Chasing the Night - Iris Johansen [17]
“Who hasn’t? The father was murdered, you saved the girl.”
“Catherine saved the girl.”
“And you gave her the file?”
“I kept my word. The director was more concerned with getting the Winters father and daughter free. The Rakovac connection has been disintegrating lately.” He paused. “He’s becoming unstable.”
“And where does that leave that poor kid?”
“I gave Catherine the file. I can’t do anything else at the moment. We haven’t entirely distanced ourselves from Rakovac yet. Although we know that he’s left his penthouse apartment in Moscow and gone undercover. It would be better if Catherine stayed out of it until we see fit to make a final break.”
“Better for you. Not better for Luke or Catherine. I can’t blame her for being frantic to move now.”
“Neither can I. But I can’t help her to do it. I have to act for the good of the big picture.”
“Screw the big picture.”
He was silent a moment. “You’re going to help her?”
“I haven’t made up my mind. Though for heaven’s sake someone should be helping her.”
“That was aimed at me,” he said. “If you decide to help her, limit it, Eve. Rakovac is an ugly customer, and he won’t take kindly to you getting in his way.”
Getting in the way of the viciousness of a man who would kidnap a two-year-old and keep him prisoner for nine years? “She only wants me to do an age progression. She doesn’t trust your people.”
“Imagine that,” he said wearily. “Not that I blame her. But she’s a desperate woman, and she’ll take whatever from you she has to take to find her son. Watch yourself, Eve.” He hung up.
She slowly pressed the disconnect button and stood gazing out at the sunlight glittering on the lake.
If she’d hoped to find a reason to throw Catherine out of the cottage, Venable had not given it to her. He’d only shown her a woman surrounded by an ideology where almost everything and everyone was expendable. She had told Eve the truth, and every action she had taken was perfectly reasonable. Eve would have done the same thing in Catherine’s place. Any mother would give up whatever she had to surrender to protect her child.
But Eve had her own life, her own priorities. She didn’t even know if she could help Catherine. Should she become involved in trying to—
“Of course, you can help her. Why are you fretting like this, Mama?”
Bonnie.
She glanced at the porch swing and saw her little girl in the Bugs Bunny T-shirt curled up with her legs beneath her. The sun was shining on her mop of red curls, and her smile was brilliant as that sun. Eve felt her heart warming as it always did when Bonnie came to her. She was always as real to Eve as the last day she had seen her.
“You don’t know that I can help her, Miss Smarty. I’m not that good on age progression.”
“No, but she has the right idea. You do make a connection.” She suddenly chuckled. “It was funny that she was so quick to say that she didn’t mean anything weird. People are so afraid that others are going to think they’re not totally grounded in reality.”
“It’s always so strange to hear you talking like this. So grown-up…”
“I told you once that I couldn’t stay seven forever. Nothing stands still, not even where I am.” She smiled. “But you probably forgot it and are in denial because that idea is a little weird, too.”
“Denying what isn’t real is what keeps us sane, baby.”
“You’re sane, and yet you’ve accepted that a ghost comes and visits you.”
Her ghost, her beloved spirit, her Bonnie. “That’s different.”
Bonnie nodded. “And it took you long enough to accept that I wasn’t a dream or a hallucination or whatever. It’s much more comfortable now, isn’t it?”
“It will be comfortable when I can bring you home and find the bastard who killed you.”
“Comfortable for you. I’m content right now.” She leaned back in the swing. “It’s over for me, Mama.