Текст книги "Silencing Eve"

Автор книги: Iris Johansen

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My daughter, Tamara, is always saying life is good no matter how tough it gets. But it is her strength and resilience and ability to find joy in every moment that makes life good for all of us close to her. She lights our lives in a very special way.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MY SON, ROY, IS A CONSTANT help and inspiration to me even when we’re not collaborating on a book. Whenever you see that Kendra has done something particularly clever, you can bet Roy has had something to do with it.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Also by Iris Johansen

About the Author

Copyright

CHAPTER

1

Atlanta Airport

DEAD.

Eve was dead.

The words kept drumming in Catherine Ling’s mind as she walked up the gateway to the terminal. No matter how many times she told herself it was true, she still couldn’t believe it. Not Eve Duncan. Not her friend, the woman who had helped to save her son.

“Agent Ling?” A sandy-haired young man was running after Catherine as she headed for baggage. “I’m Brad Linden.” He showed her his CIA credentials. “Agent Venable sent me to pick you up and take you to the memorial service.”

“Then go get your car while I pick up my bag.” Catherine Ling didn’t stop as she strode ahead of him. “And why the hell didn’t Venable come and get me himself? I need to have a few choice words with him.”

“He’s at the service. It’s going on right now. He didn’t want to show disrespect. I’m afraid you’re a little late.”

“Because no one told me that Eve—” She broke off. He was gazing at her warily, and she knew she must be radiating all the ferocity and sadness she was feeling. There was no use ripping at Venable’s errand boy because Venable had left her in ignorance of Eve’s death or the search when she was kidnapped several days ago. He would only try to make excuses for the inexcusable. Yes, she had been undercover in the jungles of Colombia, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t have somehow extricated herself and come home to help find Eve. Venable should have gotten word to her. No, she’d had to find out in Miami when she’d retrieved her own computer and been hit in the gut with the news story in USA Today. “Just have that car out front and get me to that memorial service ASAP, Linden.”

While she was waiting for her bag, she scanned the story in USA Today again. What did she expect to find? She had practically memorized the damn story on the flight from Miami. She supposed that she was trying to find an answer when there was no answer. The actual story of Eve’s kidnapping and murder was fairly cut-and-dried. The murderer had obviously been unbalanced and ignited explosives at a ghost town in Colorado, where he had been holding Eve captive. Since the details were sparse, they had concentrated on Eve Duncan herself. Her background, her accomplishments, quotes from famous law-enforcement officials who had used her services. All were very worth reading, Catherine thought bitterly. It wasn’t often that the media got a chance to spotlight a genuinely good person. Eve had been an illegitimate child born in the slums who had given birth herself at sixteen to a little girl, Bonnie. The child had changed her life. Eve had finished her education and straightened out her mother, who was on drugs. Then the world had come crashing down when her Bonnie, seven years old, had been kidnapped and killed. Yet Eve hadn’t let it destroy her. She had gone back to school and studied forensic sculpting. Since then, she had become perhaps the most skilled forensic sculptor in the world. She had brought closure to thousands of families whose children would never have been identified without her help.

Never let a good deed go unpunished, Catherine thought. That old adage was too true in Eve’s case.

And, dammit, she was misting up again. She closed her computer and jammed it in her carry-on bag. She grabbed her phone and tried Joe Quinn again. Voice mail. She’d called him from the Miami Airport as soon as she’d read the story about Eve’s memorial service being held today. It had gone to voice mail then, too. She’d left a message, but he hadn’t called back. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to her, she thought. Why should he? He had loved Eve with every ounce of his being, and he thought Catherine hadn’t even cared enough to try to find her when that monster, Doane, had kidnapped her.

I cared, Joe. God, how I care. I would have come.

She wanted to kill Venable.

She might do it if he didn’t have an explanation that she could tolerate.

And she wanted to release the tears that she had been forcing back since she’d read that damn news story. Her friend was dead, and, somehow, she felt as if it was her fault, that if she’d known, she might have been able to stop it. Lord, her eyes were stinging.

Not here. Not now.

When she was alone with her thoughts and memories of Eve and had gotten through this memorial service.

Not even a funeral because that crazy bastard had blown them both to bits.

She wished with all her heart that Doane was still alive and here, so that she could personally send him straight to hell.

But Venable had cheated her out of that pleasure, too, by not bringing her into the picture when Eve needed her most.

Damn him.

She grabbed her bag as it went around the carousel and headed for the door.

*   *   *

GOD, LING WAS GORGEOUS, Bradford thought as he pulled his car close to the curb where Catherine Ling was waiting impatiently. She was sleek and sexy, with shoulder-length dark hair and eyes tilted slightly, increasing the exotic magnetism she radiated. He knew she was the illegitimate daughter of an American soldier and a Korean whore who was half-Russian. She’d been born in Saigon but had grown up on the streets of Hong Kong. He’d heard stories about her from other agents, but he’d never met her. The stories had been interesting but very, very lethal. She was sharp and independent and likely to run her own show when she was on a mission. Something Venable definitely didn’t like but evidently tolerated because she got the job done. She’d been CIA since Venable had picked her up in Hong Kong when she was only fourteen. What was she now? Late twenties?

“Got everything?” He leaned over and opened the passenger door for her. “I’ll have you at Quinn’s lake cottage in thirty minutes. I just called Venable, and he said the service had just ended.”

“Dammit, I missed it? I’m surprised you got through to him,” she said sarcastically. “How nice. He’s not been answering my calls.”

Oops. “I’m sure that’s just a technical error. He was very concerned about you.” He hurriedly handed her his computer. “I’ve pulled up the files on Doane and the catastrophe at the ghost town. Venable was sure you’d want to look them over.”

“I would have liked to look them over before the son of a bitch blew her up.” She gazed blindly down at the computer. “You’ve read it. Fill me in.”

“Eve Duncan was kidnapped from her lake cottage home in north Atlanta several days ago. Because she’s one of the foremost forensic sculptors in the world, it was assumed at the time that the kidnapper might be one of the nuts or serial killers she’d targeted by her work.”

“But if Venable is involved, then that’s not why she was killed,” Catherine said grimly. “I’m surprised Eve let him pull her into a CIA mission.”

“She didn’t. James Doane had been in a safe house in Goldfork, Colorado, and slipped away from the agent guarding him. When Venable realized he was gone, he thought there might be a possibility of his heading toward Eve Duncan, but he couldn’t be sure that—”

“Why? Why would he go after Eve?”

“That’s not in the report. You’ll have to ask Venable.”

“You can bet I will. Venable fouled up and didn’t protect Eve. Is that the truth?”

“I’m sure there is an explanation. As I said, he wasn’t sure Eve Duncan would be a target.”

She drew a deep breath. “Let’s go down another path. Why was Jim Doane in that safe house? Was he a foreign agent? A witness?”

He shook his head. “He was the father of Kevin Relling, who was assassinated five years ago. His son was in Special Forces in the Army and turned very dirty. He was working with al-Qaeda in Pakistan and blocking the hunt for Bin Laden. He also indulged his penchant for raping and killing little girls in whatever city he found himself. He killed the five-year-old daughter of General Tarther in Marseilles because the general was trying to zero in on the al-Qaeda group.”

“Very dirty. Scum.”

“The general went crazy and eventually hired a hit man, Lee Zander, to find and go after Doane’s son. Zander killed him and hired a funeral director to cremate the remains. Doane arrived too late to grab anything but his son’s skull from the furnace.”

“Okay, then that would be a reason for his kidnapping Eve. Doane wanted Eve to do a reconstruction on the son’s skull. Right?”

“I understand that she was doing just that while she was his captive.”

“Then why would the crazy bastard kill her? She was smart. If that job was the ransom he wanted, she wouldn’t risk her life by refusing to do a reconstruction.”

“You’ll have to ask Venable,” he said again. “All I know is that Doane took her to a ghost town in the Rio Grande Forest in Colorado. We traced him to an abandoned saloon there. When our units, Quinn, and Jane MacGuire were closing in on him, he set off a charge that blew up the saloon and half the town.” He glanced at her. “You look– Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. It shouldn’t have happened. Someone should have stopped it. Venable should have stopped it.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “I should have stopped it.”

“Venable said that you were on a very important mission and that you—”

“Screw Venable.” Her gaze shifted to the passing scene out the window. “Anything else? Are they sure she was in that damn saloon?”

“Yes. Everyone saw Doane take her into the place, and, a few minutes later, our infrared scopes confirmed two people inside. They were still on the scopes when the place blew.”

“DNA?”

“We’re working on it, but it may take a long while. There wasn’t much left. As I said, the blast practically leveled the town. She was in—”

“I don’t want the details. Not now.”

It appeared that Ling was not as tough as he had heard, Bradford thought. Or maybe she’s just human, like the rest of us. “I hear Eve Duncan was quite a woman. It’s a great loss. Everyone from senators to a dozen police chiefs are at that memorial service.”

“They don’t know how great a loss,” Catherine said. “They know the work, not the woman, not the friend.” She was silent for a while, forcing herself to read the file. Then she looked up, and asked, “How close are we?”

“Five minutes. The service was held outside by the lake at the cottage where she lived with Joe Quinn. He thought she’d like it to be at her home. Pretty place.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “I know. That’s where I first met Eve. I stayed with her while she worked on a computer age progression on photos of my son.”

That was one of the stories about Ling, too. Her son had been held prisoner by a Russian criminal for nine years, and she had never ceased trying to find him. It was only after Eve Duncan had helped her that she had been able to locate him. “I’m sure you were very grateful.”

“Are you?” She looked at him. “You have no idea.”

He pulled his gaze away with some difficulty. Catherine Ling might be as lethal as a striking panther, but he was suddenly finding himself having visions of ladies in distress and knights in shining armor and himself somewhere in the mix. Crazy. It just went to show how right the stories were about the fascination she effortlessly exerted. “I know you’re upset. If I can help, just call me.” He almost bit his tongue. Venable would not like the idea of his moving into Ling’s camp when she was definitely at odds with him. “Though I’m sure Venable will straighten everything out.”

He swung into the grove that Quinn had designated as a parking area. “Here we are. I’d drive you closer, but there are people milling all over the place.” He quickly got out, ran around, and opened the door for her. “Everyone is around the cottage down toward the lake. Would you like me to go with you?”

“No.” She strode toward the cottage. “I’d advise you to stay clear. You wouldn’t like dodging the flak.”

He watched her disappear from view, then reluctantly turned away. Catherine Ling might be wrong. He found himself experiencing a strange blankness as if he’d been witnessing a fireworks display, and now there was only dark sky.

It might be worth dodging a little flak to see her in action.

*   *   *

CATHERINE SPOTTED VENABLE in the crowd two minutes after she turned the corner of the cottage.

He was wearing a dark suit and looked surprisingly formal. He was talking to a man in an NYPD uniform. Then he lifted his gaze and saw her at the edge of the crowd.

Wariness.

Then he lifted the wineglass in his hand and nodded.

Catherine drew a deep breath and tried to smother the anger. If she confronted Venable now, she would make a scene, and that was the last thing she wanted to do at this service honoring Eve. She’d deal with him later. She nodded curtly and turned to look for Joe Quinn.

He was standing talking to a tall, white-haired man she vaguely recognized as a congressman. Joe looked pale and unsmiling, but he could obviously still function. She started to make her way toward him.

He looked up and saw her. Then, with a word to the congressman, he left him and was walking quickly toward her. “Catherine.”

“Joe, I tried to call you.” She took a step closer. “I didn’t know. Believe me, I didn’t know anything, or I would have come to—”

“I saw that you’d called, but I couldn’t talk.” He took her elbow and was propelling her toward the corner of the house. “I’ve been surrounded all day.” He stopped as he reached an unoccupied stretch of lawn on the side of the cottage. He took a minute to look around and make sure there was no one near. “I can’t really talk now either, but you have to know, dammit.”

“What are you talking about? I do know. I just found out today in Miami. I can’t tell you how—”

“Listen.” His hands grasped her shoulders. “It’s not what you think.” His voice lowered. “Go into the cottage and talk to Kendra Michaels. I told her earlier that you were coming. I knew I couldn’t get away from this hullabaloo.”

“Joe, what the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying that though you look terrific in black, you shouldn’t go into mourning.” He turned away. “I’ll see you later. Go talk to Kendra.”

She stared in shock as he walked away. For a moment, she couldn’t get her breath. He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant.

She closed her eyes. Oh, God. Let it be true. Let it all be a nightmarish mistake.

Let Eve still be alive.

*   *   *

CATHERINE ENTERED THE cottage and slammed the door behind her. “Kendra Michaels?”

“Yes.” Kendra was standing at the window, staring down at the mourners moving from group to group on the lawn bordering the lake. “That’s me. And you are?”

“Catherine Ling.” She crossed the room and showed her ID. “Joe told me to come to see you. Apparently it’s your job to tell me what the hell is going on here.”

Kendra nodded. “Joe called me and told me you were coming up to ask questions. I just had to verify your ID. There are too many reporters drifting around here at the memorial service. Eve was very well-known.” She smiled faintly. “Very private, but everyone knew she was phenomenal.”

“You’re damn right she was.” Her lips tightened. “We’re both talking past tense. Yet from what Joe said, I’m guessing she’s probably very much alive.” Her voice was uneven. “Don’t tell me that he’s wrong. I won’t have it.”

“Sorry. Joe didn’t steer you wrong. I’ve just gotten used to playing the sorrowful, regretful friend in the last week,” Kendra said. “I believe the chances are excellent that Eve is alive.”

Catherine felt a wave of relief surge through her. “Thank God.”

“I can’t be absolutely sure, but I’d bet every particle of my experience and judgment that she lived through the explosion at that ghost town in Colorado.”

“And why should I trust your judgment?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.” Kendra tilted her head. “I don’t believe you have much to do with trust.”

Catherine’s eyes narrowed on her face. “Why? Did Eve or Joe tell you about me?”

“No. Just an observation. Did Eve mention me?”

“Yes, Eve told me about you a few months ago. You were born blind, but a surgical procedure gave you your sight just a few years ago, is that right?”

Kendra nodded.

“But while you were blind, you developed your other senses to such a degree that you’ve become quite the detective.”

Kendra shrugged. “Make that a reluctant detective. My profession is music therapy. I’ve helped out on a few cases.”

“You weren’t reluctant as far as Eve was concerned.”

“No, we became friends. You help your friends. Then, when I heard she was abducted, I dropped everything and came right down.” Kendra studied her. “Joe said you were close to Eve, but she never mentioned you to me.”

“Why should she? Our relationship was … confidential.”

“Confidential? That’s an interesting designation for a close—” Kendra stopped. “Oh, you’re CIA, aren’t you?”

Catherine’s eyes widened. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t expect you to confirm it. I was watching out the window, and I saw you and that CIA guy, Venable, exchange a look when you arrived. He was tense, you were angry. Oh, yes, you know each other. Do you work for him?”

Catherine looked away.

“I don’t expect you to answer that either.” She smiled faintly. “Oh, and you quite often wear a shoulder holster under that black jacket, but not today.”

Catherine nodded. “Out of respect.” She looked under her left arm. “It’s that obvious?”

“It’s a little baggy there. Nothing anyone would notice.”

“Except you?”

“Except me.”

“Or maybe a North Korean assassin. It might be time to invest in a more discreet shoulder holster.”

“I’m sure you’re equipped with other weapons.” Kendra tilted her head. “I’m good with dialects, but I’m having a tough time with yours. You’re clipping your consonants and slightly flattening your vowel sounds. Did the linguistic people at Langley teach you to do that?”

“They may have.”

“It’s very effective. I have no idea where you’re from.”

“Good. I’ve made a few enemies over the years, and the last thing I want is for them to be able to find out anything about me.”

“Then you’ve done a good job.”

Catherine gave her a cool glance. “You’re doing quite an efficient job yourself. You’re laying out your credentials on display to show me just how good that judgment I challenged is.”

Kendra smiled. “I thought it would save time in the long run. I don’t need your trust, but I need an open mind.”

Catherine took a step closer. “So are you going to tell me what happened in Colorado?”

“How much do you know already?”

“Just what I read in the newspaper and the CIA records. Plus Joe’s rather cryptic reassurance that Eve is probably still alive, which makes this entire day rather surreal.”

“That it is.”

“Then talk to me,” Catherine said fiercely. “I don’t have many friends, and I don’t like the idea of losing one. I don’t like it so much that I’m on the edge of violence. I’ve got to know something.”

“I’ll tell you everything I know. When the saloon exploded in that ghost town, the infrared scanners showed two people inside.”

“Those recordings are always very accurate. The explosion was so powerful, it rocked the whole town. There’s no way anyone could have survived that.”

“They didn’t. And we found the skeletal fragments and burned flesh.”

“Am I missing something?”

“Those two people were possibly dead already. But they weren’t Eve and Doane.”

Catherine was silent. Let it be true, she prayed. “Are you sure?”

“We’re still waiting on DNA, but I’m sure. I think each of those bodies was wrapped in thermal-reflective sleeping-bag liners to hold their body heat for the infrared scopes. I went down with the forensic team after they extinguished the fire and found traces of the reflective material at the site.”

“But there were a dozen witnesses who saw Eve and Doane go into that saloon just a few minutes before that blast. How could they have gotten away without someone’s seeing them?”

“Doane obviously knew the area very well. They were in a ghost town in the bottom of a small, bowl-shaped valley. Locals call it the punch bowl. It had been raining heavily, and the street was muddy. The strange thing was that it wasn’t flooded.”

“Why was that strange?”

“With water coming down from every side of the valley, it had no place to go. It should have flooded, unless … it was draining to someplace.”

Catherine thought about it. “Like a cavern?”

“Very good. There were fissures that ran behind the buildings. Water drained through them to a stream in an underground cavern. It feeds an even larger stream that runs down the mountain. We didn’t know about the cavern and the underground stream, but we used the water from that bigger stream to help put out the fire.”

Catherine could feel the excitement surging within her. “You think Doane took Eve out the back and down into this cavern?”

“It’s a twenty-foot drop, but the water is deep enough that it wouldn’t have been a problem. The fissure was so narrow that when Doane first got to the ghost town, it was easy for him to cover it with brush to hide the cavern. And the explosion completely covered up the fissures with debris, so we didn’t even know they were there until I looked for them later. Doane did a good job of covering his tracks.”

“Do we know whose bodies were in there?”

“Not yet. There wasn’t much left of them. We were lucky they weren’t vaporized. But the fact that it was so muddy gave me some interesting tracks outside in front of the saloon. An off-road vehicle arrived, and Terence Blick, a partner of Doane’s, stepped out of it. Then Blick walked around to the back, unloaded something heavy, and walked into the saloon with it.”

“You got all that from footprints?”

“I had a run-in with Blick a couple days before. I stopped to see if I could help a policeman he’d shot down, and I saw Blick’s footprints then. He was wearing different boots, but the stride was unmistakable. He swung his legs in such a way that the right and left prints were directly in front of each other, almost single file. Fairly unique. And the footsteps sunk about three inches deeper after he walked around to the back of the truck.”

“You think he took a body into that saloon. But there were two bodies in there.”

“I believe the second corpse could be Blick himself.”

Catherine slowly nodded. “Doane killed his own partner?”

“Blick’s footprints went in, but never came out. But the off-road vehicle was driven out of the town. I’d bet Doane charged Blick with securing a woman’s corpse, but he needed a second one, a male. So he killed him. He went outside in the street with Eve and showed us all that she was there, then went back inside. He slipped out the back and jumped, either dragging or carrying Eve with him, into the cavern before Venable’s team arrived with their infrared gear. He had a raft down there and rode the stream about three miles away, where he had Blick’s vehicle parked. I saw the prints on the bank. The tire tread belonged to a set of Super Swamper TSL. That meant it was almost certainly the same 4 × 4 off-road vehicle that Blick drove into the ghost town. Doane took Eve away while the town was still burning.” She smiled bitterly. “Quite a distraction.”

“How long did it take you to piece this together?”

“Too long. Hours. Doane could have taken Eve anywhere by the time we figured out that they were still alive. It might have taken me even longer if Margaret hadn’t—” She broke off and leaned back against Eve’s workbench. “I should have seen it all sooner. But I couldn’t see anything clearly that night. All I could think about was that moment when the saloon blew only minutes after I’d seen Eve dragged through that door. We were all in shock.”

“I can understand that.”

“Well, I don’t understand. I should have been thinking, acting, not feeling.”

“It’s amazing that you figured it out at all. Eve was right to be so impressed with you.”

“Fat lot of good it’s done. She’s still out there … with him.”

Catherine glanced at the funeral guests outside. “Why this charade? Why not let on that you know they’re still alive?”

“Venable supposedly has an army of agents searching for Doane and Eve as we speak. We thought we might have better luck if Doane didn’t know we were still looking for him. He was evidently counting on the fact that DNA on those skeletal fragments could take weeks to come back and allow him to proceed with his plans.” Her lips twisted. “According to Venable, Doane is very proud of his ability to concoct his nasty little plans. This particular plan was very intricate, and he clearly wanted us to think they were both dead, so that he’d be free to go forward.”

“And do what?”

“He has a target. Lee Zander, the man who killed his dirtbag of a son, Kevin. Not an easy target. Zander is probably one of the foremost assassins in the world.”

“And what does Eve have to do with his damn target? I thought that she’d been taken to do a reconstruction on the son.”

“That’s what we all thought. But it appears that wasn’t Doane’s primary motive. Doane thinks Zander is Eve’s father. Since Zander killed his son, he wants to see him bleed as he kills his daughter in front of him.”

Catherine went still. “Father? And is he?”

“I don’t know. Venable seems to think that he is.” She shook her head. “But what does matter is that Doane thinks it’s true.”

Frustrated, Catherine said, “There are too many unknowns. What the hell is happening here?”

“I don’t know. Ask Venable. Though I’m not sure he’ll tell you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t like the way he was trying to run the show at the ghost town.” She paused. “I thought he was being stupid by bringing in an attack team to go after Doane in that saloon. But now I’m not sure if he was stupid or a little too smart.”

“What are you saying? You think Venable’s crooked?”

“I think he has an agenda, and Eve’s not at the top of it.” She met Catherine’s eyes. “And why didn’t he let you know about what was happening to Eve? You’re her friend, and I’d judge you’re fairly lethal. Why not bring you into this chaos of a situation?”

“That’s what I asked him.”

“Were you satisfied with the answer?”

“No. He’s been dodging it.”

“Good. Then you’ll not trust him any more than you do me.”

She smiled faintly. “But I believe I’m beginning to trust you, Kendra.” Her smile faded. “I’ve got to get this clear in my mind, but I don’t want to blow your little scenario. Who knows that Eve is alive?”

“Joe, Zander, Jane MacGuire, Margaret Douglas, and the people who have been concerned with the hunt for Eve from the beginning.”

“Not Eve’s mother, Sandra?”

“No, it was Joe Quinn’s call. He decided that she was too erratic to trust with that information.” She made a face. “Actually, Joe was being diplomatic. Replace erratic with selfish. You’ll notice she didn’t come today—too devastated. But not too devastated to give one TV and three print interviews this morning.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what their relationship was, but it was definitely complex.”

Catherine was mentally going over the other names Kendra had given her. “Margaret Douglas…” she repeated. “You broke off in the middle of telling me something about a Margaret. Why?”

“Margaret is … difficult.”

“You don’t want to talk about her.” Catherine’s eyes narrowed on her face as she tried to remember the exact words Kendra had spoken. She had been so upset and intent on digging for the truth that she had dismissed it at the time. “You said something about your not being able to put the entire scenario together sooner except for her.”

“No, just not as soon.” She turned back to the window. “Look, I’m not going to try to explain Margaret to you. She has to be experienced. All I’m telling you is that she’s a good kid and no phony. I’d trust her in the trenches.”

“But I’m not you. I’ll make up my own mind,” Catherine said. Her gaze followed Kendra’s to the crowd below. “Which one is Margaret?”

“The girl standing next to Jane MacGuire. She tends to stay close to her when she can. She’s a bit protective.”

“Of Jane MacGuire?” She had met Jane, and no one appeared to be less in need of protection. Strong. Very strong. And Kendra had been referring to Margaret as a girl, even a kid. She gazed curiously at Jane and Margaret standing beside her.

Golden. Margaret seemed bathed in sunlight, tanned, sun-streaked hair, slim in her simple black dress. She did look young, nineteen or twenty at the oldest. She was appropriately solemn for the occasion but there was an aura of vitality, a barely restrained exuberance, held in check. “Why protective?”

“Jane saved her life. She took a bullet for her from Doane’s cohort, Blick, when all of this madness first started. Margaret believes in payback.”

“Interesting. I believe I have to talk to this Margaret Douglas.” She turned toward the door. “Would you like to come along and introduce me?”

“No, I have some thinking to do. You’re on your own.”

“Thinking?”

“Things are changing,” Kendra said soberly. “I have some decisions to make.”

“Don’t we all,” Catherine said. She opened the door. “Thank you, Kendra. And thank God you found out that we might still have a chance of freeing her.”

“I should have found out sooner. It’s to do all over again.”

“Maybe not. It appears a trap is in the offing.”

“He’s managed to sidestep traps so far.” She paused. “Good luck, Catherine.”