Silencing Eve

pleasure out of this place. He said it suited him.”
    “I can see how it might. Totally bizarre and theatrical.” And chilling. The cottage was small and rustic, half-hidden by rocks but what she could see was like a scene from a horror film. In front of the cottage were scores of individual pieces of white driftwood whose twisted branches were oddly shaped like gleaming headstones. They appeared to be entreating mercy from the darkness of the sky above. The thought of Kevin’s standing here and looking at those twisted branches was frightening. She could almost feel him beside her.
    No, behind her. If she looked over her shoulder, would she see Doane … or Kevin?
    “And I liked the thought of nature unchained,” Doane said. “I believed it might increase your feeling of helplessness.”
    “It doesn’t,” she lied. She would not look over her shoulder at him. Instead, she glanced around the deserted beach and hills. “But it’s not what I expected. You’re not going to have much impact with your dirty bomb out here in the boonies. I was expecting a big-city locale.”
    “You’ll get it.” He pushed her inside. “This is what you might call a holding tank. I have to get everything ready before I throw you and Zander together for the finale.”
    “What do you have to get ready? I thought you told me everything was set to go, that all it would take would be pressing a button. Was that a lie?”
    “I don’t have to lie to you. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
    “But you like to tell me all your plans. It gives you some kind of cheap thrill.” She wrinkled her nose as she looked around the small room. It was dusty and smelled of mildew. The only furniture was a wooden table and simple kitchen chairs, a faded couch, an easy chair, and coffee table in front of a stone fireplace. “Your choice of prisons isn’t improving. This isn’t any better than that motel. How long do we have to be here?”
    “Until I make arrangements.” He pushed her down in a chair at the table and tied her. “And I’m going to have to leave you for a while to do it.” He chuckled. “I see your eyes light up. Don’t be too eager. You’ll still have my full attention. But now that you’ve finished the reconstruction, you’re not going to be occupied. I’ll have to take care of that problem.”
    “I can’t wait to learn how.”
    “You won’t have to wait long.” He put the case containing Kevin’s skull on the table beside her. “And I’ll leave Kevin here to keep you company.” He opened the case and gently pulled the reconstruction from the box. “I know how much you like him to be close to you, to watch you.”
    She didn’t look at the reconstruction. She knew every line, every curve of that face she’d rebuilt from the burned horror of the skull Doane had given her to re-create. It was a handsome face, but all she could see was the twisted soul beneath it. “If I get loose, the first thing I’ll do will be to light a fire in that fireplace and throw him into it. It’s where you should have left him instead of trying to resurrect him.”
    Doane’s lips tightened. “And I’d throw you into the fire after him.”
    “Would you? But then your plans to make Zander suffer by killing me would be ruined. Not that he would suffer anyway.” She looked at him. Questions. Find out as much as she could. “Where are you going?”
    “I have to make sure that everything is ready and in place.”
    “In place? Where is this nuke?”
    “It’s safe.” He looked away from her as he straightened the reconstruction on the table. “I don’t have to worry about it. It’s quite safe.”
    He was being evasive. Why? “Safe from what? Where is it?” Her gaze narrowed on his face. “If you’re not afraid I’m going to escape from you, why won’t you tell me?”
    “You don’t need to know. You’ll find out soon enough.”
    A sudden, bizarre thought occurred to her. “Why, you don’t know, do you?” she asked softly. “Your wonderful Kevin didn’t trust you enough to tell you. All this time, you’ve been stringing Venable along and making him think he’d eventually be able to get that info from you, and you never had it.”
    “That’s not true,” he said harshly. “My Kevin did trust me. He just died before he could tell me where he stashed those nuclear devices. But I’ll still be able to do it. I just have to talk to a few of Kevin’s contacts here, and we’ll be able to find