Iris Johansen - Bonnie

“No, stop that crap. Why won’t you say her name? You saw Bonnie.”

“It hurts me.”

“Then let it hurt you. My daughter is dead, and you saw her. You just told me so. Why would you see a dead child, Danner? This dead child. Did you kill her?”

“Stop talking about her. It hurts me.”

“I won’t stop talking about her. I can see her spirit because she’s my daughter, and she wants me to do it. But why you, Danner?”

He tore his arm away from her grasp. “Why do you think? She wants me to see her, too. She wants to torment me. She doesn’t understand… I have to make her understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That I’m not fighting her, that I’ll give her what she wants. But I had to find out what that was first. Even Father Barnabas couldn’t tell me. I asked him, and he said to pray about it. I had to know. ”

“And now you do?”

“She wants you,” he said simply.

“What?”

“In that garden I could see that there was so much love between you. She wants her mother. All little girls want their mothers. That’s what she wants me to do. Not to kill any demons. She wants me to give you to her.”

She stared at him, stunned. Then she realized the words had stunned her but not the basic thought behind them. The hints had been there to be read.

And, he was right, she had been eager to read them.

“It won’t be bad,” he said softly. “I won’t hurt you. She wouldn’t like that.”

“Stop that. Say her name. She’s not an anonymous ‘child.’ She’s Bonnie. Say it.”

He didn’t speak for a moment. “Bonnie.”

It was hurting him. She could tell. Then she realized why. “It’s because you don’t want to recognize her as a person, you want to keep her at a distance. Well, she is a person, a wonderful, wonderful person. From the moment she was born, she was special. I could tell you stories.”

He shook his head. “Don’t do it.”

“Then don’t ever let me hear you call her anything but her name.”

“Okay. It doesn’t matter. I can stand it. It’s all going to be ending anyway.” He turned away. “It’s time to go.”

Ending. Bonnie had spoken about the ending, and now Danner was doing it, too. But it might not mean the same thing to him. “What do you mean?”

“If I give you to her”-he paused, then said with an effort-“to Bonnie, then it’s over for me. I can stop running from them.”

“Them?”

He turned away. “Enough talk.”

“Not nearly enough. One question. Did you murder my daughter?”

He ignored the question and was heading back toward the path. “Come on, you’ve had enough rest. I’ll let you sleep a couple hours later.”

He wasn’t even looking back at her over his shoulder. He was sure that she would come with him. How could he be that sure she wouldn’t run for her life?

In that garden there was so much love between you.

Had he been able to see more than the love that bound Bonnie and her together? Had he seen a guideline that Bonnie had drawn for him? Eve had been totally shocked that he had been able to see Bonnie. Bonnie had come to her and to Gallo and to Joe and no one else. Not even Jane. It was reasonable to guess that it was the love that had drawn her to them. The love was always there and clearly visible when she was with Bonnie.

But Danner felt no love. He was afraid of Bonnie. He only wanted to get rid of her.

And offering Eve up as a sacrificial offering was the way he planned on doing it. He thought that was what Bonnie wanted. Yet Bonnie had always told Eve that she had to wait, that they couldn’t be together because it wasn’t her time.

But had Eve’s time come now? Was that why Danner was seeing Bonnie?

Too many questions. Perhaps she was reaching too deep. Outside of scientific medical knowledge of hallucinations, there were also stories that the insane sometimes saw visions and spirits not visible to normal people. At any rate, Danner was not going to answer any more of her probes right now. She was lucky she had managed to get as much information as she had from him.

Or maybe not so lucky. He was becoming too human to her. Yes, there was no doubt he had moments of sanity as well as madness. Yes, there had been reasons that had caused him to slip into that half-world. But you could not forgive evil as great as the killing of Bonnie because of what had happened to him. It was better that she only thought of him as the monster who could have murdered her Bonnie.

She could call him mad, but she could not call him a monster until she knew for certain that he had killed her daughter. He had refused to say the words, dammit.

But it had to be him, and she would know everything before she was through.

She started to push after him through the heavy brush.

“THEY BUILT A FIRE HERE,”Gallo said as he knelt beside the huge oak tree.

“How long ago?” Catherine asked.

He studied the grass and the drying mud beside the ashes. “Six, maybe seven hours ago.”

Catherine frowned. “That’s a big lead.”

He nodded. “But at least he’s stopping to rest on occasion. That will lose him time.” He looked up at Catherine. “And he’s still got Eve with him.”

And that was a circumstance beyond price, Catherine thought. Every time she caught sight of Eve’s tracks after a period of losing the trail, she felt a surge of profound relief. This terrain was rough as hell and hard to get through. Who the hell knew if Danner would get impatient with dragging Eve with him and decide to dispose of her.

She stood up. “Let’s get going. We’ve lost too much time on that last-” Her phone rang. “It’s Joe.” She punched the button. “We haven’t caught up with them yet, Joe. But Danner still has Eve with him. Are you still at the church?”

“No, I’m at the Rainbow Connection. A youth rescue camp at Bradburg near the Alabama border. Father Barnabas said that Danner went to work for the organization because of its location. He said he had to be near ‘the child.’”

She stiffened. “What?” She pressed up the volume. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“This is only a slim lead. If you can track him, then that was our best bet.”

“But it was a lead to where he might be heading. Where is this Bradburg?”

“A couple hours’ drive from Atlanta, near Columbus, Georgia.”

Gallo was already pushing buttons on the apps on his iPhone. He glanced up at her. “We’re heading in the general direction. If he doesn’t change course, it could be his destination.”

She shook her head. “Joe said the camp was close, not his destination.” She spoke into the phone. “Doesn’t anyone know anything about Danner down there?”

“His job was to take kids hiking and canoeing. He did what he was supposed to do and didn’t cause any trouble. He was a loner. Every week or so, he would take off and go camping for a few days.”

“Where?”

“No one seems to know. Like I said, he was a loner.”

“Wasn’t anyone curious, dammit?”

“No one I’ve found so far. I’ve talked to several of the employees and counselors and not come up with anything. I still have a few to question.”

And if they knew anything, Joe would get the information, she knew. He would be relentless. “Then we’ll keep on the trail. At least we know what may be his general direction. It would help if we could tighten a noose around him from both directions. Let us know.” She hung up and turned to Gallo. “How long will it take to get to this Bradford?”

“In this kind of heavy brush? At least another day. Providing that’s where he’s headed.” He glanced at the app again. “And providing that he doesn’t veer off course and head for Florida. It’s only guesswork by Father Barnabas that he’d head in that direction.”