“Then go and tell those forensic people they can’t have my skull. As you said, it may be a fight.”
“Screw it.” Joe turned away from her and headed back to her worktable. “Possession is nine-tenths. In this case, it’s a big number ten.”
CHAPTER
2
Eve took the black velvet cloth off the skull and started to set it up on the dais. “I’m surprised they left the cloth. It’s evidence,” she told Joe over her shoulder. “Those forensic techs weren’t pleased when they stomped out of here.”
“They took a sample. I’ll call and ask them if they want me to bring it to the precinct in the morning.” He checked his watch. “Which is only about six hours away.” He watched her work on the skull placement. “I know you’re eager, but you’re not going to start it tonight?”
She shook her head. “Tomorrow morning.” She stood back and wiped her hands on her towel. “Maybe after Michael goes to school. He takes my reconstructions as a matter of course, but he’s never seen me work on one that’s been burned and blackened like this. It might shake even him a bit.”
“I doubt it.” He put his arm around her waist. “But use your own judgment. Now come to bed. You need your rest.”
She let him lead her back to their room. She had to ask it. “You think he’s gone?”
“I know he’s gone. No footprints after they disappeared when they reached the main road. He probably had a car hidden there. And when I sent Forensics on their way, I took another look around.” He opened the bedroom door. “No one outside. The alarm is on, and you have me to watch your back.” He smiled. “And all your other exceptional physical attributes. Now get undressed and let me hold you.”
“I’m on it.” She was already undressing. A moment later, she was in bed and cuddling close to him. He felt so good, so safe.
No darkness here …
*
“Your breakfast is on the bar. It’s eggs and sausage,” Eve told Michael as he came into the living room. “Then you need to hurry a little. You’re not taking the bus from down the road. Your dad is going to take you to school today, and we don’t want to make him late for work. Okay?”
“Okay.” He’d crawled up on the stool and was eating his breakfast. “Why?”
“Just a change from the school bus. Everyone needs a change.” She gave him his orange juice. “He’ll be picking you up, too. Or I will if I’m not busy.”
“But maybe you will be busy.” His gaze had wandered to her studio worktable across the room to the black-draped skull. “I didn’t see that yesterday. You have a new one?”
“Yes.”
“A kid?”
“Not this time. I think it’s a young woman.”
“You don’t do many of those.” He finished his eggs. “Why?”
Because children were so much more vulnerable than grown-ups. But she didn’t want to say those sad words. She modified them. “When you’re grown-up, you can take better care of yourself.”
“But she couldn’t. Why not?”
“I don’t know. I’ll try to find out. Done? Go brush your teeth.”
He nodded and jumped off the stool, his gaze still on the black velvet cover on the skull. “May I see her?”
Caught. Eve gazed at him in a quandary. She’d wanted to avoid this. “You may want to wait until I get a little farther along. She was in a fire, and it’s a bit—it’s not like some others you’ve seen.”
“I want to see her. May I?”
She nodded. She had never tried to hide what she did and couldn’t start now. She went over to the worktable. “Sure. Come and meet her. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t.” He followed her and rested his arms on her worktable. “Are you going to give her a name like you usually do?”
“Yes.”
“But you haven’t given her a name yet?”
“Not yet.” She pulled off the black velvet cloth, her gaze narrowed on his face to gauge his reaction. “I haven’t had time to think about it.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. No fear. No horror. Only intense interest and something else … “I told you that it wasn’t the same.”
“None of them are the same.” He was reaching out to gently touch that blackened cheekbone. “She never wanted to be the same…” His finger went to the gaping hole in the back of the skull. “It’s gone, Mama. Why?”
How to delicately explain that her brain had exploded and blown away the skull? No delicate way. Don’t explain. Generalize.
“It was the fire, Michael. This kind of thing happens very often when there’s a fire.”
“But you’ll fix it?”
“Yes, I’ll fix it.”
“You’ll fix everything.” His gaze shifted from the skull to Eve’s face. “I think she’ll be beautiful, Mama.”
“So do I.” She gave him a swat. “Now go brush your teeth. You have to be out of here in five minutes.”
“Okay.” He was hurrying across the room, but he stopped as he started down the hall. “Sylvie.”
She halted in the act of replacing the cloth. “What?”
“You should call her Sylvie.”
He disappeared into the bathroom.
*
Eve’s phone rang when she had barely started the initial measuring on the reconstruction.
Cara.
“Don’t you dare tell me you’re going to have to delay coming,” she said when she answered. “Michael was over the moon when I told him.”
“No, I still haven’t got the exact date, but I think it will be next week, if that’s okay,” Cara said. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” She hesitated, then burst out, “Have you heard from Jock?”
Jock Gavin. Cara hadn’t spoken about him the last few times she’d called, but Eve had known he was always on her mind. Cara’s bond with Jock had started when she was only eleven, and he had saved her life. They had both led tortured lives filled with fear and loneliness and somehow when they’d come together, the child and the young man had become best friends, almost soul mates. But that did not mean that the relationship had been without friction. “No, not since last Christmas when he came here for that one day. Why? Haven’t you heard from him?”
“No.” Then she said in a rush, “Three months. Not for three months. He doesn’t answer my calls or my emails. What does he think he’s doing? Doesn’t he know I worry about him?”
“I can see how you’d be concerned. But you know that no one can take care of himself better than Jock.”
“How am I supposed to know that? Whenever MacDuff doesn’t need him, he’s climbing mountains or going off on round-the-world cruises or trekking off with one of his CIA buddies and trying to get himself shot.”
“He’s restless,” Eve said soothingly. “MacDuff may be his best friend, but they have separate lives. MacDuff is Laird of MacDuff’s Run and is becoming occupied with all that goes with it. Jock will always be there for him, but he’s exploring other avenues.”
“Away from me,” Cara said jerkily. “He won’t talk to me.”
Eve could sense the hurt, but she felt helpless to heal it. “That’s not like Jock, and you know it.” She paused, then probed. “Something’s behind it?”
Cara was silent. “He’s angry with me.”
There it was. “Why?”
“I told him that I’d cleared all of July to spend the month with my grandfather in New Orleans.”
No wonder he’d gone ballistic. Eve was upset herself. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“I was going to do it next week. I knew you wouldn’t like it, and I wanted to tell you face-to-face.”
“No, I don’t like it. Imagine that. Sergai Kaskov is head of one of the most powerful Mafia families in Moscow. I don’t want you anywhere near him whether or not he’s your grandfather. Just being around him is dangerous for you.”
“I made him a promise, Eve,” she said quietly. “He didn’t ask much considering what he gave me in return. He didn’t have to save you when you were carrying Michael and fighting that poison. But he did it, and you both lived. I barely knew him, but when I asked, he gave that to me.”