Hunting Eve

“What?”

“My pants will still be wet, but the tails of your shirt will cover me almost to my knees.” She kicked off her shoes. The floor was cool, but at least it wasn’t as bad as feeling as if her feet were encased in ice from the mud. “Do it if you want me to be able to work.”

He didn’t move for a moment. Then he cursed as he shrugged out of his coat and began unbuttoning his shirt. “You deserved freezing your ass.”

“We don’t all get what we deserve, or you’d be in hell with your son.” She took the fla

It wasn’t what she’d felt when Zander had put his vest around her, she thought suddenly. There had been no rejection with Zander. She still could not be certain whether or not he was an enemy. But she had accepted what he had given.

Given. That was the difference. He might be an enemy or a reluctant ally, but he had given to her.

And she was taking from Doane even though the thought made her ill.

But she had to survive. She would survive.

So take whatever she needed and get on with it.

She braced herself and turned to face the skull on the dais.

You’ve been waiting for me, haven’t you, Kevin?

“Go on,” Doane said impatiently. “Start it.”

Kill you. Kill her.

Oh, yes, you’ve been waiting. But you won’t kill me, and you won’t destroy my Bo

A huge wave of nausea hit her.

She fought it off.

Is that all you’ve got? I’m used to it now. Pretty soon, I won’t notice it at all.

“Get to work.” Doane was frowning. “Kevin is getting angry.”

“As if I cared.” Eve picked up a spatula and began to smooth the left side of Kevin’s cheek. “He’s dead, and he has no power any longer. He’s getting weaker all the time.”

“No!”

“And so are you, Doane.”

“Am I?”

There was an odd note in his voice that caused her to stop. She turned to look at him.

Evil.

Strong, twisted, and full of fury.

And strangely alien.

Kevin. Not Doane. Kevin.

She inhaled sharply.

Then that impression faded, vanished.

And it was again Doane, vicious, also evil, but not alien. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Doane said. “I have the gun. I have the power. I’m not weak, Eve.”

Not when Kevin was that close, slipping over boundaries he shouldn’t have been able to breach. That moment had frightened her. Doane was possibly changing, taking on Kevin’s evil as well as his own.

“Evil isn’t power.” She turned back to the reconstruction. “You’re both weak, Doane. You’ll find that out soon. Now leave me alone so that I can finish this reconstruction. I want to be done with him.”

“You’ll never be done with him, Eve.”

“Oh, but I will. I’ll be done with both of you.”

Work.

Hands smoothing, repairing, healing what should never be healed.

Give Doane what he wanted, then take what she wanted.

Find a way to get to that saloon.

Highway 145

Southern Colorado

“DID YOU FIND ANOTHER TOWN?” Margaret asked as she glanced at Kendra in the passenger seat. Kendra’s fingers were flying over her phone’s touch screen. “I admit I’m getting a little discouraged. We’ve already hit three gold-rush towns, and all we’ve come up with are souvenir mugs and guys trying to teach us how to mine gold.”

“And you bought a mug at every place we stopped.”

“I like souvenir mugs. They’re usually fu

“Patience.” Kendra studied the screen. “There are old gold-rush towns all over this area, and it looks like several of them had their own coinages.”

Margaret’s brows rose. “That popular? They could make real money?”

“Yes, according to what I’m reading here, anyone could set up their own coin factory. Private banks could do it. As long as the coins were made of real gold, it was legal tender. It was only after the early 1860s that currency had to be made in the official U.S. mints.”

“So what’s the plan? Are we going to visit every gold-rush town and antique dealer in Colorado?”

“I’m hoping that Venable and his resources at the CIA will be able to track down this specific model of coin press and narrow the field a bit. But there are a couple more old gold-rush towns nearby that are still standing and open to tourists. Since we have a pretty good idea that Doane was in this area recently, we might as well hit them, too.”

“Okay, maybe they’ll have different mugs for my collection. How far is the nearest one?”

“About fifty yards.”

“What?”

Kendra pointed ahead to a wooden sign on the right reading DRAKEBURY SPRINGS. “Turn here.”

They followed a winding road that curved up to a parking lot packed with tour buses, SUVs, and RVs. It was a scene of bustling activity, contrasting with the almost desolate highway on which they had been traveling.

“It’s like Disneyland up here,” Kendra said, as they passed a fleet of parents pushing strollers. They parked and walked to a small kiosk, where they paid a donation and were given maps of the town, which was essentially a single street two blocks long.

They walked down a dirt road and passed two costumed actors pretending to be drunk prospectors. The men had attracted a crowd as each actor tried to outdo the other with their painful renditions of the song “In the Good Old Summertime.”

“These buildings don’t look very old,” Margaret said, eyeing a general store where a woman in pioneer attire was selling cotton candy.

“They’re not old. None of them are. I don’t think any of these were built more than fifteen years ago.”

“So what’s the point?”

“The point? To make money, to draw tourists to hotels and restaurants nearby. The whole thing looks like a reconstruction. We may be wasting our time.”

Margaret was studying the map. “The bank is up ahead and on the left.”

A few minutes later, they were entering the one-story structure. There were two counters with balance scales. A chalkboard behind the counters listed the bank’s current assets—circa 1857—and the buying price for gold.

Kendra shook her head. “Pretty sparse. Even if they once did make coins here, the equipment hasn’t been here for a long time.”

They moved down to the end of Main Street, where the town ended in a picnic area, several food vendors, and a tiny souvenir shop.

A white-bearded man in his late sixties was working behind the counter of the souvenir shop. He looked up and smiled at Kendra and Margaret as they stepped inside. “Welcome. I’m Bill Johnson. Looking for T-shirts?”

Kendra shook her head.

“Shot glasses? Mugs? Bumper stickers? I just got some beer can cozies you might like.”

“Nice color.” Margaret took a yellow T-shirt from the table and slid it on over her own. She modeled the shirt, which read: STRIKE IT RICH AT DRAKEBURY SPRINGS. “I’ll take this one.”

The man smiled. “Looks good on you. That will be twenty dollars.”

“Fifteen.” Margaret smiled at him. “Or I’ll pay twenty, and you can throw in that mug on the shelf over there.”

He frowned. “That’s nerve, little lady.”

“You obviously have an overstock. I’m taking it off your hands.”

He suddenly chuckled. “I do have an overstock. Twenty.” He reached up and took down a mug and gave it to her. “No credit cards.”