“And you’re leaving us to our own devices?” Trevor asked. “Boredom can be dangerous.”
“That sounds more like Caleb than you.”
“I have my moments.” He smiled. “Remember?”
Yes, she remembered all of those moments that had been charged with adventure and sex and a thousand other emotions that had made life full of zest. Gazing at him, she could feel a wave of nostalgia sweep over her, warm, sweet … She shook her head. “That was the past, Trevor. I’m living only in the present.”
“Not true. But I’ll settle for the present.” He waved his hand dismissingly. “Have a good chat with Satan’s mother.”
“I will.” Jane felt both their eyes upon her as she headed for the rental-car booth.
She saw Margaret step forward as she approached. “Everything is fine,” she said. “Just sign and show him your ID. I gave him your credit card, so we’re all set.”
“My credit card? How did you get my credit card?”
“I took one of them out of the bedside table drawer in your hospital room a couple weeks ago. I needed it to get to Colorado to find Eve.” She smiled. “I meant to give it back to you, but I kept forgetting.”
Jane stared at her in disbelief. “Don’t you think it would have been a little more honest to have told me … or even asked?”
“Yes, but you were all upset about imposing on me and might not have wanted to have anything to do with sending me after that bastard, Doane.” She smiled with satisfaction. “So I took care of it. I didn’t have enough money for a plane ticket, so I borrowed your credit card. I’ll pay you back later. You can trust me.”
“I’m sure I can.” She signed the rental contract. “In the basics, but not to have everything clear and up front. Don’t do that again, Margaret.”
She nodded. “Whatever.” She headed for the door. “Our car is in the pickup outside. You decided not to intimidate Harriet Weber by bringing along Trevor and Caleb?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s smart. She’ll be much more comfortable with just us.”
“You’re staying in the car.”
“But I’m not intimidating.”
“Margaret,” Jane said dryly as she opened the terminal door, “in your own way, you’re far more intimidating than either Caleb or Trevor.”
* * *
“YOU DID A VERY GOOD JOB of reviving the embers of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ Trevor,” Caleb said as he watched Jane and Margaret go out into the parking lot. “But it was the wrong time for Jane. You should have waited until she could concentrate fully on you.”
“There’s never a wrong time, Caleb. Not if the emotion is honest, and the memories are good.” He smiled. “And I can understand how you’d feel a trifle annoyed by the fact that Jane and I have a history.”
“I’m not annoyed. I was at first, but it’s just something I have to deal with. In Jane’s eyes, you’re the knight in shining armor, and I’m Merlin the evil magician.” He tilted his head. “You’re a very good knight in shining armor. Not phony. Only interested in Jane’s good. I don’t think that I’ve ever met anyone as genuine as you are. There are even moments when I actually like you, Trevor.”
Trevor burst out laughing. “God, how it must have hurt you to say that.”
“I have my honest moments,” he said. “And I won’t ask you to lie and tell me that liking is returned.” He was no longer smiling. “Because I’m not interested in Jane’s good. I’m too selfish, and I’ve never felt about anyone as I do Jane. White-hot and pure unadulterated lust. And I will have her, Trevor. It’s just a matter of time.”
Trevor shook his head. “She needs something more and you can’t give it to her. But I’m lucky enough to be able to do it. You’re too intense, you’d burn her up.” He paused. “And I do like you in some weird, twisted way, Caleb. I just have to protect Jane from you.”
“Oh, no, that won’t happen.” Caleb was smiling again. “But I’m glad that we have everything straight. Though I believe we both knew what we were up against from the beginning. Now we can concentrate on finding Eve, so that Jane will be free to think of other things.” He met Trevor’s eyes. “I agree with what you told Jane, boredom can be dangerous … but interesting. I think we should keep ourselves busy until she finishes with Harriet Weber.”
Trevor’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
“I have a few ideas.” He started across the terminal toward the rental-car booth. “But they require wheels. Let’s go get a car.”
* * *
WHEN JANE ARRIVED at the athletic field, it was vacant except for a young boy in navy blue gym shorts who was running the track.
The only person sitting on the benches in the stands was a tall, well-built woman wearing a herringbone tweed coat that picked up the silver in her short, dark hair. She stood up as Jane approached her. She was even taller than she’d first appeared, Jane noticed. She was perhaps in her fifties though she looked younger. The skin of her face was olive and appeared satin soft and almost entirely without any sign of age. She had magnificent dark eyes that were staring coldly at Jane.
“Hello, I’m Jane MacGuire. Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
“I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t sure how ruthless you’d be about revealing facts I don’t wish revealed.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “And I don’t have much time. I have to get back to my classes. What do you want to know?”
“Did you keep in contact with your ex-husband?”
“I did not. I haven’t seen him since the divorce.” She asked a question of her own, “Who are you? Are you with the CIA?”
“No, why would you think that? I told you that I have a personal interest in what happened in Colorado.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t have a connection with the CIA. After my son was killed, that Venable from the CIA came to visit me and asked all kinds of questions. And he was the one who called me a few days ago and told me that my ex-husband, James, was dead. Do you work for him?”
“No, I’m an artist, but I do know Venable.”
“Then he must have told you that I know nothing about James or Kevin. I left home when Kevin was fifteen, and I never saw either of them after that time.”
“He said you were not involved, but I have to be sure. Things have changed since then. The stakes are higher.” Her lips tightened. “And what happened to Eve was crazy. She meant everything to me. I’m trying to make some kind of sense out of it. I have to know why it happened.”
“The disk? Venable told me about that disk. I know nothing about it.”
“No, it seems that there was something else other than the disk that your ex-husband was holding as a blackmail tool. Did you know anything about Kevin’s journal?”
She stiffened. “Journal? My boy had a journal?” She shook her head emphatically. “How could I know? When Kevin was a little boy, he liked to write stories, but that’s all I remember.” Her eyes were suddenly glittering with tears. “I thought he was going to be a writer or maybe a reporter when he grew up. But then I started to read his stories…” She shook her head as if to clear it. “And I knew—” She had to stop to steady her voice. “That no one would ever want to read those stories but someone—like him. But there wasn’t anyone like him. No one could be that—sick.” She lifted her gaze to Jane’s face. “But you know what he was, don’t you? That’s why you’re here.”
“I know what he was.” She moistened her lips. “And I know that your husband protected and helped him do unspeakable things. I don’t blame you for leaving them. But I need to know if you know anything about his activities before or after your son’s death. Your husband was involved in a plan that might have tragic consequences. It might save lives if you could recall something, anything.”
“Leave me alone,” Harriet Weber said with sudden violence. “I’m only a woman who tried to do her best, and yet you expect me to change what can’t be changed. Why do you think I can save anyone? I wasn’t able to do it before. I tried, but I
couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t do it. They were both against me and I—” The tears had overflowed and were running down her cheeks. “Please—go away.”
Jane reached out in sympathy to touch her shoulder, but the woman jerked away. Jane was tempted to get up and leave her as she was begging her to do. She was unbearably touched by the thought of the helpless battle the woman must have waged to save her son from his demons.
Then a thought occurred to her. “In the journal, your son made certain references to you. They were admiring, affectionate. Evidently, his attitude toward you didn’t change when you left your husband and Kevin.”
“Why shouldn’t he love me?” she said hoarsely. “I was his mother. I loved and protected him all the days of his life. And when I found out that what he was writing in his stories was real, true, I protected him then, too. I didn’t go to the police. I turned my back and hoped it wouldn’t happen again.”
“But it did happen again,” Jane whispered.
She nodded jerkily. “And then I knew I couldn’t stay with them any longer. I had to get away.”
“Without telling anyone what a monster Kevin was?”
“He wasn’t a monster; he was sick.” She closed her eyes. “And I loved him as much the day I left him as I did when I cradled him as a baby. It doesn’t change. I had to let fate punish him. Judge me if you wish, but don’t do it until you walk in my shoes.” Her eyes opened. “I cut all ties with James and Kevin, but I couldn’t cut Kevin out of my heart. If I’d betrayed him to the police, it would have destroyed me.”
“So you left him free to destroy others.” Jane was silent a moment. “I understand your hurt, but I believe I would have found some way to stop him instead of just turning my back.”
“You don’t understand anything,” she said fiercely. “You couldn’t. No one could unless they knew Kevin. He could be so loving…” She swallowed. “That’s why it was impossible to grasp that he would do those terrible—But he did do them, and he wouldn’t listen to me. So I had to leave him.”
“And your husband.”
“By that time, James didn’t pay any attention to me anyway. It was all Kevin. He didn’t care what Kevin did as long as it was what he wanted. The most terrible things were right if Kevin told him they were.” Her lips twisted. “I’d lost James long before I lost Kevin.” She got to her feet. “I’ve had enough of this. I can’t take anymore. You can do whatever you like. Tell the school administrators, tell everyone that I’m just as much a monster as Kevin because I ran away instead of trying to stop him.” She drew a shaky breath. “Sometimes, when I wake from a nightmare in the middle of the night, I believe that’s true. So punish me any way you please.” She turned and walked away.
“Wait.”
Harriet Weber didn’t turn around or stop. The next moment, she disappeared off the field.
It was just as well. Jane didn’t know what she had wanted to say to Harriet Weber, but she hadn’t wanted the woman to leave like that. The pain and torment were too obvious. She wanted to somehow heal it. But how could she heal it when she had no empathy at all for the woman’s decision? She had chosen that her Kevin survive and risked countless others so that he would.
Jane moved slowly down the steps toward the exit. What had she accomplished by this meeting except disturbing Harriet Weber?
She had become so involved with the intensity of the woman’s emotional response that it had been difficult to sort out what else had been said. She would have to analyze these minutes and consider if she had learned anything that could be helpful. Was Kevin’s mother victim or, by her silence, accomplice? Perhaps both. Jane knew how she felt but, as the woman said, she hadn’t walked in her shoes.
All that was clear now was that the dark ugliness that had been Doane and Kevin had also pulled Harriet Weber down into those stagnant depths.
* * *
TREVOR AND CALEB WERE NOT at the airport terminal when Jane and Margaret arrived back over an hour later.
Jane checked her phone. No message.
She called Trevor. No answer. Just voice mail.
Caleb? Same.
“Where the hell are they?” she said as she hung up.
“Somewhere interesting, I’m sure.” Margaret was gazing at her. “Stop frowning. Do you know how absurd it is for you to even think about being worried about them? I can’t imagine any men who would be better able to take care of themselves.”
“I’m not worried.” But she had to admit that she was wary. The mere fact that Trevor and Caleb were probably together made her uneasy. They struck sparks off each other. “I’m just … curious.”
“Well, let’s be curious about lunch.” Margaret was nudging her toward the airport restaurant. “We’ll leave them to starve as punishment for being incommunicado.”
Trevor and Caleb didn’t appear for another hour, and she and Margaret were almost finished with their meal when they strode into the restaurant.
“Scoot.” Caleb sat down in the booth beside Jane. “Is that ham sandwich any good? I’m starved.”
“Fair.”
He motioned for the waitress. “Trevor?”
“The same. Anything. Coffee.”
“Not for me. I’m zinging.” He gave the order to the waitress and leaned back. “We had a good morning. How about you, Jane?”
“Not very productive, but I’ll have to decide if—” She stopped, gazing at him. “You are zinging.” She had seen him like that before, and it was usually when he was on the hunt or in battle. The charge of emotion he emitted was electric. Her gaze shifted to Trevor. He didn’t have the same animal intensity as Caleb, but he was also wired. His eyes glittered, and he was smiling. She asked, “What have you been doing? I called you and got voice mail.”
“It would have been inconvenient to answer the phone.” He exchanged a glance with Caleb. “We were busy.”
Jane gazed at them, annoyance mixed with bewilderment. What the hell was happening? They were like two little boys in a neighborhood club who were brimming with secrets and mischief. She had never expected that response from two men who were fully mature, sophisticated, and slightly antagonistic. “Is someone going to explain?”
Caleb smiled. “You left us with nothing to do and twiddling our thumbs. We decided to do our own investigation on Harriet Weber.”
“What?”
“We had her address, so we decided to go to her place and look around while you were conducting your interview.”
“Look around? Are you saying that you burgled her apartment?”
“Burgled sounds as if we were thieves,” Trevor said. “We had no intention of stealing anything … but information. We did, however, break into her apartment to do that, and breaking and entering is a crime.” He grinned. “So I let Caleb pick the lock. He was amazingly good at it.”
Caleb nodded in mocking acceptance of the praise. “I thought that was your plan. But you did the photography, and I’m sure that’s not precisely legal.”
“I couldn’t trust you to do it,” Trevor said. “It requires a steady hand and a certain selectivity. You wanted to whirl through the place like a hurricane.”
“I can see Caleb’s doing that.” Margaret was staring curiously at them both. “But I believe you were both enjoying it, weren’t you? You’re not at all alike, and yet you found common ground. Interesting.”
“In breaking into a woman’s house.” Jane stared at them. “Why did you do it?”
“We both thought whatever Harriet Weber told you should be verified,” Trevor said. “It sounded as if it was going to prove to be an emotional, defensive interview on her part. Was it?”
“Yes. It couldn’t be anything else. She was talking about her son, whom she’d left when he was fifteen, and a husband who had mentally left her years before in favor of Kevin.”
“And never seen or heard from either one after that time?” Caleb asked. “What a tragedy.”
She studied his expression. “What are you saying?”
>
“I’m saying that she had communication with her son, Kevin, until at least the year before his death. Mostly letters. I found several from him in a sleek, black cardboard box that contained a lockbox. It was beneath her bed.” He shot a glance at Trevor. “Which I expertly burgled so that you could photograph the contents of those letters. There was no selectivity there. You photographed all of them.”
Jane gazed at them in shock. “You’re telling me that she was writing to him?”
“And he was writing to her. Very affectionate letters.” Caleb paused. “And confiding, very confiding. The ones from Pakistan told her about his link with al-Qaeda. Every now and then, he would tell her about his latest kill.”
Jane felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. “No.”
“Yes,” Trevor said. “And some of the details were worse than the ones in his journal. Oh, he said something about how he knew she wouldn’t approve, that she’d told him how dangerous killing the little girls was for him. But he still told her about them. Let her know that the pleasure he got from the kill was nothing compared to his happiness being with her.”
“Dear God.”
“He loved her, Jane. If a sicko like him could love.”
“And she loved him,” Caleb said. “It didn’t matter what he did. It was clear from his letters that she was giving him support and affection all through those years.”
“But why would she divorce Doane and leave them both?”
“Perhaps she thought she could resist her love for the boy and was fighting it,” Trevor said.
Caleb shook his head. “Except that in one of the letters, Kevin was complaining about the necessity for her living apart from him.” He repeated, “Necessity.”
Jane’s head was whirling. “Okay.” She was trying to get it straight. “Everything she told me today and Venable five years ago were lies. Except that she loved her son and couldn’t bear to turn him over to the authorities. But there was more than that…” She lifted her hand to rub her temple. “Lord, was there more than that. If her supposed new life was all a fraud … Why? And was she also lying about Doane? Was there anything in the letters about Doane?”