“It wouldn’t disturb me.” She turned and walked beside him toward the front door. “I don’t sleep well anyway. Maybe I got too much rest during the last years.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that would have anything to do with it. You’ll probably straighten out once your body adjusts to the new rhythm.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t seem to be tired, and that means I can do more.”
“More what?”
“Learning, absorbing,” She paused. “Living.” They had reached the door, and she swiftly punched in the security code. “It’s a sequence of eight numbers starting with two and—”
“Continuing with three, six, eleven, four, nine, fourteen, one.”
Her eyes widened. “You remember that from my entering it just one time?”
“No, I caught the last four numbers when you set the code when I came into the house. I only had to concentrate on the first four.”
“You have a good memory.”
“Training.” He smiled. “And concentration. Concentration is very valuable. Remind me to tell you someday about a lady who has recently reinforced just how valuable to both Eve and me.” He opened the door. “Set the security panel behind me. Good night, Beth.”
“I’ll be awake when you come back.” She moistened her lips. “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Oh?” His expression was suddenly wary. “Is that right?”
She suddenly realized what he was thinking. “Eve told you? I didn’t think she’d do that.” She threw back her head and laughed. “You shouldn’t jump to conclusions, and there’s no reason for you to be uneasy. It wasn’t anything personal.”
“I’d think that the proposition was intensely personal. At least to me.” He tilted his head. “And I believe you and Eve have already discussed this. Why bring it up again?”
“I told you not to jump to conclusions.” She made a dismissing gesture. “I gave that idea up when it seemed to disturb her. I just thought it would save me time and trouble. From what I remember, everyone said most guys don’t care who they screw.”
“I’m not most guys,” he said. “So what is this favor?”
“I want you to tell me about Eve,” she said. “I want to know everything about her. I figure that you’d know more than anyone else since you’re lovers.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“She wouldn’t tell me everything. There are things she wouldn’t consider important. A person looking from a distance sees a different picture.” She paused, then said haltingly, “I’ve never had a family. Rick is more my friend than family. I kept telling myself when I was growing up that I didn’t need anyone but myself. That I’d be just fine as long as I worked hard and made sure I was the best at everything.”
“Everyone likes a winner?” Joe quoted her words.
“Yeah, but I’m beginning to feel … different. If I was wrong, then Eve could be important to me. I don’t want to blow it. She’s not like me, whose life just stopped. She’s been out in the world.” She stopped, thinking about it. “And I think she’s been hurt and has scars. I don’t want to open wounds. She’d hate me.”
“No, she wouldn’t.” Joe smiled. “But I’m surprised you’ve been able to sense that about her. Very perceptive, Beth.”
“Not really. I keep stumbling and making mistakes, but I believe I’m not wrong about Eve. Maybe there’s something about that family-bond thing.” She looked him directly in the eye. “So will you help me, Joe?”
He studied her for a long moment. “As long as you don’t demand any intimate details. I’m not comfortable about your idea of what’s personal.”
She gave a sigh of relief. “Okay, that would probably make me embarrassed anyway. It always did when my schoolmates described their sex with guys. I always wondered if some of the things they did weren’t made up. They would have had to be acrobats.”
“At that age, acrobatics are entirely possible. It gets more refined and satisfactory with time. Is that all? May I go now?”
She shook her head. “Billy. I didn’t know he was a Marine. I don’t really know anything about him. It was always all about me.”
“You were the prime objective. I’m certain Newell wasn’t offended.”
“But I should have asked. He made me talk about my life before I came to the hospital, and I never asked him any questions. How selfish could I be? He got me off those drugs. He saved my life, Joe.”
“There’s a good chance that’s true. But if you want to know all about Newell, you may have to ask him yourself. I can only give you the bare bones, and I think some of his dossier was probably doctored to keep Pierce from knowing that he was being investigated.”
“Then give me the bare bones. I’ll work it out from there.” She paused. “And I want to know about you, too, Joe. You’re important to Eve.” She frowned. “That didn’t sound right. It’s not that you’re not important in your own right. You seem to be a very formidable—”
“Enough.” He made a face. “I’m getting out of here before you add anyone else to the list.”
“I don’t know anyone else.”
“You did it again. You managed to disarm me just when I was becoming pissed off at you.” He started across the courtyard. “Go back to the library. I’ll face your interrogation after I expend some energy trying to track Drogan.”
Beth watched until he disappeared into the trees to the side of the courtyard before shutting the door. He was moving swiftly, and there was a sleek litheness to his carriage, a leashed eagerness.
A man on the hunt. No fear. No hesitation. He couldn’t wait to track down Drogan. He was a police detective, but there was no cool, analytical demeanor. She suddenly shivered as she realized that he appeared more deadly and dangerous than Drogan. She was learning more about him by watching him during these moments than she probably would by anything he would tell her. He would be like Eve and not be able or willing to share the view from the horizon. She would just have to put the pieces together and figure out how she could deal with them.
But that instant when she’d realized how dangerous Joe Quinn could be had disconcerted her. If he was deadly toward Drogan, could he also be a threat to Eve? How did Beth know who was bad or good? She had almost no practical experience, and there were so many dangers in this world.
She closed the door of the library and tucked herself in the leather chair in which Billy had been sitting. Her hand instinctively went to clasp the gold key at her throat. It always made her feel safe when she was most scared and confused. Rick had given the necklace to her on her sixteenth birthday and told her that she should wear it forever to remind her that he loved her.
She had been surprised that she’d still had it around her neck after the years on the sedatives. During the last few months, when she’d been totally drug-free, she’d noticed the nurses carefully put it back on her after they bathed her. Rick must have told them to do it. Which only proved that he still cared for her and had nothing to do with Pierce or that horrible Stella woman who had sometimes taken care of her.
But Eve and Joe had both been suspicious of Rick.
Forget it. Beth knew the truth about him. She would just have to explain and convince them of their mistake. Rick was the one good thing in that old life she could not do without. She had many changes she wanted to make in the way she lived her life. She wanted to reach out, instead of closing herself away from people.
She wanted to reach out to Eve.
One step at a time.
For the moment, she would sit there and wait for Joe Quinn to tell her how she could begin those steps.
* * *
DROGAN HAD BEEN IN THESE TREES.
Joe’s hunch about Drogan’s being in the long driveway of the house next door to the Tudor had paid off.
Joe knelt and shined his flashlight on the prints in the earth. One knee indentation, one foot bracing. Drogan had been kneeling there.
He would have had a good view of the courtyard from that spot.