Read Kill List (Special Ops #8) for Free Online

share with them and it was far from ladylike. She said her mother told her she shouldn’t have said what she said.” He shrugged. “But then she said her mother gave her a cute smile and wink then told her she needed to apologize to me since it was my place of business, but that she wanted to say some of the same words herself. I told her not to worry about it; I probably would have said worse, maybe even done a lot worse. These people,” he shook his head. “Look what they’re doing,” he pointed to Chogan’s mother and he looked at her—not only was there sorrow and anger but there also seemed to be fear deep in those eyes. His mother who used to love to go outside and enjoy the sun on her face or the brisk chill of freshly fallen snow, seemed locked in the shadows of her own home.
    He hugged his father before taking his mother in his arms and holding her trembling body.
    “I still can’t believe it,” she said. “I know she’s gone. I know we’re going to put her in the ground in a couple days, but I just…I just can’t.”
    “I know, Mom. I know.” He couldn’t believe it was real either when he got the message, but he knew his CO wouldn’t joke about something like that so he knew it was real. His sister was gone now and the thing that made it worse was that whoever had done this was still out there, unpunished and still breathing. He aimed to change that real soon.
    “Will you stay here a while?” His mother hugged him even tighter.
    “Yeah. I’ll stay here until after the funeral. Maybe a few days after and then I’m going to have to go home.”
    “Why?” She clutched him tighter.
    “Because I’m a Marine who is going on the hunt for a killer and I can’t do that from here.”
    She hadn’t asked him not to do it. She hadn’t protested at all which told him she was okay with his choice. She wanted justice too, and she obviously didn’t believe the cops were going to get that for her.
    “Any word on Olivia?” He looked at his father and saw him shake his head no.
    “They say she’s probably…well, you know…they don’t know for sure.”
    He growled low. What did they know?—nothing it would seem.
    “I think she’s alive. Why kill one and leave her there and not leave the other one too?”
    “I don’t know.” He didn’t know the answer but it was a good question to ask. Why take Olivia? Why not kill her right there too? Not that he wanted her dead. He didn’t want either of them dead, but he needed answers and right now answers didn’t seem to be coming their way.
    “But if she’s not dead,” his father sighed and shook his head. “If she’s not dead then what is he doing to her?”
    Chogan felt the highest level of ferocity within him coming to a full peak like Everest embraced by the winter clouds in the sky. Anger, a feeling of rage with the ferocity of two category five hurricanes joined for destructive war is what he would call what he felt.
    His mother released him. “I fear for her. She…if she’s alive…” she shook her head unable to continue as she walked to the soft beige leather couch in the far corner of the room. He had bought her that couch as a present. She had wanted new furniture and he had wanted to give it to her so he bought the living room set she had been eyeing in the paper. Getting that beast up the stairs of the front porch and through the narrow doorway had taken more than a few good men. Thanks to his friends he had been able to do it.
    He had to put his mind back on something other than imagining the hell Olivia was going through if she was still alive. “Who called the police?”
    His father shrugged. “They say the call came in from within the hotel. They say it was a female, but not much more than that.”
    “Could it have been her?”
    His father shrugged again. “Doubtful because they say there was a hint of southern twang in the voice. We all know she doesn’t have that at all.”
    “Yeah,” he sighed. She was a Midwest