She looked at Joe, then said, “A trap, Walsh?”
“A challenge, Eve.” He chuckled. “I’ll e-mail you the location where you can find the skull, and you can take a look and see if you want to attempt trying to bring her home. Isn’t that the phrase that you use? I read a magazine interview with you about your sculpting process. I was quite touched.” His voice suddenly lost all hint of humor. “But now that you mention traps, if you try to load the dice against me and bring on police or FBI reinforcements, you will not only not see the skull to judge whether you wish to take your chances, but you’ll see your fine reconstruction destroyed before your eyes. It’s just between you, that fine lover of yours, and me. Do you understand?”
“I understand that you’re trying to set us up.”
“Then meet the challenge and try to win the prize.” He hung up.
Eve drew a shaky breath as she turned to Joe. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s a complete sociopath, and he wants you dead,” he said harshly.
She nodded. “Jenny said that he meant to kill me, but he didn’t have time after he stole the skull.” She grimaced. “It’s clear he didn’t like my chasing after him.”
“On the contrary, I think he did like it. Now he doesn’t have to go back to the lake to finish you off. He thinks he can do it here.”
Her e-mail pinged, and she looked down at the phone. “That’s probably the location.”
“The trap, you mean,” Joe said. “Give me your phone and let me handle it.”
“Joe.”
“He wants to kill you.”
“It’s a chance to get the reconstruction.” She looked at him. “It may be a chance to get Walsh. We have to get him, Joe. It’s not only Jenny. I sat there all afternoon and read all those case files about those murdered children and their families.”
“Too much risk.”
“I can work around it.”
“Good God, you’re going to do it.”
“I’m going to try. I’m not going to do anything suicidal. As soon as I can, I’ll notify Nalchek and try to bring him up there to trap Walsh. But I’m going to see if I have any way I can retrieve that skull. If I can’t, I’ll see if I can learn anything, do anything to bring me closer to catching Walsh before he kills again.”
He met her gaze for a long moment, then glanced at her phone. “Pull up the damn e-mail.”
She pushed the e-mail access. “It has to be Walsh. It’s a map.” She scanned it and handed it to Joe. “Somewhere near Tahoe. No X marked the spot. He’s probably going to contact us later.”
“When he’s sure you’re going to meet his challenge,” Joe said bitterly.
“I can’t do anything else, Joe,” she said.
“Do you think I don’t realize that?” he asked as he took her elbow and led her toward the car. “I was sitting right there beside you today. Do you believe I wasn’t sick to my stomach? I wanted to kill the son of a bitch by the time I jerked you away from that computer.” He opened the car door for her. “So I’ll take you to Walsh. I’ll try to keep you safe while you get that reconstruction. But if there’s a choice between getting the skull or taking out Walsh, it will be Walsh. I won’t care if you can’t bring Jenny home.” He slammed the door and strode around to the driver’s seat. “She’ll have to be satisfied with my sending her killer straight to hell.”
CHAPTER
9
SONDERVILLE
He was coming.
He would be here soon.
Margaret sat absolutely still beside the creek, waiting. She was excited, she realized. Was there an element of fear with that excitement? Maybe. Strange. She was seldom afraid.
But everything she’d been feeling since she’d arrived in these woods was somehow … different.
He had stopped just beyond the trees. He was looking at her.
Excitement again.