Iris Johansen - Blood Game

“I’ll do that.” He looked at Patty. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “A little uneasy. No, dammit, big-time scared.” She glanced at the four forensic techs coming up the steps. “And they make it seem too real.”

“We’ll be in and out as quick as we can.” He paused. “We’ll need statements from both you and your grandfather.”

“He doesn’t know anything.”

“I’m sorry. We have to get a statement.” Joe stepped aside for the team to enter. “Where’s the goblet?”

“In the kitchen.”

“I’ll show you.” Jane started across the room toward the hall.

“And I’ll go prepare Granddad,” Patty said. “It’s not going to do any good, Joe. He’ll rave and rant at you, and there’s nothing he can really tell you.”

“I have to do it, Patty.”

“Whatever.” She shrugged and moved toward her grandfather’s room.

“Good-bye, Eve,” Caleb said. “I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.” He turned back to Joe. “Jelak is nowhere near here, Quinn. I thought perhaps he might be. He was trying to draw Eve and Jane into the web and using Patty as bait. I wasn’t sure if he could resist making contact or at least being near them. But I can’t sense any trace of him. He’s not here.”

“That’s why you wanted to come here?”

Caleb nodded. “And I had to check out the goblet.” He moved out on the porch. “Call me if you need me. I’ll be in touch.”

He strode down the steps and toward his car, parked across the street.

Joe turned back toward Eve. “Was he telling the truth?”

“About not disturbing anything?” Eve nodded. “Except Patty’s nerves. He told her a little too much more about Jelak than she was comfortable with.” She added, “And he examined that carving on that goblet very closely. He was looking for something. He said something about the number of the men changing.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “He said that it was still the same. Then Patty’s grandfather called her, and Caleb didn’t mention anything else about it.”

“A teaser?”

“I don’t believe Caleb would-” She shrugged. “He’s pretty up-front. Probably because it suits him to be. But he didn’t appear to be trying to hide anything.” She looked at him. “And he didn’t want Jane to stay here with Patty. He said that was what Jelak wanted.”

“He’s right. It would be the worse possible move. I wouldn’t let-”

“He’s ready to see you, Joe.” Patty stood in the doorway of the bedroom. “Anytime you’re ready.”

“Now.” He strode toward the door. “It’s only a preliminary, and I’ll be through in a few minutes, Patty. We’ll have to ask him to sign a statement later.”

“Okay.” Patty nodded and stepped aside as he entered the bedroom.

“Patty?” Eve’s gaze was on Patty’s face. She looked dazed. “What’s wrong?”

“Granddad.”

Eve stiffened. “Is he all right? Did Caleb hurt him?”

“I… don’t know,” Patty said. “Maybe.”

“What do you mean?”

She gazed at Eve in bewilderment. “Granddad smiled at me.”

TWO HOURS LATER, EVE WALKEDJoe to his car parked on the street.

“I’ll be home as soon as I get my report written out,” Joe said. “And I’m leaving one of the squad cars here to escort you and Jane back to the cottage.” He said curtly, “Don’t let her stay here, Eve.”

“Patty wouldn’t let her do it.” She smiled. “Neither would I. Stop worrying.”

He shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

Eve didn’t speak for a moment. “You had no trouble getting a statement from Patty’s grandfather?”

“No, he was very cooperative. He didn’t know anything, but he was patient, even pleasant.”

“Really. That’s unusual.”

“Yeah, I know Patty says he’s difficult. Maybe he was having a good day.” He shrugged. “Anyway, it made my job easier.”

“That’s what Caleb said. He said he wanted to try to make your job easier.”

“So he talked the old man into giving me a break?” Joe asked skeptically. “He was a stranger to him. I doubt if he’d have any influence.”

“And he was only in the room for a few minutes.” Eve paused. “Weird.”

“ He’s weird,” Joe said. “And I’m tired of dealing with weirdos.” He shook his head. “But I guess someone could call me that, couldn’t they?”

“Not anyone who had a good sense of self-preservation,” Eve said. She watched him get into his car. “But, yes, Caleb is definitely a little bizarre.” And she was tired of dealing with the bizarre too. She wanted a return to the norm. She was desperately missing their steady, down-to-earth, day-to-day routine.

What was she thinking? Any steadiness that they’d had in these years had been fleeting at best. And it had always been her choices that had thrown them into turmoil. She stepped away from the car. “I’ll see you back at the cottage.”

He nodded as he pulled away from the curb. “I’ve decided I’m going to release a photo of Jelak to the media. I can only say we want him for questioning in the killings since we don’t have a damn bit of proof. But I’ll feel better about having his face out there for everyone to recognize.”

“I will too.”

“And I’m leaving a squad car here at the house for Patty.”

She smiled. “Can you arrange for Charlie Brand to take the first watch? She’d feel safer.”

“I’ll put in a request.”

“Do that.” She watched his car until it rounded the corner before turning back to the house. Jane was just leaving and saying good-bye to Patty on the porch. Patty waved to Eve, then turned and went back into the house.

“I still think I should stay with her,” Jane said as she walked toward Eve. “But she won’t have it.”

“Neither would Joe and I,” Eve said. “Caleb was right. That’s what Jelak would want you to do.” She got into her car. “And Patty will have protection. There’s no problem now that there’s proof she’s involved in the case.”

“No, I’d say that’s a definite.” She shivered. “The idea of him sitting only a room away just waiting like a spider in his web for her to come to him gives me the creeps.” She paused. “Again, if Caleb is right about that happening. We’re just taking it for granted that he is.”

“He’s very convincing.”

“He managed to convince Patty’s granddad.” Jane got into the passenger seat. “She’s freaked out about it. She said it’s almost as if he’s not her grandfather.”

“That much difference?”

Jane nodded. “He took her hand and told her that she had to take care of herself. She said she couldn’t remember a gesture of affection from him all the time she was growing up.”

“Sad.”

“She was used to it. She’s not used to warmth and caring from him. She’s wondering if he’s had a stroke or something.”

“Or something.”

“It’s as if Caleb hypnotized him.”

Eve remembered that moment in the restaurant when she’d thought Caleb’s intensity was almost hypnotic. “Not likely. It takes time to induce hypnosis, and he was only in that room for a few moments. Maybe what he said to the old man just struck the right note.”

“He said something about her grandfather really caring about her. If that’s true, you’d never know it from the way he treats her.”

“Sometimes people can’t show how they feel.” Eve started the car. “Maybe he’s one of them.”

“Until Caleb walked in and had a talk with him,” Jane said. “Crazy…”

“Yes,” Eve said. “But what hasn’t been crazy since Jelak appeared in our lives? We just have to deal with it.”