Kill Her Again (A Thriller) by Robert Gregory Browne Read Free Book Online

weeks, she had to wonder, could her mother have been right? Do true psychics exist?
    She thought of the lullaby she’d sung to Evan, the sadness of the melody, the prophetic words, as if they had been written with an eye toward some predetermined future and a desire for release:
     
    Every little star
    Way up in the sky
    Calls me
     
    What had her mother been thinking about when she wrote those words? Did she know about the pain she’d one day have to endure? That she’d be leaving this world sooner than most? Could she see things, predict things, that others couldn’t?
    And, by extension, what about Anna?
    Could these visions she’d been having, these terrible glimpses of carnage, be some kind of ominous portent?
    The thought that she might have some otherworldly ability frightened her. But at least it was an explanation. And she desperately needed explanations, because the alternative was even more frightening.
    “There it is,” Deputy Chavez said, pointing toward a distant spot on the horizon. Anna could see bright lights flashing. A lot of them. “We’ll be there in a couple minutes.”
     
    T HE PLACE WAS a dump.
    Chavez pulled the squad car to the curb in front of the lobby doors, which were flanked by large, stone palm trees in serious need of a new paint job. The sign over the doors read, in even more flashing bright lights: DESERT OASIS HOTEL-CASINO.
    “Oasis” was being generous.
    Gambling had never interested Anna. She’d been to a casino only once before in her life, in better days, when she was still working out of San Francisco. A suspect’s trail had led her and her partner to the Thunderhead Resort, a sprawling Native American golf and gambling mecca, about a two-hour drive outside of the city, that catered to high rollers and tour buses full of Gold Coast retirees. Although several years old, the hotel and casino were spotless, meticulously maintained, with even a touch of old-world elegance to them.
    The Oasis was the exact opposite. The kind of low-rent establishment that stirred up phantom smells the moment it came into view. Smells you just knew would assault you as soon as you stepped through its doors: mold and mildew mixed with several decades’ worth of cigarette smoke.
    Anna glanced down at Evan, who hadn’t said a word the entire drive. If only out of necessity, the boy seemed to have bonded with her, and it had been Worthington’s suggestion that she shepherd him to the Oasis.
    “I’ve gotta finish processing this crime scene,” he’d said. “And I have a feeling he’d be more comfortable with you.”
    Royer had initially objected, of course, but finally gave in, apparently having decided to wash his hands of anything to do with Special Agent Anna McBride.
    Which was fine with her. Anna welcomed the chance to get away from him. Away from the snide remarks, the judgmental stares.
    She knew she should have kept her mouth shut earlier, should have played along and been the good little soldier, but she’d been betrayed by her usual impulsiveness. She was a cliché—her own worst enemy—and reassignment to middle-of-nowhere South Dakota was looking more and more like a real possibility.
    Assuming, of course, she managed to hang on to her job at all.
    “Where are we?” Evan asked, finally breaking his silence. He had pulled away from Anna and was staring out at the flashing lights.
    “Disneyland,” Chavez told him as he killed the engine. “Disneyland for grown-ups.”
    Disneyland for losers, Anna thought.
    Maybe she’d fit right in.
    Evan shook his head. “I don’t want to go to Disneyland.”
    “It’s okay,” Anna said. “We won’t be here long. There’s someone who wants to meet you. Someone who can help us find Kimberly.”
    Evan brightened suddenly, peeking past Anna’s shoulder toward the lobby doors. “Is she here?”
    “No. But we’ll find her. I promise.”
    It was a promise she knew she shouldn’t make. If the man who had slaughtered the people in that