Bonnie (23 page)

“You evidently have kept track of me.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Then you must know my purpose in ‘messing around’ with that clay.”

“Yeah.” His glance shifted away from her. “Skulls. But I don’t like to think about it. You shouldn’t mess with the dead.”

“I don’t agree.” And Danner’s statement had put her on edge. It didn’t bode well for his telling the truth about taking her to Bonnie. “And neither would the parents of those children I managed to identify.”

“I don’t like to think about it,” he repeated.

Don’t argue. She had to balance very precariously on this fragile thread that bound them together. The priest had said that Danner could shift from sanity to madness in the space of moments. Right now, he appeared to be almost normal, but she didn’t want to throw him into that other sphere. She had to analyze every word, every thought that he expressed, sift it for truth or fantasy, and perhaps go back to it later. She had to keep herself from going on the attack so that the words would flow and tell her what she needed to know.

Not an easy task.

There were moments when the possibility that this man had killed her Bonnie stabbed into her, and she wanted to turn and rend him.

But she had to be sure.

And nothing must stop him from leading her to Bonnie.

“No, I’m not sixteen any longer.” She turned and started down the path. “But you’ll find those years haven’t made me less tough. Strength comes from inside. I don’t quit, Danner. I won’t hold you up.”

*   *   *

GALLO WAS STANDING BY
his car in the parking lot of the Shoney’s Restaurant in Calhoun, where they’d agreed to meet, when Joe pulled into the space beside him.

Gallo straightened, his gaze fixed warily on Joe.

He should be wary, Catherine thought, as she got out of the car and pulled out her duffel. Joe was scared and feeling helpless, and that made him ready to explode. The best thing to do was get Gallo away as soon as possible.

“Let’s get out of here. Joe wants to get to that church and question Father Barnabas.” She threw her duffel in Gallo’s car. “I called Venable, and he said he’d get cracking on the GPS fix. I also told him to find a way to get a look at those sealed court records of Kevin Donnelly’s trial. That will take some time, but we’ve got to see who we’re dealing with in our Father Barnabas. He should be calling me back anytime now on the GPS fix.” She turned back to Joe. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything. It’s going to be okay, Joe. We’ll get her back. Come on, Gallo.”

“Wait a minute.” Gallo was still braced and wasn’t moving, his gaze on Joe. “It shouldn’t have happened. You want to say anything? Do anything? I’ll take it.”

Joe looked at him without speaking. Catherine could almost feel the explosive anger vibrating from him. She instinctively stepped forward, readying.

Joe didn’t even glance at her. “Yeah, I want to say something, Gallo. I’d take you out in a heartbeat if I didn’t think that I might need you. Do you know why you let it happen? You’ve been a professional, you’re sharp, and you’re not careless. So why make that mistake? Because even now you can’t believe that son of a bitch, Danner, is a killer. Subconsciously, you didn’t believe he was a threat to Eve. Well, you’re wrong, and I’m going to tell you how you’re going to make it right. The next time you have to choose, it’s going to be for Eve. If someone is going to die, it’s going to be Danner … or you. At the moment, I don’t give a damn which one.”

Gallo’s lips were tight, and his eyes were glittering. “It will be for Eve.” He whirled and got in his car. “I promise, Quinn.”

Close. Very close.

Catherine quickly slipped into the passenger seat. “I’ll be in touch, Joe.”

But Joe was already pulling out of the parking space and didn’t reply.

Gallo didn’t move. He was gazing straight before him. “He’s right, you know. I made a choice, and I didn’t even realize it. I decided not to believe what everyone said about him. And Eve is the one who is paying for it.” His lips twisted. “And I can’t even say that I believe it now. It hurts too much. All I can say is that I have to be sure that whoever gets hurt, it won’t be Eve.”

He
was
hurting. She wanted to reach out and touch him, comfort him. It was hard for him to admit that pain to anyone.

“It would kill me if anything happened to Eve.” He glanced at Catherine and forced a smile. “I love her, you know. Oh, not in the usual romantic way, we’re past that. But we’ve shared too much not to feel something for each other, and that will go on. Can you understand that?”

“Yes. I’m not blind, Gallo. You should love her. She’s worth loving. I love her, too. Now let’s stop talking about how we’d feel if anything happened to her and set about keeping that from happening.”

“Rebuke accepted.” His smile was no longer forced as he started the car. “I can always count on you to blow away any sentiment that’s clouding the clarity of perception. I apologize.”

“You have a right to be a little less than clearheaded. But only a little, Gallo. We have to—” Her phone rang, and she glanced down. “Venable. I’ll put it on speaker.” She spoke into the phone. “What have you got, Venable?”

“The GPS signal led to a location about forty miles outside the town of Caryville, Georgia. Not in the town itself, but somewhere in the woods surrounding it.” Venable paused. “Then it disappeared entirely. We lost it. Do you want me to send a man from Atlanta to check it out?”

“No, we’ll cover it. Give me the exact coordinates.” She scrawled down the directions as he gave them to her. “Thanks, Venable.”

“No problem.” Silence. “I like Eve Duncan. If you need me, I’ll come.”

“If we need you, I’ll call. Danner isn’t stable. We have to be careful about spooking him with too much manpower.” She hung up. “Caryville, Gallo.”

He nodded. “I checked the GPS while you were talking. It’s about an hour south of here.” His foot pressed hard on the accelerator. “Or less.”

They arrived at the Caryville city limits in forty-five minutes.

Catherine glanced at the coordinates. “There!” She pointed at the lay-by with a strip of road leading off it. “He must have entered the woods there.” She braced herself against the impact as he drove down the rough road. “What the hell…”

“The trees are thinning up ahead.” He drove into the glade and screeched to a stop as he saw the truck parked by a tarp. “Down!” He drew his gun as he dove out of the car.

Catherine was already on the ground on the other side of the car.

No sound but the soft whir of birds and insects.

No shots.

“Danner!” she called.

No answer.

Gallo was on his knees on the ground behind the rear wheels of the truck. “I’ll check under the tarp. You look in the cab of the truck.”

“I think it’s okay. I don’t think he’s here.” But she was still tense as she pulled herself up to glance inside the truck. Danner might not be here, but that didn’t mean he might not have left Eve dead in the vehicle. She expelled a sigh of relief as she saw that neither Danner nor Eve were in the cab. “Empty.” She turned toward the tarp. “Anything?”

“No.” He was standing under the tarp and gazing at the neat stack of canned goods piled in one corner. “Supplies enough for a few days’ stay. He wouldn’t need more. He’s woods savvy.” He opened a metal box set against the tree. “Ammunition.”

“Weapons?”

“No, he must have taken them with him.” He was examining the cartridges. “A Magnum and an M16. The rifle is still here.”

“Taken them with him where?” Catherine asked. “And why take Eve? If he was going to get rid of her, this would be the place to do it.” She was examining the tire tracks. “He didn’t change cars and double back. He left the truck here and must have set out on foot.” She glanced at the woods surrounding the glade. “We just have to find his prints and track him.”

Gallo nodded as he moved toward the north. “And hope that he’s not waiting to pick us off.”

“It’s promising that you admit that’s a possibility, but I don’t believe there’s any danger. That’s why I wasn’t too worried that he’d still be in this glade. No matter what he feels about anyone else, it appears he still cares for you.” She turned and rounded the hood of the truck to head for the south border of the glade. “And if I’m lucky, I’ll bask in that warm, fuzzy circle that surrounds you. Though from what I remember of him standing over me at that bayou, I may not be—” She broke off as she knelt on the ground. “I think I found the missing GPS.” Her finger touched the wreckage of the iPhone. “Eve’s phone. We definitely won’t be able to track her by that.” She got to her feet and moved across the glade. “So we rely on ourselves and not technology.”

He smiled slightly. “It’s not as if we don’t have experience.”

His words brought back a flood of memories of those weeks she had stalked Gallo in the wilds of Wisconsin before she had become convinced he had not killed Bonnie. That time had become a fascinating and challenging game when the prey had turned hunter, and they had gradually begun to know each other in ways that neither had dreamed. For the briefest instant, she felt a stirring of the sensual heat that had become a part of the chase before she blocked it. “Yes.” She met his gaze. “And this time we’ll be working toward the same goal. We’ll be doing this together.”

He nodded and turned away. “It may take two of us. My uncle is sharp and experienced. He’ll try to cover his prints.…”

*   *   *

WHEN JOE WAS TWENTY
minutes from the cathedral, he placed a call to Father Barnabas. He didn’t expect it to be picked up, but he took the chance. It rang four times before it was answered.

“Father Barnabas, my name is Joe Quinn. I need to talk to you. I know you’ve undergone a terrible experience but—”

“Where are you, Detective Quinn?”

“About twenty minutes from you. Detective? Eve told you about me?”

“No, we didn’t discuss anything but Ted Danner. But the detective who questioned me seemed to have tapped a good deal of information regarding you and Eve Duncan. He asked me if I knew you, and he told me that he had to question you. I told him that you had nothing to do with the taking of Ms. Duncan, but he said that it was always necessary to question the husband or significant other in a relationship.”

“That’s true. Is the detective still there?”

“No, he just left. But there’s a policeman on duty. I reminded him about the adage about locking the barn door after the livestock was stolen, but he insisted anyway. If you wish to see me privately, it would be better if we met in the rose garden in the back. You can go to the cross street beyond the church and double back and go in the garden gate.”

“You’ll meet with me?”

“Certainly. I’ve been expecting you. Eve Duncan is a strong woman, and her disappearance would cause ripples that go far and deep. I’ll see you by the fountain in the garden.”

There was a uniformed policeman on guard outside the cathedral when Joe drove past it and up to the cross street. That meant that the back entrance would likely be unguarded.

Ten minutes later, he was walking down the garden path toward the fountain. It was dark, but the fountain area and the man sitting on the bench beside it were illuminated by a gas lamppost on the rosebushes on either side.

“Father Barnabas?”

“Sit down, Detective Quinn. I’d stand to greet you, but I’m still a little woozy.” The priest smiled. “I’m sure that Eve Duncan didn’t mean to hurt me by that blow to the head, but it was immediately followed by one by Ted Danner. He definitely meant to put me out of action for a while.”

“Yet the two of you have had a close relationship that’s spanned years.” He sat down on the bench. “He was willing to give that up just to make sure he got his hands on Eve? Why?”

“Lately, our relationship has not been as close as it once was. He won’t listen if I don’t say what he wants to hear.” The priest’s smile faded. “Danner has changed. He claimed that his medication is keeping him from being alert enough to guard himself from the demons and refused to go back on it. His illness has become uncontrollable. There are times when he believes everyone is his enemy.”

“But you refused to help Eve when she asked you to help her find him.”

“I’ve been trying to bring him back to some kind of normalcy since the moment I started treating him at the VA hospital. There have been times when I thought I was coming close. I thought it was my responsibility to find him before he did any more harm.” He met Joe’s eyes. “
My
responsibility, Detective. There is so much good in Ted Danner. I’ve watched him work with the children of the parish here. He wants to do what’s right. I don’t want him hunted and shot down like a rabid dog. I want to get him under treatment again.”

Joe shook his head. “It’s not going to happen. Not if he killed Bonnie Duncan. Not if he hurts Eve.”

“But what if he didn’t do either? He has a chance.”

“All I care about is Eve’s chances.” Joe’s lips tightened. “And I’ll be the one who shoots Danner if he even touches a strand of her hair. You turned Eve down, but you’re not going to refuse me, Father.”

His brows lifted. “Are you threatening me?”

“If you don’t show me a way to find Danner, I’ll regard you as an accomplice. I don’t care if you’re a priest or the Dalai Lama.”

“And you love Eve Duncan very much.” His gaze shifted back to the shimmering spray of the fountain. “Love is a wonderful thing. Through all his torment, Danner still feels love. That’s why I think he can still be saved.”

“Then you should have saved him when you had a chance instead of shunting him off to another psychiatrist and joining the priesthood.”

Father Barnabas flinched. “Do you think I haven’t thought about that? I wasn’t vain enough to think that I was the only competent psychiatrist in the country. I thought I was doing the right thing. I’d come to a point with some of my patients that I’d tried every skill I’d learned to bring them back to the human race. I couldn’t do any more. I couldn’t perform miracles. But God can do what I can’t. I decided to quit claiming I was brilliant and all-knowing and give Him a chance.”