Chasing the Night - Iris Johansen [42]
“I didn’t break anything. I was just—” She shook her head. “I only wanted to help.”
“You should have asked me, and I would have told you not to—” She stopped as she looked down at the table. “Dear heavens.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Take it easy. I can see that you didn’t.” She was still staring at the bones on the worktable. “When we went to bed, Catherine had only a quarter of Cindy’s face put back together. Now you have at least two-thirds of it completed. How?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I needed something to do.” Kelly moistened her lips. “There was a program pulled up on the computer. It seemed clear what you wanted done.”
“So you did it.”
She nodded. “It wasn’t difficult. It was just a puzzle.”
A puzzle that would have taken Eve days to solve. A puzzle that Catherine had strained and worked at for a full day. “How long did it take you?”
She shrugged. “A couple hours, I guess. I don’t want to do anything that would make you angry. I won’t touch it again.”
“You shouldn’t have touched it to begin with.” She held up her hand as Kelly opened her lips to protest. “No, you didn’t do any harm, and you might have done some good. But that doesn’t mean you can interfere with my work without permission. That’s not going to happen. Understand?”
Kelly nodded. “I just had to do something to unwind. I thought your puzzle might wear me out. Sometimes they do.”
“And did it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Kelly hesitated. “It wasn’t hard enough,” she said simply.
And the girl had not wanted to hurt Eve’s feelings by telling her that that poor broken skull that had been a nightmare prospect to Eve had not even challenged her. “Catherine was finding it hard enough,” she said dryly. “And I wouldn’t have had an easy time of it.”
“Mr. Venable says you’re very clever,” she said politely. “I’m sure it’s just that I’m good at patterns.”
“Kelly, are you patronizing me?”
She frowned, distressed. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean that you—” She nibbled at her lower lip. “I said the wrong thing again. You can see why my mother doesn’t want to be around me.”
“No, I can’t see any such thing. My ego isn’t that fragile.”
Kelly smiled tentatively. “Sometimes I do off end people. It was terrible when I was younger. But even now I forget every now and then. I’m glad that you aren’t angry.”
“I’ll be mad as hell if I examine that skull and find that those shards don’t match exactly.”
“They’ll match.” She added quietly, “I’m never wrong, Eve.”
“And modest, too.”
She shook her head. “They tested me so many times. I hated it. But even when it seemed I might be wrong, in the end it always turned around. After a while, I refused to do it anymore. I didn’t want to know more than anyone else about what could happen.”
“Why not?”
“It could be…sad. Some patterns don’t lead to good endings. I didn’t want to think about it.” She glanced down at the bone fragments. “This wasn’t a good ending, but I can’t do anything about it. Except maybe give you something that you want. You were kind to me. I wanted to please you. I’m sorry it didn’t work out well.”
“It didn’t work out terribly either.” She smiled. “Now get to bed and get a few hours’ sleep. Joe has to leave for the precinct in an hour, and I’d like you to be asleep by the time he has to come through here.”
“I’m causing him trouble, too.”
“Inconvenience,” Eve corrected. “‘Trouble’ is too strong a word. It takes a lot for Joe to consider it trouble. He just can’t get a handle on the situation, and it makes him upset. Now jump into that fine bed I made up for you and try to keep yourself from working on Cindy’s bones.”
“Okay.” Kelly headed for the couch. “Are you going to tell Catherine?”
“Yes. I could hardly keep it secret once she saw the progress you’ve made.” She pulled up the blanket around Kelly’s shoulders. “It’s pretty clear you—” She stopped and gazed down at the girl. “Or is that the aim of this exercise? Did you want to give a little demonstration of how much you