Chasing the Night (10 page)

But the Middle East was where the real money lay, and fanatics cared nothing how much it cost to grease the way to paradise. Naturally, he’d had to turn to them to find a way to his own paradise.

But paradise had its own restrictions, he thought regretfully. He wouldn’t be able to make those delightful calls to Catherine after he made his exit. It would be too dangerous not to break all ties to the outside world. The delicious game he had played all these years must be brought to an end. He reached out and touched Catherine’s throat in the photo. She had a lovely throat and many times when the anger had come to the surface, he’d wanted to slit it. Passing fancy. The mental torture he inflicted was much more enjoyable.

Oh, well, if he was going to end the charade, he would do it with style and ferocity. He had to have a plan that would be the crowning blow to his revenge on Catherine. It couldn’t terminate with just a final burst of agony from a sniper bullet. He’d bring her close to him so that he could watch every nuance of her pain.

And not only Catherine. That wouldn’t be in keeping with the grand finale.

“Who first?” he murmured. “Maybe a warning to punish you and show you what’s to come?” His finger moved to caressingly touch the lips of the woman in the photo. “Yes, that’s an excellent idea, Catherine. Let’s start with Eve Duncan.”

Chapter
7

Eve’s eyes flew open.

What had she heard?

It had been a small sound, but enough to disturb her restless slumber. She checked the bedside clock—5:42
A.M.

Probably nothing. The sound hadn’t been loud enough to wake Joe. She wasn’t accustomed to having guests in the house. She and Joe led an intensely solitary life.

She lay there, listening.

Movement? The creak of the couch in the living room? Kelly was only a young girl to have gone through so much. Perhaps she was having trouble sleeping in a strange place.

Eve obviously wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep until she checked on her. She carefully moved away from Joe and slid out of bed.

“Eve?” Joe asked sleepily.

“Shh, I’ll be right back.” She glided toward the door. “I’m having trouble sleeping.”

“I know a therapy for that.”

She chuckled. “I’ll discuss that with you when I come back.”

“Do that…”

He was dozing off as she quietly closed the door behind her.

The hall was dark, but there was a light in the living room. Bright light.

She moved quickly down the hall.

No Kelly.

The couch was vacant, the covers tossed to one side.

Where the hell was—

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” Kelly was perched on the high stool at the desk usually occupied by Catherine. She was dressed in loose blue-striped pajamas, and her bare feet dangled above the floor. Her blue eyes were wide in her pale face, and she looked even younger than she had earlier in the evening. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t sleep.”

“I had trouble, too.” Eve stiffened as she saw the sliver of bone in Kelly’s hand. “Put that down.”

Kelly quickly put the bone back on the table. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t hurt anything. I didn’t think you’d mind if I—”

“I do mind. This is my work, and it’s not something to play with.” She strode across the room. “Those bones are fragile, and I don’t need any more breakage than what’s already here.”

“I didn’t break anything. I was just—” She shook her head. “I only wanted to help.”

“You should have asked me, and I would have told you not to—” She stopped as she looked down at the table. “Dear heavens.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Take it easy. I can see that you didn’t.” She was still staring at the bones on the worktable. “When we went to bed, Catherine had only a quarter of Cindy’s face put back together. Now you have at least two-thirds of it completed. How?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I needed something to do.” Kelly moistened her lips. “There was a program pulled up on the computer. It seemed clear what you wanted done.”

“So you did it.”

She nodded. “It wasn’t difficult. It was just a puzzle.”

A puzzle that would have taken Eve days to solve. A puzzle that Catherine had strained and worked at for a full day. “How long did it take you?”

She shrugged. “A couple hours, I guess. I don’t want to do anything that would make you angry. I won’t touch it again.”

“You shouldn’t have touched it to begin with.” She held up her hand as Kelly opened her lips to protest. “No, you didn’t do any harm, and you might have done some good. But that doesn’t mean you can interfere with my work without permission. That’s not going to happen. Understand?”

Kelly nodded. “I just had to do something to unwind. I thought your puzzle might wear me out. Sometimes they do.”

“And did it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Kelly hesitated. “It wasn’t hard enough,” she said simply.

And the girl had not wanted to hurt Eve’s feelings by telling her that that poor broken skull that had been a nightmare prospect to Eve had not even challenged her. “Catherine was finding it hard enough,” she said dryly. “And I wouldn’t have had an easy time of it.”

“Mr. Venable says you’re very clever,” she said politely. “I’m sure it’s just that I’m good at patterns.”

“Kelly, are you patronizing me?”

She frowned, distressed. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean that you—” She nibbled at her lower lip. “I said the wrong thing again. You can see why my mother doesn’t want to be around me.”

“No, I can’t see any such thing. My ego isn’t that fragile.”

Kelly smiled tentatively. “Sometimes I do off end people. It was terrible when I was younger. But even now I forget every now and then. I’m glad that you aren’t angry.”

“I’ll be mad as hell if I examine that skull and find that those shards don’t match exactly.”

“They’ll match.” She added quietly, “I’m never wrong, Eve.”

“And modest, too.”

She shook her head. “They tested me so many times. I hated it. But even when it seemed I might be wrong, in the end it always turned around. After a while, I refused to do it anymore. I didn’t want to know more than anyone else about what could happen.”

“Why not?”

“It could be…sad. Some patterns don’t lead to good endings. I didn’t want to think about it.” She glanced down at the bone fragments. “This wasn’t a good ending, but I can’t do anything about it. Except maybe give you something that you want. You were kind to me. I wanted to please you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out well.”

“It didn’t work out terribly either.” She smiled. “Now get to bed and get a few hours’ sleep. Joe has to leave for the precinct in an hour, and I’d like you to be asleep by the time he has to come through here.”

“I’m causing him trouble, too.”

“Inconvenience,” Eve corrected. “‘Trouble’ is too strong a word. It takes a lot for Joe to consider it trouble. He just can’t get a handle on the situation, and it makes him upset. Now jump into that fine bed I made up for you and try to keep yourself from working on Cindy’s bones.”

“Okay.” Kelly headed for the couch. “Are you going to tell Catherine?”

“Yes. I could hardly keep it secret once she saw the progress you’ve made.” She pulled up the blanket around Kelly’s shoulders. “It’s pretty clear you—” She stopped and gazed down at the girl. “Or is that the aim of this exercise? Did you want to give a little demonstration of how much you can help Catherine?”

Kelly stared up at her. “Maybe. Partly.” She shook her head. “No, probably. I didn’t think it through, but I wanted her to know that I wouldn’t be a burden.”

“Kelly, Catherine was telling you the truth,” Eve said gently. “It’s the wrong time for you to be with her. Why can’t you understand that? I know that she saved your life, but you have to stand back.”

She was silent a moment, then looked away. “I can’t do that. Ever since they found out my brain could do this weird stuff, they’ve been telling me that it was a good thing. That I could be another Einstein or help people in a hundred different ways. But when Daddy and I were in Munoz’s camp, I tried to put together what might happen, what we should do to keep alive.”

“And you couldn’t do it?”

“No, I could do it,” she whispered. “Munoz kept threatening Daddy, talking about how he was going to rape me if the government didn’t do what he wanted. Daddy nearly exploded whenever he’d do that. He got so angry…” She shook her head. “It was going to happen. Munoz’s anger and threats, Daddy’s anger. Something bad…I could see it coming. It was a pattern, and I was in the middle of it.” Her eyes were glittering with tears. “I tried to talk to Daddy and tell him that nothing Munoz did to me would matter, that he mustn’t ever fight him. He wouldn’t listen. I tried to think of a way to get away, to break the pattern, but I couldn’t.” Her voice was shaking. “They kept telling me how smart I am, but they lied. I’m stupid. Stupid. I couldn’t think of any way to stop it.”

“Stop this.” Eve’s hand covered Kelly’s on the blanket. “You were in a no-win situation. Just because you can see patterns doesn’t mean that you can change them.”

“Then what good is it?” she said fiercely. “I can’t turn it off. It’s with me all the time. There should have been a way that I could have stopped Daddy from trying to—”

“What way?” Eve asked. “He loved you. You help people you love.”

“I couldn’t help him.”

What can I say? Eve thought helplessly. There was no arguing with that statement. The girl had obviously wrestled with this painful truth since her father’s death, perhaps even before. “No.” She paused, seeking for a way to soothe that pain. “He didn’t want your help. He thought he was doing the right thing. It wasn’t your responsibility. You might just as well say it was Catherine’s fault because she didn’t get there in time.”

Kelly shook her head.

“She doesn’t want your help, Kelly.”

“She has to take it. I have to know—”

“Know what?”

“First, I wanted to go to Catherine because I felt as if she understood—but the minute Venable told me about Catherine’s son, I knew that I might have another chance.” She moistened her lips. “If I help her, if I can work out her pattern with her son, then maybe this quirk I have isn’t stupid and worthless. Maybe I’m not worthless.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind.”

“There’s doubt in mine.” Her hand tightened on Eve’s. “I should have been able to save Daddy. Will you help me convince Catherine to let me stay with her?”

“No, that’s up to you.” She straightened and turned away. “The most I’ll do is tell her what you’ve told me and let her judge.” She turned off the light. “Good night, Kelly. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Good night.” In the darkness, Kelly’s words were a breath above a whisper. “I was wondering…”

“Wondering what?”

“As you work on those skulls, do you see a pattern, too?”

A pattern of darkness and murder and violence. A puzzle that she hoped to solve every time her fingers touched the skulls. “Only in my imagination, Kelly.”

Kelly rolled over and huddled under the blanket. “You’re lucky.”

It was after ten o’clock when Catherine got out of the shower, dressed, and strode into the living room. The couch was neatly made up, and Eve was sitting at the bar drinking a cup of coffee. “Where’s Kelly?”

“Out on the porch. I told her to go get some sun.” She poured Catherine a cup of coffee. “I wanted some time alone with you.”

“Why? I told you when you came to my room last night that I couldn’t be either a sister or psychologist to Kelly. Not now.”

“You were upset then, and you didn’t want to deal with her.” She lifted her cup to her lips. “But I think you’re going to find that you have no choice.”

“I have a choice.”

“Go over to the worktable and look at that work she did on Cindy’s skull last night.”

“I don’t want to look.”

“Are you being stubborn?”

“Yes.” She was silent a moment, then burst out, “Dammit, I’m not like you. I’m harder, more ruthless. Even though I don’t want her involved, I’m capable of ignoring what’s good for her if I decide she could help me find Luke. I don’t want to make that decision.”

“You could limit her input, find ways to keep her on the sidelines.”

“Anyone close to me may be a target if Rakovac decides to make a move. She’s fourteen years old.” She shrugged. “Besides, all that pattern business could be crap. I prefer to believe that it is.”

“And I prefer to believe that it’s not. You have to face the possibility. Stop hiding your head in the ground. Go look at Cindy.”

Catherine hesitated, then turned and strode across the room to the work desk. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you are as ruthless as I am. I thought you—Oh, shit.” She was gazing down at the skull fragments put together by Kelly. “She did this in a couple hours?”

Eve nodded.

“Hell, I know how difficult—I nearly went blind straining to tell those pieces apart.” She murmured, “Incredible.”

“Two hours.”

“But this was a physical puzzle, it doesn’t mean she’d be that good at anything more abstract.”

“Like finding a lost boy?” Eve nodded. “That’s right. We have no proof. Other than Venable thought she was promising enough to be interesting to the CIA.”

She shook her head. “Too vague.” She studied Eve’s expression. “Why are you trying to convince me to use Kelly? I thought you’d be against it.”

“I want you to bring your Luke home.” She smiled. “I’ve grown attached to him. It doesn’t seem to me that you have a plan that is even close to being foolproof.”

“I’m working on it.”

“I know you are,” Eve said quietly. “But Kelly is offering you an opportunity that could be…hopeful. I think you should explore the possibility. Face it, she’s going to be hard to get rid of, so let her help you, but keep her out of the line of fire. As I said, I’d be glad to have her stay with me.”

Catherine frowned, then shrugged. “I’ll think about it.” A faint smile curved her lips. “And I thought I was obsessed. Luke
has
you, and you’ve only seen his photo.”

“What do you expect? I’ve been watching him grow up before my eyes,” Eve said. “Or should I say within my computer?” She turned and headed for the door. “Let’s bring Kelly in and have breakfast. I want to get back to work on him.”

Kelly was sitting on the swing, and her expression became wary as she saw Catherine. “Am I in trouble?”

“Yes and no,” Catherine said. “You shouldn’t have touched Eve’s work without her permission. But since she’s forgiven you, I don’t have the right to be angry.”

Kelly looked relieved. “I just thought I’d get it done for you.”

“Since I was being so slow and inefficient,” Catherine said dryly.

Kelly shook her head. “I think you did a fine job since you were going at it blind.”

“Blind?” Catherine asked curiously. “Do you actually see where you’re going when you start working on a pattern?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I have to jump from piece to piece and hope it comes to me as I travel.” She turned to Eve. “Is that how it is when you do a reconstruction?”

“In a way. During the last stage of the reconstruction.” She looked at Catherine, and said meaningfully, “But it’s much better to not go at any endeavor blind if there’s any way around it.”

“Point taken,” Catherine said. “But not necessarily accepted.”

Kelly was focused and oblivious of the undercurrents. “I knew where I was going with the skull the moment that I saw the pieces,” she said. “That’s why it went so fast.”