“He never mentioned it to me.”
“But you were too busy giving him a lecture. He probably didn’t have time.” He headed for the door. “And it’s probably nothing. It was pretty dark out there. I don’t know how he could see anything.”
“But you’re checking it anyway.”
“He hit me where I live.” He smiled at her. “He asked if maybe I should tell you that you shouldn’t go around the lake until I was sure.” He opened the door. “What could I say? Be right back.”
Eve watched the door shut behind him.
A bear?
Strange. Yet there had been that moment when she had first seen Michael on that bottom step, and she had been aware of a tense … alertness.
A bear? There had been no bear sightings in this area for the last couple years.
Michael had thought something was wrong and had not spoken to her but gone to his father and told him he should protect her.
She could hear Michael’s shower running now.
He had finished with what he had wanted to do with Joe and was going about his life.
Yet he had thought something was wrong …
She instinctively moved toward the front door.
And that wrong must not touch Joe.
Whenever Joe went into the woods, he was always armed, but she didn’t like him to be alone out there.
She stood on the porch, her eyes straining toward the west bank.
The beam of a flashlight.
Joe.
It was moving over the trees, down to the ground, around the bank.
“Joe,” she called.
He froze. “Go back inside, Eve,” he called. “I’ll be right there.” He paused. “Lock the door.”
She stiffened. That last order was scaring her. Joe never took action without reason. She was tempted to go to him.
No, Michael was in this house. Someone had to be here to protect him. That was the unwritten rule she and Joe lived by. One of them must always be there for Michael. Tonight that was her job. She went inside and locked the door.
Come on, Joe …
She went to the window beside the door and looked out on the porch and the woods beyond.
She could still see the beam of Joe’s flashlight bouncing, moving through the trees.
And now Joe was coming back toward the house, she realized with relief. But the flashlight wasn’t aimed straight before him, it was focused on the ground.
He was tracking.
And whatever he was tracking was heading straight toward this house.
She opened the door again as he reached the driveway. “What is it, Joe?”
“Well, it’s not a bear, unless it wears size twelve tennis shoes,” he said grimly. He was moving across the driveway, the beam focused on the soft earth bordering the gravel. Then he stopped, his gaze on the ground beside the passenger door of the Jeep. He flashed the beam inside the Jeep and slowly, carefully opened the car door. “What the hell,” he muttered. “Weird.”
“Tell me,” Eve said.
“It’s a box on this passenger seat.” He carefully examined the box before he took it out of the Jeep and placed it on the porch step. “It’s wrapped in some kind of gold foil. Like I said, weird.”
She started across the porch. “I want to see—”
“Stay where you are. I want to check it out first.” He strode toward the Toyota. “I’ll get that portable bomb-detector kit that I keep in my trunk and see if that box is giving out a reading.”
Joe had been trained in bomb disposal when he was in the SEALS, and Eve knew he still made a habit of carrying a portable unit with him as a detective with the Atlanta PD. He had used it more than once in past years.
She shivered as she looked at the glittering gold-foil box. Beautiful and glittering, and Joe thought it might be deadly.
But now he had the small mobile unit and was listening with the stethoscope to hear if there was anything that signaled a timer switch. “Nothing.” He looked at the edge of the box. “It’s not fastened.” He was placing the end of the water hose under the edge of the box and backing across the driveway to the water spigot. “Get back inside. I’ll turn on the water full force and blow this lid off as soon as I’m a safe distance.”
“And how do you know that it’s safe?”
“Inside,” he said curtly. “Michael.”
She went inside and slammed the door. Michael, the one unassailable argument. No matter what happened to either of them, Michael must survive. Her hands clenched on the drapes at the window as she watched Joe unwind the hose as he headed for the spigot.
She held her breath as she saw him connecting it to the spigot.
Then he turned on the water full force.
The lid of the box blew a foot in the air and then fell back onto the container.
No explosion. Just water pouring in a wild fountain over the gold box.
Joe jerked the hose aside and came back toward the box. “No C4.” He was looking down at the contents of the box. “I don’t know what the hell it is.”
“Maybe some kid’s idea of a practical joke?” She was coming down the porch steps now. “I feel a little foolish cowering inside.”
“I don’t,” he said. “Whoever was out there in the woods was there for a while, and he wasn’t a kid. That’s called stalking. And there are other people besides that kid, Gary, who think what you do is kind of scary.” He was examining the interior. “Or, what’s worse, that they don’t think it’s scary at all.” His fingers were carefully exploring something. “There’s a flat surface on the top that’s glittering in the light…” He leaned closer and muttered a curse. “It’s a mirror.”
“What?” She came down the rest of the stairs and looked inside the box. It was a mirror that occupied the entire upper diameter of the interior of the box. It was glittering, framed in gold and perfectly reflected her face.
And that reflection mirrored both her bewilderment and fear. Fear. It was only because this entire episode was so unexpected and bizarre that she was feeling this shaken, she told herself. It would probably turn out to be the practical joke that had been her first thought.
“That’s only the top layer, Joe.” She moistened her lips. “What else is in the box?”
“I’m working on it.” He was gently prying the frame of the mirror away from the sides of the box. “I’ll have it in a minute…” Then it came free and he lifted it out.
Glittering mirrored shards fell down into the box.
“Double mirror,” Joe said. “This side seems to be broken. It must have been cracked and, when I lifted, it broke entirely.” He reached down to pick up one of the broken shards. “It fell on this black—” He inhaled sharply. “Holy shit.”
Eve saw it too. The black velvet cloth had shifted to one side, uncovering something else equally black and very familiar to Eve. “It’s a skull.” She pulled the cloth completely away. Blackened. All flesh gone. “Burned. Someone burned this skull.”
“It’s the real thing?” Joe asked quietly. “Not just a good replica from a party store?”
“It’s the real thing.” She turned away as she saw the bullet hole in the temple. “And there’s nothing that even hints at a party. Bring it inside. I need to look at it.”
Joe didn’t move. “I could take it down to the precinct. It’s not really your problem. You don’t have to be involved. Forensics will have to go over it anyway.”
“I am involved.” She looked back at him, and added fiercely, “How could I not be? He delivered this skull to me. He went to a great deal of trouble on this presentation. He brought it to my home.” She gestured to the woods. “He stood there where my son could see him. Do you think that doesn’t make it my problem?”
“It makes it my problem,” Joe said. “I was hoping that I could keep you out of it.” He picked up the box and carried it up the porch steps. “Not going to happen.”