Iris Johansen - Chasing the Night

He was silent a moment. “Everything. Catherine can be deceptive, but not about her son.”

“You bastard. Nine years.”

“I was under orders not to disturb our relationship with Rakovac. He’s very volatile, and he still has a deep hatred of Catherine.”

“So you let him keep a child prisoner rather than rock the boat? How do you know that he wasn’t mistreated? That would be the best way for Rakovac to get his revenge.”

“I made it clear that we wouldn’t tolerate that happening.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. “How would you know? Did you just take his word for it?”

“Yes, with appropriate threats of repercussions.”

“Dear God.”

“It’s all I could do. It might have been enough.”

“If I were Catherine, I’d have strangled you.”

“But you’re not Catherine. She’s CIA. She knows the dirty underbelly of the world better than you ever will. And she’s aware that I was the only man standing between her son and Rakovac.” He added, “If I could have run the risk, I would have sent a Special Forces team in to get Luke. But I didn’t have that option. I couldn’t even give Catherine reports on her son. Rakovac didn’t keep him with him in Moscow. He’d sent him away and undercover almost immediately after he was kidnapped.”

Eve’s stomach clenched. “Then how do you know he’s still alive?”

“We’re not entirely sure. Rakovac calls Catherine now and then to taunt her and gives her so-called reports on her son. He hasn’t let her talk to him since about a year after he was taken.”

Eve felt cold and sick. Eight years with no way to know if that little boy was alive or dead. “But, of course, she still takes the calls.” Eve would do the same. There was always hope, and you could bear the torture as long as the faintest chance existed that it would bring a child home. “Why didn’t you tell me this when you first asked me to do the age progression?”

“I didn’t want you to do it,” he said bluntly. “I was only paying lip service to a bargain I made with Catherine. The current files on Rakovac are top secret, and we made sure they were kept away from Catherine. They contain surveillance as well as contacts that she had no knowledge about from her previous assignment in Moscow. She wanted those files.” He paused. “And she wanted your help. To get them, she risked her neck going after Ned Winters and his daughter, who were being held hostage in Colombia. You may have heard of them. They’ve been all over the TV.”

“Who hasn’t? The father was murdered, you saved the girl.”

“Catherine saved the girl.”

“And you gave her the file?”

“I kept my word. The director was more concerned with getting the Winters father and daughter free. The Rakovac connection has been disintegrating lately.” He paused. “He’s becoming unstable.”

“And where does that leave that poor kid?”

“I gave Catherine the file. I can’t do anything else at the moment. We haven’t entirely distanced ourselves from Rakovac yet. Although we know that he’s left his penthouse apartment in Moscow and gone undercover. It would be better if Catherine stayed out of it until we see fit to make a final break.”

“Better for you. Not better for Luke or Catherine. I can’t blame her for being frantic to move now.”

“Neither can I. But I can’t help her to do it. I have to act for the good of the big picture.”

“Screw the big picture.”

He was silent a moment. “You’re going to help her?”

“I haven’t made up my mind. Though for heaven’s sake someone should be helping her.”

“That was aimed at me,” he said. “If you decide to help her, limit it, Eve. Rakovac is an ugly customer, and he won’t take kindly to you getting in his way.”

Getting in the way of the viciousness of a man who would kidnap a two-year-old and keep him prisoner for nine years? “She only wants me to do an age progression. She doesn’t trust your people.”

“Imagine that,” he said wearily. “Not that I blame her. But she’s a desperate woman, and she’ll take whatever from you she has to take to find her son. Watch yourself, Eve.” He hung up.

She slowly pressed the disconnect button and stood gazing out at the sunlight glittering on the lake.

If she’d hoped to find a reason to throw Catherine out of the cottage, Venable had not given it to her. He’d only shown her a woman surrounded by an ideology where almost everything and everyone was expendable. She had told Eve the truth, and every action she had taken was perfectly reasonable. Eve would have done the same thing in Catherine’s place. Any mother would give up whatever she had to surrender to protect her child.

But Eve had her own life, her own priorities. She didn’t even know if she could help Catherine. Should she become involved in trying to-

“Of course, you can help her. Why are you fretting like this, Mama?”

Bonnie.

She glanced at the porch swing and saw her little girl in the Bugs Bunny T-shirt curled up with her legs beneath her. The sun was shining on her mop of red curls, and her smile was brilliant as that sun. Eve felt her heart warming as it always did when Bonnie came to her. She was always as real to Eve as the last day she had seen her.

“You don’t know that I can help her, Miss Smarty. I’m not that good on age progression.”

“No, but she has the right idea. You do make a connection.” She suddenly chuckled. “It was funny that she was so quick to say that she didn’t mean anything weird. People are so afraid that others are going to think they’re not totally grounded in reality.”

“It’s always so strange to hear you talking like this. So grown-up…”

“I told you once that I couldn’t stay seven forever. Nothing stands still, not even where I am.” She smiled. “But you probably forgot it and are in denial because that idea is a little weird, too.”

“Denying what isn’t real is what keeps us sane, baby.”

“You’re sane, and yet you’ve accepted that a ghost comes and visits you.”

Her ghost, her beloved spirit, her Bonnie. “That’s different.”

Bonnie nodded. “And it took you long enough to accept that I wasn’t a dream or a hallucination or whatever. It’s much more comfortable now, isn’t it?”

“It will be comfortable when I can bring you home and find the bastard who killed you.”

“Comfortable for you. I’m content right now.” She leaned back in the swing. “It’s over for me, Mama. Only the love is left.”

“It’s not over for me.”

“I know.” Bonnie’s gaze shifted to the door. “And it’s not over for her. She’s hurting.”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you go in and help her? Cindy won’t care. She knows that time doesn’t matter.”

“It may matter to her parents.”

“Go find Luke, Mama.”

“I can only try to tell her what he looks like. I may not even be right.”

“And you might be.” Bonnie smiled. “I’ll bet on you. I’ll always bet on you. Why are you arguing with me? You know you’re going to do it.”

“Maybe.” She smiled back at her. “And maybe I just want you to stick around a while. I hate it when you go away.”

Her smile faded. “Me, too. But we have this. It’s a lot, Mama.”

Eve felt her throat tighten. “Yes, it’s a lot.” In the year following Bonnie’s disappearance, her health and sanity had been spiraling downward, and she would not have survived another six months. But after Bonnie had begun to come to her, everything had changed. For years afterward, she wouldn’t admit, even to herself, that Bonnie was not a dream. But she was with her, and that was all that mattered. “But it’s not enough. I want more.”