The Face of Deception Read Free

lab at the same time. Joe laughed at her, but she felt she couldn't give her full attention to the job she was working on if she could see another skull silently waiting. So she'd overnight Bobby Starnes and the report to Chicago and the day after tomorrow Bobby's parents would know that their son had come home, that he was no longer one of the lost ones.
    “Let it go, Eve.”
    Her mother didn't understand that the search for Bonnie had become woven into the fabric of her life and she could no longer tell which thread was Bonnie and which were the other lost ones. That probably made her a hell of a lot more unstable than her mother, she thought ruefully.
    She walked across the room and stood before the shelf bearing the new skull.
    “What happened to you?” she murmured as she removed the skull's ID tag and tossed it on the work-bench. “An accident? Murder?” She hoped it wasn't murder, but it usually was in these cases. It hurt her to think of the terror the child had suffered before death.
    The death of a child.
    Someone had held this girl as a baby, had watched her take her first steps. Eve prayed that someone had loved her and given her joy before she had ended up lost in that hole in the forest.
    She gently touched the girl's cheekbone. “I don't know who you are. Do you mind if I call you Mandy? I've always liked that name.” Jesus, she talked to skeletons and she was worried about her mother going off the deep end? It might be weird, but she'd always felt it was disrespectful to treat the skulls as if they had no identity. This girl had lived, laughed, and loved. She deserved more than to be treated impersonally.
    Eve whispered, “Just be patient, Mandy. Tomorrow I'll measure and soon I'll start sculpting. I'll find you. I'll bring you home.”
    MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

    “You're sure she's the best choice?” John Logan's gaze was fastened on the television screen, where a video of the scene outside the prison facility was playing. “She doesn't appear all that stable. I've got enough problems without having to deal with a woman who doesn't have all her marbles.”
    “My God, what a kind, caring human being you are,” Ken Novak murmured. “I think the woman might have cause to appear a little distracted. That was the night the murderer of her little girl was executed.”
    “Then she should have been dancing with joy and offering to pull the switch. I would have been. Instead, she pleaded with the governor for a stay.”
    “Fraser was convicted for the killing of Teddy Simes. He was almost caught in the act and wasn't able to dispose of the boy's body. But he confessed to murdering eleven other children including Bonnie Duncan. He gave details that left no doubt he was guilty, but he wouldn't tell where he'd disposed of the bodies.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don't know. He was a crazy son of a bitch. A last act of malice? The bastard even refused to appeal the death sentence. It drove Eve Duncan frantic. She didn't want him executed until he told them where her daughter was. She was afraid she'd never find her.”
    “And has she?”
    “No.” Novak picked up the remote and froze a frame. “That's Joe Quinn. Rich parents, attended Harvard. Everyone expected him to go into law, but he joined the FBI instead. He worked the Bonnie Duncan case with the Atlanta P.D., but he's now a detective with them. He and Eve Duncan have become friends.”
    Quinn appeared to be about twenty-six at the time. Square face, broad mouth, and intelligent, wide-set brown eyes. “Only friends?”
    He nodded. “If she's gone to bed with him, we haven't found out about it. She was a witness at his wedding three years ago. She's had one or two relationships in the past eight years, but nothing serious. She's a workaholic and that doesn't lend itself to enriching personal relationships.” He looked pointedly at Logan. “Now, does it?”
    Ignoring the comment, Logan glanced down at the report on the desk. “The mother's an