“Judy Clark, Eve Duncan,” John said. “And Eve is a star in her own realm.”
“Skulls.” Judy snapped her fingers. “You do something with skulls.”
“Reconstruction,” Eve said. “Definitely no glamour.”
Judy nodded. “But solid work, good work. I have a six-year-old little girl myself. I don’t know what I’d do if my Cara disappeared. I remember thinking that it probably made those parents feel better that they at least know, Ms. Duncan.”
“Eve. Mr. Hanks told me you had a daughter. She’s six now?”
“Yep.” Judy’s face lit up with a smile. “She’s real pretty. Not like me. And smart as a whip. She’s in the kitchen now, helping me. Would you like to meet her? I’m trying to get her to be more social-like. She’s kind of shy.”
An abusive husband, Hanks had said. That usually translated also to abuse toward the children. “I’d like that very much.”
“Then I’ll have her bring in some of the sauces when I bring in the tortillas.”
“I want to thank you for lending me these clothes. It’s very kind of you.”
“No problem. They’re not fancy but, like I said, you don’t look fancy yourself. They suit you just like they do me. Though I’d think John would—” She stopped. “I’ll go get the tortillas. I’m letting the food get cold.” She disappeared through the side doorway.
“Movie stars?” Eve asked Gallo.
“Not often. I was curious.”
“Another form of starvation?”
“No, as I said, curiosity. I wanted to sample, not devour.” He lifted the lid, and steam ballooned off the fajitas. “Like I do these fajitas.”
“You should have waited.” Judy had appeared with two covered plates. She was trailed by a little girl with sandy brown hair and huge brown eyes with extravagantly long lashes, who carried a tray of condiments. “You’re too impatient. I keep telling you, John.”
“Life’s too short.” John met Judy’s gaze. “Isn’t it?”
An indefinable expression flitted across her face. “Yeah, I guess maybe you’re right.” She set the covered plates on the table. “Which is why you should enjoy the hell out of my fajitas. Eat.” She pushed the little girl forward. “Cara, this is Ms. Duncan. She’s a friend of John’s. Say hello, honey.”
Cara stared at her gravely. “Hello. You’re wearing Mama’s shirt.”
“She was kind enough to lend it to me. I’m glad to meet you, Cara.”
Cara nodded. “I wanted to see you. Mama said you were better than the movie star.” A smile suddenly broke the gravity of her expression as she turned to John. “How is she better, John?”
“In all sorts of ways.” John smiled back at the little girl. “I’ll explain later. It would take too long.”
“Come along, Cara.” Judy gave the child a gentle shove toward the kitchen. “I’ll let you help load the dishwasher and then off to bed you go. Say good night.”
Cara looked over her shoulder. “Good night, Ms. Duncan. Good night, John.”
“Good night, Cara,” Eve said.
Then the door swung shut behind mother and daughter.
Eve smiled as she gazed after them. “Sweet child. So solemn. And Judy’s … unusual.”
“They broke the mold. Or she broke it. That’s more likely.”
“Not the ordinary employer-employee relationship.”
“I don’t do employer well. I just have people who work with me. I don’t have time for any other crap.” He handed her the steaming plate and the plate of tortillas. “Like I told Judy. Life’s too short. What were we talking about before she came in?”
Eve had to think for a minute. “Books?”
He nodded. “After I escaped and got some semblance of a mind back, I started collecting and reading. I like having books around me.”
“You’d get along with Catherine’s son, Luke. He has a passion for books, too.” She unwrapped the tortillas. “And for the same reason.”
“I didn’t know she had a child. How old?”
“Luke is eleven.” She looked at him. “I’m surprised you don’t have a dossier on Catherine, too. She was the one who Nate Queen was dealing with.”
“Oh, I do. But I guess he didn’t think her personal life would be of any interest to me.” He picked up his fork, and added casually, “Or maybe he was protecting her.”
She was abruptly jarred. The conversation had not been ordinary by any means, but it had possessed an odd, almost comfortable, familiarity. That last remark was not at all comfortable. “Why should he think her child should be protected from you?”
He warily looked up. “I said the wrong thing.”
“Did you? Nate Queen knows more about you than I do. Why should a child be threatened?”
“He shouldn’t be threatened.” His lips twisted. “But Nate Queen thinks I’m capable of any atrocity. I can’t blame him. I don’t have a great track record.”
“Against children?”
“No,” he said quietly. “I’ve never hurt a child to my knowledge.”
“You’d either know or not know.”
“I hope you’re right. I’d never do it deliberately.” He shook his head. “But there were missions when I was so messed up, I didn’t know what was going on. Sometimes I even blacked out, sometimes for days at a time. I just obeyed orders and got the job done.”
“And what if a child was in the way?”
“I don’t remember any—” He broke off. “What do you want me to say? Dammit, I can’t be sure. Maybe I don’t want to remember.” His eyes were glittering in his taut face, and the words spat like bullets. “You want to know for certain? Ask Queen if I ever murdered a kid. I’m sure he’s kept a tally going of all the sins I committed during those missions. But that’s all they did. They kept records. They didn’t try to stop me.” He stopped and drew a breath, obviously struggling for control. “But that’s not what you really want to know. You want to know about Bonnie. I don’t believe I’ve ever had one of those blackouts except on a mission. I’d remember Bonnie.”
“Why? You’ve never told me why you were in Atlanta. How did you even know you had a daughter?”
“I’ll get to it.” He looked away from her. “Eat your dinner. Judy will come stomping back in here and yell at both of us.”
“I don’t care.”
“But I do.” He looked back at her. “And you’re in my world now. My world, my people. I’ll give you what you want, Eve. But it will be in my own time. This isn’t easy for me, either.”
She had known her questioning had been painful for him, but she had not been able to stop herself once she’d started. “Then, dammit, why did you bring me here?”
“I told you why.”
“Resolution? Bullshit.”
“Maybe for you.” His smile was slightly self-mocking. “But when you’re a touch unstable like me, it’s important.”
“When can we talk about Bonnie?”
“Soon.” He poured her a glass of wine. “But now we’ll talk about other things. Tell me about Joe Quinn, Eve.”
“I love him,” she said tersely. “He’s strong and straight and everything I could want. I don’t need phony movie stars to pamper my ego like you, John.”
He made a face. “That evidently stuck in your head. I admit sometimes I do have to reach to keep amused.” He added soberly, “I’m not on the attack about your lover. Life is rough and can be lonely. I’m glad that you found someone to make you happy. I’ve tried, but it never happens with me.”
She had not expected that response, and it caught her off guard. She went back to the original subject. “When can we talk about Bonnie?”
“Tell me about your reconstructions. How does it feel when you’re doing the sculpting? What kind of technique do you use to get such accuracy?”
She didn’t answer.
He smiled and lifted his glass to her. “My world, Eve,” he said softly.
And no amount of persuasion was going to move him until he wanted to be moved. But she couldn’t just abandon the subject. Go along with him. She’d come back to Bonnie later. She picked up her fork. “Forensic reconstruction isn’t exactly light dinner conversation.”
He followed through immediately. “Neither is stealing from corpses, prison, and starvation. In comparison I think you’re on the sunny side.” He handed her the glass of wine. “So tell me about your skulls.”