Chasing the Night by Iris Johansen

like this. So grown-up…”
    “I told you once that I couldn’t stay seven forever. Nothing stands still, not even where I am.” She smiled. “But you probably forgot it and are in denial because that idea is a little weird, too.”
    “Denying what isn’t real is what keeps us sane, baby.”
    “You’re sane, and yet you’ve accepted that a ghost comes and visits you.”
    Her ghost, her beloved spirit, her Bonnie. “That’s different.”
    Bonnie nodded. “And it took you long enough to accept that I wasn’t a dream or a hallucination or whatever. It’s much more comfortable now, isn’t it?”
    “It will be comfortable when I can bring you home and find the bastard who killed you.”
    “Comfortable for you. I’m content right now.” She leaned back in the swing. “It’s over for me, Mama. Only the love is left.”
    “It’s not over for me.”
    “I know.” Bonnie’s gaze shifted to the door. “And it’s not over for her. She’s hurting.”
    “Yes.”
    “Then why don’t you go in and help her? Cindy won’t care. She knows that time doesn’t matter.”
    “It may matter to her parents.”
    “Go find Luke, Mama.”
    “I can only try to tell her what he looks like. I may not even be right.”
    “And you might be.” Bonnie smiled. “I’ll bet on you. I’ll always bet on you. Why are you arguing with me? You know you’re going to do it.”
    “Maybe.” She smiled back at her. “And maybe I just want you to stick around a while. I hate it when you go away.”
    Her smile faded. “Me, too. But we have this. It’s a lot, Mama.”
    Eve felt her throat tighten. “Yes, it’s a lot.” In the year following Bonnie’s disappearance, her health and sanity had been spiraling downward, and she would not have survived another six months. But after Bonnie had begun to come to her, everything had changed. For years afterward, she wouldn’t admit, even to herself, that Bonnie was not a dream. But she was with her, and that was all that mattered. “But it’s not enough. I want more.”
    “Don’t be greedy. It’s not time. Mama,” she said gently. “You have Joe, you have Jane. You have a talent that can help people like Catherine Ling. Now go tell her that soon she’ll know what her Luke looks like right now.”
    “Is he still alive, Bonnie?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think he may be. Sometimes I know things, sometimes I don’t.” She frowned. “But there’s darkness all around Catherine Ling. I hope it doesn’t come from him.”
    “I hope so, too.” She turned and headed for the door. “Since you’re pushing me away from you, I guess I’d better see what I can do about—”
    “I am pushing you away. I have to do it. But I’ll always come back for you, Mama…”
    “I know, baby.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I was just…”

    Bonnie was gone.
    Good-bye, my love.
    She paused a moment, letting regret and memory flow out of her, then opened the door.
    “Hello, you were gone longer than I thought.” Catherine Ling was sitting before Eve’s worktable with a laptop open before her. She glanced up, and her gaze warily raked Eve’s expression, trying to read it. “I was wondering if you were going to come back or send in the cops.”
    “I don’t think you were worried. You have too much confidence in yourself.”
    “I was worried.” She smiled faintly before adding, “That I’d have to start again and find another way to get you. Honesty is all very well, but it doesn’t work with everyone.”
    “No?” She crossed the room and stood looking down at the screen of Catherine’s computer. “What are you doing?”
    “Bones.” Her forefinger traced the lines of the skull on the screen before her. “I accessed a medical site on the Net. This is the skull of a female child. I thought I’d familiarize myself with the final product that you need to work with.” She pointed to a sliver of bone on the table before her. “That might be the bone beneath