Kill Her Again (A Thriller) Read Online Free PDF

back toward the house.
    They were greeted at the chain-link fence by Royer, Worthington, and half a dozen sheriff’s deputies, who had come running, weapons drawn, at the sound of the shotgun blast.
    The boy, trembling, kept his face buried in Anna’s neck. Rather than deal with the logistics of getting him up and over the fence, one of the deputies ran back for a pair of wire cutters and they simply made a hole big enough for Anna to step through.
    She carried him across the rutted field, through the backyard, past the house, and on out to the Ford Explorer, where she waved the others away and deposited him on the backseat. He was crying, tears streaking his dirty face, and she could see that he was in shock, a shock that might be too deep to penetrate.
    “It’s okay, Evan. Everything’s okay now.”
    But it wasn’t okay and the boy knew it and he continued to tremble as the tears flowed. She figured he had to be close to seven years old, but his reaction to the trauma of this night made him seem much, much younger.
    “I want my mommy,” he said in a small, shaky voice.
    Anna’s heart seized up in her chest. “I know you do, hon; I know. But your mommy’s been hurt and she can’t be with you right now.”
    “I don’t want her to go away. I want her to come back.”
    “I know,” Anna said.
    She’d lost her own mother to cancer when she was about his age. Remembered the feeling of helplessness, the disbelief. The ache.
    “Bring her back,” the boy cried, then flew into Anna’s arms again, pressing his face against her chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
    Anna held him, wishing she had a magic wand she could wave to make his pain vanish. But she had learned long ago that there was no magic in this world. There were no miracles. No do-overs.
    Dead was dead and resurrection was the thing of fairy tales.
    Anna’s biggest failing as a federal agent was her tendency to become emotionally involved in a case. She knew it could only lead to trouble—and certainly had in San Francisco—but she never hesitated to allow herself to empathize with the victims of crime. If a situation called for her to be a friend, a confidante, or even a surrogate mother, she was more than happy to fulfill that need.
    If she had a calling, that was it. Which sometimes prompted her to think she should have continued with her education, rather than allow herself to get sidetracked into law enforcement.
    She might be better off now, if she had.
    Might even be sane.
    As the boy cried against her chest, she pulled him close, rocked him, and quietly sang her favorite lullaby, the song her mother had sung to her nearly every night of her life before she was too weak to sit up:
     
    Every little star
    Way up in the sky
    Calls me
    Heaven in my heart
    Wishing I could fly
    Away
    Drift off to sleep
    Into a dream
    My soul to keep
    I do believe . . .
     
    Her mother had written the song, playing it on a cheap ukulele she kept on a shelf next to Anna’s bed. A simple, melancholy tune that, to Anna, now seemed prophetic. As if her mother had known, even before the illness, that death was approaching.
    As she sang the last bar, Anna noticed that the boy, Evan, had grown quiet. Was lost in his own moment, his own memory.
    She hoped it was a good one.
     
    “ YOU QUESTION HIM ?” Royer asked.
    “As much as I could.”
    “And?”
    Royer and Worthington were huddled in the front yard, several feet from the Explorer, as Anna approached. The boy was asleep on the backseat.
    “He’s in shock. He doesn’t remember anything.”
    “Nothing at all?” Worthington asked.
    “He knows his mother is dead, but can’t or won’t tell me what he saw. And he has no idea where his sister is. He’s a complete blank as far as I can tell.”
    “As far as you can tell.” Royer didn’t bother to hide his contempt. Despite this turn of events, his anger had obviously not dissipated. “Maybe somebody else needs to take a shot at him. Somebody qualified.”
    Anna