Quicksand (13 page)

"And Kistle may decide that it's too dangerous, leave the forest, and take off somewhere else. Right now we know where he is."

"They're watching the roads around the forest."

"We're not going to agree about this, Eve. And I'm too pissed to argue with you. I've been in those damn woods for ten hours and I'm cold and wet and tired. I'll say something I don't want to say."

"Say it."

He hung up.

She pressed the disconnect. She had known Joe would be angry and she couldn't have been more right. She didn't know if it was principally because of Montalvo or the fact that a psychic had been involved. He'd been with her during those episodes after Bonnie's disappearance and seen what she'd gone through. He must think she was nuts to let herself in for that disappointment again. She couldn't blame him. She had gone to that river with the same attitude Joe had just shown her. And what did she believe now? She just didn't know. She went to the phone on the end table to call room service for Megan.

THE ROOM SERVICE ORDER
arrived a few minutes before Megan came out of the bedroom. She was carrying her duffel and medical bag and appeared tired but composed.

"You look better," Eve said as she poured her a cup of coffee. "Did you call your uncle?" She nodded. "He chewed me out. He said I should have called him before this."

"Did you tell him you were unconscious?"

"No, I skirted that. Phillip would have been on the next plane here." She took the coffee and sat down on the couch. "I told him it took longer than I hoped it would." She made a face.

"That was certainly true."

"He's seen you do things like that?"

"No, but his wife was a Listener before she died and he knows what it can do to you." Eve frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Never mind. I can see it's hard for you to understand any of this." She rubbed her temple.

"It's hard for me to understand. I just have to accept it."

"How can you accept it? It nearly tore you to pieces."

"I can block it most of the time. I didn't block Bobby Joe. I let him in." She took a drink of coffee. "And I don't usually run around letting myself in for this kind of punishment. I made a deal with Venable." Her lips twisted. "Did you think I'd given up medicine to go to crime sites? No way. I couldn't take it."

"You're still practicing medicine?"

She looked away. "Not at the moment. I have some things to work out."

"What?"

"I told you, I'm new at this." She reached for her sandwich. "A few months ago I had no reason to be bitter like you, but I was definitely a disbeliever. Then a few things happened that changed all that. I had to accept that I was a Listener or that I was crazy as a loon. I preferred the former."

"I can see how you would." Eve looked down into her coffee. "Do you see . . . ghosts?"

"Lord, no." She went still, her eyes narrowed on Eve's face. "Do you?"

"Of course not." Eve lifted her cup to her lips. "I just thought it might be a package deal with you. Do you know anyone who does?"

"I don't have a wide acquaintance with any other psychics, but I don't know anyone who sees ghosts." She finished her sandwich. "Is that all?"

Eve nodded. "Thank you."

"But you still don't know if you believe me, do you?"

Eve didn't answer for a moment, trying to piece together the exact truth. Megan had been open with her and she had to be open in return. "What you did was very impressive. But it's out of my realm of comprehension. I don't know if I want to believe in those echoes, that they exist but that most of us can't hear them. It's disturbing. Life is difficult enough without worrying about things that go bump in the night."

"Yet you deal with them every time you do a reconstruction," Megan said. "I read an article once about you that said your similarity ratio was astonishing, almost unbelievable. Instinct?

Or something else?"

It was strange that Megan had sensed how she felt when she was working on her reconstructions. "Maybe a little of both. But you can say that about any creative endeavor, can't you?"

"But you don't create; you actually bring back the reality." Megan paused. "I remember when I first heard about you a few years ago, I thought how difficult that must be. I admire you." She got to her feet. "And that's the only reason I've been sitting here trying to explain something I find nearly as bewildering as you do. Now I'm going to go downstairs, get a taxi, and go to the airport. I want to go home."

Eve stood up. "I have a rental car. I'll take you."

Megan shook her head. "People know who you are. I don't want anyone connecting me to you or this case. Venable promised me there would be no media leaks, but I'm not taking any chances."

"Montalvo said that the sheriff had given out the story that the boy was found through an anonymous tip."

"Which was probably not so much to keep his word as to save himself from embarrassment. He was polite but very uneasy about having a psychic on the case." She extended her hand.

"Thank you for taking care of me. I hope what I did will help you get that son of a bitch." Eve shook her hand. "I do too. I don't think just saying thank you is sufficient for what you went through. I'll let you know when we get him."

"Do that." She picked up her duffel and started for the door. "Good-bye. Good luck."

"Wait."

Megan looked back at her.

"You shook my hand. You didn't want to do it at the river. Then you were worried about having Montalvo touch you. Later you said to me, 'Don't touch me. Not now.' " She frowned.

"Why?"

Megan opened the door. "I was very upset. I don't like to touch people when I'm upset."

"You're a doctor. You have to touch people and there must be occasions when you're upset. Does it have anything to do with this being a Listener?"

"No, not with being a Listener. Q and A is over, Eve." She closed the door behind her. She shouldn't have pushed her, Eve thought. Megan had answered more questions than she wanted to answer. She had a right to shut her out. Yet Eve had felt an odd compulsion to know more.

Yes, compulsion was the word. Stronger than curiosity, more intense than fascination. Well, Megan wasn't about to tell her any more and Eve had to forget about it. She had to get on the phone with Montalvo and see if they'd been able to get the FBI to come back to Clayborne Forest.

EIGHT

"CASSIDY WILL BE BACK
tomorrow morning," Montalvo told her. "He'll be kicking and screaming, but it's difficult to refuse a case involving a murdered child. The media would have a field day. Attacks on children arouse a community to fever pitch. My bet is that he'll bring a truckload of agents and trackers to get this business over with in a hurry."

"Let's hope he does."

"How is our medium doing?"

"Gone. She didn't want to risk being connected with the case."

"She's not like the psychics you were previously exposed to, is she?"

"No, she's nothing like that."

"It was a weird experience. I didn't know whether to believe her or not. When we had to dig so deep to get to that vat, I thought we'd been taken in. But there it was. Did you talk to Quinn?"

"Yes. He thinks she's a phony."

"And he was mad as hell."

"Yes, but I'm not talking about Joe to you, Montalvo."

"Right, I'll back away."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Go back to the forest and try to find our man."

"He's not a man, he's an animal. What he did to that little boy . . ."

"Then I go after the beast. But I'm having trouble keeping Miguel on the sidelines. It would help if you'd let him do something for you to keep him out of trouble."

"I've got work to do. I can't babysit Miguel." She had a sudden memory of the young man's bandaged hands. "Okay, I'll think of something."

"It would be a kindness. Good-bye, Eve."

After she hung up she moved across the room to the reconstruction of Carrie. In another day if she concentrated she might finish her. Heaven knows, she needed to concentrate on something to keep her mind off what Kistle had done to Bobby Joe. The horror had been with her all day. She couldn't ignore it, but perhaps she could submerge herself and it might fade to the back of her mind.

Yet even while she was working on Carrie, it wouldn't leave her alone. Carrie had been found buried in that shallow grave in Kentucky. If Megan went to that spot, would she hear Carrie's voice and that of her murderer? Would she be able to identify the person who had done this?

Megan had not been able to tell them the name of the man who killed Bobby Joe because the boy had not known him. But would that be the same in every case? Surely the victim would sometimes know the killer.

Yet bringing Megan into a case would not save a life and it could do serious damage to her if she was frequently exposed to that degree of punishment. She shivered as she remembered the look on Megan's face before she had collapsed. No one with any humanity would ask that of her.

Good heavens, she was debating this with herself as if she had already made the decision to believe in Megan's gift.

Because, admit it, she had made that decision. She wasn't sure she understood what was happening, but she did believe that Megan had not cheated or lied when she had led them to find that little boy. And that meant that she could—

The phone on the end table rang and she wiped her hands on an alcohol towelette before picking it up. Joe? God, she hoped it was Joe.

"How are you, Eve? Did they tell you about your presents?"

She went rigid with shock. Kistle. "They told me. Did you think that I was going to get upset because you killed those men? I didn't even know them."

He chuckled. "And you're trying to keep me from doing it again. Oh, yes, you did get upset. I knew you would. You have a tender heart and you respect life. You don't know that most of those guys here in the forest are just bugs to be stepped on."

"You're still in Clayborne Forest?"

"Why not? I'm king here. They can't touch me."

"They'll get you. The FBI will be all over those woods tomorrow. Why don't you give up?"

"Give up? Why? They'll never get me and I'm still enjoying myself."

"How are you able to call me?"

"I still have my phone, but at the moment I'm using Sheriff Jedroth's again. It's the last time. It's so easy to trace a cell these days if it's not protected. If they try to trace the sheriff's phone they'll find it at the bottom of the bog. From now on I'll have to change phones with every kill. I had to think for a moment where to call you, but the Brown Hotel is the best hotel in this little burg and they wouldn't put you up anywhere else."

So he had just decided to call her out of the blue. He was on the run and the cocky bastard had to show her it meant nothing to him. "You must have gotten to know Bloomburg very well."

"I make sure I do. I can never tell when it might come in handy. By the way, I saw your Joe Quinn day before yesterday. I was considering handing you his head, but I decided to keep to my original plan and just give you an easy kill."

A chill went through her. "You're lying."

"No, I'd lie if it suited me, but there's no reason to lie. I recognized him immediately. I followed your life very closely for a long time after Bonnie."

"Why?"

"You were so pathetic. It amused me. And then you became this hotshot forensic sculptor and it made me angry. You meddled and you shouldn't have interfered. You became a threat. I take great care in disposing of my kills so that no one will ever find them."

"Like in that vat of acid where you put Bobby Joe?"

There was a silence. "There's no way you found him. You'll never find him. I planned it all out and I was very careful."

"Evidently you're not as clever as you thought."

"They couldn't have just stumbled over the place where I buried him. I was too careful. I've never had a body recovered."

"Is it bothering you? I'm glad."

"If I believed you it might. I'm proud of my disposals. It takes intelligence and care to keep a kill secret. Fame and glory are tempting, but I don't need them. I know what I've done, how I've fooled them all."

"No? Then why do you sound bitter? Perhaps you'll realize that it's all falling apart. Things aren't working out for you, are they? All these years you've had it your way, but everything's changed. You killed that sheriff and had to go on the run. You've had to go to earth like a weasel. And we did find Bobby Joe, you bastard. Tomorrow or the next day, we'll find you."

"You're beginning to annoy me, Eve." He paused. "But when I think about it, you're right: my present ill fortune is due entirely to you. You started it and evidently you're trying to make sure I remain uncomfortable. But I don't mind because it's something fresh and different in a world of sameness. But I do mind you unearthing that little boy. I had him all settled. Now when I think about him he won't be in that vat any longer."

"I wish we could throw you in that vat with him."

"How cruel. When it's so very painful."

Anger seared through her. "You'll never do it again, Kistle."

"But I will. The vat is such a clean and anonymous method of disposal." He added softly, "Do you want to know how I got rid of Bonnie?"

She started to shake. "No, I wouldn't believe you."

"It wasn't the vat. That's a fairly recent solution."

"Where is she?"

"Far away. You'll never find her."

"You thought that about Bobby Joe."

"That's true. Perhaps you might be able to find her if I gave you enough clues. I'll have to think about it. I might find it very entertaining. But to make it worth my while you'd have to be actively involved, none of this sitting on the sidelines."

"Tell me where she is."

"Are you begging me? Then you mustn't sound so demanding."

"I'm not begging you." She tried to control her temper. "And I have no proof you killed my daughter. Tell me something that you couldn't find out from the newspapers."

"I don't have to do that." He was silent. "But maybe I will anyway. She had a favorite little song. It was something about wishing on a star. I made her sing it over and over to me. Towards the end she was crying so hard I couldn't make out the words."
Bonnie cuddling close to Eve. "Can we go out on the porch tonight and sing the song about
the wishing star, Mama?"