“Then stop looking so sad. You’ve got to be happy too.” She tilted her head. “I don’t want to talk about vegetables and puddles. Would you like to sing a song with me?”
“I’d like that very much. ‘All the Pretty Little Horses’?”
“No, that’s not my favorite now. I like the one about wishing on a star. It’s happier. It’s all about dreams coming true. Do you remember the words?”
“Yes, I remember every song we’ve ever sung together, Bonnie.”
“Your voice sounds kind of funny. Maybe I should start.”
“Maybe you should.” She leaned back, her gaze fixed on her little girl, on her Bonnie.
It was a dream, but let it go on.
Let Bonnie not go away.
Bonnie’s voice came softly from the darkness. “When you wish upon a star . . .”
EVE DIDN’T KNOW AT WHAT point she drifted into a deep sleep that night. When she woke the next morning, she expected to return to that same profound depression.
It didn’t happen. She felt a strange serenity and optimism that came as a complete surprise.
And what she thought were dreams of Bonnie became part of her life. They didn’t come every night, but frequently enough so that she never lost that feeling that on some level Bonnie was still with her.
And with that knowledge she had begun to function, to slowly come alive again.
Came alive and turned to forensic sculpting, a work that filled her life, and to Joe, who became the reason to live, to go on.
She moved closer to him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Can’t you sleep?”
He was still trying to fix her problems, heal her. “I’m fine.” She kissed him on the chin and put her head back on his shoulder. “Nothing is wrong, Joe.”
Dahlonega, Georgia
THE TEENAGE GIRL’S BLOOD was worse than useless, Jelak thought in frustration as he got into the Mazda that was parked in front of the brick office with the small sign on the door: R. J. BAKER, M.D. Nicole Spelling’s blood had fed him but not given him anything more to replace the precious and quality blood he had lost. She had been too young, too shallow.
Oh, well. She had proved useful. He’d forced her to drive him to this small burg outside Atlanta to find a doctor who could take care of his wound. He’d been careful to choose an M.D. with a practice on the edge of town, and all had gone well.
It was about time. Joe Quinn had ruined all his plans for a quick finale to his glorious quest. He had put him on the run and forced him to take that inadequate Nicole Spelling just to survive.
Suppress the anger and hatred. He’d get his own back. What do you care about, Joe Quinn? What can I take from you that will punish you enough?
The answer was clear, and every bit of the blood in his body was pounding in response to it as he drove away from the office and headed back to Atlanta.
“A BP GAS STATION WAS ROBBED and Calvin Hodges, the attendant, murdered,” Schindler said as he came into the squad room the next morning. “It was on Hawthorne Street, a few miles from where we located Jelak’s car last night.” He paused. “There was a CLOSED sign on the door, and they didn’t discover the body until this morning, when Hodges’s wife drove out to check on him. The attendant was killed with a knife thrust to the heart. But there was blood on the floor near the door. It’s probably not Hodges’s.”
“Any vehicles missing?”
“No, the attendant’s car was still parked in the back,” he added grimly. “But the last credit card to be entered into the gas pumps was for a Nicole Spelling.”
“So?”
“Her parents reported her missing last night.”
“Shit.”
“Age sixteen, just got her license, driving a red Mazda her parents gave her for her birthday,” Schindler said. “They said that she had a date to celebrate with her boyfriend. She’d bought a new dress and was very excited. That’s why they were so worried when she hadn’t come home on time.”
“Sixteen.”
“Yeah, sucks doesn’t it?” Schindler said. “We’ve put out an APB on her and the car, but nothing yet.”
And there probably wouldn’t be anything good, Joe thought. Another Nancy Jo.
No, Nicole Spelling was even younger, almost a child.
His phone rang. Caleb.
“No, we haven’t caught him,” he said when he picked up. “But he’s been busy. We have a dead gas-station attendant and a missing sixteen-year-old girl.”
“It’s logical. He’d want to replace the lost blood.”
