Jill.” She looked at the reconstruction. Why could she still not shake this feeling of darkness and hate as she gazed at the skull? “And I can see why Joe might not want to jeopardize either my life or freedom.”
“Do you think I can’t?” Jill grimaced. “But he’s put me on the spot by not letting me tell Novak. We’ve been on the same team, and now I’m not supposed to trust him? At least he said that it would only be until he got back here.”
“You’re going to do it?” Eve gazed at her in disbelief. Then she smiled faintly. “I don’t believe it. You’re angry with him. Why are you doing it?”
“He offered me a price I couldn’t refuse. The bastard said it would help him to trust me.” She got to her feet. “But I don’t intend to lie to Novak. It will only take Gideon a couple hours to get Quinn here, and you’re not going to be finished with this reconstruction until he walks in that door.” She took out Eve’s computer and opened it. “You said there were all kinds of computer details and comparisons to complete a reconstruction job. Sit down and start doing them.”
Eve slowly dropped back down on her stool. To her amazement, she couldn’t smother her smile. Only moments before, she had been swirling downward through confusion and terror, yet now she was feeling an instant of welcome humor. “And what if I finish before Joe shows up?”
“I’ve got it covered. I’ll be nagging you and asking questions to make certain that computer reconstruction will have so many minute details that it will take you twice as long as it usually does.” She opened her own computer. “Though I might annoy you a little.”
Eve brought up her forensic programming. “And all to keep from lying to Novak?”
“And to stop your idiotically stubborn husband from saying I didn’t obey his damn orders. He said to keep you safe and not tell Novak.” She was focusing on the photo. “It’s up to me if I do it in a way that may please both of them…” She suddenly looked up at Eve. “Do you think I’m being manipulative again?”
“Perhaps. But I can see it’s sheer self-defense.” And it would keep Eve busier until Joe did walk in that door. She had been frightened when he hadn’t called her back, and she didn’t want to think about what he’d been doing during those minutes. “I’ll permit myself to be manipulated as long as I’m aware it’s happening.”
“It just seemed easier.”
“You sound like my son, Michael. He’s always certain everything would be easier if he did it.”
“I’ll take that. You love the kid.” Jill looked down at the photo again. “Now I’ll get back to doing a facial analysis, while you get busy with the victim.”
Victim.
Eve felt a ripple of shock at the word.
All the time she had been working on this reconstruction, she had never consciously thought of this skull as that of a victim. The possibility had always been there, of course. But she had only felt the darkness, the antagonism, the hate. Even now, it was difficult to feel sympathy for this man who had died in Varak’s place. Split personality, Jill had called it, when Eve had given the name Varak to the reconstruction. Was it the reason that lingering darkness remained?
Or was it the ferocious anger that his identity had been stolen as well as his life taken from him in this horrible way?
Either way, she had to change how she thought about him.
Not a monster but a victim.
Chapter
12
Joe and Gideon walked into the museum two hours and fifteen minutes later, followed closely by a very grim Novak.
“Surprise. Surprise,” Novak said sarcastically as he glanced at the completed reconstruction, then at Jill. “At least a surprise for me until Quinn showed up here fifteen minutes ago and told me. But I appear to be the only one who wasn’t on the need-to-know list.”
“I really just finished his computer input ten minutes ago,” Eve found herself saying quickly. “Stop glaring at Jill, Novak.”
“But you knew two hours ago it wasn’t Varak.” He made an impatient gesture. “I’ll deal with that later.”
“No, you won’t,” Eve said. “My job. My decision.” She turned to Joe. “How are you? I was worried. What happened in Cairo?”
“Not much that was good,” Joe said. “Except that we might have acquired some valuable information to coordinate with what you found out about the ID of the