interviewed parents, relatives, friends, and siblings of each child in the village. Then she had written their stories from birth to the day of their horrible death. Each word simple but poignant until Eve had felt that every one of those children belonged to her.
She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, but the tears still flowed. She could still see that day, feel the darkness of terror as the militia had come and hacked and hacked with their machetes. Would she ever not see it? Jill Cassidy had made every moment come alive for her and anyone else who read those damnably beautiful, agonizingly human, stories.
Close it out.
Impossible.
Jill had known it would be impossible. That’s why she had made Eve promise to look at them. Brilliant, wise, Jill Cassidy, who had done her homework and had no trouble reading her. She would have been resentful except for the fact that Jill could not have written those words if she hadn’t been caught up in the same agony as Eve was feeling now. They were bound together by the pain of those helpless children butchered in that village.
But don’t let Jill Cassidy manipulate her. Push it away. Don’t give in to it. Six hundred thousand people had died in Maldara. These were only twenty-seven children.
But now, she knew every single one of them.
She opened her eyes. She would not cry again. Tears did no good. Find a solution or accept the pain. She reached for her computer and flipped open the lid.
Maldara…
* * *
It wasn’t Joe but Jane who called her four hours later. “I’m calling from the apartment. Michael and Joe are here and safe,” she said. “But there’s something missing. You. I thought I was going to be reasonable and not harass you, but then when you didn’t show up at customs, I decided that was bullshit. Get on the next plane. I don’t care if you smuggle that skull through customs and just work here at the apartment. Or if you decide to go with us to the dig. At least you’d be here. That’s where you belong. Now do what I say, dammit.”
Eve could almost see her toss her red hair as she said those last words. Jane was always passionate when it came to family, and this wasn’t totally unexpected. “I’m thinking about it. Though we both know that you’re all going to be so busy that you probably wouldn’t know I was around.”
“We’d know.” She sighed. “I just thought that I’d add my two cents’ worth to the guilt trip Joe has no doubt been bombarding you with. I guess I’ll just have to leave it to him.”
“You’ll have enough on your plate with supervising Michael on that dig. He’s so excited about it. I know it’s going to be wonderful.”
“I think it will. Most of the time, they only permit older students on these digs. I went on my first one when I was a teenager, remember? So when I ran across the information on this one in Wales that was allowing younger kids, I jumped on it.” She chuckled. “And I’m not sure who’s going to supervise whom. Michael is already making plans and reading all my literature on it. I’m expecting sunrise to sunset to be the time-frame agenda.”
“See? You’d have to squeeze me in.”
“I’m not handling this well. I’d better hand you over to Joe. He has more experience at bulldozing you. I love you.”
The next moment, Joe came on the line. “As Jane said, we’re here and already missing you. She insisted on trying her powers of persuasion one more time. We stopped for breakfast on the way from the airport. Did I wake you?”
“No, it’s only a little after midnight here, and I’ve been busy,” Eve said. “Good flight?”
“Passable. Michael and I played cards. He’s decided that counting cards shouldn’t really be considered illegal in the casinos, and he’s perfecting his technique.”
“Heaven help us. Don’t you dare take him to a casino.”
“I think he’ll be content with Jane once they start working at the dig in Wales. Why weren’t you sleeping? Nora?”
“No.” She paused. “Just doing some research about some skulls found in Maldara. I didn’t know much about it.”
“Maldara? From what I remember from the news stories, you’d do better researching almost anything else. Nightmare stuff. I remember you were very careful to keep it away from Michael’s eyes.”
“Which meant I had to ignore a lot of it myself. I only knew it was a civil