Bonnie - Iris Johansen [102]
He reached out and gently touched her tear-wet cheek. “I have to do it, Eve.” Then he turned and moved through the brush.
* * *
JOE DREW A DEEP BREATH as he savagely punched the button to disconnect the call. He felt angry and helpless, and he wanted to tear the phone apart.
“Joe?” Father Barnabas was gazing at him across the campfire. “Eve?”
“Yes.” He had to think. But he was so torn up inside that he was having to try to calm down and try to be objective. Objective? Hell, no. “Danner let her make the call. It was a good-bye, have-a-nice-life call. I’m going to kill him. And there’s no way you’re going to stop me, Father.”
“No, that has to come from you.” He glanced at Ben, sleeping a few yards away. “You made him a promise.”
“I said I’d try. I didn’t say—” He closed his eyes. “I’m ready to explode. I can’t let him do this to me. I have to go over what she said. Eve’s smart and wouldn’t have wasted time just to tell me good-bye.”
“Was it a waste?” the priest said gently.
Eve’s voice telling him she loved him, telling him that their life together had given meaning to hers.
“God, no.” He opened his eyes. “But she would still have concentrated on finding a way to beat Danner if there was a way. She’d try to tell me where she was or where she was going.” He grabbed his notebook from his pocket. “Give me a minute. I want to put down everything she said word for word and see if I can see anything.”
You’ve been my friend, my lover, my salvation.
His hand was shaking as he wrote. Steady it. Don’t think of those words that meant so much, Eve who meant more than life. Search for something else.
“Anything?” Father Barnabas asked.
“Nothing. But there has to be—” He stopped. “Maybe … Here she said for me to pay attention, that it was important.”
Fate brought us together that day when you came to my house to try to find my Bonnie. And it’s fate that’s tearing us apart now. We’ve got to accept it.
“Accept what? Accept fate. That may be the key word.” Lord, he was reaching. But he was desperate, dammit.
“But to unlock what door?” the priest asked.
“I don’t know.” Okay, clear his mind of emotion and think coolly and analytically. Probe deeper. Investigate.
He grabbed his iPhone and pulled up the dictionary app. Meaning of fate. Destiny. Fortune. Chance. Providence. Luck.
He called Catherine. “Did you get Venable to zero in closer on that entire ridge area?”
“Yes, it just came in.”
“Give me the names of towns or tourist sites anywhere near it.”
“Narrow it down. What are you looking for?”
“Fate.”
She was silent. “No Fate. Americas, Lumpkin, Providence, Eufaula.”
“Providence?” His heart was pounding as he glanced down at his thesaurus list. “I think that’s it.”
“What?”
“I’d bet that Danner will be taking her to Providence.”
“Why? On what authority?”
“Eve.”
She inhaled sharply. “You talked to her?”
“She got Danner to let her call and say good-bye.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, but she’s still alive. And we know where she’s going.”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t need skepticism, Catherine. I’ve got to believe that’s what she was trying to tell me.”
“And I hope you’re right. I just pulled up the info on Providence. It’s your Grand Canyon area. Providence National Park. That’s a sizable acreage, and it can be entered from any number of directions. If we don’t get to him before he gets to it, we’re going to have a hell of a time. I’ll keep after Danner and hope to get a visual on him before or when he enters the canyon so I can call you and let you know an approximate location.” She paused. “And I’ll call Gallo and tell him that they’re probably heading for Providence.”
“Call? He’s not with you?”
“No, we split up. He was going to find a car and truck and drive to the area you told us about. He called me an hour ago and