Eve

by Iris Johansen

  “Shut up, Black.” Gallo’s voice was almost guttural. “I just came from seeing what you did to Judy’s daughter. She’s so terrified Catherine couldn’t get near her. She’s like a wild animal.”

  “But that was the purpose,” Black said. “The hunt wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining if she wasn’t sufficiently primed.”

  Joe jabbed him in the throat. Blood ran. Black flinched and began to curse.

  “Where did you bury Bonnie?” Joe was ignoring everything around him but his one objective.

  “Tell us,” Gallo said.

  Uneasiness had suddenly supplanted the mockery in Black’s gaze as it flew to Eve. “Torture? Aren’t you going to stop them?”

  “Did you stop when you killed all those children?” Eve said unevenly. “Did you stop when you killed Bonnie? I want to bring my daughter home. Tell me where you buried her after you killed her.”

  His lip curled. “Bitch. Gallo’s bitch. I should have killed you when I had the chance. You and your Bonnie and—” He broke off with a cry as Joe’s knife bit down again. “Okay, take him away. I’ll talk to you.”

  “Get off him, Joe,” Eve said.

  Joe had already swung off Black and moved a few feet away. “Not for long.”

  Black was staring malevolently at Eve even as he scooted back. “He doesn’t like to hear the truth. But you were Gallo’s bitch, and now you’re that bastard Quinn’s bitch. All of this is your fault. I wish I had—no!” Joe had made a motion toward him. He scrambled farther away from him. “You want to know about Bonnie. I’ll tell you about her. Such a pretty little girl. Different. I was practically salivating when I first saw her after I followed Gallo to your place. But the job I was being paid for was Gallo. I couldn’t move on her.”

  “But you did move on her later,” Gallo said. “Admit it.”

  “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” Black said softly. “You want the bitch to hear it.”

  “I have to hear it,” Eve said. “What difference does it make to you. You’re probably proud that you did it. Isn’t that what you’re all about? The killing and savagery and—”

  “Yes, I’m proud of my power.” He smiled, and his gaze never left Gallo. “And I have no need of Bonnie Duncan’s death to add to it. I don’t have to take credit for her anymore. Queen isn’t alive to pay any longer.”

  Gallo went rigid. “What are you saying?” he asked hoarsely.

  “What do you think I’m saying?” Black asked. “The truth, Gallo. Isn’t it time?”

  “And what is the truth, Black?” Eve asked.

  “I don’t know where your Bonnie is buried,” Black said. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Liar!” Gallo said.

  “Am I?” He shook his head. “You’re not going to be able to convince anyone of that.” His gaze darted to Eve. “Don’t you want to know who did kill her? I find I can’t wait to tell you.”

  Eve moistened her lips. “Who?”

  “Gallo.”

  Gallo made a low exclamation and lunged forward.

  Joe jumped up and stepped in front of him. “Stay where you are. I want to hear this.”

  “Gallo did it. A fit of madness. One of his blackout periods. Queen said he was always having them.” Black’s words were coming fast, tipped with venom. “He came back to Atlanta after Pakistan. He killed her.”

  “No!” Gallo said. “I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

  “You did kill her. Can’t you all see it? Look at Gallo’s face.”

  They were looking at Gallo’s face, and what Eve saw there stunned her.

  Anger. Fear. Torment.

  “Shit. Stop!” Gallo’s gaze was the only one focused on Black, and he tried to push Joe aside. “His boot. He’s going for—”

  But Black had already retrieved a dagger from his boot holster and staggered to his feet.

  Joe half turned, but it was too late. Black’s dagger sank into Joe’s back.

  Eve screamed.

  Joe was staggering back, slowly falling to his knees.

  “Oh, God.” Eve ran forward and sank to her knees in front of him, trying to hold him. “No.” It couldn’t be happening. “No, Joe…”

  Black was running for the rifle on the ground a few yards away. He didn’t reach it before Gallo was on him.

  Gallo’s arm went around his neck, jerking it back. “Say it’s a lie, you bastard.”

  “You did it.” He was straining to get the rifle. “You know you—”

  Gallo’s arm tightened and twisted, breaking Black’s neck.

  He fell to the ground, dead.

  “Eve.”

  Eve was hardly aware that Gallo had spoken. She was carefully laying Joe on the ground.

  Her fingers were checking the pulse on his throat. Alive!

  Relief surged through her. But unconscious. Going into shock. The blood pouring from his chest. How long would he stay alive?

  “Eve.” Gallo was beside her now. “I need to—”

  She ignored him as she reached for her phone and called Catherine. “Joe’s hurt. We’re going to need an air ambulance. I hope he doesn’t die before it gets here. Come and help me.” She hung up.

  “Let me help you, Eve.”

  She didn’t look at him. “You can’t help me.” She was trying to stop the blood. “I can’t even look at you right now. I’ll deal with you later.”

  Pressure. She had to apply pressure. But what if the blade had torn an organ?

  “You think I killed her.”

  “I think Black was telling the truth,” she said unevenly.

  Gallo was silent for an agonized moment. “So do I.”

  When she glanced up, he was gone.

  It was all a hideous nightmare.

  Oh, Joe, why did you come?

  I knew it would happen.

  Why didn’t you let me go?

  “Eve.” Catherine dropped to her knees beside Joe. “I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have left you to go after Cara.” She was examining the wound. “It’s bad.”

  “I know,” Eve whispered. “I don’t know how bad.”

  “Neither do I. I called for help, but I don’t know how long they’ll be. We need bandages, blankets. We have to get him warm. He’s still wet from the lake.”

  “He swam the lake?”

  “He would have swum the Atlantic to get to you.” She took off her jacket and wrapped it around Joe. “I’m going to hike to the cabin and get some supplies. I have to take Cara with me and tuck her in there until the ambulance comes. She’s waiting on the path. I would have been here sooner, but I had to coax her into coming with me. She was like a frightened animal. She’s sort of shell-shocked, but I was finally able to convince her she was safe now.” She jumped to her feet. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “I’ll know it.” She was stripping her own jacket off to help form a makeshift blanket. “Why did you do it, Catherine? Why bring him here?”

  “Blame me, if you like, but he wasn’t going to have it any other way. I could at least keep an eye on him if he was with me. I did what I thought best.” She looked down at Black. “Joe killed him?”

  “Gallo.”

  “Where is Gallo?”

  “Gone.”

  “Why did— You can tell me about it later. I have to get to that cabin.”

  Eve didn’t watch her leave; her gaze was on Joe’s face. She lay down beside him, her hand keeping pressure on the wound while she cuddled close to try to share her body heat.

  “You’re going to be fine, Joe,” she whispered. “You can’t leave me. You’ve got to get well and strong and let me tell you how much I love you. No, that’s all for me. Get well so that you can live life to the fullest, be what you want, take what you like.”

  He didn’t stir.

  Was he growing colder?

  Panic was rising, and she held him tighter.

  “Live, Joe. Hold on…”

  St. Joseph’s Hospital

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

/>   “Open your eyes. Coffee,” Catherine said.

  Eve opened her eyes and straightened in the waiting-room chair. She took the Styrofoam cup. “Thanks.”

  “Though maybe I shouldn’t have bothered you if you were dozing.” Catherine sat down beside Eve. “You’ve been living in this room for almost two days.”

  “I wasn’t dozing. I just wanted to close everything out for a while.” Stark, shining corridors, doctors, nurses, worried family members.

  Joe in ICU.

  Death hovering, ready to reach out and take him.

  “No word yet?” Catherine asked quietly.

  Eve shook her head. “Still critical. They don’t know whether he’s going to live or not.” Her hand clenched on the steel arm of the chair. “I know. He can’t die, Catherine. Not for me. Not because I won’t let my Bonnie go. He’s so strong. He should live to be an old, old man. If I hadn’t come into his life, he would have.”

  “We all make choices.” Catherine took a drink of her coffee. “Joe chose you. He didn’t regret it. The first time I saw you with him, I realized you had something special together. If there were bad times, then he thought the good times balanced them out. That’s all anyone can ask.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Eve said fiercely. “You can ask for the best, the ultimate, if you care about someone. That’s what Joe should have.” Then she wearily leaned back against the wall. “But I couldn’t give it to him.”

  “Your coffee is getting cold,” Catherine said. “Stop all this emotion and drink it. You need the caffeine if you’re going to spend any more time here.”

  That was like Catherine, Eve thought. Blunt, authoritative, cut to the chase. But on occasion she could be as warm and comforting as a hand-stitched blanket passed down through loving generations. Lord, she was glad she’d had Catherine beside her for the last few days.

  She lifted her cup to her lips and tasted it. “It’s not cold yet.” She asked, “How is Cara?”

  “Short-term, fine. No physical damage but a few scratches. I hired a nice motherly woman who had nursing experience to take care of her in a small house near St. Louis County Hospital. Judy Clark is getting better, and Cara will be able to go to see her mother every day. I think that’s what she needs.” She grimaced. “Long-term, who knows? She’s going to have nightmares for the rest of her life thanks to Black.”

  “Love can do a lot to heal wounds. I’ll bet on Judy Clark to bring her through this.” She didn’t speak for a moment. She took another sip of coffee. “Have the police found John Gallo yet?”

  “No, it’s as if he disappeared off the face of the earth.” She paused before saying, “You haven’t spoken about Gallo since the first day we got Joe to the hospital. I didn’t know how you were feeling, so I didn’t want to push you. Is there anything you didn’t tell me? I will find him, Eve.”

  “No, I told you that he as much as confessed to killing Bonnie.” She looked down into her cup. “A fit of madness, Black called it. I don’t think John even remembered it.” Then the rage returned, sweeping reason aside. “But how could he not remember? It was Bonnie.” She fought to control herself. She was on the edge of spiraling into an emotional tailspin about Joe, and she didn’t need thoughts of Gallo to push her over. “I didn’t want to believe it. Isn’t that stupid?” she said unevenly. “Yet there have been so many times that I realized he wasn’t— For God’s sake, he even told me he’d had moments of madness. I just couldn’t connect it with Bonnie. Not after I grew to know him better.”

  “And he managed to con you. I can see how he would be able to do that.” Catherine frowned. “But why would Queen bribe Black to take the blame?”

  Eve rubbed her eyes, trying to think. It was hard to concentrate on anything but Joe. “Let’s see, Gallo was unstable. If he’d found out that he’d killed his own daughter, he might have broken down and gone ballistic. He knew too much, and Queen had to maintain at least minimal control of him. He didn’t want Gallo thrown into an asylum, where he’d probably spill everything. So he set up Black as the patsy for John to blame and hunt down. It was safe as long as Queen kept Black just out of John’s reach.”

  “But then there was a glitch, and Black and Gallo were brought into firing range of each other.” Catherine nodded. “It makes sense.” She glanced at Eve. “And you’re angry as hell.”

  “Yes, and I’ll be more angry when I can manage to feel more than token emotions for anything but Joe. I’m pretty much on automatic right now.” She took another sip of coffee. “I felt sorry for him. I think I wanted to help him. He made me feel … I don’t know. Or maybe I can’t explain. It all had to do with Bonnie.”

  “But that’s all gone now?”

  “I hope it is. I can’t be sure. But it doesn’t matter if it is or not.” Her voice hardened. “The anger is stronger. The sense of outrage is overwhelming. The bitterness … I can’t even tell you about that. I’ll be able to do what I have to do.”

  “Forget it. Just focus on Joe. I told you, I’ll find Gallo.” Her lips tightened. “And if he’s as good as Queen said, he may be too much for me to bring him back to you alive. Wouldn’t that be just too bad?”

  “Yes, it would. You’ve done enough for me, Catherine. Just find him. That’s all I ask.” Eve finished the coffee. “Caffeine fix accomplished. Are you satisfied?”

  “For the time being. Now what else can I do for you?”

  Eve smiled crookedly. “You mean besides killing Gallo and laying him on my doorstep? I meant what I said, Catherine.”

  “I know you did.” She paused. “And have you forgiven me for bringing Joe with me to Gallo’s property that night?”

  “Don’t be idiotic. I knew you couldn’t stop him. If you hadn’t brought him, he’d have found another way.” She added, “And there is something else you can do for me. My daughter, Jane MacGuire, is flying in to Milwaukee in a few hours. Will you pick her up and get her settled? Then bring her here to the hospital.”

  “I expected her to be here before this.”

  “I didn’t want to tell her about Joe while he was in surgery. She couldn’t do anything, and I wanted to give her good news when I told her. But there wasn’t good news.” Her voice was starting to break, and she had to stop and steady it. “He’s still in that damn ICU, and he won’t wake up.”

  “Eve.” Catherine’s hand gently touched her shoulder. “He has a chance.”

  “Not a good one. All the doctors think he’s going to die. I can tell. They’re so damn nice to me.”

  “Yeah, that’s a pretty good indication.”

  “You think I’m being ridiculous.” She sounded that way to herself, too. “Maybe I am. I feel so helpless. They brought in all those specialists, and they can’t do anything. Someone should be able to do something. I even called my friend, Megan, and asked her to send a healer she knows up here. But he’s working in Africa right now, and wouldn’t be able to break away and get here in time.”

  “Healer?” Catherine asked warily. “Some kind of witch doctor?”

  Eve probably shouldn’t have mentioned Megan and the healer. But Megan had confidence in him, and that was enough for Eve. “What the hell do I care? As long as he can save Joe. I’d hire a voodoo priest and furnish him with a snake and a doll.” She put her cup down on the coffee table. “I’m going to go to ICU now. They won’t let me go inside. They only allow you a short visit every couple hours. But I can stand in the hall and look at Joe through the windows.” She got to her feet. “They even try to discourage me from doing that for long periods of time. They say it’s not good for me, and they don’t want another patient.” She headed toward the door. “As if that would matter. But they’re the ones who take care of Joe. I don’t want to cause any disturbance that might take their focus off him.” She paused and looked back over her shoulder. “You’ll pick up Jane?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “It’s British Airlines—8 P.M.”

  “Got it.” She stood up. “And it would
matter if you get so exhausted you break down. It would matter to me. It would matter to Jane. And it would damn well matter to Joe. So don’t do it. We’ll get through this.”

  Eve nodded. “I know we will.” She didn’t know, but she prayed. “Call me if there’s any problem with Jane’s flight.”

  She walked down the corridor toward ICU.

  Soon she would be able to see Joe again. He’d be pale and drawn, his features appearing as cleanly carved and beautiful as the visage on a tomb. It would scare her to death as it always did to see him like that.

  But it scared her more not to see him and to imagine him slipping away with her not by his side.

  That was where she should always be. Next to Joe.

  If God would let him stay with her. And if Joe still wanted her if he did come back. The memory of that last day at the lake house was suddenly before her. His eyes looking down at her as she sat in the swing.

  “I can’t be easy. It’s not my nature. But it’s my nature to love you.”

  And it was her nature to love Joe.

  She had reached the ICU and braced herself as she walked slowly to the glass window.

  Please, be better, Joe. Be awake. At least, have more color.

  “Hello, Ms. Duncan.” The ICU nurse, Karen Norton, was coming out of the ICU unit. “May I get you anything?”

  “Yes, permission to go sit with him.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not visiting hours.” She hesitated. “But the doctor said that maybe we should ignore the visiting hours and just let you go to him. Dr. Jarlin wants to talk to you.”

  She stiffened, her heart leaping. “He’s better?”

  The nurse shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said quickly. “Dr. Jarlin will talk to you.”

  Fear surged through Eve. “You talk to me, dammit. He’s worse?”

  The nurse was looking at her with that same sympathy and kindness that struck terror into her heart. “Dr. Jarlin will talk to you. I’ll call him and tell him that you’re concerned.” She hurried back toward the nurses’ station.

  Concerned? She was sick with fear.