“As my prison? What was it before? You mentioned tearing out some kind of coin press.”
“Back in the gold rush days it was a coin factory. There’s a played out gold mine not far from here and the miners liked to turn their gold into actual money before they went to town and blew it.” He smiled. “Blick and I remodeled the storage area for your bedroom and bath. It’s a little dim in there, but you can turn on the overhead lights. It’s pretty small, but you’ll only need the bedroom for sleeping. We’re not going to do much of that. I’m in a hurry to have Kevin finished. I plan on having you work nonstop with only short breaks when you feel you absolutely have to rest for a few hours. I’ll lock you in the room during those rests and let you out afterward. I’ve put a rollaway bed in there that you can open. The walls are thin, and I can hear you very clearly. I’ll be napping on the couch in here, and I sleep lightly. You might keep that in mind. There’s only one door and no windows, so don’t think that you’ll have an opportunity to escape. I’ve planned this for a long time, and I wouldn’t be that foolish.”
Eve’s hands clenched into fists at her sides as she watched him open the refrigerator in the kitchenette. Then she whirled on her heel and strode toward the door leading to the bedroom.
She slammed the door behind her and leaned against it.
Damn, she felt helpless.
Get over it.
So she was at a disadvantage. It was to be expected if what Doane had told her was true about the time he’d spent studying her.
She made a face. And there was the small item that she was his prisoner, and he might be nuts. He was most certainly violent if he’d attacked Ben.
Yet he didn’t seem crazy, and he’d been almost gentle in his dealings with her personally.
Because he wanted something from her.
She had a sudden memory of the blackened skull that had been staring at her when she woke.
She was shivering, she realized.
Why? Because that skull could be that of the son of this man who had been responsible for Jane’s shooting?
Stop analyzing. She didn’t want to think of that skull right now.
She drew a deep breath and turned on the lights. No furniture in the bedroom but a rollaway bed that was folded up and pushed against the wall. She went to the bathroom and found it to be equally small, with a single vanity and an enclosed glass shower a few feet away. Pristine white tiles on the floor and inside the shower. No window, as Doane had told her.
But there was a small duffel resting on the closed lid of the toilet.
She slowly unfastened the case and opened the lid.
Underwear, pants, tunic tops. A plastic bag with shampoos, soaps and other personal items.
A chill went through her. And every brand was the same as she used every day at the cottage. For the first time, the claim that Doane had made about those years of long surveillance actually hit home.
She felt … violated.
She zipped the duffel shut and turned and leaned against the vanity. This privacy invasion was such a small thing in the scheme of what Doane had done to her.
No, it wasn’t. The very intimacy of the act loomed large indeed. It made her want to break something, anything. That’s right, do something stupid just to relieve her feelings. Put things in perspective and be a grown-up. It was the only way to—
She had caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror over the sink.
Her face was pale and dirty, her hair tangled. Her clothes were rumpled and mud-stained. She looked like a victim, dammit.
She was not a victim.
All right, pull yourself together and show that bastard he had not done anything to you that couldn’t be overcome, she thought. Use what he gave you and make it your own.
She locked the door and turned on the shower.
* * *
“I’M AFRAID THESE DINNERS ARE cold. You took longer than I thought,” Doane said, when Eve came out of the room forty minutes later. “I wasn’t expecting you to take a shower.”
“No, you probably thought I’d hurry back out and let you make me jump through hoops.” She strode toward the chrome table in front of the kitchenette. “I won’t jump through hoops for you, Doane.” She sat down at the table and gazed at the pot pie on the plate. “You’re right, unappetizing.” She began to eat. “It doesn’t matter. I’m hungry.”
“And you don’t want to become weak,” Doane said quietly as he sat down across from her. “Now I did expect that from you. You’re a strong woman, mentally and physically. You’d have a horror of losing that strength. I just didn’t expect you to bounce back so quickly.”
“Why am I this hungry? How long was I unconscious?”
“It’s been almost twenty-four hours.” He took a bite of his pot pie. “We had a long way to go.”
“And where am I?”
He shook his head.
She hadn’t expected an answer. “I’ll get away from you, Doane. Don’t think you’re going to get away with this.”
“I will, you know.” He smiled. “Things don’t go wrong when you plan as precisely as I do.”
“Evidently, you didn’t plan on Blick’s shooting Jane. That went very wrong, Doane.” She added fiercely, “And you’ll suffer for it, you son of a bitch.”
“I’ll just have to make adjustments.” His smile faded. “And I do regret causing you this upset.”
“Upset? Massive understatement. What adjustment can you make that would make me less upset?”
“I’ve been thinking about that while I waited for you.” He frowned. “You won’t be able to be reasonable until you know that Jane MacGuire and Ben Hudson are not permanently injured. I obviously need you to be put at ease on that score.”
She tensed. “So what are you going to do?”
“It’s difficult. You wouldn’t really believe any hospital or law-enforcement unit, would you? You’d think I managed to rig it.”
“Since you’re so clever about your planning,” she said sarcastically.
“I really am clever,” he said soberly. “I have a talent. But in this case, I believe I’m going to have to risk having you talk to Joe Quinn.”
She inhaled sharply. “Is this a trick? You said it was too dangerous.”
“We can work around it. You wouldn’t trust anyone but Quinn, and I have to have your mind at ease.” His gaze went to the skull across the room. “But we have to come to an arrangement.”
“You want me to do a reconstruction,” she said flatly. “Why? You seem very sure that skull is that of your son, Kevin.”
“I’m almost sure. They lied to me, but I know that he’s my Kevin. I feel it.”
“Then check the DNA.”
“That’s difficult.”
“Why?”
“I’m not ready to share that with you yet.”
“And I’m not ready to do a reconstruction on your son, Doane.”
“But you’ll do it,” he said. “Because you want to talk to Joe Quinn, and I won’t let you do that unless I have your word.”
She was silent. “That’s a high price.”
“No, there’s something else.” His expression was troubled. “I’m having trouble with Blick. He wants to go back and finish the job he started. He said that Kevin would want him to do it. I need to tell him that you’ll cooperate.”
“The job he started,” she repeated. A ripple of pure fear went through her. Don’t let him see it. “You mean Jane.”
“It’s not my wish,” he said gently. “Blick lacks control, and he’s waited a long time. He needs hope, Eve.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit.” She was silent. “You’re saying that you’ll let him kill Jane unless I do the reconstruction.”
“I’m saying that your lack of cooperation might prevent me from stopping him,” he corrected. “I can’t control him from this distance if he gets upset. It’s up to you, Eve.”
His voice was soft, his expression kind … and regretful. It seemed impossible that those words held deadly intent.
She mustn’t pay any attention to his expression. It was those words that counted, together with the actions of the past days. “And what will happen after I do the reconstruction?”