“For a little while.” He headed for the kitchen. “I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee while you—”

Eve’s phone rang, and she picked up the receiver on the chest by the door and answered it. “Just a minute.” She frowned as she handed the receiver to Joe. “Detective Slindak. He said you told him you’d be here.”

He nodded. “I had to give him a contact number. I was planning on calling him anyway.” He spoke into the phone, “Quinn.”

“I tried to get you at your hotel first,” Slindak said sourly. “You must be burning the midnight oil.”

“You might say that. Problems, Slindak?”

“Big-time. Some hunters found a child’s remains in a cave in Gwinnett County.”

“Girl or boy?”

He could see Eve tense.

“Girl. There wasn’t much left of the kid, but the scraps of clothing that remained coincided with the description of what Janey Bristol was wearing when she disappeared. I’m heading out to the crime scene. I thought you’d want to go, too.”

“I’ll meet you there.” He pulled out his notebook and pen. “Give me the directions.” He scrawled rapidly. “Is forensics already there?”

“Yes. And the officers who were called secured the area as best they could. There were three hunters who made the discovery, and they ducked into the cave to shelter from the rain. It’s still raining cats and dogs up there. They pretty well messed up the crime scene.”

“Great,” Joe said sarcastically. “Not that it would probably have done much good anyway. The kid has to have been subjected to animal and environmental exposure for all these months. But there might have been something. I’m on my way.” He hung up.

“Who?” Eve asked.

“Not Bonnie. We can’t be sure. The body is in poor condition, but the clothing would point toward Janey Bristol.”

Eve crossed her arms across her chest as if to keep them from shaking. “Six years old…”

He turned toward the door. “I’ll call you when I know more.”

“I’m going with you.”

He had been half-expecting it. “This is going way beyond just looking at records, Eve.”

“Yes, it’s looking at the remains of that poor kid. It makes me sick to think of it. But I have to be there.” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I know nonprofessionals aren’t welcome at crime scenes. But you’ve stuck your neck out for me before. Do it now. I won’t get in your way. Look, I won’t even go to the crime scene itself. I’ll stay in the car.”

“And you’ll still see things you don’t want to see.”

“So I’m supposed to bury my head in the sand? No, I don’t want to see it. But that little girl didn’t want to be killed, either. It could have been Bonnie.” Her lips tightened in a mirthless smile. “Why not let me go? Slindak should be expecting it. You said he thought we might be sleeping together. He’ll just think that I’m getting what I paid for.”

“And what if I don’t want him to think that?” Joe asked grimly.

She ignored the question. “Take me, Joe,” she said urgently. “You knew I wouldn’t be satisfied with studying those reports. You knew where this would lead.”

Yes, he had known. Why was he even arguing? When he had copied the reports, he had made the ultimate commitment.

One more attempt.

“What would you do if I said no?”

“Follow you.”

He turned back toward the door. “Grab a raincoat. It’s raining up in Gwinnett County.”

*   *   *

THE MEDICAL EXAMINER’S VAN was parked on the side of the road, and Joe drew in several yards behind it. “Stay here.”

Eve nodded. “You don’t have to remind me. I promised I wouldn’t get in your way. I just want to be here in case you find out anything.”

“Which will probably be nothing until we get the forensic reports.” He jumped out of the car and was immediately soaked by the pouring rain. He followed the glow of lanterns carried by shadowy figures that turned out to be officers moving behind the yellow tape several yards from the road.

“Quinn.”

He turned to see Slindak coming toward him. He was wearing a yellow slicker, but his head was bare, and his hair was as wet as Joe’s. “Where’s the cave, Slindak?”

Slindak nodded to the left. “Around that bend. It’s only a football field’s distance from the road. And it’s only two miles from a ritzy subdivision. The son of a bitch who killed her has balls of steel.”

“He thinks that he’s too smart to be caught. Not unusual.” But the degree of boldness was not common, Joe thought. “And he buried that other kid beside the freeway. How the hell could he be sure not to be seen by a driver while he was disposing of the body?”

Slindak shrugged. “Nuts.” He was sloshing through the mud toward the cave. “But he’d have to be crazy to do what he did to that little girl. She doesn’t have a head. At first, we thought an animal had taken it, but we found it on a shelf of the cave. He cut it off and put it on display.”

Joe felt the anger tear through him. “Bastard.”

“Did you and your lady find anything in those reports?”

Joe gave him an icy glance. “Ms. Duncan worked very hard, but didn’t come up with anything yet. And you will speak of her with respect, or you’ll find yourself facedown in this mud while I wash out your mouth.”

“Hold it,” Slindak said quickly. “No offense. I do respect her. I just called it the way I saw it.”

And Slindak hadn’t been really insulting. It had been Joe’s anger at the killing that had become mixed with his annoyance with Slindak. Joe couldn’t blame him for reading sexual overtones into his connection with Eve. On Joe’s part, those overtones were definitely there, and it wouldn’t take a psychic to see them. He just hoped they weren’t as clear to Eve. “You saw wrong,” he said curtly. “There’s no payoff. No matter what I’m feeling, I’m not that much of an asshole.”

Slindak shook his head. “You poor bastard,” he murmured. “I’ll be damned. I never thought I’d live to see it.”

“You may not if you keep on talking,” Joe said grimly.

“My lips are sealed.” They had come close to the cave, and Slindak gestured to the opening. “I think they’re ready to bring out the body. Do you want to go inside?”

Joe nodded and moved carefully to enter the cave. Two techs were carefully transferring the body parts to the tarp on the stretcher. The parts were mostly skeleton. The little girl was hardly recognizable as a human being. The anger was searing again, and he took a moment to overcome it before he glanced around the cave. It was a small area, and evidently the child hadn’t been buried or hidden in any way. It was a wonder that the body hadn’t been discovered sooner.

Again, the killer’s boundless arrogance was staring Joe in the face.

“We’re ready to go.” A young forensic tech kneeling beside the body was looking up at Joe. “Do you need anything else, sir?”

“The skull was on that ledge?” he asked.

“Yep, it nearly scared those hunters shitless,” Slindak said. “The field rats had gotten to it.”

“Can we zip her up?” the tech asked again.

“Yeah, go ahead.” Joe turned away as they zipped up the body bag. “Did we get any footprints besides those of the hunters?”

“A possible near the ledge, but it’s badly eroded,” Slindak said. “He didn’t even try to erase his footprint. It’s like the other case. If we could catch the bastard, we could nail him in court.”

“He doesn’t think we’re going to catch him. That couldn’t be more obvious.” Joe watched the techs pick up the stretcher and carry it out into the rain. They were going to take it to the M.E. van.

And Eve was going to see them put that pitiful sack of bones into the van.

“Is there anything else I should see?” he asked Slindak.

Slindak shook his head. “I just thought you’d want to be here.”

“You were right.” He turned toward the cave entrance. “Let me know when we get a definite ID.”

“That may not be easy. I can’t bring in the parents to ID that skeleton. No prints. I can only try to get dental records.”