Iris Johansen: Bonnie

She could feel the detective’s gaze on her back as she caught up with the search team. She knew he wanted to make her stop. He wanted her to behave sensibly and let them do their job. But it was her job, too. She had brought Bonnie into the world. In the end, that made it only her job.

I’ll find you, baby. Don’t be afraid. I’ll fight off anything that could hurt you. Wait for me. I’ll always be there for you.

No matter how long it takes or how far I have to go, I’ll bring you home, Bonnie.

Present Day

“THE DIRECTOR IS ON THE PHONE,Agent Venable.” Harley’s tone was hesitant. “He sounded a little-”

“Pissed?” Venable said. It didn’t surprise him. Dickson was not known for his patience, and Venable hadn’t been jumping through his hoops on this assignment. “I don’t want to deal with him. Tell him I’m-”

“It’s the third call,” Harley said.

“And you’re afraid he’ll shoot the messenger,” Venable said.

“I’ll give him whatever message you want me to give him,” Harley said. “But this time he asked me to give him Agent Ling’s cell number.”

Shit. “And did you?”

“I said I’d have to look it up.” He paused. “But he’ll get it.”

Venable knew that Hal Dickson, as Director of the CIA, would get any info he wanted if he went to the trouble. But the people who made him go to that trouble would suffer for it.

“Why does he want Agent Ling?” Harley said. “I told him that she was on another assignment.”

“And you think he cares? Some of those South American countries are on the verge of revolution, and the situation is getting critical. Catherine Ling spent several years serving in the jungles of Colombia and Venezuela. She has contacts, and people trust her all over South America. She can get information when no one else has a chance. Dickson knows that, and he wants her down there.”

“Are you going to order her to go back there?”

Order Catherine Ling? he thought sourly. He could ask her, but he hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting her to leave her son, Luke, whom she had just rescued from years of captivity. She’d tell him to go to hell.

Unless he could find a way to stall the director until he found a way to manipulate Catherine into doing what he wanted. At present, he had no hope because Catherine was on a private mission of her own, helping Eve Duncan find the body and the killer of her murdered daughter, Bonnie.

Not easy.

Okay, explain, stall, and maybe he’d get through with this without incurring Dickson’s anger. The director wasn’t a bad guy if you didn’t piss him off. Venable had known him before those politicians in Congress had made the Company the bogeyman in everyone’s eyes. Hell, let those jokers try to keep to their lily-white rules when every other country played dirty. He knew what pressure Dickson was under. Besides, there were times when he needed the bastard, and he wouldn’t have Catherine make him lose that influence if he could help it.

And he wouldn’t let Harley take the flak.

“I’ll talk to him.” He took out his phone and dialed Dickson while he pulled out Catherine Ling’s file from his desk. He probably wouldn’t need it. He had recruited her when she was seventeen, and if anyone really knew her, he should.

He gazed at her photo as he waited for Dickson to answer. This one was taken on the streets of Hong Kong, where she had grown up. Part Caucasian, part Asian, she was incredibly stunning, with her dark hair, gold skin, and faintly slanted eyes. But it wasn’t her looks that made her invaluable. She was one of the finest CIA agents Venable had ever recruited: smart, tough, deadly.

And loyal. Which was going to be the sticking point in getting her to leave Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn at this time.

“Where’s Catherine Ling?” Dickson demanded the moment he picked up the call. “I told you a week ago I wanted her in Peru.”

“She’s on another assignment.”

“Screw her assignment. Replace her.”

“That’s not exactly possible.”

“You’re refusing me.” Dickson was silent. “You’re not a fool, Venable. Sometimes I think I’m surrounded by fools, but you’re not one of them. Which means you have a reason to take a chance like that. Has Ling gone rogue?”

“No way.” He hesitated, then told the truth. “She thinks she has a debt to pay. Eve Duncan and Joe Quinn helped her to save her son, Luke. Now she’s trying to give Duncan what she wants most in life. She’s trying to find Bonnie Duncan’s body and the man who killed her. Nothing is going to budge her until she does it.”

Dickson muttered a curse. “Dammit, don’t you have any influence on her?”

“Not enough to stop her from doing this.”

“There has to be a way. Eve Duncan. Can you appeal to her?”

“No, you don’t understand.”

“Then make me understand, dammit. Why can’t this wait?”

“Because she’d tell me it’s waited too long already.” He might as well fill him in though it probably wouldn’t help. “Eve Duncan had this child when she was sixteen, the father was a Ranger in the Army and was reported dead. She didn’t have an abortion or give the kid up for adoption. She kept her. Part of the time, her mother helped take care of her, sometimes Bonnie was in a United Fund nursery while Eve worked. She did correspondence courses at night. She was almost finished when her daughter, Bonnie, disappeared. The police became certain that she was a victim of a serial killer. In fact, they’d thought they’d caught and executed him. Ralph Fraser. He’d killed other children, but he hadn’t killed Bonnie. Which meant Eve had no closure. She had to find her daughter’s killer. She had to bring her daughter home. It’s been the guiding obsession of her life. She has a long-term relationship with Joe Quinn, a police detective, who has helped her search for her daughter. She has an adopted daughter, Jane MacGuire, who is now an artist. But it’s the search for Bonnie that’s the center of her universe.”

“And she’s drawn Catherine Ling into that universe as a satellite,” Dickson said harshly. “Let her find her own kid.”

“She never asked Catherine to help her.” To hell with diplomacy. He’d known Eve Duncan for years, and she’d done favors both for him and the agency. She deserved better than Dickson’s condemnation. “Look, Eve Duncan pulls her own weight, and she’d keep Catherine out of it if she could.”

Silence. “You like her.”

“You’re damn right I do. She loved Bonnie more than life itself. Having her kidnapped and murdered could have destroyed her. She didn’t let it. She went back to school and earned a degree in Fine Arts at Georgia State. She now has certification as a computer age-progression specialist at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Arlington, Virginia. She also received advanced certification for clay facial reconstruction after training with two of the nation’s foremost reconstruction artists. Do I have to tell you how many more degrees she’s earned since then? She’s world-famous, dammit. She’s an icon. Don’t you think she deserves to get this one thing she wants in the world?”

Another silence. “Maybe. But if she’s been searching all these years, why does Catherine Ling have to be involved? What makes her think that she can help?”

God, he was stubborn. But at least he was listening. That was a start.

“Catherine started investigating Bonnie’s kidnapping and came up with a suspect that no one had uncovered. John Gallo, Bonnie’s father, had not been killed while in the Army as reported. He’d been captured and thrown into a North Korean prison, where he’d been subjected to seven years of starvation and torture. When he escaped from the prison and landed in a hospital in Tokyo, he was diagnosed with severe mental problems, blackouts, schizophrenia, hallucinations…”