“I know he said they were abusive.”
“They were demons. I just didn’t recognize it at the time. They were family, and I tried to work with them to save him. If I had known, I would have destroyed them.”
“When did you start recognizing demons when you saw them?”
“Syria. One night in Syria.”
“They just appeared to you?”
“You’re trying to make me say I’m seeing things.”
“I’m trying to get you to talk to me. You promised you’d talk to me, Danner.”
“Not now.”
“Why not?”
He gazed at her. “Why not?” he repeated. “You won’t believe me.” His gaze shifted to the blazing fire. “I’d been sent into the mountains of Syria to destroy a munitions stronghold held by the militants. I planted the explosives at the building and climbed up into the rocks above the village to set them off. My captain was waiting there for me in the helicopter. I’d done a good job setting that charge. I always did a good job. I was proud of myself. I gave it another five minutes after I reached the helicopter before I pressed the button. It blew.” He swallowed. “But something was wrong. The munitions should have blown, but they didn’t. There were no explosions. Except the one I’d set off when I pressed the button. The entire building was on fire, but there were no ammo explosions.” His hand slowly clenched. “And then I saw the children. Dozens of children running out of the burning building. They were burning, too. They looked like torches in the darkness.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
“It was an orphanage. We’d been fed the wrong information by our informants. They wanted to claim a U.S. atrocity. The children were burning … I could smell their charred flesh. And the ones that weren’t on fire were being picked off by snipers from the edge of the village. I went crazy. I tried to get back down to help them, but it was too late. No one else was coming out of the building. Dead. All dead. And I could see those sons of bitches coming into the village to check to make sure no child had survived.”
“My God.”
“God wasn’t there that night. Only the demons. I could see them outlined by the fire, in their dirty robes. They were dressed like Arabs, but I knew who they were, moving among those small bodies. Demons. I screamed and grabbed my rifle. I jumped out of the helicopter, but I was tackled before I got more than a few yards. My commanding officer said I couldn’t be seen there. I was going to make things worse. They had to do damage control.”
“Damage control?” she whispered. “Children.”
“They were dead, and an international situation was still to be saved. And they saved it. They bribed and coerced and made it go away.” He added, “And they wouldn’t let me go back and destroy the demons. I told them I had to do it, but they said that there were no demons that night. I couldn’t get anyone to believe me. Will you believe me, Eve?”
The story had shocked and sickened her and given her an insight into Danner that had an element of pity. Understanding was acceptable, but she could not feel sympathy. This was a man who might have killed her Bonnie. “You could convince me. Searching for Bonnie, I’ve encountered many individuals who could be demons.” She leaned forward and picked up her shoe. “Including you, Danner.” She was struggling to put on the shoe. “But I’m tired of talking about demons. I want to talk about the child.”
“No.” He pulled out his knife and cut the ropes binding her wrists. “This will make it easier for you to walk. You’re slowing me down.”
“You’re not afraid I’ll manage to escape?”
“I’d catch up with you before you went a quarter mile.” He turned away. “But you’re not going to run away. You’re willing to take any punishment that comes along. You want to go with me.”
“How could you know that?”
“I saw your face at the priest’s study. You were … eager.”
And he was very perceptive. “You could be mistaken.”
He shook his head. “And I saw you earlier in the garden with her.”
She lost her breath. “Her?”
He turned away. “The child. Let’s go.”
“Oh, no.” She took two steps and her hand closed on his arm. “You don’t leave me like that. You saw Bonnie.”
“I told you I saw the child.”
“No, stop that crap. Why won’t you say her name? You saw Bonnie.”
“It hurts me.”
“Then let it hurt you. My daughter is dead, and you saw her. You just told me so. Why would you see a dead child, Danner? This dead child. Did you kill her?”
“Stop talking about her. It hurts me.”
“I won’t stop talking about her. I can see her spirit because she’s my daughter, and she wants me to do it. But why you, Danner?”
He tore his arm away from her grasp. “Why do you think? She wants me to see her, too. She wants to torment me. She doesn’t understand … I have to make her understand.”
“Understand what?”
“That I’m not fighting her, that I’ll give her what she wants. But I had to find out what that was first. Even Father Barnabas couldn’t tell me. I asked him, and he said to pray about it. I had to know.”
“And now you do?”
“She wants you,” he said simply.
“What?”
“In that garden I could see that there was so much love between you. She wants her mother. All little girls want their mothers. That’s what she wants me to do. Not to kill any demons. She wants me to give you to her.”
She stared at him, stunned. Then she realized the words had stunned her but not the basic thought behind them. The hints had been there to be read.
And, he was right, she had been eager to read them.
“It won’t be bad,” he said softly. “I won’t hurt you. She wouldn’t like that.”
“Stop that. Say her name. She’s not an anonymous ‘child.’ She’s Bonnie. Say it.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. “Bonnie.”
It was hurting him. She could tell. Then she realized why. “It’s because you don’t want to recognize her as a person, you want to keep her at a distance. Well, she is a person, a wonderful, wonderful person. From the moment she was born, she was special. I could tell you stories.”
He shook his head. “Don’t do it.”
“Then don’t ever let me hear you call her anything but her name.”
“Okay. It doesn’t matter. I can stand it. It’s all going to be ending anyway.” He turned away. “It’s time to go.”
Ending. Bonnie had spoken about the ending, and now Danner was doing it, too. But it might not mean the same thing to him. “What do you mean?”
“If I give you to her”—he paused, then said with an effort—“to Bonnie, then it’s over for me. I can stop running from them.”
“Them?”
He turned away. “Enough talk.”
“Not nearly enough. One question. Did you murder my daughter?”
He ignored the question and was heading back toward the path. “Come on, you’ve had enough rest. I’ll let you sleep a couple hours later.”
He wasn’t even looking back at her over his shoulder. He was sure that she would come with him. How could he be that sure she wouldn’t run for her life?
In that garden there was so much love between you.
Had he been able to see more than the love that bound Bonnie and her together? Had he seen a guideline that Bonnie had drawn for him? Eve had been totally shocked that he had been able to see Bonnie. Bonnie had come to her and to Gallo and to Joe and no one else. Not even Jane. It was reasonable to guess that it was the love that had drawn her to them. The love was always there and clearly visible when she was with Bonnie.
But Danner felt no love. He was afraid of Bonnie. He only wanted to get rid of her.
And offering Eve up as a sacrificial offering was the way he planned on doing it. He thought that was what Bonnie wanted. Yet Bonnie had always told Eve that she ha
d to wait, that they couldn’t be together because it wasn’t her time.
But had Eve’s time come now? Was that why Danner was seeing Bonnie?
Too many questions. Perhaps she was reaching too deep. Outside of scientific medical knowledge of hallucinations, there were also stories that the insane sometimes saw visions and spirits not visible to normal people. At any rate, Danner was not going to answer any more of her probes right now. She was lucky she had managed to get as much information as she had from him.
Or maybe not so lucky. He was becoming too human to her. Yes, there was no doubt he had moments of sanity as well as madness. Yes, there had been reasons that had caused him to slip into that half-world. But you could not forgive evil as great as the killing of Bonnie because of what had happened to him. It was better that she only thought of him as the monster who could have murdered her Bonnie.
She could call him mad, but she could not call him a monster until she knew for certain that he had killed her daughter. He had refused to say the words, dammit.
But it had to be him, and she would know everything before she was through.
She started to push after him through the heavy brush.
* * *
“THEY BUILT A FIRE HERE,” Gallo said as he knelt beside the huge oak tree.
“How long ago?” Catherine asked.
He studied the grass and the drying mud beside the ashes. “Six, maybe seven hours ago.”
Catherine frowned. “That’s a big lead.”
He nodded. “But at least he’s stopping to rest on occasion. That will lose him time.” He looked up at Catherine. “And he’s still got Eve with him.”
And that was a circumstance beyond price, Catherine thought. Every time she caught sight of Eve’s tracks after a period of losing the trail, she felt a surge of profound relief. This terrain was rough as hell and hard to get through. Who the hell knew if Danner would get impatient with dragging Eve with him and decide to dispose of her.
She stood up. “Let’s get going. We’ve lost too much time on that last—” Her phone rang. “It’s Joe.” She punched the button. “We haven’t caught up with them yet, Joe. But Danner still has Eve with him. Are you still at the church?”
“No, I’m at the Rainbow Connection. A youth rescue camp at Bradburg near the Alabama border. Father Barnabas said that Danner went to work for the organization because of its location. He said he had to be near ‘the child.’”
She stiffened. “What?” She pressed up the volume. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“This is only a slim lead. If you can track him, then that was our best bet.”
“But it was a lead to where he might be heading. Where is this Bradburg?”
“A couple hours’ drive from Atlanta, near Columbus, Georgia.”
Gallo was already pushing buttons on the apps on his iPhone. He glanced up at her. “We’re heading in the general direction. If he doesn’t change course, it could be his destination.”
She shook her head. “Joe said the camp was close, not his destination.” She spoke into the phone. “Doesn’t anyone know anything about Danner down there?”
“His job was to take kids hiking and canoeing. He did what he was supposed to do and didn’t cause any trouble. He was a loner. Every week or so, he would take off and go camping for a few days.”
“Where?”
“No one seems to know. Like I said, he was a loner.”
“Wasn’t anyone curious, dammit?”
“No one I’ve found so far. I’ve talked to several of the employees and counselors and not come up with anything. I still have a few to question.”
And if they knew anything, Joe would get the information, she knew. He would be relentless. “Then we’ll keep on the trail. At least we know what may be his general direction. It would help if we could tighten a noose around him from both directions. Let us know.” She hung up and turned to Gallo. “How long will it take to get to this Bradford?”
“In this kind of heavy brush? At least another day. Providing that’s where he’s headed.” He glanced at the app again. “And providing that he doesn’t veer off course and head for Florida. It’s only guesswork by Father Barnabas that he’d head in that direction.”
Catherine agreed with him, but at least they had another possibility if they lost Danner in these woods.
No, they wouldn’t lose him. That wasn’t an option. She moved toward the trail. “We’ll check his movements every few hours and compare it to the destination on the map in the apps. Maybe it will give us some indication.”
“You know he could cut back to the road and hijack a car?”
“But that would be hard with Eve in tow. And he evidently intends to keep her with him.”
“Thank God.”
She glanced back at him. “That sounded pretty profound. You’re losing your faith in Danner’s innocence?”
“I didn’t say that.” He was silent, then said, “I want to believe he’s still the man who was my friend as a boy. I just can’t afford to let anyone else be hurt because I want it to be true. I wasn’t lying to Quinn.” He met her gaze. “Every act I do from now on will be based on the idea that my uncle wants to kill Eve. If I have to do it, I’ll take him out.”
And it was tearing him apart, Catherine could see. But there was no doubt in her mind that he meant every word he said. He was tough and hard-edged and he’d smother any hint of softness now that he’d made his decision.
But that didn’t mean that decision would necessarily have to become reality.
She glanced away from him. “You never can tell, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
He must have caught something in her tone. His gaze was suddenly narrowed on her face. “And that means?”
“Nothing.”
“I think it does.” His lips were suddenly indented with the faintest smile. “My God, Catherine, I believe you’re planning on offering me a bizarre gift … of sorts. Incredible.”
“I’m not planning anything. Sometimes, things happen.”
“And that happening might include your taking out my uncle so that I don’t have to do it. You’d do that for me?”
“It has nothing to do with you,” she said crisply. “All of this is about Eve and for Eve. It’s probably in the cards for Danner to be eliminated, so that Eve can live. I’d be more efficient in doing that since I don’t have any emotional baggage. Why should you do something that could scar you for the rest of your life? It would be easier for me. Do you know how many kills I have?”
“I imagine the number is formidable.”
“It can be an ugly world, and I’m an agent. I do what my job calls for me to do. Do I like it? No, but I believe it’s worthwhile.”
“And do you believe I’m worthwhile, Catherine?”
“The truth? Worthwhile to me? I’m not sure. But I want you to live, so that I can find out. And I don’t want you to make stupid mistakes and get yourself killed because you hesitate when you should move.”
“I won’t hesitate. That’s over, Catherine. I’ll handle this. Back off.”
She shrugged. “We’ll see how it plays out.” She turned away. “But don’t flatter yourself that I’d do it for you. It would be for Eve … and for me.”
He chuckled. “And that flatters me enormously. I can do without your making this huge sacrifice to keep me from undergoing all this mental and emotional suffering. I like the idea much more of your selfishly trying to keep me balanced in case you can make use of me.”
She had thought he’d feel that way. It was much better that she kept the situation on that level. She could be as honest as she could with him as long as it did not make her vulnerable.
Or show him that she was already vulnerable.
“Then we understand each other.”
“Yes.” He was suddenly turning her to face him. “Sometimes, I understand you, Catherine.” His fingers gently traced the line of her cheekbone. “It’s not easy. You’re as complicated
as Chinese cybercode. But when we keep it basic, I get a glimmer…” He was touching her lips with his forefinger. “And it makes me want to go deeper.”
She should break away. This wasn’t the time or the place. Neither of them wanted this to happen. The emotion had whirled into being like a tornado touching down out of a still sky.
She didn’t break away.
His fingers were warm, smooth, but she could sense the strength he was restraining. The knowledge of what lay behind that gentleness was erotic. Light and dark. Velvet and knife-edge. Lord, he was a fascinating man. The faint dent in his chin, his dark eyes fixed intently on her face, his well-shaped mouth, full and sensual. Stunning, perfectly stunning. Good looks rarely impressed Catherine, but Gallo was … unusual. He radiated a male sensuality so strong that it almost obscured the other, more conventional, elements. It made her want to reach out and touch him, get closer, absorb the scent of him, rub against him like an animal in heat. She could feel the pulse in the hollow of her throat begin to pound. Her cheek where he’d touched it was tingling with heat.
“I’d like to understand more,” he said softly. “I’d like to explore…” Then he shook his head, and his hand dropped to his side. “Stay out of it, Catherine. Stay away from me. You’ll be better off on both counts.”
The abruptness of his withdrawal jarred her. It was right, but it should have been she who made that move. It only emphasized the vulnerability that she was always on guard against. “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea either.” She took a step back. “But I choose what’s good for me, Gallo.” Dammit, her body still felt flushed, tingling, ready. And it had only taken a touch. The realization annoyed and bewildered her. What the hell was this yen that she had for Gallo?
She turned her back on him. “And I may choose to let you stumble around and get your throat cut. I’ll have to take it under consideration.”
* * *
“HE’S HEADING IN THIS general direction.” Joe turned to the priest as he hung up the phone. “But Catherine says he’s smart, and it’s going to be difficult. She’ll let us know if he veers off in another direction as he approaches this area.” He looked out the window of the office at the grounds that contained neat rows of tents and project areas that were teeming with teenage boys and girls. “But I may have to take off and join them if we don’t get a lead here. This has proved a zero so far.”