“San Diego,” she repeated. “I’ll let you know which flight. Bye, Joe.” She hung up and, a moment later, heard the ping as the photo Joe had promised her was transmitted. She accessed the photo of Beth Avery.

She felt a ripple of surprise.

“Vibrant,” Joe had called her. That was an understatement, the face of the girl in the photo was glowing and eager and so alive that it was like an electric shock. A thin, triangular face with full lips and brown eyes beneath winged dark brows. Her shoulder-length hair was also dark brown and wildly curly.

Like my Bonnie’s hair, she thought. Not red-brown, like her daughter’s tousled curls, but it looked to have the same shining texture and wild buoyancy. For some reason, she had not expected to see any family resemblance in Beth Avery. Eve still couldn’t think of Beth in that context. She saw no likeness to either Sandra or herself, but that cap of curly hair had given her a start.

And that vibrance and sheer love of life in Beth’s expression had touched … and angered her. No one who loved life that much should have it taken away from her.

Cool it. She was jumping to conclusions. She couldn’t be absolutely sure that Beth had been a victim of anything but a terrible accident. Because Eve had believed she’d shared the thoughts of that woman in those crazy dreams didn’t mean that those thoughts were sane and coherent.

Bullshit. Don’t back away now. There had to be some reason that she’d had that first dream of Beth. Some reason that Sandra had come to them with her confession about Beth at just this time. Life wasn’t always fair or kind, but she’d learned from Bonnie that there was an order to it that couldn’t be denied.

*   *   *

“I’M GLAD YOU LEARNED that much, Mama.”

Bonnie.

She was sitting in the rocking chair by the window, dressed, as usual, in her Bugs Bunny T-shirt, with her leg tucked beneath her. The moonbeams streaming through the window were touching her curly hair with light.

Eve felt a rush of pure love as she gazed at her. “Well, it’s about time you came around. I thought you’d abandoned me.”

“No, you didn’t. You know better.” Her smile lit her small face. “I told you that I wasn’t going to be around as often as I was before. You don’t need me as much now.”

“The hell I don’t. I always need you.”

“You love me, you don’t need me. You’re free of me now that you know where I am and who was to blame for my death. Now we can just enjoy the love.”

All that wisdom and maturity in one small spirit. Bonnie had told her a long time ago that she couldn’t remain the seven-year-old little girl she had been before she died. Souls matured and became what they were meant to be. But Eve wasn’t about to let Bonnie talk her into letting her drift away from Eve. “That doesn’t mean you can’t come around more often.”

Bonnie threw back her head and laughed. “Mama, you never give up. Admit that you didn’t miss me as much as you did before.”

“I will not.” She added grudgingly, “Okay, I didn’t feel as sad and hollow, but that didn’t mean I didn’t miss you. I was just thinking of you a minute ago.”

“I know. Me and Beth.”

She stiffened. “What do you know about Beth?”

“Not a lot. I know she’s afraid. I know she’s strong like you. So strong.”

“Even now? In her photo, she looked very strong, but that was when she was a teenager.”

“She’s stronger now. She’s had to fight, and that makes you develop all kinds of inner strength. You don’t know how hard it was for her.”

“I can imagine.” She paused. “I’ve been dreaming about Beth. Was it—” Bonnie was shaking her head. “No?”

“I can’t do that kind of thing. Dreams aren’t easy. I have a hard enough time contacting anyone myself in a dream state. I sure can’t link anyone else up.”

“Then what happened?” Her lips tightened. “I didn’t imagine it, Bonnie.”

“Don’t be defensive. I’m not the only one around who cares about you … and Beth.”

“But that’s why you came, isn’t it? It’s Beth.”

“No, it’s you,” she said gently. “You need her. I want to build a wall around you of people you love and who love you. That way you won’t want to come to me too soon, Mama.”

“I don’t love Beth. I don’t even know her.”

“It will come. All the more reason to go help her.”

“I was going to do that anyway. I promised Sandra.”

Bonnie tilted her head and smiled.

“Okay, there’s something wrong going on,” Eve said. “It needs to be fixed. But I can’t promise I’ll love this woman just because she’s my sister. It doesn’t work that way.” She frowned. “And I don’t need any walls of people around me. I have Joe.” She had a sudden rush of panic at a sudden thought. “I do have Joe, don’t I? Nothing’s going to happen to Joe.”

“Shh, it’s okay. I can’t promise, but I think Joe is going to be fine.”

“What do you mean, you can’t promise? You scare me and tell me about surrounding me with people so I won’t try to come to you, then you won’t guarantee—” She stopped. “I know. I know. No guarantees.”

“That’s right.” Bonnie leaned back in the rocking chair. “All I can guarantee is that we have a little while together right now, and that feels very good to me. Do you really think that Beth has hair like mine?”

“Sort of. It’s darker, of course.” Eve slowly curled up against the headboard, her gaze fastened on Bonnie. Any time with Bonnie was good time. “I like yours better.”

“She’s my aunt, isn’t she? How strange…”

The words took Eve off guard. “Yes.” Yet the idea of Beth having a bond to her Bonnie was even more jarring than the knowledge of her own relationship.

Beth and Bonnie … together.

“Are you trying to make me more aware of the family connection?”

Bonnie smiled. “Yes, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Maybe.” She smiled back at her and shook her head. “We’ll have to see, won’t we? You’re not at all dumb, baby.”

“Neither is Beth, Mama. She’s just lost…”

*   *   *

EVE’S PLANE LANDED IN SAN DIEGO at 12:17 P.M. the next day, and Joe met her at baggage claim ten minutes later.

“You look rested.” His gaze was searching her face as he took her bag. “You managed to get some sleep?”

“Enough.” She followed him through the doors to the parking lot. “Where are we going?”

“To the studio of Dr. Kendra Michaels.”

“Studio? She’s an artist?”

“Definitely an artist at what she does. Though she doesn’t paint, she’s a musician. I understand during her wild days she traveled the country singing and playing her guitar to earn her living in coffeehouses, on street corners, wherever.”

“‘Wild days,’” she repeated as she got into the passenger seat of the rental car. “Okay, talk to me. Who is this Kendra and how can she help us find out what happened to Beth at that hospital? She sounds like a colorful character, but we don’t need color, we need efficiency.”

“I’ll let you judge whether she can produce after you meet her.” He drove out of the parking lot. “But I’ll fill you in on her background. And, yes, she’s definitely colorful. She was totally blind until she underwent an operation when she was twenty. She had a number of years after that operation in which she tried to make up for lost time in ways that were sometimes not socially accepted.”

“The wild years?”

He nodded. “When she got tired of sowing wild oats, she settled down and completed two advanced degrees. She has a doctorate in psychology and a master’s in music theory. From what I understand, she’s done a lot of important research in the field of music therapy. She also sees clients, mostly special kids, at her studio.”