Quicksand (19 page)

She nodded. "Thanks, Joe. I only want a few minutes."

"If she gets hysterical it may be a few minutes too long." He opened the screen door. "But we'll deal with that if it happens. You're right; she deserves any comfort we can give her. You're not the only one who remembers how those first days when Bonnie was missing tore you apart."

THE SUN WAS LOW IN THE SKY
when Eve saw Joe and Nina Simmons walk out of the house on Meadow Place Drive and down the porch steps. Laura Ann's mother was a pretty woman in her thirties with brown hair cut in a breezy style and the same blue eyes as her daughter. Those eyes were swollen from weeping and she looked totally devastated.

Eve got out of her car and waited on the corner as Joe walked with her down the street toward her. Now that she was here, she felt helpless. She didn't know enough to give comfort. But she could give hope.

Joe stopped and let Laura Ann's mother go the last few yards alone.

"Nina Simmons?" She stepped forward and took the other woman's hand. "I'm Eve Duncan. I won't keep you long. I just wanted to—"

"I know who you are," Nina Simmons said jerkily. "The detective told me. He said that you were looking for my daughter. He said you might have a chance of finding Laura Ann."

"We'll find her." Lord, she hoped she was telling the truth. "But you won't be able to tell anyone we may have a lead on her. It would be—it wouldn't be good."

"You mean he might kill her," she said baldly. "Have you talked to her?"

"Not yet."

"Then you don't know she's alive."

"I think the chances are that she's alive."

"But you don't
know
." Her voice broke. "You don't know anything. You're like all the rest."

"I know we'll find her. We won't stop until we do."

"You've
got
to find her. You don't know how special she is. She's had to fight all her life just to stay alive. She had two heart operations before she was four and she came out of them like a champ." Tears were running down her cheeks. "She had a mother who couldn't be with her because she had to work twelve hours a day to keep food on the table and a father who didn't think that Laura Ann was worth sticking around for when the going got tough. Yet she never complained and she just keeps getting brighter and stronger every day of her life." Her voice became fierce. "So don't you dare let that monster do anything to her." Eve wanted to reach out and touch her, comfort her, but she could see how frail the balance was that kept Laura Ann's mother's composure intact. "We'll bring her back to you. I think that I'll be able to talk to her soon. Is there anything that you'd like me to tell her?"

"Tell her—I love her. I'm proud of her. I know she'll come home to me." She turned on her heel. "Now get out of here and go find my daughter." She strode past Joe down the street and into the house.

Eve was barely aware when Joe took her elbow and nudged her gently back toward her car.

"She's hurting so," she whispered. "Did I help at all, Joe?"

"You did what you could," Joe said quietly. "She'll get through it. She's tough."

"Yes." But being strong didn't stop the panic and pain. Seeing Nina Simmons had brought back all the agony of the time when she had lost Bonnie. She opened her car door. "Now let's get busy and see if we can keep that promise I made her. I'll meet you back at Montalvo's camp."

"IT COULD BE EITHER THE
swamp or Chattahoochee National Forest." Montalvo opened a coffee-table book on the national forest and started quickly going through it. "Dammit, this is the third book we've gone through and there's nothing like that rock." Joe tossed a boating travelogue on the swamp aside and picked up another book. "It's got to be here. If we don't get close, it won't be any fun for Kistle."

"Try the brochures you pick up in the lobby of hotels." Eve stood in the doorway of the tent.

"He doesn't really want to fool us. He'll want to make this part easy for us. What's easier than one of those tourist brochures?"

"Good idea." Montalvo reached for a pile of brochures at the bottom of the case. He raked Eve with a searching glance as he pulled them out. "How are you doing?"

"I'll be better after we find where Kistle's set up his trap." Eve knelt beside them and started going through the brochures. "Good God, Miguel has everything here from Okefenokee to Stone Mountain."

"He believes in overkill," Montalvo said.

"So does Kistle." She systematically started to go through the brochures, carefully opening each one and scanning the inside pages.

It was five minutes later that Joe found it. "Chattahoochee National Forest." He threw the brochure down and pointed to the photo inside. "The bastard picked an all-American family to go with it."

The photo was of a mother, father, and little girl, all in hiking gear, climbing the hill where the rock and pine tree were clearly in evidence. The little girl's face was closest to the camera and she looked wonderfully happy and vibrantly alive. It was not Laura Ann, of course, but the choice of the little girl did what it was meant to do. It reminded them of life that could be so easily taken away.

"Where was it taken?" Eve asked. "It's not a landmark."

"That would be too easy." Joe got to his feet. "I'll call the precinct and get them to get me a telephone number for the people who did this brochure. In the meantime, let's hit the road. We can reach the national forest in a couple hours."

"It will be dark by then." Eve moved toward the SUV. The twilight was already beginning to fade from gold to purple. "How are we going to make our way through that forest? We've got flashlights, but that's rough territory and we don't know where we're going."

"Quinn should know where he's going as soon as he gets a location," Montalvo said. "He told me he'd spent some time there."

"Yes, he did." Eve remembered those weeks Joe and the searchers had been in that forest all those years ago looking for Bonnie's grave. She recalled the tiredness and frustration and finally the despair. That had almost destroyed their relationship.

Now it was starting all over again.

"GOOD. YOU'RE WAKING UP. WHAT
a sleepyhead you are, Laura Ann. That little bit of chloroform shouldn't have kept you out this long."

Laura Ann felt a jolt of terror. It was him, the man who'd said he was Daddy's friend and then stuffed that handkerchief over her mouth. "I want to go home. You let me leave right now or I'll tell the police you did this to me."

"My, we have a fighter. Do you know I've always found that little girls are much tougher fighters than little boys? And I have a vast experience with both." He checked the ropes binding her wrists. "I believe it has something to do with survival of the species."

"My mother said I was a seven-month baby and that I wouldn't have lived if I hadn't wanted to do it." She glared at him. "Now you let me loose and let me go home. My mom is going to be worried about me."

"And so she should be." He stroked her throat. "Because whether you live or not is not up to you this time, little girl."

She felt her heart beating hard beneath his hand. He meant he was going to hurt her. Mom had told her about dirty men who wanted to hurt kids.

"There, now, that's what I like to see." He was staring at her face. "What wide eyes you have, Laura Ann. How scared are you? I can make you very scared. Do you want to beg me not to hurt you?"

She was scared. She wanted to run away, but she couldn't move. She hated him. She hated him.

"Tell me," he said softly.

She opened her mouth to beg him, to promise to do anything he asked, but she hated him too much.

She spit in his face.

"Bitch." His hand tightened on her throat until everything went red, then dark. Then he let her go and was wiping his face with a handkerchief. "What a pleasure you're going to be, Laura Ann. I can hardly wait. But I have to be patient because I need you to talk to another bitch." He picked her up and threw her in the back of his car. "And then we'll see how tough you are."

She didn't feel tough. Her throat hurt and she was as scared as he wanted her to be. She could feel the tears run down her cheeks. She wanted Mama to come and get her. But Mama had said that the two of them were on their own after Daddy left and Laura Ann had to be able to help take care of herself. Maybe this was one of the times when Mama couldn't help her. Maybe she'd have to get away from him all by herself.

THE PRECINCT CALLED JOE
back as they were entering the Chattahoochee National Forest. He listened for a moment. "Right." He hung up. "It's about four miles from here near a bluff overlooking a stream. There's supposed to be a path leading around the bluff, and the rock is on the backside. They said the path is so covered by brush that it's almost indiscernible."

"Do you remember the area?" Montalvo asked.

Joe nodded. "I went over that stream a dozen times when I was on the search, but I never went south of the bluff. I never knew there was a path. I sure didn't see it. We can go by car as far as the stream, but then we'll have to go by foot around the bluff." They reached the stream fifteen minutes later and got out to look up at the bluff. It was huge and Eve shivered as she looked up at it. "Anyone on top of that monstrosity would have a great shot, wouldn't he?"

"Yes." Montolvo moved forward. "And that's why I'll climb up and take a look before you and Quinn start the path around the bluff."

"And what's to keep him from picking you off?" Eve asked. "Don't do it." He smiled back at her. "Don't worry. I'm good at this. Give me fifteen minutes. Put your phone on vibrate, Quinn. I'll call and hang up and call again if it's safe." He disappeared into the shrubbery.

Eve muttered an oath. "Dammit, he shouldn't have gone."

"You couldn't have stopped him. What a wonderful grandstand." Joe drew her back into the shrubbery. "He'll enjoy every minute of it."

"Unless he gets killed."

"Yes, unless he gets killed. That would put a crimp in his show." She was edgy as hell and Joe wasn't helping. "Don't be an ass." He didn't speak for a moment and then he said, "You're right. I was jealous. I want to be the one on that damn bluff and I'm down here on the ground looking up. I always seem to be stuck with that role when Montalvo's around."

"Because you want to make sure I'm safe, and I'm no good at climbing bluffs. I'd say that's pretty much of a star role." Her gaze went to the shrubbery jutting out of the bluff where Montalvo had disappeared. "I don't see him any longer."

"He's three-quarters up the bluff. That branch on the southern ledge moved a little as he went past it. He should be at the top in a few minutes."

Her eyes strained to see Montalvo in the darkness, but she couldn't make out anything. It was incredible to her that Joe could see what was happening.

"There he is." Joe's phone had vibrated until it went to voice mail. Then it began to vibrate again. "No one's on the bluff." Joe turned and started down the path. "Stay behind me. Let me check the path out as we go."

She hurried to keep up with him. The shrubbery was almost growing over the path, hanging over her, all around her, and she felt suffocated, as if she were caught in a verdant trap. Kistle could be anywhere in that growth. So close she would never see him.

"I'd hear him," Joe called softly back to her. "And if I didn't smell him, I'd sense him." She had felt that she'd sense Kistle when she was at the lake cottage, but this was different. She was disoriented and her heart was beating so hard she couldn't hear anything but that pounding.

"There's a break in the foliage just ahead," Joe said. "I think we've made it around the bluff."

"Good." Her pace instinctively quickened until she was just behind him. "Going back I might just try my luck on the bluff." Then she was out in the open and could draw a deep breath.

"Stay here a minute," Joe said. "You're out of rifle range if he's in that pine grove. And I can't see anywhere else he'd be able to take cover."

Neither could Eve. She tensed as she saw the huge rock and behind it a little grove of pines. Other than those features it was all open area. "How are we going to get to the grove without being seen?"

His gaze was raking the bluff. "We don't. There's Montalvo." He raised a hand and made a sweeping motion at the grove. "He's angling in on the other side of the grove and checking it out. In the meantime, we move around outside firing range and keep Kistle distracted, if that's where he is." He moved along the edge of the shrubbery bordering the clearing. "Come on." She followed him but couldn't keep her eyes from the pine grove. Was that where Bonnie was buried? Was that where Kistle was keeping Laura Ann? Was that where Kistle was waiting with his rifle to kill all of them?

"VERY SMART," KISTLE MURMURED.
"Don't you think so, Laura Ann? Isn't it fun to watch them at play? Oh, that's right, I had to gag you again. But I'm sure you agree with me." He couldn't see Montalvo, but he had probably gone over the bluff and was in the grove. He was glad he hadn't killed Montalvo off before the game actually began. It was exciting to deal with two such interesting opponents. He could feel his anticipation mounting more by the moment.

"Come closer," he whispered. "Just a little closer . . ."
MONTALVO CAME OUT OF THE
grove twenty minutes later and motioned to them. He met them halfway across the clearing a few yards from the boulder. "No Kistle."

"You're sure?" Eve asked. "There's no other place for him to hide."

"He's not there. The grove isn't that big and I'm no amateur," Montalvo said. "He's not on the ground. He's not in the trees. He not there."

She braced herself. "Then I want to go into the grove and look around."

"If Bonnie's buried there, you wouldn't be able to tell," Joe said. "Too much time has passed."

"But not for Laura Ann," Eve said. "If he's killed her, the earth would be freshly turned. And he said Laura Ann would be near Bonnie."

Montalvo nodded and turned on his flashlight. "That's true. Okay. We'll take a look."