if you’d make it quickly. The switch is supposed to be made tomorrow night. It would be foolish for me to spend a fortune in bribe money if I have no forensic sculptor of your caliber to do the work. By the way, I’ll have to ask you not to talk to Quinn on your Skype about any of this. It was safe to let you contact him before, but not now. There’s the possibility that you might be hacked.” He met her eyes. “This would take only a few days, and you might be able to keep a monster from coming back out of the shadows. Jill thinks that it’s worth it. Let me know if you agree.”
He turned on his heel and left the museum.
Chapter
7
There was no decision to be made, Eve thought. Particularly after that last remark about her not talking to Joe about it.
She shouldn’t even think of doing that reconstruction. There were so many reasons why it was a bad idea.
And there was only one reason why she should do it.
To stop a monster from coming out of the shadows and striking again.
Someone had killed Hadfeld to keep Jill from getting evidence that the monster was still out there, waiting.
And that violence and horror done to Jill. Eve’s own pain and sickness. Maybe Varak was no longer hiding but was on the move.
Her gaze went to Amari on the dais in front of her.
“I don’t know what to do,” she murmured. “But that was a terrible thing he did to you. We have to be sure that he paid for it, don’t we?”
He gazed back at her with those big brown eyes and the eager expectancy that she had unknowingly sculpted in his expression. Eagerness to go home, to end the sadness of that final parting.
But could that sadness be ended if those shadows remained?
“In my court?” Eve nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know. You’ve had enough to deal with.” She got to her feet. “Okay. I’ll think about it and get back to you.” But not here, where she was surrounded by those lavishly trimmed boxes, and Amari, who was both her triumph and despair. She headed for the door. She needed air.
She stood outside and breathed deep, her gaze on the night sky. There was moonlight, the bright orb barely visible over the canopy of trees. Just stand here and look and listen to the night sounds and don’t think about anything that Jill had told her earlier.
She had come here for a specific purpose, to help Amari and all the other children who had been so terribly mutilated and destroyed. It wasn’t right to put that aside and go on a wild-goose chase that could be a senseless waste of time.
It wasn’t right.
Then why was she walking through the overgrown brush down the path toward that schoolroom she’d never wanted to see again?
Go back.
There’s no one there.
No way she could help what had happened in that room.
Those lonely desks, the dark streaks on the floor…
She stood in the gaping opening and gazed at that broken blackboard. Had the teacher been standing there when the school had been overrun? Had the children had time to scream before the machetes began to tear into them? They must have been so afraid…
“Eve.” It was Gideon standing beside her. He asked gently, “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.” That desk couldn’t have been Amari’s. It was too small. Maybe one of the six-year-olds…“I’m just…They were used to kindness…They wouldn’t have known why…”
“No, they wouldn’t.” He touched her wet cheek. “We have to hope it was very quick. Come on, I’ll take you back to the museum.” He was propelling her away from the schoolroom and down the path. “It’s been a bad day for you. You need to get some rest. We all ganged up on you, didn’t we? We should have waited until you’d had time to heal at least.”
“Yes, you should.” Now that she was no longer looking at the schoolhouse, she was beginning to function again. Though she was unutterably sad and weary. “And you’ll hear from me about it later. Right now, I have to take it all in and start thinking instead of feeling.” They had reached the museum, and she turned to face him. “How did you know I was down there?”
“Jill told me to keep an eye on you.” He smiled. “Though I would have done it anyway. I care about you, Eve. You may think that we all