Bonnie - Iris Johansen [52]
“Fine. Confused, a little scared. But I’ll get through it.”
“You always do.” He didn’t speak again for a moment. “I don’t like the way this is playing out. I want to come to you.”
“Not yet.” She wanted to see him, too. It didn’t seem right that she wasn’t working beside him toward finding Bonnie. Yet it had been her choice, and she had to stick with it. But it was damn difficult.
“There’s no reason,” Joe said roughly. “Tell Gallo that we’re going to find his uncle no matter what he does. I’m not going to let him find him first, so that he can decide whether or not he wants to keep him away from us. Danner is a prime suspect, and there’s not going to be a cover-up.”
“You know I wouldn’t let that happen.” She was watching Gallo’s face. All the torment and uncertainty had faded, and his face was hard and without expression. What was he thinking? Whatever it was, she had to find out. “I have to go, Joe. Let me know what you learn from Donnelly’s cousin.”
“Eve, I mean it. I don’t trust Gallo, and you shouldn’t either. I need to be there with you.”
“You will be. I love you.” She hung up the phone. She studied Gallo for a moment. He had closed himself away from her, and she wasn’t sure how to reach him. “Joe seems to have hopes of a breakthrough if he finds out where Donnelly is right now. Do you think that your uncle would have confided in this psychiatrist?”
“How can I be sure?” Gallo shrugged. “The man you tell me he’s become isn’t the Ted Danner I know. You’re looking at this with an objectivity that I don’t possess.”
“Objectivity?” She shook her head. “What the hell do you mean? This is about Bonnie. There’s no way I could ever be objective about Bonnie’s murderer.”
“Listen to you, you’ve already convicted him,” he said fiercely. “You’re wrong. He wouldn’t have killed a child.”
“I hope not, for your sake.” She glanced away from him. “But we have to figure out a few things before we can even delve into what he’d do or not do. How did he make a connection with Jacobs and Queen? Did you write to him and tell him that you’d been contacted by them to go into North Korea on a special mission?”
“No. As you know, Jacobs and Queen were in Army Intelligence, and they told me it was top secret.” His lips twisted. “I had no idea what a dirty secret it was going to turn out to be. Drugs and smuggling instead of saving the world from nuclear proliferation. I was a fool.”
“How could you know Jacobs and Queen were criminals? They deceived the Army for years.” She went back to the main subject. “If you didn’t tell him about Jacobs, how did he find out about them?”
“I don’t know. My uncle was sharp. He’d been a Ranger for years, and he had contacts with all kinds of brass in different departments of the Army. People liked him, trusted him. Maybe he found out that Jacobs and Queen sent me on that mission.”
“And that would make him angry. He was very protective of you, wasn’t he?”
“Of course he was,” Gallo said curtly. “He got used to trying to keep me safe from my dad. But that doesn’t mean he’d go after a superior officer just for sending me on a dangerous mission. Why would he? He knew being a Ranger was risky. When I told him I wanted to join the service, he tried to talk me out of it.”
“But you wanted to follow in his footsteps. He must have felt terribly responsible when he thought you’d been killed on your first mission.”
“And you’re saying that sent him off his rocker?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe not. I remember when Danner told me that you’d been killed, he was very bitter against the Army and anyone else who might have been guilty of contributing to sending you to your death. So he might not have been as philosophical as you think about accepting the risks of your being a Ranger.”
Gallo was shaking his head.
Lord, he was stubborn. But how could she blame him when she was forcing him to look at his uncle in a completely different way than he ever had before. Tough.