Silencing Eve

range.”
    “On the road?”
    “No.” He smiled. “It moved to the north in the parking lot and seemed to be going around a corner.”
    Catherine tensed as she gazed down at the map. “The motel,” she said. “He’s at the motel.”
    “That’s my bet.”
    Zander was on his feet and heading for the door. “And mine. Stang, tell the helicopter pilot I’ll be up on the roof in three minutes and to set a course for Casper, Wyoming.”
    Catherine was right behind him. “How long will it take?”
    “Probably thirty minutes.”
    Excitement was tingling through her. Thirty minutes, and they had a chance of getting to Eve. But anything could happen in thirty minutes, and she’d seen victory turned to defeat too many times to take it for granted. “I’m calling Venable and telling him to have the state police start surveillance of the motel.”
    “Your choice,” Zander said. “But one mistake, and we’ve lost him again. Are you willing to put Eve’s life on the line if one of those troopers isn’t as sharp as you’d want him to be?”
    “No.” She looked him in the eye. “Okay, but I’m going with you in that helicopter, Zander. What you know, I’m going to know.”
    He gazed at her for a moment. “Have it your own way. You’re not stupid, and you impress me as being fairly lethal. I can see why Eve trusted you.” He added softly, “But don’t get in my way, Catherine.”
    “I won’t get in your way.” She passed him in the hall and punched the button for the elevator. “As long as you don’t get in mine, Zander.”
    Casper, Wyoming
    A SOUND AT THE DOOR of the motel.
    Doane!
    Panic iced through Eve.
    No! It was too soon. She wasn’t ready.
    She jerked her hand from beneath the table where she’d been painstakingly sticking the clay to the underside. Carefully enough? What if it tore loose and fell to the floor?
    It would have to do.
    She quickly moved the spatula across the face of the reconstruction, smoothing, filling. She deliberately jabbed the spatula into the lower mid-therum area beneath the nose as the door opened.
    “Damn!” She turned to glare at Doane as he came into the room. “I told you these cuffs would make me clumsy.” She jerked her head at the indentation she’d made. “Now let me go, and I’ll try to smooth the clay.”
    He unlocked the cuffs. “You really chopped up that clay.”
    “What do you expect?” She worked quickly, skillfully, to smooth over the place where she’d stolen the clay. “I only had one hand, and I couldn’t—”
    That was good enough. Doane would have to examine it under a magnifying glass to tell the difference from the time he’d walked out of the motel room. She sat back and gazed at the skull. “He’s almost as good as new.” Her lips twisted. “Though there are two words in that sentence that are completely bizarre when applied to your Kevin. He was never good nor new. He’s as old as sin.”
    Doane took out his handkerchief and carefully unwrapped it. “I washed his eyes very carefully.” He held up the glittering blue orbs. “He’s going to be handsome again. In spite of all the harm you’ve done him, he can’t be made anything but magnificent.”
    She looked down at the blue eyeballs shining up at her. This was the part of the reconstruction she dreaded. When she had first placed those eyes in the orbital cavities in the ghost town, it had come as almost a physical shock.
    It wouldn’t be so bad this time. She’d be prepared for it. She quickly inserted the blue eyes.
    It was just as bad. Worse.
    It seemed as if Kevin was glaring at her with supreme malice.
    A wave of nausea swept over her.
    “He always frightens you, doesn’t he?” Doane said softly. “You act so bold, but in the end he makes you want to go and hide.”
    “This skull doesn’t frighten me. Neither does the thought of your son.” She forced herself to look into those glass eyes. “He’s dead. He has no power. He can’t hurt anyone any longer.”
    “Tell that to the people in those cities that are going to be blown into the stratosphere. Tell them that Kevin has no power. Tell that to Zander at the moment that I kill him.” He gazed lovingly at the reconstruction. “She brought you back again, Kevin. I made her do it, just as you said I should.”
    “Excuse me, your raving is making me ill.” She got to her feet. “And I have to go to the bathroom and wash this clay off my hands.” She picked up the hand towel she’d been using