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.”
The words sounded curiously final, Catherine thought, as she left the house and ran down the porch steps. Imagination? Maybe. Everything was looking dark to her right now.
Dismiss it.
She had to probe, to find which way to go. She had not been pleased that Kendra Michaels had been suspicious about Venable’s motives and response to that disaster in the ghost town. Kendra had impressed her as being very sharp. Catherine had worked with Venable since she was a girl of fourteen and knew him as well as anyone. He was always an enigma, but he was a professional. Yet his priorities were always to the job, and she could see that if he had been torn, Eve might have been downgraded in importance.
So walk carefully and discreetly around Venable.
And don’t trust him any more than she could throw him.
She started to make her way through the crowd toward Jane and Margaret.
But she’d only gone a few steps when Margaret Douglas said something to Jane and was walking briskly toward Catherine.
Catherine stopped and watched her move. Margaret was worth watching—confidence, grace, vitality. Smiling at the people in the crowd as she brushed by them. She couldn’t decide whether Margaret was beautiful or just attractive because that inner glow was so strong it dominated everything about her.
“You’re Catherine Ling,” she said as she reached her. She reached out to shake her hand. “I’m Margaret. You’ll want to talk to me.”
“I will? How do you know?”
“I saw you going up to the cottage to talk to Kendra, and I asked Jane who you were.” A smile lit her face. “I’m glad you came, Catherine. Jane said you’re very tough, very clever, and that you owe Eve a debt for helping to save your son. A debt like that is great motivation.” She looked around her. “Want to go for a walk with me in the woods? There are too many people around.”
Catherine fell into step with her. “How did you know that I’d come looking for you after I talked to Kendra?” she asked again. “What do you know that she doesn’t?”
“Nothing. But she doesn’t like to talk about me.” She chuckled. “It’s part loyalty because she likes me. And it’s part discomfort because I’m kinda hard to explain.”
“That’s what she told me.” They were deep in the woods now, and Catherine stopped an
d turned to face her. “I don’t give a damn about discomfort, but I don’t like lies. She said something about your not being a phony. What was that supposed to mean?”
“Did she say that? That was nice. It’s particularly hard for her to defend me when I offend her sense of logic. That’s a primary sin for Kendra.” She reached down and took off one of her high heels. “I have to get these off for a minute. I’m not used to anything but my flip-flops or tennis shoes.” She flexed her bare feet. “That’s better. I knew I had to look somber and dressed up, but I can’t stand these heels. I bought them at Payless at the mall, but they don’t—” She broke off. “You’re looking impatient. Sorry. You’re worried about Eve like the rest of us, and you’re in the dark. How can I help?”
“By shining some light,” she said curtly. “You’re right, I’m worried about Eve, and I’m not going to let that bastard kill her if there’s a chance of saving her. I have to know everything, dammit. Kendra said that you were the trigger that made her realize that perhaps Eve hadn’t been killed. How did you know that was possible?”
“Oh, it was more than possible,” Margaret said. “It was fact. I told Jane and Kendra that the night of the explosion, but they’re both cautious. They wanted to believe me, but they couldn’t bring themselves to raise their hopes until they had proof.” She beamed. “So I sent Kendra to use all that logic and deductive reasoning that she does so well to gather their proof. Didn’t she do a fine job?”
“Excellent. Now tell me how you knew that Eve’s being alive was a fact.”
She sighed. “Okay, here it comes.” She made a face. “There’s a wolf pack in those mountains, and wolves are usually easy for me to deal with. Not like a dog, but close enough.”
“What?”
“The pack is always on the hunt for food. Naturally, since they’re in the wild, they would have to be. When the wolves noticed Doane and Eve in the mountains, they were considering them for their next meal.”
“Where is this going?” Catherine was frowning. “I don’t want a nature lesson, Margaret.”
“But you want an answer from me. That’s what I’m giving you. For some reason, the wolves became intrigued by Doane.” Margaret tilted her head. “Peculiar. But you can never tell what a wolf will do. Anyway, they started tracking, shadowing him … and Eve. I asked if it was because of the food factor. But that wasn’t the reason, it was something else. Doane had to go away. It was important for him to go away.”