Bonnie (9 page)

“You’re his uncle Ted.” She moistened her lips, trying to recover from the shock. “Yes, he said you injured it while you were in the service.”

“I thought he’d tell you about me. We’re very close.” He smiled gently. “He’s like my own son. He’s a good boy.”

“Why are you here?”

“He asked me to come.”

Another shock. “What?”

“Well, actually, he asked me to keep an eye on you when he left for basic training. He said that I shouldn’t approach you, that you’d resent it.”

“But you’re here.”

“I tried to keep myself from coming. But I had to talk to you.” He looked at the front of her maternity smock. “I saw you on the street three weeks ago, and I was … surprised. How far are you along?”

“Eight months.”

“And it’s John’s child?”

“No, it’s my child.”

“But John fathered him?”

She nodded. “But you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to claim him as the father.” She paused. “I prefer he not know. You should agree to that. John said you were eager that he have a career in the military. A baby would just get in his way.” Her lips tightened. “Don’t tell him.”

Ted Danner shook his head. “You poor child. You’re so alone.”

“The hell I am. I’m doing fine. Don’t tell him.”

“I don’t have a choice at the moment. I can’t write to him. I don’t know where he is.”

She stared at him, stunned. “What?”

“Right after basic and Ranger training, he was sent overseas. I heard from him from Tokyo right after he arrived, then nothing.”

“That doesn’t make sense. You have to be able to trace him. You’re military yourself.”

“Unless he volunteered for a special mission. John’s smart and ambitious, and that would be a way for him to rise through the ranks.”

“Just what you’d do,” she said dully.

“That’s what I’ve been telling myself.” He shook his head. “It’s different when it’s someone else doing it.” His voice was husky. “I love that boy.”

She could see that he did. His eyes were moist, and his last words had been unsteady. “But you don’t know anything for certain. He could be fine.”

Ted nodded. “I’ve dropped from the radar any number of times, and here I am with nothing but a bad back. I’ve been doing a lot of praying lately.” He stood up. “I thought you should know in case you wanted to do a little praying, too.”

She was so stunned that she didn’t know how she felt. It was hard for her to believe that the John Gallo she had known could be in any danger. “I’m sure that he’ll be all right.”

Ted Danner nodded. “I thought you should know. But don’t worry too much. It wouldn’t be good for you.” He started down the walk toward the gate. “If I can do anything for you, let me know. It’s the least I can do. John would want me to stand by you.”

“You have your own problems. Your nephew would want you to take care of yourself.”

“You’re a good girl, Eve,” he said quietly. “I can see why John cared about you.”

She watched him walk stiffly down the street. Poor guy, he was really worried, and John was obviously all he had. But he was jumping the gun. She couldn’t believe that John Gallo was dead just because he was temporarily missing. He was so young and strong and tough. Men like him weren’t easily killed.

But perhaps, even though she couldn’t believe he was truly in danger, she should still pray for the father of her child.

*   *   *

EVE GAZED IN BEWILDERMENT
at the sketch she’d just created from Catherine’s words and description, shaking her head in stunned disbelief. Was she mistaken? It seemed impossible that that gentle, wounded man could be a vicious killer. “He’s … older. But the age difference would be about right. But that’s about all that would be the same except his appearance. The Danner I knew was close to being crippled. He was sensitive, caring. He was no killer.”

“That argument doesn’t hold water. If he was a Ranger, he was trained to kill,” Catherine said.

“Joe was in the SEALs, you’re CIA. You were both trained to kill. That doesn’t mean you’re both murderers.”

“It means that we would pull the trigger if we had to do it. Maybe Danner went a step further.” She paused. “Some people get to like what they do.”

Eve knew that to be true. Joe had told her that the reason he had left the SEALs was that he had started to like it too much. He was afraid he was becoming what he was fighting. “Danner would have had to be twisted out of all semblance of the man I met in Atlanta.”

“You said you’d met him twice. The second time after Bonnie was born. Did he seem to have any animosity toward her?”

Eve felt a ripple of shock. She had been thinking of Danner in the context of his possibly killing Jacobs and his attack on Catherine at the bayou. But if he’d had reason to kill Jacobs, then he might be Bonnie’s killer. She thought back on that second encounter with Danner when she’d taken Bonnie for a walk in her stroller, going over every nuance, every glance.

“No, he was smiling. He chucked Bonnie under her chin. He said she was going to be pretty as a picture. He said Gallo would have been proud of her.” She paused, remembering that incredibly touching moment. “And then he told me that he’d received a notification that his nephew had been killed in Korea and his remains only discovered recently. He was bitter about it. He said that Gallo was only nineteen years old, and his life was hell from the minute he was born. He said the Army shouldn’t have let him die before he had a chance to live.”

“Bitter? Angry with you, too?”

“No, only sad. He asked if I’d mind if he kept an eye on me and Bonnie. He said he thought that his nephew would want him to do that.”

“So he became part of your life?”

She shook her head. “I invited him to come and see us. I felt so sorry for him. I could tell that Gallo had been all the world to him. He said he didn’t want to impose. He just wanted to make sure everything was going well for us. If he was looking after us, it was at a distance. I don’t remember ever seeing him again after that day.”

“I don’t get it,” Catherine said in frustration. “You’re certain that sketch looks like him? There are so many things that don’t add up.”

“The first is that Ted Danner is supposed to be dead.”

“That’s not bothering me too much. Deaths can be faked. Hell, the Army obviously faked Gallo’s death in Korea. Who told you that Danner was dead?”

“Gallo. When we were at the cabin on the property in Wisconsin, Gallo was telling me how his uncle had brought him up there when he was a kid. He told me that his uncle had died when Gallo was in prison in Korea.”

“And you thought he was telling the truth?”

Eve nodded. “I believed Gallo. It didn’t occur to me to interrogate him about his uncle.” She added slowly, “Though perhaps I should have questioned everything concerning him. Ted Danner would have done anything in the world for Gallo.”

“Questioning might not have done any good,” Catherine said curtly. “Gallo could have believed what he told you. Maybe he didn’t know that Danner was still alive.”

“Why wouldn’t he know?”

“How do I know?” She went still, her eyes narrowing. “Though it would explain why Gallo was practically in shock when he saw him on the bank. And, if they were as close as you say, he would have found it nearly impossible to try to take him out.”

Eve had been thinking about the reluctance to act that Joe had been so certain he’d seen in Gallo. Joe had assumed that it was deliberate, but Catherine’s explanation was also possible. She just didn’t know.

How could she know? She was still in shock from the moment she’d finished the sketch and recognized Ted Danner. Except it wasn’t the Danner she had known. That expression on the face she’d drawn during these past hours had been pure violence incarnate. “Yes, Gallo was very close to his uncle.”

“How close?” Catherine asked.

“I told you about their relationship.”

“Give me details.”

“I don’t know all the details. Gallo rarely talked about his feelings or the past.” She made a face. “We didn’t talk much at all. An exchange of thought or memories was last on our list of priorities. It was all about the physical.”

“Tell me what you do know.”

So that Catherine could put together all the pieces and come up with a defense for Gallo. Well, good luck to her. Eve wasn’t at the point where she could reason this out. “It’s pretty skimpy. John Gallo grew up in a housing development in Milwaukee that was probably a lot like the one where I lived. His family was dirt poor, and evidently his parents were terribly abusive. Gallo once mentioned that his father’s favorite form of punishment was putting cigarettes out on his back.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“That’s what I thought. Gallo’s only defense was to keep out of his way. It must have been hell on earth except for the times when his uncle came home on leave. When his uncle was medically discharged from the Army when Gallo was in his teens, they lived together, and I guess they took care of each other.”

“And they moved down to Atlanta to go to a VA specialist for Ted Danner’s back?”

Eve nodded. “And rented a place in a development a couple blocks from where I lived. That’s all I know. I’ve told you everything, Catherine.”

“You’re right, it’s damn skimpy.”

“I know.” But then everything about those weeks had been fast and volatile as the flicker of a motion-picture film. She had been so caught up in the sexual frenzy with Gallo that everything else had been as ephemeral as the fog outside.

And then there had been Bonnie, and nothing else had seemed important.

“And the only person who can tell us anything else is Gallo,” Catherine said. “And where is he, dammit?”

“It depends if Ted Danner is really alive,” Eve said. “And whether Gallo knew it. He’s either going to join him, or he’s going to try to find him.” She shrugged. “And what if Jacobs’s killer is just a Danner look-alike? It’s possible, isn’t it?”

Catherine just looked at her.

“Okay, it would be too coincidental.” Eve threw the sketch down on the table. “But I wanted to explore every possibility before I made a giant leap.”

“You made it,” Catherine said. “Now let’s go tackle the fact that Ted Danner is probably alive and not the tame pussycat you thought him to be all those years ago. We need to find out why Danner was said to be deceased and where we can find him.”

“And where he was when my Bonnie was taken.”

“That goes without saying,” Catherine said quietly. “Bonnie is always first, Eve. We just have to find the way to her. It will be—” She broke off and raised her head. “I hear a car. That’s probably Venable and his cleanup team.” She went to the window. “Yeah, that’s Venable. I’ll go out and meet him. I want to get him in and out as quickly as I can do it. It may not be easy. It just depends on what he wants and how badly he wants it.”

“You think he has an agenda?”

“Oh, yes, Venable doesn’t interfere with me unless he has reason. He knows me too well.” She went to the door and threw it open. “On the bright side, at least, he brought the cleanup crew. We would have had problems disposing of Jacobs’s body. After all, he was in the military and supposedly served his country.”

“He was a crook, a smuggler, and possibly an accomplice to murder.”

“We’d still have problems explaining him away. Military bureaucracy is almost as bad as congressional bureaucracy. It’s better that he just disappear.” She strode out of the house and called, “Venable, you took your time. We’ve been waiting for—”

“Don’t go there, Catherine,” Venable said sourly as he got out of the car. “I’m a little fed up with this fog and crawling along on these less-than-wonderful highways. Be polite. Be very polite.”

*   *   *

EVE WATCHED CATHERINE
and Venable together for a moment before she turned away. They were sparring with the easy familiarity that spoke of a longtime association. Venable was a powerhouse, but Catherine was having no trouble keeping up with him. Catherine had no trouble keeping up with anyone.

She glanced at the Danner sketch again and suddenly shivered. How could kindness become malice? Or had the malice always been there, hidden and waiting to break free? She had a sudden memory of Bonnie in her stroller and Danner bending down to pick up a toy rabbit she had dropped while Eve and he were talking. No, it seemed impossible. She had sought out killers before whom she had thought might have killed Bonnie, but they had been monsters. Ted Danner was not a monster.

But the expression Eve had drawn of the face of the man who had attacked Catherine had been that of a monster. She pulled her eyes away from the sketch and tossed it on the table before she went out the front door. She needed to get away from the house and Jacobs, who was still lying dead in the bed upstairs. She had to think. The recognition of Ted Danner had come as a tremendous shock, and she was both bewildered and uncertain which path was best. Catherine might know what direction she was going to follow, but she had never met Ted Danner. It was Eve whose life had been the backdrop for this horror of pain and sadness to play out. Catherine had only her own experience and instincts to help her make conclusions.

And that seductive wild card that was John Gallo. Eve knew what confusion he could bring to any woman.

“Eve?” Catherine turned away from Venable as Eve strode past them.

“I needed some air.” She nodded at Venable but didn’t stop. A moment later, she entered the trees that bordered the bayou.

That was better. She drew a deep breath. Silence, except for the sounds of the bayou. The fog was a mere wisp drifting over the waters. Peace. No pushing and prodding for action from Catherine. She could relax and try to get her thoughts together.

*   *   *

“SHE ONLY WANTS WHAT’S
best. Catherine doesn’t know any other way.”