saw her willingly walk off with “some guy.”

When Zack learned the father was allowed only supervised visitation with his daughter because of a bitter and prolonged custody battle, he wanted the man to be guilty. He tried everything to get him to confess. But in the end, Paul Benedict wasn’t a murderer. He was a father beyond grief, as destroyed by the news of his daughter’s murder as any innocent man would be. More so, perhaps.

I should have been there. Protecting her. Benedict’s words haunted Zack. Too close to the way Zack felt about his sister Amy.

I should have been there.

But what could he have done? Amy hadn’t been a little kid, and she sure as hell hadn’t wanted anything to do with her brother, the cop.

The second girl, Michelle Davidson, had been riding her bike when she raced ahead of her friends, trying to beat them home. Her bike was found in the yard of her next-door neighbor. Michelle was found dead three days later.

That was early yesterday morning, thirty-six hours ago. Now the press was all over him. They didn’t care that the parents were grieving or that he’d slept no more than four hours a night since the first victim was murdered three weeks ago, or that he spent two hours yesterday afternoon watching the autopsy of someone far too young to die.

“Did you run the killer’s M.O. through the computer?” Zack asked Boyd. The single best thing about the young rookie was his skill with all things electronic, in particular, computers. It would have taken Zack endless hours to plug in the information with his hunt-and-peck-and-erase system, and then he’d probably have to redo it because of mistakes. But Boyd was of the next generation. He was a whiz with the damn thing and took over that end of their work.