“Her grandmother takes her to school every day and picks her up. The kid takes the dog for a walk in the morning, and they all go for a run in the park after school. The kid doesn’t leave the condo after she gets back.” He checked his wristwatch. “They should be in the park in about fifteen minutes. Do you want to go there?”
“Yes.” He wanted to see the child and her grandmother and make sure he’d be able to recognize them. “Let’s go.”
“I’m surprised Quinn isn’t with you.”
“He has another priority.” Massive understatement. Eve was clearly an obsession with Quinn. “And he thinks the kid is safe. He trusts his police buddies.”
“But he knows you’re here?”
Galen nodded. “He thinks I’m wasting my time.” Maybe Quinn was right. Everything seemed to be fine on the surface, but he was uneasy and he’d always trusted his instincts. “Let’s hurry, okay?”
Chapter 12
He was leaving, thank God.
Eve watched Joe walk up the staircase. She had always loved the way he moved. There was a sort of sensual grace, an alertness so different from the stillness of Joe at rest. Yet even that stillness was never passive. She could always sense the intelligence, the emotions that were going on behind that almost expressionless face.
“I didn’t bring cream,” Nathan said from across the room. “You take your coffee black, don’t you?”
“What?” She quickly picked up the cup Nathan had put on the worktable beside her. “Yes, I take it black.”
She heard the door at the head of the stairs close behind Joe.
“I thought I remembered right.”
“It will be fine.” Everything was fine. Joe was gone now. She could work.
She pulled her gaze back to Victor. Concentrate, dammit.
“Go to bed,” Eve ordered Nathan. “It’s almost midnight, and you’ve been sitting there all day.”
“When you go to bed, I’ll go to bed. I haven’t disturbed you, have I?”
“No, you’ve been very quiet.” Eve took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “But it’s nonsense for you to hover over me. I’m beginning to feel guilty every time I look over there at you.”
Nathan smiled faintly. “You’ve been so absorbed, you haven’t even known I was here for the last six hours. How’s it going?”
“Okay.” Eve’s glance shifted back to Victor. “He’s coming along.”
“You’re excited. Will you finish tonight?”
“I’d like to, but I’m too tired. I should stop.” Her fingers longingly touched the cheek of the reconstruction. “But I’m so
close,
dammit.”
“May I look at it now?”
“No, you couldn’t recognize anything yet. It’s the final stage that tells the tale.” She wiped her hands on a towel. “But by the end of tomorrow, he’ll be done.”
“Good.” Nathan’s gaze was fixed on the back of the skull. “Why are those last hours so important?”
“It’s the time when instinct takes over. Sometimes I feel as if the subject is guiding me, telling me.” She made a face. “Weird, huh?”
Nathan shrugged. “I’ve heard crazier things. The whole process is a mystery to me. I don’t understand how you do it.”
Eve smiled. “First, you have to want to do it with your whole being. After that, it’s a piece of cake.”
“Yes, sure. That’s why you work your ass off. Because it’s so easy.”
“No career is easy if you want to be the best. You’re pretty driven yourself, or you wouldn’t be going after that Pulitzer.”
“It’s the peak of a journalist’s career. I’ve never wanted to be anything else but a reporter. Maybe someday I’ll write a book or two. I’m a simple soul.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’re the one who chose a career that’s considered macabre at best.”
“Everyone believed I should have had enough of death after Bonnie died. But you go where you’re led.” She cast a final glance at Victor before turning away. “And I’m being led to bed so that I can get up early tomorrow.”
“What time?” Nathan got to his feet. “I want to be here for the great unveiling.”
“Whenever I wake up. But he’ll still take several more hours’ work.”
“I’ll be down at six.” Nathan moved toward the staircase. He paused at the top of the stairs to gaze back at Victor. “Are you sure I wouldn’t recognize him now?”
“I’m sure.” Eve followed him up the stairs. “Now forget about him and get some sleep.”
“Have you heard from Galen?”
Eve shook her head. “But it’s only been two days. He’ll let us know if he finds out anything.” She flipped the wall switch that controlled the lights in the scullery. “And we’ll call him tomorrow if I finish Victor.”
She took one last look at the dim shape of the skull on the worktable below.
We’re nearly there, Victor. You’re almost home.
Boca Raton, Florida
October 23
“It’s a waste of time, sir,” Jennings told Rusk. “I’ve checked in with the agents in our Miami office, and there’s not even a hint of anything happening down here except drugs, confidence schemes, and money laundering. I might as well come back.”
“If you’re sure.” Rusk’s voice was disappointed. “I was hoping you’d get lucky.” He hung up the phone.
It would have taken more than luck, Jennings thought. He leaned back in his chair and gazed out the hotel window at the gray-blue Atlantic. Everything on the surface in this city was all small-time. Maybe below the surface, too. There was nothing like the ugliness of that anthrax scare.
As he had told Rusk, it had been a waste of time. He hadn’t accomplished anything here; he should go back and try another path.
Yet why did he have this nagging sense that he had missed something?
What the hell? One more try.
He flipped open his portfolio to the notes on Bently and the Cabal that Joe Quinn had given him that first night he had called him. Beside it, he placed the notes he’d made since he’d arrived in Boca Raton.
It was fifteen minutes later that he suddenly stiffened in his chair.
Holy shit.
The little girl looked a little like Eve Duncan, Galen thought as he watched her running through the park after the pup. Strange. He knew the two were not related, but that red-brown hair was almost the same shade. She didn’t have Eve’s wariness, though. This was Galen’s second afternoon of watching her, and she was blissfully unaware of anything but that dog.
“She reminds me a little of my daughter. My Cindy’s that age.” Hughes sat down beside Galen on the bench. “Cute kid.”
“Yes.” Galen watched Jane pick up a stick and toss it for Toby. “No sign at all of Hebert?”
“No. Maybe you’re barking up the wrong tree.” He suddenly chuckled. “Like that dog of hers. He doesn’t seem to know that you have to concentrate on one tree and not the whole park when you’re on the hunt.”
“Maybe I am wrong.” But Galen didn’t think so. “No one hanging around the condo?”
“Nope. We checked out all the vehicles and questioned a few people who seemed to be loitering. Everyone on the street belongs there.” He grinned. “Here she comes, running after the pup again. Better open your newspaper.”
Jane was careening toward them after Toby. Galen lifted his copy of the
Atlanta Journal Constitution
in front of his face.
“Who are you?”
He lowered the paper to see that Jane had stopped, and was standing in front of them.
“I beg your pardon.”
“What’s happening?” The child was staring him belligerently in the eye. “Why are you watching me?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t lie to me. You’ve been here for two days. Are you a plainclothes detective like Joe? If you are, I want to see your ID.”
“No, I’m not a detective like Quinn. And you shouldn’t confront strangers in the park.”
“The squad car will be driving by any minute, and a plainclothes detective is trailing behind Grandma. I’m not supposed to know about them, either.” Her lips tightened. “I’m not supposed to know about anything. What’s your name and why are you here?”
And he’d thought this kid was lacking Eve’s wariness, Galen thought ruefully. “My name is Sean Galen. This is David Hughes. We’re here to make sure you’re safe.”
“You’re Logan’s friend. I’ve heard about you. You’re supposed to be with Eve now.” She glanced at Hughes. “But I don’t know anything about him. Send him away.”
Hughes hurriedly got to his feet. “I’m out of here. See you later, Galen.”
She turned back to Galen. “Let me see your ID.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He handed her his driver’s license.
She glanced at it and then handed it back to him. “If you’re Galen, you must know my dog Toby’s mother’s name.”
“The beautiful, bad-tempered Maggie. Satisfied?”
Jane relaxed. “No.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Here comes Grandma. We have to be quick. Why are you here?”
“I’m sure that if you ask your grandmother, she’ll tell you anything you should know.”
“Don’t give me that bull. Grandma doesn’t want to worry me. If I asked her anything, she’d only lie to make me feel better. It’s something to do with Eve, isn’t it? Is she in trouble?”
“We’re trying to keep her out of trouble.”
“I could tell something was wrong when I talked to her on the phone a few nights ago. She said everything was fine with her, and that Joe was with her.”
“He is.”
“But you’re here. Why?”
“Jane!” her grandmother called, running toward her.
Jane turned and waved before telling Galen, “Hurry.”
He decided to level with her. The kid was sharp, and it wouldn’t hurt to warn her. “We think there’s a possibility the people who are trying to hurt Eve may attempt to get at her through you. Have you seen anyone suspicious?”
“You mean besides you? You’re not very good at this, are you?”
“I can be. I didn’t try to be this time. I didn’t expect you to be suspicious, and the sight of me could have been a deterrent to anyone else.”
“Who? The other creep?”
Galen stiffened. “Creep? You noticed somebody else watching you?”
“Two days ago. He followed me to school, and then he was here in the park. He was much better than you.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”
She nodded. “I made sure I did. I’d already noticed the squad cars. I knew something was happening.”
He took out the photo of Hebert. “Look anything like this?”
She glanced at it. “That’s him.”
“Why didn’t you tell your grandmother?”
“I couldn’t be sure he was a creep. He might have been one of Joe’s friends, and it would just have worried her. Or he might have been just your ordinary run-of-the-mill pervert. I’ve seen plenty of those.”
“Oh, have you?”
“I haven’t seen him since. I have to go, or Grandma will call the cops on you.” Her lips tightened. “I don’t like not knowing what’s happening. You tell Eve and Joe that.”
He shook his head. “I’ll tell Joe what you said, but I won’t tell him about your ‘creep’ yet. It would be a sure way to make them drop everything and come running. They’re much safer if they stay in hiding.”
“Hiding? Eve never mentioned anything about that. Why are they in hiding?”
“It’s complicated. Eve wanted to finish the job she started.”
“Then why are you here? You go back and make sure Joe and Eve are safe,” she said fiercely. “You do your job. Don’t you dare let anything happen to them. I’ll take care of Grandma.” She whirled and ran back toward her grandmother. “It’s okay,” she called. “He only wanted directions, Grandma. Just another lost Yankee. They get so confused with all these Peachtree Streets.”
“I told you not to talk to strangers.” Her grandmother whisked her up the path. “Now you call that idiot dog and we’ll go home to supper.”
“Wow,” Hughes said softly as he strolled back to Galen. “Correction: She’s not at all like my kid. If I needed some muscle, I might decide to hire her.”
“Eve told me she grew up on the streets.” He watched Jane and Sandra Duncan walk down the path. “She didn’t tell me she was twelve going on fifty.”
“You showed her the photo?”
“She saw him. Hebert is here in Atlanta. Or at least he was two days ago.” He stood up. “But where the hell is he? If he was hanging around, you should have been able to spot him.”
“Maybe he was scared off.”
That scenario didn’t fit with the picture of Jules Hebert Galen had been building up. “Or maybe he went underground and is only waiting for his chance.” The idea of Hebert stalking that bright kid, hovering over her like a dark cloud, turned his stomach. “We’re not going to give it to him, Hughes.”
Jules watched as the black pickup truck sank below the waters of Lake Lanier with scarcely a ripple. There was so much water here in Atlanta. He had found it very convenient.
He had chosen a deep part of the lake so the man would not be found too quickly. There should be no outcry for at least three days. Leonard Smythe was divorced and lived alone in his mobile home, and from Jules’s brief surveillance he appeared a solitary man.
Jules glanced down at the treasure for which Smythe had died. If he’d been given a choice, Smythe would have given it up in a heartbeat, but Jules couldn’t risk giving him that option.
It was sad when a man had to die for a clipboard and a few scraps of paper.
New Orleans
Victor’s skull was dimly lit by the moonlight streaming through the window.
Nathan didn’t flip the switch that would have lit the steps to the scullery. He knew Joe Quinn made several trips around the grounds at night, but he had no idea what time.
He moved carefully, quietly down the steps. It should be safe. He had checked on Eve and she was sound asleep. But both Eve and Joe Quinn were still unknown quantities to him, and the unknown was always dangerous.
He reached the bottom of the stairs and glided silently across the scullery toward Victor’s pedestal. He knew the back of that skull so well, and nothing about his features. He had only been able to watch Eve’s intent expression as she worked.
He took out the flashlight he had found in the kitchen cabinet and moved closer to the pedestal. He took a deep breath, his thumb pressing on the flashlight switch.
The scullery was suddenly flooded with light.
“Would you like to tell me what you’re doing?” Joe Quinn said from the top of the stairs.
Dammit.
He stiffened defensively. “I wasn’t going to hurt it.”
“You didn’t answer me.” Joe came down the stairs. “What are you doing creeping down the stairs in the middle of the night?”
“I just wanted to see it.”
“But Eve didn’t want you to see it until she finished. Is she done?”
Nathan shook his head. “Not until tomorrow. She said I wouldn’t be able to tell anything until then. But I thought maybe I could tell where it was going.” He scowled. “I’m going to look.”
“Go ahead. I’m not going to stop you.”
Nathan moved around the pedestal to stand before Victor. Disappointment surged through him. The visage had form, but no definition. No one could recognize the features at this point.
“You should have believed her,” Joe said. “Eve doesn’t lie.”
“I didn’t think she’d lied. I just thought I might be able—” His hands clenched at his sides. “Dammit, it’s hard to wait. I want to
know
.”