“Curiosity? I’m very inquisitive. It’s my nature, and while I was in prison, it was developed into a fine art form. She’s very beautiful. She resembles you. I found that odd since you’re not related.”
“Coincidence. But you didn’t talk to her? Ask her questions?”
He shook his head. “I just stayed in the background and watched and listened.” He paused. “Just as I did with you.”
“Why?” Her voice vibrated with intensity. “Were you ashamed? Was it guilt?”
“There’s always guilt.” He stood up. “We’re all flawed, some more than others.” He smiled down at her. “And I’m the most flawed man you’ll probably ever run across. I was starting down that path when we came together, and I went into overdrive after I left you.” He headed for the door. “Bill Hanks will take you to your room. I’ve confiscated your phone, and you’ll find the house phones won’t work without a code inserted.”
“I want my phone. I need to call Joe Quinn. I won’t have him worried. You can monitor the call if you like.”
“Oh, yes, Joe Quinn.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m very interested in that relationship. I think I need to explore it.”
“And does that mean I can’t call him?”
“It might complicate things. You can join me for dinner in an hour, and we’ll talk some more. Or you can stay in your room, and I’ll come to you.”
Another stone wall.
“Who is this Bill Hanks?”
“He’s my head of security, companion, chess partner, whatever. His job description is ‘as designated.’” He stopped at the door. “But he’s very loyal. You’ll not be able to convince him to help you leave until I give the order to let you go.”
“I’ll find a way when I’m ready.” She stared him in the eye. “And that’s not yet. You haven’t answered any of my questions.”
“I answered the important one. You’re just not sure you believe me.”
“The only way I can start to do that is to know more about you. I didn’t have spies, peering behind bushes and invading my daughter’s gallery shows. We have to be even.”
“You always insisted on that.” He opened the door. “I’ll answer everything I can. Feel free to ask Bill anything you like. I’ll tell him that he’s not to feel he has to protect me. It goes with the territory with him. He’s been with me a long time.”
She hesitated. “In Korea?”
“Only the last part of my stay in that fine hotel. That’s why I trust him. He avoided the final indignity.” He smiled. “He’s not crazy like me.”
She stared at the door as it closed behind him. She was as confused and frustrated as she’d been when wakened a little while ago. She had to know more, dammit. He was holding out bits of information like carrots before a donkey.
But he had said that it had not been he who had killed her Bonnie. It might be foolish to follow her instincts and believe him, but it was happening.
And she was profoundly grateful. That would have been the ultimate horror.
But he might still have been involved in some way. She had to find out. She had to know what he knew.
“Ms. Duncan?” A short, stocky man was standing in the doorway. He was fiftyish, with short sandy hair and pale blue eyes. “I’m Bill Hanks.” His smile was warm and broad. “May I take you to your room? John said you’d like to freshen up.”
Eve got to her feet. No dizziness. No aftereffects from the sedative. John had spoken the truth. “Thank you. How courteous of him. After a kidnapping, it’s always nice to have TLC.”
Hanks chuckled. “I imagine it’s difficult to compare kidnappings, but this one is top-grade. John insisted that we do it right. It wasn’t easy. We knew from Queen’s reports that you were expecting the FedEx skull, but FedEx is a very efficient company. It was dicey stealing that truck from the lot when John decided he wanted to move quickly.”
“Queen was monitoring my activities that closely?”
“If he hadn’t been, John wouldn’t have been pleased. Queen doesn’t like to displease John.” He stepped aside and gestured for her to precede him into the hall. “It usually has repercussions.”
“What kind of repercussions?”
“Unpleasant,” Hanks said vaguely.
So Hanks wasn’t going to be entirely frank with her after all. She’d have to push until she hit a wall, then keep on pushing.
Hanks indicated a painting on the wall. “John said you’d want to see the painting. It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”
And it was definitely one of Jane’s. Though she recognized the brushstrokes and technique, it wasn’t a painting with which Eve was familiar. It was a forest wreathed thickly in mists, and it was both mysterious and terribly lonely. “Very good.”
“She called it Lost,” Hanks said. “John said that she got it right.” He was leading her down the shining cherrywood-paneled hall. “I think he would have bought it even if it hadn’t been painted by your daughter. He said you adopted her when she was ten?”
“Or she adopted me. We’ve never been entirely sure how it came about.”
“She’s very young to be so successful.”
“Yes.” She added deliberately, “But it’s not Jane I want to talk about.” She glanced around the hall. “This is quite a place. Luxurious. John Gallo has money now?”
Hanks nodded. “He always says that money has more power than an AK-47. He made sure that he was stocked with that particular ammunition.”
“And how did he get it?”
“He made the U.S. government pay generously for his six years in prison. Then he took the money and did a tour of gambling casinos around the world and ran up his cash reserve into the stratosphere by counting cards.”
She frowned. “How did he do that?”
“Card counting? He taught himself in prison. He was always smart, and he had a lot of time on his hands. It kept his brain sharp. It was real bad there.” He paused. “And it was one of the ways he kept himself from hanging himself in that cell.”
She could picture his desperation, the searching for anything to occupy the mind and replace the horror surrounding him. “I see.”
“No, you don’t,” Hanks said baldly. “You can’t. I was only in that place for five months before John took me with him when he escaped. I’ll never forget it. The smell, the heat, the pain. I still wake up in a sweat. And John was in there six years.”
She was silent, trying to understand the scope of that horror. “He told me … he’s crazy. Is it true?”
Hanks didn’t answer directly. “Aren’t there times when we’re all a little crazy?”
“You’re dodging. He said you might try to protect him.”
“He has … moments. Uncontrollable fits of rage that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. John said that those fits are like those he’s read about in histories of the Vikings. Berserker. They don’t come as often these days.”
“And Queen and Army Intelligence know about them, too?”
“Yes; in the beginning, they encouraged them.”
Her eyes widened. “Why would they do that?”
“They aided his performance.” He stopped before a bedroom door and turned to face her. “After he got out of prison, they were still trying to use him. They sent him out on missions that involved assassination or extraction of personnel from hostage situations.” His lips twisted. “He was very good at it. Picture Rambo on speed. And that berserker bullet could cause him to go into almost superhuman overdrive.”
“They knew he had mental problems, and they still sent him out?”
“John thought they probably wanted to get him killed with the least amount of trouble. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter if he lived or died. During that period, right after he escaped Korea, he had a bloodlust that wouldn’t stop. All he wanted was the opportunity to vent it.”
Bloodlust. Berserker. And that period right after he’d gotten out of prison was when Bonnie had been taken.
“I
can see you drawing into yourself,” Hanks said quietly. “You wanted to know. He told me to tell you.”
“When did he stop working for them?”
“After a couple years. Maybe he worked it out of his system. Or maybe he managed to heal himself. They sure weren’t going to do it for him.”
“But he evidently still has a connection with them.”
“Yes, but now the tables are turned. They don’t use John, he uses them.”
“And why do they allow it?”
He shrugged. “That you’ll have to ask him. I’ve never discussed it with John. There are some things I’d rather not know. It’s safer for me. If I had to guess, I’d say he knows where a few very dangerous bodies are buried. At any rate, Queen jumps when John snaps his fingers.” He opened the door. “If you need anything, give me a call.”
“How? I don’t know your blasted codes.”
He smiled. “I won’t be far. John said that I was to take care of you.”
“And keep me from escaping?”
His smile faded. “It will only be for a little while. I think you’re safe.”
“Think? What if I’m not?”
Hanks didn’t answer.
“John said you were loyal. That covers criminal activities? Why? Does he pay you that well?”
“He took me out of that prison. He didn’t have to do it. I had a shattered leg and a fever. He had to carry me a good portion of the way to the coast. He would have been safer on his own.” He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m loyal.”
That couldn’t be more obvious. John had clearly bought that loyalty in a way that would ensure that it was unbreakable.
“Any more questions?” Bill was smiling again. “Last chance.”
“One more.” She met his gaze, bracing herself. “Were you in Atlanta with John that month before my daughter was taken?”
He shook his head. “I was still in a hospital in Tokyo. They practically had to rebuild my leg. I didn’t hook up with him until almost a year later.”
“But you knew about her?”
“No, John never spoke about her or you until later. I never even knew he had a kid. The first I heard of your Bonnie was years later, when he was pressuring Queen to keep a dossier on you.”
“You weren’t curious?”
“John sets limits, and I don’t step across the line. You might follow my example.”
Her lips twisted. “Or he might go berserk?”
He turned away. “It hasn’t happened for a long time. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen.” He was moving down the hall. “The dining room is back the way we came and to the right. John has a great cook he hired away from a casino in Las Vegas. Those clothes on the bed are a loan from her. You’re a little thinner than she is, but they should come close.”
Eve glanced at the worn jeans and oversized black sweatshirt with MIRAGE CASINO emblazoned in white. “They should be okay. Thank her for me.”
“Thank her yourself. Judy’s not shy about making her presence known. But she makes terrific Mexican fajitas.” He slanted her a smile. “And she’s very loyal to John, too.”
“Did he break her out of prison, too? I thought you said he hired her from a casino.”
“He did. But there are all kinds of prisons, aren’t there? She had a three-year-old and an abusive husband. John sent the husband packing and brought Judy and the kid here where she couldn’t be bothered.”
Eve stood in the doorway and watched him disappear down the hall. Bill Hanks had been a treasure trove of information, but he had not alleviated her uneasiness. John Gallo might have become a man who deserved gratitude and loyalty in some quarters, but he was also an assassin and a man prone to violent fits of passion. She was still feeling the chill that had shaken her when Hanks had told her of those berserker episodes.
Get over it. She had told Gallo she would not be afraid of him. She had to work her way through any fear and get to the truth.
She turned, closed the door, and glanced around her. Comfortable, even elegant room, oak furniture, black watch plaid coverlet on the king bed, a bouquet of intricate brown twigs in a gold vase on the carved chest. The décor had Western elements, but it was definitely not a designer room. It appeared too strong, too individual. She glanced at the plaid coverlet on the bed.
A red plaid blanket on the grass of the reservoir.
Too John Gallo.
She looked away and went to the wide window across the room. The sun was going down behind the mountains, and the terrain was spectacular. The red of the rock spiked with the verdant fir and pines made it appear that the scenery she was looking at was on some exotic and distant planet. It came as a slight shock to see that there were wrought-iron gates barricading the house from the wildness of the terrain beyond.
Barricades. She would have thought that John would shun any kind of enclosure after that Korean prison. But the wrought iron was open and airy. Maybe that was a compromise he’d had to make. But why was the house barricaded at all? Who was he trying to keep out?
She turned away and headed for the door across the room that presumably led to a bathroom. She needed to shower and to think. She had been caught up with John Gallo, but there were other problems to consider. Even if Catherine had not told Joe about Gallo’s phone call, he would know that something had happened to her. She would never have just gone off and let Joe worry.
And what about Catherine? She had been joking about Catherine to the rescue, but Catherine would instinctively move to help her.
Dammit, Gallo had caused her a monumental headache by acting with such arrogant recklessness. And that headache had nothing to do with the knockout drops he’d given her. She had to find a way to contact Joe and make sure he knew that she was safe and avoid any overt action.
Fat chance. Joe never avoided any action if there was a chance he could take the game. He was already on edge, and this idiotic move of Gallo’s would be the spur. And how could she convince him she was safe when she wasn’t sure herself? Bringing her to this place had not been rational, and it was clear even Gallo’s friend wasn’t certain that he had come all the way back from that period of madness.
And if he hadn’t, then she’d deal with it. Gallo was her problem and no one else’s.
She couldn’t let that madness hurt Joe.
* * *
THE ROOM LOOKED MORE LIKE a library than a dining room, Eve thought as she paused in the arched doorway. The walls were lined with as many bookshelves as the study had been. A fireplace trimmed in copper added to the ambience.
“Hurry and sit down.” John Gallo rose to his feet from his chair at the head of the table. “Judy has been fretting about her fajitas getting cold. She’s a perfectionist about temperature.”
“Judy?” Oh yes, Hanks had mentioned John’s cook. “Heaven forbid I disturb any of your employees. She obviously rules the roost.”
“Food is important.” He seated Eve, then sat down again. “I found that out while I was in prison. It’s amazing how deprivation fine-tunes one’s appreciation of things we generally take for granted.”
“Deprivation?” The question had just tumbled out. She had not meant to ask him any questions about that period.
“I was a skeleton when I got out.” He shrugged. “But I managed to keep muscle tone. I exercised for hours every day to make sure that I’d be ready to act when I got the chance.”
“Evidently that chance came.” She looked around the room. “I like this room. It has a sort of subtle richness. It’s the kind of place where you’d want to linger and talk.”
His gaze followed hers to the bookshelves lining the room and she was surprised to see pride and affection in his expression. “I like it, too. I made the entire house into a haven. When I knew you, I had no use for havens, but that changed.”
“You must like books. I don’t remember that about you. I can’t recall you ever mentioning it.”
He chuckled. “Not surprising. We didn’t do much talking, did we?”
“No.” She veered immediately away from that implied intimacy. “And I didn’t know much about you in any area.”
“At the time, I was more interested in physical than mental exercises.” He held up his hand as he saw her expression. “I’m not talking about sex. I always had too much energy, and my uncle Ted managed to channel it by teaching me everything he had learned in the Rangers.”
She nodded. “Rick Larazo. I remember you saying something about it.”
His brows rose. “You have a good memory.”
And she didn’t want him to know that more was coming back to her all the time. She picked up her water glass. “It comes and goes. What about the books?”
“Another form of starvation. It actually was more intense because after a while, physical hunger diminishes. The mind doesn’t give up so easily. I stole a Bible, a book of verses, and a copy of The Encyclopedia of Mythology from the effects of one of the prisoners who died in my cell. They weren’t enough, but I was able to hone my memory and managed to develop other outlets.”
“Like card counting?”
“One of the more profitable. There were others that were more abstract, but I—” He broke off as a small, thin woman in jeans and a denim shirt came into the room. “You’re late, Judy. Here I’ve been bragging about your—”
“I’m never late.” She plopped the two huge covered dishes down on the table. “I had to wait until you got in here to start cooking. If you’d been in here on time, I might have had a head start, but how—” She stopped and tilted her head, studying Eve. “I’ve seen your photo before. And you’re sure no movie star like he sometimes brings here. No offense. These days movie stars don’t have to be glamour queens, but you don’t look—”
“Judy Clark, Eve Duncan,” John said. “And Eve is a star in her own realm.”
“Skulls.” Judy snapped her fingers. “You do something with skulls.”
“Reconstruction,” Eve said. “Definitely no glamour.”
Judy nodded. “But solid work, good work. I have a six-year-old little girl myself. I don’t know what I’d do if my Cara disappeared. I remember thinking that it probably made those parents feel better that they at least know, Ms. Duncan.”
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