CHAPTER

7

Starlite Motel

Casper, Wyoming

“WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO FINISH?” Doane asked impatiently as he watched Eve’s hands carefully smoothing the clay down one cheek of Kevin’s reconstruction. “I thought you’d be done by noon today. Are you stalling?”

“Why should I be stalling? Do you think that I’m particularly fond of this tiny room? The sooner we get on the road, the better.” She glanced at him. “If somebody recognizes you, I’ll at least have a chance of getting away from you.”

“But I’m a dead man.” He smiled. “No one is looking for me … or you.”

“That’s right.” She looked back at the reconstruction. “How could I forget? Hope springs eternal.”

“He looks almost done. I’m tired of waiting.” He was gazing at the skull in discontent. “I’ll get the eyeballs. I have them safely tucked in a handkerchief in my suitcase.”

“Forty more minutes.” She met his eyes. “Do you believe I enjoy working on him? This is the third time I’ve had to make repairs on your Kevin’s skull. And this time you didn’t even salvage enough clay for me to do the job right. That makes it twice as hard to fill in and smooth.” She had to turn his impatience into anger, so that he’d seek a release. It was the only way she could to think to get him out of the room. “Did it ever occur to you that it’s a bad omen, and your son’s skull should just be tossed in the nearest garbage can?”

“Bitch.” His hand dug into her hair and he jerked her head back.

Pain.

“No?” she asked. “Well, he’ll be just as much a piece of garbage if you don’t let me finish him properly.” She glared up at him. “But what do I care? You want trash, I’ll give you trash.”

He cursed and gave her hair one more vicious twist before he released it. “It’s your fault you had to keep doing him over. You showed him no respect. You could have done him permanent damage by tossing that skull off the cliff while we were in the mountains.”

“I can but try,” she murmured.

He took a step toward her, then stopped. “Finish him. I’ll give you thirty minutes.” He handcuffed her right wrist to the chair. “I’ve got to get gas for the car at the motel gas station. I can keep an eye on the door of this unit from there. When I come back, you’d better be finished, or I’ll beat you unconscious.”

She looked down at the handcuffs. “This will be awkward working.”

“Finish him.” The door slammed behind him.

She drew a deep, relieved breath.

Okay, get to work.

She took some of the clay from the skull’s reconstruction, not too much or Doane would know it was missing. She’d been telling the truth about the scarcity of materials. Then she flattened the clay out on the table. She took her spatula and started to write on the clay.

Not too deep or it would break apart.

A capital S, small e, and then WA. No room for anything else.

Seattle, Washington. Would it be clear to anyone looking for a direction? It was as close as she could come.

The S looked more like an eight. She’d have to do it over.

It broke apart when she tried to alter it.

Keep calm.

Only ten minutes had passed.

She still had time.

She carefully meshed the clay together and started over again.

*   *   *

STANG RUSHED INTO THE sitting room.

“We’ve got another hit.” He threw a map of Wyoming down on the desk in front of Zander. “Casper, Wyoming.”

“Where?” Catherine jumped up from her chair and was across the room in three strides. “What part of the city?”

“Outskirts.” Stang was looking at the computer 3-D map of the city. “Weiner says the camera was across the road at a tire store.” He pointed at the building. “But it still photographed the motel gas station across the way.” He pointed at four pumps. “There.”

“Has Weiner verified?” Zander asked.

“Yes, he says it’s the same vehicle he saw at the Colorado border. But we only got a visual for about ten minutes. Then it moved on and out of camera range.”

“On the road?”

“No.” He smiled. “It moved to the north in the parking lot and seemed to be going around a corner.”

Catherine tensed as she gazed down at the map. “The motel,” she said. “He’s at the motel.”

“That’s my bet.”

Zander was on his feet and heading for the door. “And mine. Stang, tell the helicopter pilot I’ll be up on the roof in three minutes and to set a course for Casper, Wyoming.”

Catherine was right behind him. “How long will it take?”

“Probably thirty minutes.”

Excitement was tingling through her. Thirty minutes, and they had a chance of getting to Eve. But anything could happen in thirty minutes, and she’d seen victory turned to defeat too many times to take it for granted. “I’m calling Venable and telling him to have the state police start surveillance of the motel.”

“Your choice,” Zander said. “But one mistake, and we’ve lost him again. Are you willing to put Eve’s life on the line if one of those troopers isn’t as sharp as you’d want him to be?”

“No.” She looked him in the eye. “Okay, but I’m going with you in that helicopter, Zander. What you know, I’m going to know.”

He gazed at her for a moment. “Have it your own way. You’re not stupid, and you impress me as being fairly lethal. I can see why Eve trusted you.” He added softly, “But don’t get in my way, Catherine.”

“I won’t get in your way.” She passed him in the hall and punched the button for the elevator. “As long as you don’t get in mine, Zander.”

Casper, Wyoming

A SOUND AT THE DOOR of the motel.

Doane!

Panic iced through Eve.

No! It was too soon. She wasn’t ready.

She jerked her hand from beneath the table where she’d been painstakingly sticking the clay to the underside. Carefully enough? What if it tore loose and fell to the floor?

It would have to do.

She quickly moved the spatula across the face of the reconstruction, smoothing, filling. She deliberately jabbed the spatula into the lower mid-therum area beneath the nose as the door opened.

“Damn!” She turned to glare at Doane as he came into the room. “I told you these cuffs would make me clumsy.” She jerked her head at the indentation she’d made. “Now let me go, and I’ll try to smooth the clay.”

He unlocked the cuffs. “You really chopped up that clay.”

“What do you expect?” She worked quickly, skillfully, to smooth over the place where she’d stolen the clay. “I only had one hand, and I couldn’t—”

That was good enough. Doane would have to examine it under a magnifying glass to tell the difference from the time he’d walked out of the motel room. She sat back and gazed at the skull. “He’s almost as good as new.” Her lips twisted. “Though there are two words in that sentence that are completely bizarre when applied to your Kevin. He was never good nor new. He’s as old as sin.”

Doane took out his handkerchief and carefully unwrapped it. “I washed his eyes very carefully.” He held up the glittering blue orbs. “He’s going to be handsome again. In spite of all the harm you’ve done him, he can’t be made anything but magnificent.”

She looked down at the blue eyeballs shining up at her. This was the part of the reconstruction she dreaded. When she had first placed those eyes in the orbital cavities in the ghost town, it had come as almost a physical shock.

It wouldn’t be so bad this time. She’d be prepared for it. She quickly inserted the blue eyes.

It was just as bad. Worse.

It seemed as if Kevin was glaring at her with supreme malice.

A wave of nausea swept over her.

“He always frightens you, doesn’t he?” Doane said softly. “You act so bold, but in the end he makes you want to go and hide.”

“This skull doesn’t frighten me. Neither does the thought of your son.” She forced herself to look into those glass eyes. “He’s dead. He has no power. He can’t hurt anyone any longer.”