“Then call Davarak and get him to scout around and see if he can find out what the hell is happening.” He was silent again. “Eve Duncan…”
“What are you thinking?”
“He had a kid with Eve Duncan. When he made no attempt to approach her after Korea, we assumed that she was nothing to him, just a good lay. Even the reports on her he demanded could have been just to protect himself.” He paused again. “But we know he’s emotionally disturbed. What if those emotions are focused on Eve Duncan? It could be an Achilles’ heel.”
“I don’t think so. He’s not vulnerable in that way. He’s cold as ice.”
“You have no imagination. We have to accept that Gallo’s temperament can change like a weather vane and take advantage of it.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
“Why, if Gallo hasn’t already cut her throat, we might do well to look deeper into the possibility of Eve Duncan.”
* * *
JUDY WAS IN THE STUDY, emptying the contents of desk drawers into boxes, when Eve and Joe came into the house.
“What are you doing?” Joe asked.
“What I’ve been told to do.” Judy glanced at his blood-soaked arm. “Got yourself hurt, didn’t you? It wasn’t Hanks’s fault. He was only protecting John.”
“Where are Catherine and Hanks?” Eve asked.
“In the living room. She tried to stop me from packing up, but I told her she’d have to shoot me. I do my job, and Gallo told me he wanted these out of the house before those military guys decided they’d come calling.” She straightened her gaze on Joe’s arm as she added grudgingly, “But I guess I could bandage that up for you first. There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen cabinet.”
“I’m going to do it.” Eve’s eyes were on the boxes. “Why doesn’t he want Queen to see those records?”
“We’ll see for ourselves,” Joe said. “And the only thing in which I’m interested is Gallo’s name and address.”
“The only names and addresses you’d find are banks and account numbers,” Judy said. “John spread his funds in banks all around the world. He said that as long as Queen and his buddies didn’t know where it was, they couldn’t find a way to confiscate it.” She looked him in the eye. “I’ll let you take a look if you don’t believe me. I don’t think you’d tell Queen anything about the banks. You want John, not the money.” She turned away. “I’ve got to finish up here. John said that if they found out that he’d gone on the run, Queen would move in quick.” She glanced at Eve. “And to tell you that you should watch out for them.”
“I’ll watch out for them,” Joe said grimly. “And John Gallo.”
“Come into the kitchen and let me clean that arm,” Eve said. “You can go through those boxes after I make sure that wound’s taken care of.” She suddenly turned back to Judy. “You talk as if John’s been preparing to go on the run for a long time. Why? And why now?”
She shrugged. “I just know that he told me right after I came to work for him that there was a good chance that it would happen. He told me what to do. I’m doing it.” Her lips tightened. “He told me to take care of Hanks, too. If you hadn’t gone running after John, this would never have happened. Are you going to have Hanks thrown in jail?”
“Maybe. It depends on what he can tell me.”
Judy shook her head. “He’s a good man. You shouldn’t have—” She stopped and opened another drawer. “Talk to him, Eve. It’s your responsibility. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t come here.”
“She hardly had a choice,” Joe said dryly.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Judy said. “But John didn’t hurt her, did he? Everything’s okay.”
“Come on, Joe.” Eve knew she’d better get him out of there before Judy’s simplistic approach to the situation made it infinitely worse. “And a wounded arm isn’t exactly okay, Judy,” she said as she drew Joe out of the room.
“The place seems to be reeking of Gallo’s fans,” Joe said sarcastically. “Everything he does is just fine as long as no one is dead.”
Eve pushed him down in a kitchen chair. “You didn’t hear that from me. I’m a Joe Quinn fan.”
“Are you?” He watched her unwind the bloody shirt from around his arm. “That’s nice.”
“Are you being sarcastic?” She examined the wound. “It’s a flesh wound, but it’s not pretty. I’ll clean it up as best I can, but I want a doctor to give you an antibiotic.” She went to the sink, filled a bowl of water, then searched for and found the first-aid kit. “We’ll get out of here as soon as we can and find a hospital.”
“After I take a look at the documents in those boxes,” Joe said. “Though I’m not sure it will do me any good. Gallo’s cook-slash-majordomo was being very careless about throwing everything in those drawers into the to-go stacks. No selectivity. She may have been telling the truth.” His gaze was on Eve’s fingers as she carefully washed the wound. “But money is important to most people. Maybe I can use those records as bait for Gallo.”
She opened the first-aid kit. “No.”
His gaze lifted to her face. “You object?”
“I’m just telling you it wouldn’t work. It would hurt him, but it wouldn’t bring him back.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know? Have you become an expert on Gallo in such a short time?”
“He has a purpose. He wouldn’t let himself be distracted.” She put antiseptic on the wound and flinched as he inhaled sharply. “Sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter.” His gaze was on her face. “What purpose, Eve?”
She was silent as she began to wrap the wound.
“Eve.”
“You won’t believe me any more than Catherine did.”
“What purpose?”
“He’s trying to find Bonnie’s killer,” she said quietly.
Joe began to curse beneath his breath. “He gave you that bull, and you—”
“There are two cars coming up the mountain.” Catherine was standing in the doorway. “Hanks got a call on his phone from one of the perimeter guards, and I let him take it. Hanks thinks it may be MI. He said Gallo warned him to expect a call from Army Intelligence if anything disrupted the status quo.” Her lips twisted. “I think we may constitute a disruption. They may not know Gallo has flown the coop, but they must know we’re here and are using it as an excuse to invade the property.”
“Queen.”
Catherine nodded. “That’s my bet. He’s sent out the troops.” She looked at Joe. “So what do we do? Stand our ground and take whatever they want to throw at us? Or take off and avoid the confrontation until we’re on our own turf?”
“How much time do we have?” Joe asked.
“Hanks says ten minutes.” She paused. “He said Gallo told him it wouldn’t be pretty. There would be interrogations. He gave him orders to take off and have everyone at the compound spread to the four winds.”
Joe thought about it. “Where is Hanks now?”
“Living room. I left him tied up.” She paused. “I talked to him, Joe. I believe him when he said he wasn’t trying to kill you. He was just trying to do his job and protect Gallo.”
“He may know where Gallo is.”
She shook her head. “He might, but I don’t think so.”
Joe glanced at Eve. “Do you know where he is?”
Her eyes widened. “No, I do not.”
He shrugged. “It was a possibility.” He pushed back the chair. “Let Hanks go. Tell him to get the hell out of here and take Judy and anyone else in the house with him. We’ll take that passage back down the mountain and circle down to where we parked the car.” He stood up. “You get Eve down the mountain, Catherine. I’m going to go take a quick look at those records in the library, and I’ll follow.”
“Right.” Catherine turned on her heel and hurried out of the kitchen.
Eve hesitated. She didn’t want to leave him. Joe was on edge and still in battle mode. There had already been one violent encounter tonight, and she wanted him away and safe.
“Get going, Eve.” Joe didn’t look at her as he strode out of the kitchen. Anger, frustration, and tension were in every line of his body. And who could blame him?