A tiny disturbance rippled through Eve. She didn’t look at all like Bonnie. “Why are you talking about Bonnie, Catherine?”
“Because I think Joe is jealous of your obsession with Bonnie. Not of your daughter. Just of your feelings for her. He’d have to be a saint not to feel a little put in the shade by the way you feel. Isn’t that true?”
She didn’t speak for a moment. “Yes. But friend or not, I don’t want to discuss this with you, Catherine.”
“I have to discuss it with you. Do you think I want to do it? I was even thinking of walking away and forgetting about it. But I can’t do that, Eve.”
Eve frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You and Joe have a giant problem, and I don’t want to make it any bigger.”
“How could you do that?”
“Easily.” Her lips twisted. “I’m good at what I do. I’m an expert. I just set my mind to it and cause the sky to fall.”
Eve slowly rose from the swing and went to stand beside Catherine. “Talk to me.”
Catherine looked away from her again. “I told you I’d pay you back, remember? I was so grateful I wanted to give you what you wanted most in the world.”
Eve gazed at her with exasperation. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t convince Catherine to accept what Eve had done as a gesture of friendship and let it go. Catherine had come to her to ask her to do an age progression on her son Luke, who had been kidnapped when he was two and had been missing for nine years. Eve had been inevitably drawn into the search for Luke that had culminated in a deadly race to save him from his kidnapper in Russia. “And I told you to forget it.”
“That’s not in my makeup.” She was silent for a minute. “What you want most in the world is to bring your Bonnie home. To do that you have to find her killer. When I came home from Hong Kong, I had lots of time to concentrate on thinking about your problem. I tried to look at the crime from an objective and fresh point of view. Then I started to dig. I used every contact and information-gathering unit I had at my disposal and at Venable’s disposal. We even tapped the NSA.”