Read Online Hide Away by Iris Johansen - Free Book Online Page A

anything.” She said soberly, “And I have to stay with you. You might need me.”
    â€œBecause you had a dream, and Jenny told you that you had to do it? I know you told me that.” Eve shook her head. “We want you to stay with us but not because you think you have to do it. Jenny isn’t with us any longer. She died a long time ago.”
    â€œBut I still love her,” she whispered. “I’ll always love her.” Her gaze was clinging desperately to Eve’s. “And I think she loves you, too, Eve. I told Margaret I thought you dream about Jenny, too. Do you?”
    â€œNo.” What could she tell her? Certainly not that she actually had experienced the spiritual presence of her sister, that she’d seen her, talked to her. It would be too much for her to handle. She was only eleven years old. “But I became very close to Jenny while I was working on her reconstruction. I felt as if I knew her very well.” She paused. “I still do.”
    â€œThe reconstruction,” Cara repeated. “Margaret told me about what you do. It sounds … strange.”
    â€œI thought so, too, before I started to learn about it. Then I realized it wasn’t strange at all. It was a way that I could bring the lost ones home to the ones who loved them. I just had to be taught that everything was there waiting to be brought out and how to do it.” She met Cara’s eyes. “And that’s what I did with Jenny. In the end, I brought her home to you, Cara.”
    â€œYes, you did.” She smiled. “And Margaret told me how wonderfully it turned out. May I see it?”
    â€œI don’t have it. It’s still being held by the Sheriff’s Department in California.” And actually seeing the skull from which she’d sculpted the reconstruction might still possibly have a negative effect. She thought that Cara understood but she preferred to introduce her slowly to her work and not on such a personal level. She shook her head. “And I don’t think you should see it anyway. Memory is always better.”
    â€œYou worked on it here?”
    Eve nodded at the worktable across the room. “Over there.”
    Cara walked over to the worktable and touched it with her fingertips. “I think you’re right. I don’t need to see that reconstruction. She’ll always be with me.” She looked across the room at Eve. “She saved me, you know. Elena had managed to get Jenny and me away from Walsh, but he almost found us in that forest. We heard him coming. Jenny told me to be quiet, and everything would be okay. Then she ran away from Elena and me toward Walsh. I didn’t know what was happening. But Elena did and grabbed my hand and made me run and run and run. She was crying…” She swallowed. “Did you know that?”
    â€œYes,” Eve said gently. “But I didn’t know that you did.”
    â€œSometimes I did. Sometimes I didn’t. I didn’t want it to be true. So I tried not to remember.” She moistened her lips. “But then the nightmares came, and it would all be there again.”
    â€œDo you still have the nightmares?”
    She shook her head. “No. For the past few weeks, I’ve just seen Jenny in my dreams and not that night in the forest. She talks to me and smiles, and I’m not afraid anymore.”
    â€œThat’s wonderful. She wouldn’t want you to be afraid. She was very brave herself.”
    â€œIt seems as if I’ve been afraid all my life. But I have to get over it. Being afraid didn’t keep Elena from being killed. It won’t keep Salazar from trying to kill me. I have to be like Jenny.”
    â€œNo, fear never helps, but it’s hard to fight. We’ll work on it together.” She paused. “You remember that night when Jenny died. Do you remember anything else? Did Elena tell you anything about who kidnapped you? Or