“Montalvo again?” Jane came out of the bedroom. “You always have the same expression after you finish talking to him. He usually manages to annoy you.” She plopped down on a chair. “Or stir you.”
“He wants to send Miguel to protect us.”
“Oh, that young friend of Montalvo’s?” She smiled. “I remember Miguel. I met him in Bloomburg. I liked him.”
“And he liked you. If I recall, he was smitten.”
“He’s just a kid, and he likes women. And he has no discrimination.” She tilted her head. “You must have told Montalvo about our goblet. He’s worried about you.”
“That’s part of it.” She had not told Jane anything about Joe’s visit to Megan’s last night or the personal turmoil that was tearing him apart. Only Joe had the right to confide in her. But she couldn’t keep her completely in the dark. “But Joe believes that Jelak may be Nancy Jo’s murderer.” She paused. “And that means the goblet was probably left by Jelak.”
“Holy shit.” Jane’s eyes widened. “What’s happening? You said that was a ritual killing.”
“We don’t know. We’re trying to trace Jelak’s past and find out what we have to deal with,” she said. “He was in Bloomburg at the same time we were. But not with Kistle. He was standing on the sidelines and watching. He even went to a gym while he was there.”
“Creepy. A health nut?”
“Maybe.” She suddenly remembered something Joe had told her about Nancy Jo’s description of her murderer. “But Nancy Jo’s killer had huge biceps, like a weight lifter’s.”
“How do you know? Was there a witness?”
“Sort of. But if Jelak was a fitness addict, it would explain how he felt compelled to work out at a gym.”
“What do you mean? ‘Sort of’?” Jane said. “You’re not telling me everything.”
Eve should have known that Jane would pick up on any discrepancy. “I’m telling you everything I can. Ask Joe.”
“I will.” Jane rose to her feet. “This time I’m not going to be left out in the cold.” She held up her hand as Eve started to speak. “I’m not blaming you. I trust you. You have to have your reasons. I’ll just find out what’s happening on my own.” She gave Eve a quick hug. “But right now I have a dinner date with Patty. We’re going to an Italian restaurant near her house. She doesn’t want to be gone too long.” She made a face. “Or she’ll catch hell later from her grandfather.”
“Charming.” Eve hesitated. “Go ahead. But I’m going to call Joe and have a police car over at Patty’s to follow you home.”
“I can take care of myself, Eve,” Jane said. “You know Joe taught me the fine art of self-defense when I was just a kid. I can do anything from karate to sharpshooting.”
“So I’m a worrywart,” she said. “You notice I’m not trying to make you stay home. I know better. But I just want to make sure that you have a little extra protection.”
“Whatever.” Jane smiled as she went out on the porch. “I’ll probably be home by ten. If my plans change, I’ll give you a call.” She waved and ran down the steps. “Bye. See you later.” She stopped as she looked up at the darkening sky. “It looks like a storm is coming, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” Eve gazed out at the lake, which was already being whipped by the wind. “I think you’re right. It’s on its way.”
HUGE RAINDROPS WERE STRIKING his cheeks as Jelak sprinted deeper into the trees where he’d hidden his Lincoln. He didn’t mind. Storms made his heart beat harder and filled him with exhilaration. All the precious gift blood from Nancy Jo Norris was pounding through his veins.
He hadn’t expected his opportunity to come this quickly. Jane MacGuire was leaving alone, and the police car would remain to protect Eve and the cottage. He had crept close to the cottage and bugged both cars last night. Even if the woman had a slight head start, he’d be able to locate her.
But it was going to be hard to keep from taking her gift immediately. His hunger was growing, burning, and Jane MacGuire would be able to sate it. The blood that ran through her would be strong and full of life. He could always tell . . .
You weren’t enough, Nancy Jo. But the blood you gave me will give me the strength to reach out and grasp what I need.
That’s how the game is played.
Gift to Gift.
JOE DIDN’T GET HOME UNTIL close to seven that evening. It was still raining, and drops were running down his face after he got out of the car and ran up the porch steps.
Eve handed him a towel as he came in the door. “It’s a real gully washer, isn’t it? You can hardly see. I hope it quits by the time Jane leaves the restaurant.”
“You shouldn’t have let her go.” He dried his face and hair before tossing the towel on the counter. “The rain may be the least of her worries.”
“I can’t keep her penned up.” Eve turned back to the stove. “You know that, Joe. We just have to make her as safe as we can. I had the police officer who is following her call me from the restaurant. So far, so good.” She turned the slow cooker off. “I made a Mexican stew. It’s hot enough to chase the chill away.” She made a face. “Which is good in more ways than one.”
“Yes.” He glanced at the small skull set up on the pedestal across the room in her work area. It appeared very fragile surrounded by all the high-tech cameras and monitors that comprised her lab. “You’ve started to work? Who sent you the skull?”
“Your captain. It arrived about an hour ago. It’s one of the children on the island. A little boy. After all the publicity in the past few days, you’d think they would have been able to ID him.”
“Most of those kills were a long time ago. What are you calling him?”
“Matt.” She always named the skull she was currently working on. It seemed less impersonal, and she needed that connection. These murdered children who had just been tossed in the ground filled her with immense sadness. The skulls sent to her were those of children who were completely unknown to the local police departments. They had to have a starting place before they could begin DNA testing and matching. It was her job to take the skull and build a close enough resemblance so that it could be photographed, published in the media, and, hopefully, be recognized by friends or relatives. She took down two bowls from the cabinet. “Long time or not, I would have been calling nonstop if I knew there were unidentified bodies in those graves.”
“Not everyone is you, Eve. Some people have managed to move on.”
“I know. I’m happy for them.” She shrugged. “Maybe when I do finish Matt, they won’t thank me for stirring up the memories again.”
“They’ll thank you. Closure is a great gift.” He sat down at the table. “I wish I could give it to you.” He paused. “I called Montalvo today.”
“I know. He phoned and filled me in.”
“I thought maybe he would.”
She gazed at him a long moment. “You’re not angry.”
“I won’t let myself be angry. I can’t afford it, any more than I can afford jealousy. You and I have gone way past that point, haven’t we?”
“I suppose we have.” But his cool assessment and realization of the situation was not like that of the emotion-charged man she had known lately. It made her feel uneasy. “He said you’d agreed to let him in on anything you found out about Jelak.”
“I will.” He picked up his spoon. “I had the sheriff in Bloomburg go into Gold’s Gym and get a description of Jelak. About five-foot-nine, Roman nose, dark hair with white sideburns, very muscular.”
“Nancy Jo,” Eve whispered.
“Yes, he fits her description. We have a very observant ghost.” He lowered his gaze to the stew. “You said I was a rock. Well, the rock gets a deeper crack running across it every time something like this happens. I just have to hold on and keep it from shattering.” He lifted his eyes to her face. “But I will do it, Eve.”
“I know you will.” She sat down across from him. She could feel the strength and determination he was emitting as if it were a living force. Those qualities had never changed. From the time she had met him all those years ago, he had been a bastion of strength. She remembered breaking down and clinging to him in those weeks after Bonnie had been taken. Even at that time, she’d had moments of feeling safe and treasured in a barren world.
He should have seemed more vulnerable now. His brown hair was damp and a little mussed. His tea-colored eyes were older and a little weary. His face was thinner, the bones more pronounced. He didn’t look vulnerable. He reminded her of the portrait of a gladiator she had seen in a gallery she had visited with Jane in California. The man had been leaning against a sun-baked wall, relaxed and at rest, but the leashed strength had been clearly visible, only waiting to break free.
Very close to breaking free.
“What are you thinking?” Joe’s gaze was studying her expression.
“You’re changing.” She tried to smile. “I have a tendency to cling to you as I first knew you. But you’re not that man, any more than I’m that poor broken woman.”
“Some things never change.”
“But people do. Lately I told someone that everyone changes, and you just have to adjust.” She held up her hand. “Oh, it’s not because of this weird business of Megan’s. Well, maybe a little of it because it’s an experience, and experiences cause after-effects. You’ve probably been changing all along, and I didn’t want to see it. All I let myself see was that you were tired of the search for Bonnie.”
He met her gaze and repeated, “Some things never change.”
“But we have to explore what those things are.” She drew a deep breath. “But not now. That’s putting a little too much pressure on you for it to be fair.” She lifted her spoon to her mouth. “So did you find out anything more about Nancy Jo’s murder?”
“The Perimeter Mall security camera on the level where Nancy Jo left her car was smashed. We managed to find a picture of a light gray Lincoln Town Car that exited about that time.”
“License plate?”
“Conveniently covered with mud.” Joe finished eating and leaned back in his chair. “She seems to have been a random victim. Poor kid.”
“Why?” Eve shook her head. “For her blood? The whole thing is sick.”
“Gift to Gift.” Joe said. “And why was Jelak trailing behind Henry Kistle? I wouldn’t be surprised if the paper trail we’re doing on him leads us back to Kistle’s stomping grounds.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Have you traced his early years here in Atlanta?”
He nodded. “It’s pretty skimpy. He grew up in College Park in a foster home. His mother was a whore on crack and left him to fend for himself for most of his early years before DEFACS took him away from her. He was in trouble with the law from the time he was eight or ten. When he was seventeen, he beat up one of his teachers and was thrown into jail. The man almost died. After that, Jelak was in and out of prison for the next eight years.” He paused. “We went back into some of the trial-court records and found something interesting. At one point during a routine search of his apartment, the police found a sizable collection of vials containing blood.”
Eve’s eyes widened. “And?”
“Nothing. A few were animal and the rest human. Jelak claimed that it was only a hobby, and he’d stolen the human blood from a blood bank downtown.”
“And the police didn’t pursue it?”
“It dropped between the cracks. No proof. And he was going to jail for another robbery within a few weeks anyway. They probably thought they’d have time to investigate the vials later.” He added, “During the last time he was serving time, he told his cellmate that he was the one who had killed Bonnie Duncan.”
“Yet according to his records he wasn’t a serial killer during those years. Why Bonnie?”
“He could have been lying. Bonnie’s death caused a media storm. A man who was as much in love with power as Jelak might have wanted the cachet of a kill that important. Anyway, two months after he got out of prison, he left the city.”
“No connection with Henry Kistle at that time?”
“Maybe. Criminals network and every scumbag in Atlanta probably either knows or knows of most of the others. They left the city at approximately the same time. He could have known where Kistle had gone.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.” He glanced at the clock. “Isn’t it time Jane got home?”
“She said ten. It’s not nine yet.” But talking about Jelak had prompted in her the same anxiety that Joe was feeling. Keep busy.
She got to her feet. “I’ll wash up these dishes. Then I thought I’d start the measuring on Matt.”
He nodded, his gaze on the rain pounding on the windows. “I’ll give her a little while longer. Then I’ll go after her.”
“She has that squad car following her.”
“Which is the only reason I’m not going after her right now.” He stood up. “I’m going out on the porch to call the precinct and check and see if anything new has come in on Jelak.”
“The porch? It’s still pouring outside.”
“It’s not blowing.” He headed for the door. “And the rain doesn’t bother me.”
DAMMIT, IT WASN’T WORKIN GOUT, Jelak thought in frustration.
That bastard in the cop car was trailing Jane MacGuire too close for him to get near her.
Son of a bitch. He had thought that luck was going to be on his side. He had made his plans to edge her off the road on her way home.
But then that cop car had shown up at the restaurant.
Rage was tearing through him. It was Eve Duncan who had done it. He knew it. She had wanted to protect her young charge and called on Quinn’s cop friends to do it. Damn her.
He had wanted the gift to be clean and powerful, and she was keeping him from doing it.
He tried to control himself. It could still be clean and powerful, but he had to make a few adjustments to his plan. He would take MacGuire later rather than immediately. But he could not bear to remain in the background too long. He knew himself and he must have satisfaction and a certain amount of triumph.
Otherwise the burning would be too strong and would lead him to make mistakes.
So plan. Turn this small defeat into a glorious victory.
The haze of anger was gradually ebbing away as he pulled away from the curb.
He could barely see the cop’s taillights through the rain as he slowly drove after him. The bastard was still sticking to her as close as glue.
Guard her. It won’t do you any good. I’ll get her and make everyone who gets in my way pay.