“Speak up. It’s not like you to be inarticulate.”
Catherine turned back to look down at Joe. “Did you finish the reconstruction on Cindy?”
Cindy was the reconstruction that Eve had been working on weeks ago before she had gone to Russia at Catherine’s request. It had been very difficult, and Catherine had been a great help. “Of course, she was done a week after I came home from Russia. It wasn’t that difficult.” She smiled. “Not after I had a little help from my friends during the initial prep work.”
“Was she a pretty little girl?”
“Yes.”
“Like your Bonnie?”
A tiny disturbance rippled through Eve. She didn’t look at all like Bonnie. “Why are you talking about Bonnie, Catherine?”
“Because I think Joe is jealous of your obsession with Bonnie. Not of your daughter. Just of your feelings for her. He’d have to be a saint not to feel a little put in the shade by the way you feel. Isn’t that true?”
She didn’t speak for a moment. “Yes. But friend or not, I don’t want to discuss this with you, Catherine.”
“I have to discuss it with you. Do you think I want to do it? I was even thinking of walking away and forgetting about it. But I can’t do that, Eve.”
Eve frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You and Joe have a giant problem, and I don’t want to make it any bigger.”
“How could you do that?”
“Easily.” Her lips twisted. “I’m good at what I do. I’m an expert. I just set my mind to it and cause the sky to fall.”
Eve slowly rose from the swing and went to stand beside Catherine. “Talk to me.”
Catherine looked away from her again. “I told you I’d pay you back, remember? I was so grateful I wanted to give you what you wanted most in the world.”
Eve gazed at her with exasperation. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t convince Catherine to accept what Eve had done as a gesture of friendship and let it go. Catherine had come to her to ask her to do an age progression on her son Luke, who had been kidnapped when he was two and had been missing for nine years. Eve had been inevitably drawn into the search for Luke that had culminated in a deadly race to save him from his kidnapper in Russia. “And I told you to forget it.”
“That’s not in my makeup.” She was silent for a minute. “What you want most in the world is to bring your Bonnie home. To do that you have to find her killer. When I came home from Hong Kong, I had lots of time to concentrate on thinking about your problem. I tried to look at the crime from an objective and fresh point of view. Then I started to dig. I used every contact and information-gathering unit I had at my disposal and at Venable’s disposal. We even tapped the NSA.”
Eve could feel her chest tightening. Don’t hope. The search had gone on too long for Catherine to just step in and perform a miracle. “Joe was FBI at the time Bonnie was taken. We didn’t exactly stop at local law enforcement.”
“But all the information wasn’t available then.”
“I know that. My friend, Montalvo, recently gave me a list of three new suspects. Two didn’t pan out, but I still have the third one to investigate. Paul Black. Is that the name you ran across?”
“His name popped up.”
Eve’s gaze narrowed on Catherine’s face. “But?”
“I was more interested in someone else.”
“Who?”
“He had opportunity. He might have had motive.” She was speaking quickly, tersely. “In this type of crime, there’s ample precedent for this kind of perpetrator.”
“Dammit. Why are you being so evasive?”
“Joe. I can see you have to walk very carefully where he’s concerned. He’s very emotional about your obsession with Bonnie. He’s nuts about you.” Her hands tightened on the porch rail. “And he doesn’t need to come face-to- face with this for it to tear him apart. Hell, it might tear you both apart.”
“Catherine.”
“Okay.” She drew a deep breath. “Joe has been thinking about you as being totally his own since the moment you met. It’s been the saving grace when he had to come to terms with your obsession with Bonnie. It would disturb the hell out of him to lose that security.”
“There’s no way he would lose it.”
“No? You’re very cool, very controlled, but it wasn’t like that always. There was a time when you lost your head and spun out of control over a man.”
Eve was beginning to see where Catherine was going. No, it couldn’t be. It was impossible. She asked hoarsely, “Catherine, who killed my Bonnie?”
“I didn’t say I was certain.”
Eve was shaking. “Tell me. Tell me the name.”
“You want a name?” Catherine drew a deep breath. “The name you didn’t even see fit to put on the birth certificate, Eve,” she said gently. “Bonnie’s father, John Gallo.”
EVE HAD BEEN EXPECTING IT, but the name struck her, stunned her. She couldn’t breathe. She could barely speak, “No… it’s not true. You don’t understand. It’s not true.”
But if Catherine thought it true, then somehow it might be.
No, it was impossible.
“Eve, I wouldn’t have just pulled his name-”
“No!” She had to get out of here. She had to be alone. She whirled and was across the porch, fumbling at the screen door. “You’re wrong, Catherine. You couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not-” She slammed the door behind her and leaned back against it, staring into the darkness.
Cool and controlled, Catherine had called her. Where was that coolness now? She felt as vulnerable and emotional as she had when she was that sixteen-year-old kid who had given birth to Bonnie. So angry, so defiant, so passionate.
John Gallo.
Catherine’s words had sent her spiraling back to that sixteen-year-old girl.
Back to John Gallo…
CHAPTER 2
“I NEED A LITTLE MONEY, EVE.” Sandra Duncan’s soft, Southern tone was coaxing. “You got paid last night, didn’t you? A ten spot will do me.” Her hand fluttered to her short red-brown hair. “I need to get my hair tinted so that I can go look for a job. I’ve got to look my best.”
Her mother was stoned again, Eve realized in despair. Eyes a little unfocused, movements slow and
