Silencing Eve

impossible to grasp that he would do those terrible—But he did do them, and he wouldn’t listen to me. So I had to leave him.”
    “And your husband.”
    “By that time, James didn’t pay any attention to me anyway. It was all Kevin. He didn’t care what Kevin did as long as it was what he wanted. The most terrible things were right if Kevin told him they were.” Her lips twisted. “I’d lost James long before I lost Kevin.” She got to her feet. “I’ve had enough of this. I can’t take anymore. You can do whatever you like. Tell the school administrators, tell everyone that I’m just as much a monster as Kevin because I ran away instead of trying to stop him.” She drew a shaky breath. “Sometimes, when I wake from a nightmare in the middle of the night, I believe that’s true. So punish me any way you please.” She turned and walked away.
    “Wait.”
    Harriet Weber didn’t turn around or stop. The next moment, she disappeared off the field.
    It was just as well. Jane didn’t know what she had wanted to say to Harriet Weber, but she hadn’t wanted the woman to leave like that. The pain and torment were too obvious. She wanted to somehow heal it. But how could she heal it when she had no empathy at all for the woman’s decision? She had chosen that her Kevin survive and risked countless others so that he would.
    Jane moved slowly down the steps toward the exit. What had she accomplished by this meeting except disturbing Harriet Weber?
    She had become so involved with the intensity of the woman’s emotional response that it had been difficult to sort out what else had been said. She would have to analyze these minutes and consider if she had learned anything that could be helpful. Was Kevin’s mother victim or, by her silence, accomplice? Perhaps both. Jane knew how she felt but, as the woman said, she hadn’t walked in her shoes.
    All that was clear now was that the dark ugliness that had been Doane and Kevin had also pulled Harriet Weber down into those stagnant depths.
    *   *   *
    TREVOR AND CALEB WERE NOT at the airport terminal when Jane and Margaret arrived back over an hour later.
    Jane checked her phone. No message.
    She called Trevor. No answer. Just voice mail.
    Caleb? Same.
    “Where the hell are they?” she said as she hung up.
    “Somewhere interesting, I’m sure.” Margaret was gazing at her. “Stop frowning. Do you know how absurd it is for you to even think about being worried about them? I can’t imagine any men who would be better able to take care of themselves.”
    “I’m not worried.” But she had to admit that she was wary. The mere fact that Trevor and Caleb were probably together made her uneasy. They struck sparks off each other. “I’m just … curious.”
    “Well, let’s be curious about lunch.” Margaret was nudging her toward the airport restaurant. “We’ll leave them to starve as punishment for being incommunicado.”
    Trevor and Caleb didn’t appear for another hour, and she and Margaret were almost finished with their meal when they strode into the restaurant.
    “Scoot.” Caleb sat down in the booth beside Jane. “Is that ham sandwich any good? I’m starved.”
    “Fair.”
    He motioned for the waitress. “Trevor?”
    “The same. Anything. Coffee.”
    “Not for me. I’m zinging.” He gave the order to the waitress and leaned back. “We had a good morning. How about you, Jane?”
    “Not very productive, but I’ll have to decide if—” She stopped, gazing at him. “You are zinging.” She had seen him like that before, and it was usually when he was on the hunt or in battle. The charge of emotion he emitted was electric. Her gaze shifted to Trevor. He didn’t have the same animal intensity as Caleb, but he was also wired. His eyes glittered, and he was smiling. She asked, “What have you been doing? I called you and got voice mail.”
    “It would have been inconvenient to answer the phone.” He exchanged a glance with Caleb. “We were busy.”
    Jane gazed at them, annoyance mixed with bewilderment. What the hell was happening? They were like two little boys in a neighborhood club who were brimming with secrets and mischief. She had never expected that response from two men who were fully mature, sophisticated, and slightly antagonistic. “Is someone going to explain?”
    Caleb smiled. “You left us with nothing to do and twiddling our thumbs. We decided to do our own investigation on Harriet