Taking Eve(83)
For the first time, Doane’s mask was slipping. Push him a little more. “He has no plans. He’s dead and gone, Doane.”
“Is he?” He was striding toward the front door. “He’s not gone to me. I’m not gone to him. Sometimes I feel him near me just like when he was alive. I even dream about him. If he’s gone, then why do I feel he has plans for you and your Bonnie?” He paused at the door. “Keep on working. If you don’t have more done when I come back, I’ll call Blick and have a talk with him about Jane MacGuire.” The door slammed behind him.
Eve straightened on the stool. Get control. The gloves were off, and it might be better that way. She had goaded Doane until he had jettisoned all the games he’d been playing. Now they were out in the open and face-to-face.
Not quite. There were still blanks to be filled in, but that could come later. Doane was no longer pretending to be the warm, fatherly guy next door. It had been bizarre and horrible watching his expressions change and twist. The man who had strode out of here had been completely different from the mask he had worn since she had met him.
“I’ve got you. I can see you, Doane,” she whispered. “And I’ll learn how to manipulate you just the way your dear Kevin did. Neither one of you is going to beat us.”
Us. The word had come naturally, instinctively. Had she been referring to Jane or Joe?
Or Bonnie.
She felt a wave of nausea abruptly wash over her, and she had to grab hard at the wood of the worktable to keep from falling off the stool.
Not the gas. Not the gas. Not the gas. Bonnie’s words flying back to her.
Her gaze was blurry as she stared at the face of the reconstruction. Kevin’s face.
She could feel it pulling her, smothering her.
Things that do go bump in the night. He’s so strong, Mama.
We’ll beat him, baby.
But not by sitting here right now. Doane had given her an opportunity, and she had to take it.
The desk. The locked drawer.
She shook her head to clear it, then reached for the steel spatula she’d been using to smooth the clay. It had no sharp edges she could use to pick the lock, but it was fine steel and might be strong enough to pry the drawer open. It didn’t matter any longer that Doane remain ignorant that she was trying to rifle the desk. The conflict between them was now stark and without subterfuge on either side.
Move.
She slipped down from the stool and ran across the room toward the desk.
Damn, her knees were weak.
And she could feel a tension in the middle of her back between her shoulder blades.
As if someone was staring balefully at her.
Imagination.
That blob of clay held no life.
But could it hold death?
Ignore it.
Easy to say. The cords of her neck were so tense she could hardly breathe.
Go away.
She closed her mind and concentrated as she inserted the spatula in the opening of the drawer.
She carefully worked it back and forth, chiseling at the soft wood around the lock. The spatula was as strong as she’d hoped. Strong enough?
A sound from outside.
She tensed and listened.
No footstep. No slamming truck door. Just a faint sound that might be Doane’s voice talking on his phone.
Good. It might keep him occupied a little longer. She started working frantically at the drawer.
A moment later, the wood splintered around the lock!
Yes.
She jerked the drawer open.
She stared at the contents of the drawer in shock and disappointment.
An old beat-up photo album?
Memories that warm the heart, Doane had said.
And beneath it was the folded jacket she had worn the morning Doane had taken her.
Where the hell was her phone and her gun?
She lifted the tan album out of the drawer and tossed it on the top of the desk. Why was it so faded and well thumbed? What was inside that album that Doane held so precious that he carried it with him?
Just a quick look …
She opened the heavy leather cover.
Not a quick look, she realized in shock.
Because her gaze was caught and held by a yellowed newspaper front page. She didn’t understand German, but she could make out that it was a Hamburg, Germany, newspaper. And the photos on the front page told their own story. Children. Little girls of seven or eight or nine. Victims. She had seen headlines in Atlanta and Chicago and dozens of other local papers that were tragically similar.
Oh, God.
She wasn’t important, Doane had said.
And these little girls?
Eve closed her eyes for an instant. Get over the horror. No time for it now.
She closed the album shut and threw it on the floor.
She hurriedly started to rifle through the deep drawer. She pulled out her jacket, checked the pockets, then tossed the jacket aside.
The gun. Find the gun.
There it was! She grabbed the .38 and checked the magazine.