Hunting Eve (3 page)

“Okay.” Deanna sighed. “I’ll shut up right now if you promise to call and give me reports how things are going.”

“So that you can get on your white horse and come to my rescue?” she asked gently. “Mom, you have to let me go sometime. You were the best, the most extraordinary mother a child could have. You fought a thousand battles for me and taught me to fight them, too. Now you have to trust me to make good choices. And, if I don’t make them, you have to trust me to make the situation work.” She added softly, “Just as you did all those years. It shouldn’t be so hard. After all, I am your daughter.”

Deanna didn’t speak for a moment. “Was that supposed to appeal to my ego? It is hard. You’ll realize that when you have a child of your own.” She pulled over in front of the terminal building. “And I will come to rescue you if you don’t behave sensibly. I’ll give you space, but I won’t give you up.”

“And that makes me a very lucky woman.” Kendra opened the passenger door. “How could I ask for anything else?”

“You couldn’t,” Deanna said brusquely. “Now, have you told me everything you know about the situation? If I have to mount that white horse, I want to know how to program this GPS.”

“How convoluted can you get?” Kendra got out of the car and retrieved her suitcase from the backseat. “I think you have the bare bones. I don’t have much more than that. Quinn was rattling off names and details so fast that I still have to get everything straight in my mind. I’ll probably be landing in Atlanta before it becomes clear to me.” She leaned back into the car and gave Deanna a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. “Now you know as much as I do. Satisfied?”

“No.” Her eyes were glittering as her palm cupped Kendra’s cheek. “And if you don’t want me to interfere, you’ll call and keep me informed. That’s not too much to ask.”

“Blackmail.” Kendra was laughing as she straightened. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I have no idea. I taught you to make your own decisions.”

“True.” She slammed the car door. “And there’s really only one thing I can do with you.” She turned away. “I just have to love you. I’ll call you when I get to Atlanta.”

She could feel her mother’s eyes on her as she headed for the glass doors. She lifted her hand and waved as she went through the doors into the terminal.

Her smile faded as she went toward the kiosk. She had tried to comfort her mother and she wished she had been able to be more reassuring. She knew so little, and she hated it. She wanted to reach out, to see, to hear, to touch. She was going into this hunt for Eve as blind as she had been during the first twenty years of her life.

And she had a terrible feeling that she wouldn’t be able to help Eve. Eve was very sharp, and if she’d been taken by this criminal, then he must be a formidable adversary. It was hard for Kendra to understand how the wary, intelligent Eve she had come to know had become a victim.

But most criminals left traces, clues that shined a light on their path. Doane surely wouldn’t be different. All she needed was to go to the crime scenes and everything would come clear.

God, she hoped he wasn’t different.

I’ll find him, Eve. Fight him. Give me a chance. I’ll do everything I can. I’ll search so hard for you.…

CHAPTER

2

Rio Grande Forest
Colorado

THE RUSTLING IN THE BUSHES UP
ahead had stopped.

Eve listened.

The faint rustling was now to the right going down the slope.

Not Doane. A bear?

She didn’t care what kind of predator it was as long as it was moving away from her. She started moving forward again.

Dear God, she was cold.

The moments when she had stayed still, waiting for an attack, had robbed her of the warmth from running.

And she would get colder. She didn’t need Doane to taunt her with the possibility of hypothermia in these mountains. She couldn’t run all night to keep warm. She couldn’t light a fire. She needed shelter and warmer clothing than she had on now.

And where was she supposed to get them?

Think.

Shelter would have to be found in a cave or trees. Clothing? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t made plans. She’d known she had to prepare for this frigid wilderness. Hours before her escape she’d packed clothes and a blanket into the duffel into which she had thrown the skull of the Kevin reconstruction.

But after she’d tossed the skull off the cliff she’d run only a short distance before she’d thrown the duffel to the side of the trail to get it out of her way and conserve her strength.

Retrieve it? It was possible. She’d made a mental note of the immediate surroundings when she’d tossed it.

If she could recognize the place in the darkness.

And it was only a few short miles from the house where she’d been held. It was reasonable that Doane would still be there, at least for the night. It could be insane to double back and give up the distance she’d already traveled.

And she’d be even closer to the cliff edge where she’d stood to toss Kevin’s skull into the ravine. What if Doane had decided to camp out there to be close to his son? Considering his obsession, it was entirely possible.

And that possibility was very dangerous for Eve.

What if Doane had seen her discard the duffel and was waiting for her to come back for it?

So was she going to stay here all night, getting colder by the minute, trying to decide?

No, she had to assume that she was in this for the long haul. She mustn’t count on someone coming to rescue her. She had no doubt that Joe would do everything he could, but she had to assume that what could go wrong, would go wrong. Stop questioning and weighing every step. Take a chance on getting what she needed to survive until she could find her way out of these mountains.

She turned and started back through the brush toward the trail that led down the mountain to the log house that Doane had told her had been formerly used as a factory.

She had a sudden mental picture of Doane sitting and waiting like a giant spider with a smile on that kindly face that hid the soul of a demon.

She firmly dismissed the vision from her mind. He would like the idea of intimidating her, making her hesitate, controlling her moves.

And he would probably attribute it to the force of his son, Kevin, reaching from beyond the grave. He had told her that he believed that Kevin was trying to break through the barriers between life and death, and there had been moments when she had believed it was true. She always felt a connection when she was working on a reconstruction, but with Kevin it had been frightening. It had filled her with terror … and nausea. She had been filled with profound relief when she had tossed that skull off the mountain.

Because she believed that the dead could reach from beyond the grave. Her little girl, her Bonnie, had begun coming to Eve a year after she had died. Eve had been spiraling downward and would probably have died herself if she had not begun to see and dream of Bonnie. Yes, the dead could cross that threshold.

But Kevin was not a loving, gentle spirit like Bonnie. In life he had been a serial killer of little girls, and there was nothing but evil in the force that Eve sensed while working on his reconstruction.

She was starting to shiver with cold. Don’t think of Kevin. Don’t think of the father who had given him life and helped him lure those little girls to their deaths. There was hope and good in the world. She was walking toward darkness, and she needed hope right now.

Think of Bonnie.

Vancouver, Canada

“IT’S VENABLE.” HOWARD
STANG
handed Lee Zander his phone, which he’d left on the library desk. “Shall I leave the room?”

“Of course not. After all, he’s CIA, not the usual less-than-upstanding client whom you avoid like the plague. In fact, I’ll turn on the speakerphone and let you listen. Haven’t we reached a new plateau of understanding lately?” Zander smiled mockingly as he took the phone. “You’re not only a trusted employee, you’re actually becoming a confidant.”

“Heaven help me,” Stang murmured. He had no desire to be anything but the accountant and personal assistant he’d been hired to be. All these years he’d worked for Zander, the man had kept him firmly in the background of his existence. He was intensely private, and though Stang had been vaguely aware of occasional women who acted as brief sexual partners in Zander’s life, that was the only aspect of the man he’d been allowed even a glimpse of. His contacts, clients, background, all were kept firmly under wraps. Stang had found it strange that Zander had lately chosen to reveal to him layers of his life and character that he’d never done before. But then, no one was more strange or intimidating than Zander.

“You might have to help yourself.” Zander spoke into the phone. “You again, Venable? I’m beginning to feel a bit of pressure. I can’t say I like it. Why are you calling?”

“I’m sorry that I’m disturbing you in your safe harbor away from commonplace cares,” Venable said roughly. “Too bad. Come out into the real world, Zander.”

“I detect a hint of belligerence.” He repeated, “Why are you calling?”

“I just got word that General Tarther was shot and killed at his home in Virginia.”

Zander was silent a moment. “And so it begins.” Tarther, the man who had hired him to kill Jim Doane’s son, was dead.

“And Doane will be going after you next.”

“Yes, he’ll find me a more elusive target than the general.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say? The general was a fine man and a patriot who served his country well.”

“You’d appreciate that more than me. I never dealt with that side of him. He was only a client, but I respected him. He hired me for a job and paid me well and promptly.”

“For assassinating the killer of his little daughter, Dany. After the court declared a mistrial, the general didn’t see any other way to bring Kevin Relling to justice. Didn’t you ever feel even a little sympathy for Tarther?”

“Would that have made me more efficient? No, it would probably have interfered, and I wouldn’t have been able to give Tarther what he’d paid for.”

“That’s no answer.”

“It’s all you’ll get from me. Stop trying to read something in me that’s not there. Your wonderful general was just as much a murderer as me. Perhaps more because he didn’t go after Doane’s son himself but preferred to lay the sin on my soul. Well, I took that sin from him and made it my own.” He shrugged. “In the end, we all have the killer instinct and just choose what circumstance will set it free. The difference is that I let others choose the circumstance and pay me to execute it.”

“God, you’re cold.”

“Is our conversation finished?”

“I promised the general that I’d try to get that disk back from Doane. To do that, I have to find him.”

“My deal with the general didn’t include the return of the disk. That’s your department, Venable.”

“If you hadn’t killed Doane’s son, he wouldn’t have used the disk Kevin gave him as blackmail to hold over the head of those embedded agents in Pakistan. Now that Doane’s broken loose, those men could be killed. It’s all chain reaction.”

“You’re reaching. You must be desperate.”

“I lost Dukes, a good agent, here on the lake property. The general was just killed.” He paused. “And Eve Duncan is still being held by Doane, and I don’t know how long it will be before he kills her. Yes, I’m desperate.”

“Then it’s not only the disk.” He added mockingly, “I believe your sentimentality is showing, Venable. You really must watch that.”

“Doane will be coming after you. He knows you’re the hit man the general hired to kill his son.”

“And I’ll be waiting for him.”

“A trap? Don’t wait for him. If you’re going to kill him, why not go after him now?”

“It will be more efficient to invite him into my web.”

“Damn your efficiency. If you go after him, Eve has a better chance of coming out of this alive. She’s not the most passive prisoner. She’ll be trying to escape. Even if it isn’t according to his plans, Doane could explode and kill her.”

“I gathered that when Doane called me and made me talk to her.” He chuckled. “She wasn’t afraid of either him or me. I can see how she would annoy him.” His smile faded. “But the sole purpose of Doane’s call was to get me to come after him so that he would have the advantage. I won’t give him that advantage. Let him come to me.”

“You were planning to hunt him down when I first told you that Doane had left the safe house.”

“I changed my mind. It wasn’t worth disturbing myself when I could make him come to me.”

“You can find him, can’t you? You didn’t seem to have any doubts.”

“I make my living by finding people … and disposing of them. Yes, I can find him.”

“Then do it,” Venable said harshly. “And get Eve away from him.”

“Eve Duncan wouldn’t enter into the equation. If she did, then I’d lose any advantage. I’d go after Doane and not let any other concern enter into it. I’d think you’d realize that, Venable.”

“Oh, I realize it. I just occasionally hope for a spark of humanity in you.” He paused. “She’s worth saving, Zander.”

“Then you and Joe Quinn go do it.”

“I’m tempted to tell Joe Quinn where you are and let him come after you,” he said grimly. “I did tell him that Doane wanted you dead. That may be enough to turn Joe loose to stake you out. You may be in more of a trap than you’d like.”

“You shouldn’t have discussed me with him. It was bad enough that you didn’t keep Doane’s cohort from pulling the information out of that funeral director’s family about my paying for Kevin’s cremation. Now you’re talking about it to Quinn? Our relationship is confidential, Venable.”

“Bullshit.” He drew a deep breath. “Okay, you won’t help Eve. But I’ll take you just going to get rid of Doane. Will you think about it?”

“Maybe.”

“Answer me. Will you think about it? I’m not asking much. She’s not asking much.”

“She’s not asking anything. Or expecting anything. I admit that’s what impressed me about her. I’m hanging up now, Venable.” He pressed the disconnect and turned toward Stang. “An interesting reaction from Venable, I knew he liked the general, but I didn’t think it would trigger that degree of emotion.”