If you discounted the crushed side of her right temple where her killer had struck the fatal blow.
She’d have to repair that immediately, so that she could concentrate on the actual reconstruction. Her fingers gently touched the crushed bones. “Bastard.” She felt a sudden surge of rage that was as intense as it was unusual. She always felt sad, but it was difficult to focus rage on a faceless predator. She was having no trouble focusing now. This child’s killer might only have been a shadow-figure, but it was malignant and evil and Eve felt as if she could reach out and touch him. “But I don’t think it could have hurt you for more than a few seconds. That’s a mercy. Though I’m sure he didn’t mean it to be.” She tossed the box in the trash and spent a few minutes setting up the skull on her worktable. “There you are. Now I’ll clean you up and start the measuring. I have to do a lot of measuring before I can start bringing you back the way you were. Were you a pretty little girl? Not that it matters. I’ve always liked interesting more than pretty anyway. I’ve had two children of my own in my life. My Bonnie was both pretty and interesting, and Jane is very beautiful. But they both know that it’s what’s inside that counts.” She was done with the cleaning and tossed the cloth aside. “What’s inside you? Maybe we’ll be able to see after I finish. Right now, it’s difficult, but I’ve gone down this road before. Okay, that’s all. I just had to establish a sense of what we have to do together to find a way to get you back home. From now on, I just work and maybe you help a little.” She leaned back in her chair and gazed thoughtfully at the delicate skull. “One last thing. I always name my reconstructions. No offense. You can have your own name back once that sheriff finds out who you are. But I have to call you something besides ‘Hey, you’ when I talk to you or about you. It’s just the way I work.” She tilted her head. “What name … Linda? Penny? Samantha is a good name. It’s got substance. Do you like it? Maybe too heavy. How about Carrie? Short and sweet. I kind of like that for—
Jenny. I … think … my name is Jenny.
Eve went still. Out of the blue, out of the darkness, those words had come to her. Weird. Imagination? Or had she been concentrating so hard on this little girl that the name had just popped into her head, and she’d mentally couched it in terms that the child might use. It didn’t matter. The name was there, and she might as well use it. “Jenny. I like it. And it seems to suit you. Much better than Samantha.” She opened the drawer of the desk and drew out her measuring tools. “And now that we’ve got that out of the way, it’s time to get to work. Let’s see if we can get the basic stuff done before I have to leave you and get to bed…”
* * *
Ringing.
Her cell phone was ringing, Eve realized vaguely with annoyance. She wished she’d turned it off before she’d started working as she usually did. She had just begun the mid-therum section of—
Shit! Jane! Three and a half hours had passed, and she hadn’t even realized it.
She grabbed her phone from her pocket and punched the access. “Jane! Hello. Has your flight landed?”
“Yes, I’m in a taxi on the way to my apartment. It took you long enough to answer. I was beginning to worry.”
“I was working. I just received a new reconstruction, and I was doing the preliminary measuring.”
“I should have known. You cut down your schedule while I was there recuperating, and you probably had to make up for lost time.” She paused. “I was a bother. I’m really sorry, Eve.”
“I’m not.” She got up from her worktable and moved across the room to the couch. “I loved every minute of having you with us. I wish you’d stayed twice as long. No, I wish you’d never go away.” She added quickly, “But I know that’s not practical. You have a career. So do I. We’ll work it out.” She changed the subject. “Good flight?”
“Smooth as glass. So is your new reconstruction a little boy or girl?”
“A little girl. Nine. Found in the vineyard country in California.”
“And what did you name her?”
“Jenny.” She looked back at the skull on her worktable. “I called her Jenny.”
“Pretty name. I’ve always liked it.”
“So have I. I guess. It just sort of fits her.”
Jane chuckled. “How can you tell? It’s a skull, for heaven’s sake.”
“I can tell.” She added, “She definitely wasn’t a Samantha.”
“Samantha? Where did that come from?”
“You’d have had to have been here.”
“And I’d just as soon not.” Jane paused. “I don’t know how you do it. So sad … Never being sure what you’re doing is going to help those children’s identities to be discovered.”
“I’ve had a good percentage over the years.”
“I know, and I admire you more than I can say. I call myself an artist, but it’s you who are the true artist, Eve. You create life from death.”
“Only the semblance. But sometimes that semblance can cause the bad guys to be caught and revenge exacted.” Her lips tightened as she looked at the reconstruction. “This little girl is so fragile-appearing. It makes you wonder how anyone could bear to hurt her. Yet that bastard crushed her head and—” She broke off. “For some reason, I couldn’t do the measuring until I’d done a temporary cosmetic fix on that wound. I was going to wait but it … bothered me.”
“Because you have a gentle heart. Why else would you have taken a street kid like me into your home?”
“Because that street kid was remarkable, and I knew that she’d light up our lives.” She added, “And you’re a very good artist, Jane. You have great vision. And it’s not of skulls or death.” She chuckled. “Far more socially acceptable. You must be close to your apartment. I’ll let you go. Thanks for calling.”
“My pleasure,” Jane said. “Truly. Good luck with your Jenny. I hope you find a way to bring her home to those who loved her.”
“I think I will.” She added dryly, “She seems to have a young sheriff in California rooting for her. He says she wants to be found.”
“A psychic?”
“No, he just has a feeling. Good night, Jane.”
“It’s morning here. Have a good day.” She hung up.
Night here. Morning where Jane was living. It only pointed out how far apart they were.
Don’t think about it. They were together in their hearts.
Time to go to bed. She wanted to get up with Joe and have a cup of coffee with him before he left to go to the precinct.
She washed her hands and dried them on the towel she kept at her worktable. She turned off the work light. “We made a decent start, Jenny. It will go faster later.”
No answer naturally.
The fragile bones of the skull shone in the glow of the overhead light. Eve moved toward the hall leading to their bedroom, then impulsively stopped and looked back at the reconstruction.
She looked … lonely.
Imagination.
It was a skull, for Pete’s sake. Eve had worked on hundreds of reconstructions, and she had never had that feeling with one before. Was she transferring her own sadness about Jane’s departure to the death of this little girl? It was possible, but she wasn’t going to look for psychological excuses for the strange feeling she’d had since she’d seen Jenny’s skull.
Jenny.
I … think … my name is Jenny.
The phrasing was very odd.
Forget it.
She turned and started down the hall.
“Good night, Jenny,” she said gently.
No answer from the darkness.
Of course there wasn’t.
No answers.
No loneliness.
Not for the dead whose life had been snatched away.