“Sure.” Cara dropped her book bag on the chest by the door. “But you should have waited for me. I could have done this. You don’t like to cook.”
“Maybe I was having a couple guilty twinges.” Elena made a face. “You do all the cooking and cleaning, and you’re just a kid.”
“I don’t mind. Someone has to do it, and you’re too busy.” She headed toward the kitchen. “I didn’t expect you to be here, Elena. You said you worked today.”
“Night shift. Don’t have to go in until seven. I thought we could have dinner together.”
“Great.” Cara got the garlic bread out of the freezer and turned on the oven. “We haven’t been able to do that all week. You’ve been working double shifts.”
Her aunt shrugged. “Pays the bills.” She glanced at Cara. “You okay? No trouble at school?”
Cara nodded as she put the garlic bread in the oven. “I’m okay. School’s fine; boring, but fine.” She suddenly smiled. “Now that you’ve done your duty and asked me, can we forget about it? Once every few months you decide you just have to check on me. I’d tell you if I had any problems. I promised you that I would.”
“I know, but you don’t…” She wrinkled her nose. “I know you’re smart, probably smarter than me, but I’m always afraid that I should be helping you more.”
Cara shook her head. “You work all the time. You told me we had to share the load. I understand that, and it’s not bad. I clean up the apartment and do my homework. Later, I get to play my violin. I’m doing good, Elena.” She looked in the refrigerator and took out a bottle of cranberry juice. “Better than Heather, and she’s got a mom and dad and a brother to help her.”
“Oh, yes, Heather.” Elena looked away as she got down the plates. “She seems nice, but a little … spoiled. What do you think, Cara?”
“I like her.” She drank her juice. “Is that what this is about? You want to talk about Heather? Is that why you’re working the night shift tonight?”
“I told you that you were smart,” Elena said. “It’s just that I have to leave you alone a lot, and I wanted to make sure that you weren’t—”
“I don’t break the rules,” Cara said quietly. “Sometimes I want to, but I don’t.”
“Good. That’s a relief. It’s so easy to just…” Elena gave her a quick hug. “But those rules are important. We both know that, don’t we?”
Cara nodded. “I know it.” She stepped back and hesitated. “But maybe I could just bend … Heather wanted me to walk home with her today.”
“No,” Elena said sharply. “You can’t do it, Cara. The bus is safer.”
From the safe bus, to the locked door of the apartment that Cara was never to open. “Maybe it is safe now. Maybe something has changed.” She whispered, “Maybe he’s not out there anymore.”
“And maybe he is,” Elena said gently. “I know what your life is like. I wish I could tell you that you could take the chance. But I can’t do that.” She looked her in the eye. “Think about those nightmares you have. Do you think it’s worth the risk, Cara?”
Running through the darkness.
Blood.
Screams.
Jenny!
She jerkily shook her head. “No.” She turned and went to the cutlery drawer. “I’ll set the table.”
“Cara.”
“It’s okay.” She didn’t look at her. “You’re right. Heather is spoiled. I don’t need her to tell me what I should do. She doesn’t understand…”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
“I shouldn’t be long, Eve. I just want to question a few detectives and check out the records on Walsh.” Joe pulled up in front of the Sacramento Police Department precinct. “Do you want to come in with me?”
“No, I’ll leave that to you. I want to check the forensic records on Jenny to see if it triggers anything.” She grabbed her computer and got out of the car. “But I’ll go across the street to the park and find a bench with a bit of sunshine. I’ve had a chill from that wood where Jenny was buried ever since we went there. I want to see sunlight and hear birds singing.”
He nodded. “I’ll call you when I finish. Then we’ll go to the apartment where Walsh lived for a while and question the neighbors.”
“Right.” She nodded. “I doubt if we’ll find anything. You said he had a fairly clean record here.”
“Which means he’s being very careful. Or that he was incompetent while he was in the U.K.” He added grimly, “But he wasn’t clean while he was in Mexico. Maybe that was his training ground.” He turned and walked toward the front entrance. “But everyone slips, we’ve just got to find where Walsh made his.”
Eve watched him disappear into the precinct before she turned to cross the street. She knew he was right, but so far, Walsh had not made a slip. He had killed that officer from the Sheriff’s Office and the FedEx driver. He had stolen Jenny’s reconstruction.
He had killed Jenny.
And, as far as she could see, there had been no errors.
That didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
She entered the stone park gates and dropped down on a green bench several yards down the path. There was a fountain sparkling a few feet away, and she could see a children’s playground in the distance.
Two good, bright things to balance the darkness.
So don’t think negative.
* * *
“That’s right, Mama. You always find a way to get around the bad things.”
Bonnie.
Eve felt a surge of pure joy as she saw her little daughter sitting on the edge of the fountain, dressed in her usual jeans and Bugs Bunny T-shirt, the spray in the background framing her riot of red curls. She hadn’t realized until this minute how frightened she’d been that Bonnie hadn’t appeared to her for so long. “It would be easier not to be negative if I’d had a little help from you, young lady. You’re not a very reliable ghost. Where have you been?”
“Here and there.” Bonnie’s small face lit up with her brilliant smile. “It’s hard to explain since you haven’t been here. You know that I can’t be with you all the time.”
“And I accept it.” She paused. “But you scared me the last time you came to me. You said that you might not be able to come to me again. I’m glad you came to your senses.”
Bonnie chuckled. “And you told me you wouldn’t have it. As if you could do anything about it.”
“I can be very persuasive. Maybe somebody up there likes me.”
“Everybody likes you, Mama,” she said gently. “That’s why I got to come to you in the beginning.”
“Well, there’s no reason why you can’t keep up with the status quo. Why change anything?”
“It wouldn’t be my choice. And it may not happen. But things are going to change, and I don’t know how that’s going to affect us.”
“Not at all,” Eve said flatly. “Go tell them that.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Bonnie’s eyes were twinkling. “I’ll do my best. But I haven’t been here long enough to have much influence.”
“Then tell them that I need you. You told me that the reason they sent you is that they knew I needed you. That hasn’t changed. I was just thinking the other day that I needed you to come and help me understand—”
“Jenny,” Bonnie said. “You’re having trouble understanding what’s happening to you.”
“So is she. She’s not like you. You have trouble now and then with blanks. But Jenny doesn’t seem to know anything about who she was or what’s happened to her. At least not the details.”