“That doesn’t surprise me, and it may be more than you think.” Her gaze narrowed on his face. “And I believe you’ll tell me what you feel is safe. You want to tell someone about Kevin.”
“How smart you are, Eve.” He paused again. “I don’t want to tell just anyone, Eve. I want to tell you. We share so many things that no one else could dream.”
“Then tell me now.”
He smiled. “No, you have to earn it.” He moved back from the dais. “You start your work, and I’ll start mine. I’ll go outside and sit in the truck with my computer. I have a few more plans to put in place. Though I really would prefer to sit in that chair over there and watch you.”
She watched him unlock a file cabinet next to the desk and take out his Dell computer. Then he locked it back up again and nodded at the empty ceiling socket. “As I said, don’t waste time,” he said gently. “Start to work, Eve.”
She didn’t move for a moment after the door shut behind him.
Okay, that file cabinet might have information. Or perhaps the desk next to it. She probably wouldn’t be able to get her hands on that computer, but she’d try.
The truck had been where he kept that phone he’d rigged to avoid tracing, he might have other electronic gadgets.
He had mentioned his fondness for albums. Who knew what else he might have collected to “warm the heart.”
But the main project would have to be a way to disable those gas sockets. They were his principal weapon against her.
How was she going to do that? It would take time and opportunity that she’d have to squeeze from the reconstruction and—
Mull it over. Don’t be negative. There had to be a way.
Work it out.
She turned back to the skull. “I don’t have to name you, do I?” she whispered. “You have a name and a history and a father who loves you. How are we going to get along, Kevin?”
No answer, of course.
The skull stared back at her with gaping eyes and bared teeth in its black visage.
He looked fierce, savage, as if he were about to attack her.
She instinctively stiffened.
Ignore it. It was only imagination. Kevin was a man, when she was accustomed to sculpting children. There were so many lost children, and she had a passion for trying to bring them home to give solace to their parents.
But she had done reconstructions of adults before without a reaction like this.
Not when she had been kidnapped and Jane shot to bring her to this point, this work.
Go to work, get it done.
She started to measure the midtherum area beneath the nasal cavity.
* * *
“THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE I’m going to break my word,” Venable told Zander bluntly. “Everything’s gone to hell. My agent, Tad Dukes, can’t be found on the property. The description Ben Hudson gave us matches Doane, and Blick was almost certainly Jane’s shooter. Eve called Joe Quinn, and Doane wants her to do a reconstruction. Unless my team can pull in Doane within the next few hours, I’m going to tell Quinn what he has to contend with.”
“That would be awkward for me.”
“Screw you. I don’t like where this is going. I’m not going to let Eve be sacrificed because of you. I won’t do it for you, and I won’t do it for General Tarther, whom I like as much as I dislike you.” He paused. “You were right. Doane had everything planned out step by step, and he has to think that she can lead him to you.”
“I could avoid him if I chose.”
“And he could kill her.”
“But that’s your problem.”
“No, it’s yours, dammit.” He drew a deep breath. “You’re so sure that you could go after Doane and take him out if you decide to do it. If you can find Doane, you can find her.”
“But if I did, I’d be playing into his hands. I won’t do that, Venable.”
“Why? Would it prove you’re not a complete—”
“Our conversation is finished. You’ve told me what you wanted to say. I really don’t know why you felt obligated to tell me you were going to break your promise. No one keeps their word these days.”
“I do. And if I locate Eve in the next few hours, I’ll still keep it. I owed you and General Tarther a warning in case that doesn’t happen.” He hung up.
And the odds were that they wouldn’t find her, he thought. The satellite GPS trace had come back with nothing. The agents he had searching the house in Goldfork had been stymied, too.
Which meant that he’d have to betray Zander.
And Zander wasn’t a man it was safe to betray.
He went out on the porch and watched as Joe came back down the road from the place where the forensic team was checking the shrubbery for trace evidence and possible DNA. Joe was hanging up his phone as he came even with the cottage. “Jane just arrived in Atlanta. I’m going to meet her at the hospital in Rome.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, I don’t want to see you again until I hear what I want to hear from you,” he said coldly. “I’m afraid I’ll break your neck before I choke it out of you.”
“Just inquiring. The last I heard, you didn’t want me out of your sight.”
“If you disappear, I’ll find you.”
“I won’t disappear,” Venable said quietly. “Not until after we find Eve. I promise you.”
Joe gazed at him a moment. “Are you weakening, Venable?”
Venable didn’t reply directly. “Maybe. I’m not going to let anything happen to Eve. Since she’s going to do that reconstruction, she has time. We have time, Joe.”
“If I didn’t believe that, you’d be in an even tighter spot than you are now.” Joe got into the car. “I’ll find out who took Eve by Jane’s doing this sketch. But it will take time to identify him by going through data bases. I’m not going to take that time. Once I have a sketch, you’re going to tell me who he is and how to get to him.”
“If I knew how to get the man who took Eve, I would have already done it,” he said wearily. “Bring me the sketch, and we’ll talk.”
“You’re stalling.”
“Yes.” He turned back to go into the house. “It’s all I can offer you right now, dammit.”
* * *
THE TINY METAL JET INTHE sunken socket above Eve’s bed gleamed in the darkness.
She was exhausted after hours of work on the reconstruction, but she was too on edge to sleep. She had been lying on this cot for the last thirty minutes and gazing up at that gas jet.
So clever. Doane had boasted of his skill at planning, and this silent threat certainly added weight to his claim. It kept her immobile but still allowed him to use her skills. It was infuriating and damn frustrating and totally—
She suddenly straightened on the cot. But maybe not foolproof. Maybe she could beat it.
I was able to become accustomed to the gas by gradually exposing myself to the fumes.
If Doane had been able to do that, she might be able to do the same thing. She wouldn’t be able to become totally immune, but perhaps she could make herself less sensitive to the gas.
If the gas could be triggered by hand at the source in each of those sockets. If she could find a way to get up to the socket, which must be ten feet above the cot. If she could control the flow to give her a whiff without completely knocking her out.
Lots of ifs.
Hell, she didn’t have a better plan, did she? It was the one way that she had a chance of escaping. It was the only way she would be on partially even terms with Doane.
Move. Try.
She listened for Doane. He was sleeping on the couch in the living area. As he’d told her, these walls were paper-thin, and she could hear everything that was happening beyond them.
And now she could hear the steady sound of his breathing. He had claimed to be a light sleeper, but he was asleep now. If she was quiet, she might keep him that way.
She slid off the cot, and her bare feet touched the floor.
Don’t squeak, she prayed. Please don’t squeak.
She stood there looking up at the ceiling. It was at least ten feet above her. How could she reach it?