EVE GAZED IN BEWILDERMENT AT the huge bus terminal in the middle of the city.
“This is returning to your childhood?”
“In a manner of speaking.” John took her arm and nudged her through the crowd to the front entrance. “When I was a kid, this was where the housing project that I grew up in was located. Several years after I left, they tore it down and sold the property to a developer. They made it into a bus depot.” He shrugged. “I was just as happy. I hated the place.”
“The Bricks,” she murmured. “You said everyone called it the Bricks.”
His brows rose. “You remember that? I’m surprised.”
“So am I.” The memory had come out of nowhere. “I guess I remember more than I thought about that time.” Then she recalled something else. “I had to gather all my memories of you together once when Bonnie was a baby. I suppose they kind of stuck.”
“Really? And why did you do that?”
“Your uncle had just told me that you were dead. I thought I should tell Bonnie a little about her father.” She grimaced. “It was a crazy idea. She was only eight months old. She couldn’t have understood any of it. But I remember her looking at me as if she did.”
“Maybe she did,” John said quietly. “You told me the nurse said she was magic. Maybe that was how she was able to come to me in that prison. You gave her the key.”
Eve was once more aware of the wave of intimacy that seemed to be a recurring theme. She looked away from him. “I don’t know. All I wanted to do was not let her go through life without knowing something about the man who gave her life. All the rest is a mystery. I’m still having trouble with understanding what you told me.” She changed the subject. “Why are we here? I’m sure it’s not some sentimental journey to the past.”
“No.” He nodded at the wall of lockers across the terminal station. “When I was looking for a place to hide Queen’s ledger, I thought of this spot. I have only ugly memories of this site, and I thought I’d add another bit of ugliness to the place. Why dirty up any other area?” He held out his hand. “The key I gave you?”
She reached in her bag and located it. “The ledger is here?”
He took the key and his pace quickened. “Yes. Locker 57. Come on, let’s retrieve it and get the hell out of here.”
She watched him unlock the locker. “It still bothers you? Even though the place was torn down years ago?”
“There’s nothing more vivid than childhood memories.” He pulled out a leather briefcase, checked inside, and slammed the door of the locker. “Yeah, it bothers me.”
That had been a stupid question. A father who had put his cigarettes out on his son’s back? That was not a memory that would vanish with time. “But you had your uncle Ted.”
He nodded. “And that saved me.” He took her elbow. “Let’s go. I’ve got what I came for. This place suffocates me.”
She didn’t speak until they were in the car and driving away from the bus station. “Then why didn’t you find another place for the ledger? It hurts you. It’s not worth it.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it’s a form of self-flagellation. It could be I feel the need to punish myself for all my sins.” He paused. “Or perhaps just for one particular sin.”
“What sin?”
“I’m not going to use you as a confessor, Eve.” He nodded at the briefcase he’d put on the floor of the passenger seat. “Take a look at the ledger. I want you to be able to identify it if it becomes necessary.”
She undid the briefcase and pulled out a thin, cloth-wrapped brown leather volume. The pages were stiff, brittle, the entries clear, but in a script that must have been Korean. “I wouldn’t be able to identify any of these entries.”
“There’s a mark in green ink at the bottom of the sixth page. The color is very close to the blue of the other entries. You probably wouldn’t know it was there if you weren’t aware of the difference.”
“I see it.” She looked at him. “You believe that there’s a possibility the ledgers could be switched?”
“It’s possible. If I’m not around, I want you to be able to identify it.”
“Why wouldn’t you-” Then she understood. “You think you might be killed.”
“I have every intention of staying alive. Anything can happen. Now take a photo of the ledger and a few of the pages with your camera phone.”
She took the photos, then replaced the ledger in the briefcase. “Now what?”
“Now we go up to my cabin about seventy miles north of the city.” He smiled faintly. “It’s on a lake, and that place has only happy memories for me. My uncle rented it and took me up there several times when he was on leave. When I managed to start making money after I broke with Queen, I bought the cabin and several hundred acres around it.”
“And why are we going there?”
“I know the area. Queen does not. Neither does Black. That’s enough reason.”
“You’re going to call Queen and make a deal?”
He didn’t speak for a moment. “Yes, I’ll call Queen.”
But he wasn’t committing, she realized. She felt a chill as she remembered that rage that had so shocked her. Well, she had been angry with the senseless atrocity, too. What measures would she take to save little Cara Clark?
She would just have to see how the scenario unfolded.
CHAPTER 17
THE CABIN WAS SMALL, ONLY a bedroom, living-kitchen combination, and a tiny bathroom.
“Nothing fancy.” John put their bags down inside the door. “I don’t entertain here. I’ll get the broom out of the closet and sweep up after I make a pot of coffee.”
“I’ll sweep.” The place could use it. It didn’t appear neglected, but the dust was a fine film on the floor. “How long has it been since you were here?”
“I don’t remember. A year?” He was at the cabinet getting down a can of coffee. The vacuum hissed as he opened it. “When I used to come up here with my uncle, he made sure I cleaned the place up before we spent even an hour here. He hated dirt. That was his military training.”
“I remember him as being a very kind man. He loved you.”
“Yes.” He put the coffeepot on the burner. “And I loved him.”
She opened the door and swept the dust outside. The clean air rushed in and made the interior smell of pine and earth. She paused a moment to look out at the incredible beauty of the blue lake. “I can see why you liked it as a boy. It’s night and day from the stink of the projects. I would have loved it here.”
“Sorry. You wouldn’t have been invited. It was strictly a man-to-man outing. No girls allowed.”
She smiled. “Chauvinist.”
He smiled back at her. “Well, maybe we would have let you come. You’re not the usual female. You’d have held up your end.”
“You’re darned right.” She put the broom back in the closet. “I was planning on taking Bonnie camping, but I had school and was too busy.” Her smile faded. “Sometimes life goes by too fast, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And then it’s gone.”
“Sit down.” He got down two cups and was washing them at the sink. “Bonnie didn’t miss what she’d never known. You gave her a great life.” He set the cup in front of her. “Maybe the next time around, we’ll be able to do it all.”
“Do you believe there’s a next time?”
