Bonnie

“You believe that my uncle may have told Do

“I don’t believe anything right now. I’m just throwing ideas out there to see if they stick.” She paused. “But I located something else in Do

“What was the verdict?”

“I don’t know, the court records were sealed. He didn’t lose his license, but it might have spurred him to leave the hospital. Joe is talking to the head nurse in the psychiatric ward right now. The records clerk said she’d been here at the hospital for the last twenty years, so she’d have to have been familiar with Do

Eve pressed the disco

“What do you expect me to say?” He turned away. “Am I scared and sick to my stomach about all this? Hell, yes. But all we know for sure is that my uncle lied to me, and he had a problem. We’ll have to see what Qui

“Yes. That hospital doesn’t appear to have a great staff, does it? First Temple, and now this Dr. Do

“Sane? He was more normal than anyone I knew. Almost everyone I grew up with was a little twisted and lived in dysfunctional homes. It went with the territory.” His lips twisted. “When you live with poverty, vice, and drugs, you don’t expect normalcy. You know that yourself, Eve.”

Yes, she did. That’s why she had fought so desperately to get away from that life so it wouldn’t taint Bo

“No.” He thought about it. “It’s hard to remember. No, maybe he seemed a little quieter. But I was a teenager, and I was self-centered like most kids and might not have noticed. There wasn’t anything weird about him. He was a good guy, Eve.”

She didn’t answer.

His lips thi

Eve’s phone rang and she glanced at the ID. “Joe.” She punched the button. “What did you find out, Joe?”

“I found out that the people here who know Do

“Good, then there’s a chance that Da

“No, she hasn’t heard from him in several years.” He paused. “According to her, the reason he quit was that he was suffering severe burnout. He was going to take a rest before he opened his own practice.”

“Where did he go? Can we trace him?”

“We can try. He was going to visit a cousin, James O’Leary, who lived in Ireland.”

“Ireland? What city?”

“Dublin. The cousin might know something. I’ve already placed a few calls, and Catherine is having Venable do some checking. We should know soon.” He paused. “Are you okay, Eve?”

“Fine. Confused, a little scared. But I’ll get through it.”

“You always do.” He didn’t speak again for a moment. “I don’t like the way this is playing out. I want to come to you.”

“Not yet.” She wanted to see him, too. It didn’t seem right that she wasn’t working beside him toward finding Bo

“There’s no reason,” Joe said roughly. “Tell Gallo that we’re going to find his uncle no matter what he does. I’m not going to let him find him first, so that he can decide whether or not he wants to keep him away from us. Da

“You know I wouldn’t let that happen.” She was watching Gallo’s face. All the torment and uncertainty had faded, and his face was hard and without expression. What was he thinking? Whatever it was, she had to find out. “I have to go, Joe. Let me know what you learn from Do

“Eve, I mean it. I don’t trust Gallo, and you shouldn’t either. I need to be there with you.”

“You will be. I love you.” She hung up the phone. She studied Gallo for a moment. He had closed himself away from her, and she wasn’t sure how to reach him. “Joe seems to have hopes of a breakthrough if he finds out where Do

“How can I be sure?” Gallo shrugged. “The man you tell me he’s become isn’t the Ted Da

“Objectivity?” She shook her head. “What the hell do you mean? This is about Bo

“Listen to you, you’ve already convicted him,” he said fiercely. “You’re wrong. He wouldn’t have killed a child.”

“I hope not, for your sake.” She glanced away from him. “But we have to figure out a few things before we can even delve into what he’d do or not do. How did he make a co

“No. As you know, Jacobs and Queen were in Army Intelligence, and they told me it was top secret.” His lips twisted. “I had no idea what a dirty secret it was going to turn out to be. Drugs and smuggling instead of saving the world from nuclear proliferation. I was a fool.”

“How could you know Jacobs and Queen were criminals? They deceived the Army for years.” She went back to the main subject. “If you didn’t tell him about Jacobs, how did he find out about them?”

“I don’t know. My uncle was sharp. He’d been a Ranger for years, and he had contacts with all kinds of brass in different departments of the Army. People liked him, trusted him. Maybe he found out that Jacobs and Queen sent me on that mission.”

“And that would make him angry. He was very protective of you, wasn’t he?”

“Of course he was,” Gallo said curtly. “He got used to trying to keep me safe from my dad. But that doesn’t mean he’d go after a superior officer just for sending me on a dangerous mission. Why would he? He knew being a Ranger was risky. When I told him I wanted to join the service, he tried to talk me out of it.”

“But you wanted to follow in his footsteps. He must have felt terribly responsible when he thought you’d been killed on your first mission.”

“And you’re saying that sent him off his rocker?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe not. I remember when Da

Gallo was shaking his head.

Lord, he was stubborn. But how could she blame him when she was forcing him to look at his uncle in a completely different way than he ever had before. Tough. “It’s true. He loved you, and he was bitter. That’s all I know. I thought it was perfectly natural. I had no idea he had a mental problem.” She had a sudden chilling memory of Da