“What happened to Toby?” I said again, my voice low and guttural.
The wind caught Eve’s hair. Her pink lips parted. “They took him.”
Air whooshed out of my lungs, my ears ringing, my sense of gravity distorted. “Who?” I demanded. “Who took him?”
“I don’t know.” Eve’s arms curved protectively around her torso. “Toby found me months ago. He told me who he was. Who I was. We were doing fine, just the two of us, but then last week something happened. Toby saw someone.”
“Who?” I asked again, the word torn out of me.
“I don’t know. Toby wouldn’t tell me. He just said that he had to leave.”
Toby does that, I thought, my eyes stinging. He leaves. “You said someone took him.”
“I’m getting to that,” Eve said tersely. “Toby didn’t want to take me with him, but I didn’t give him a choice. I told him that if he tried to leave me behind, I would go to the press.”
Despite a leaked photograph and some tabloid rumors, no media outlet had yet been able to substantiate claims that Toby was alive. “You blackmailed him into taking you with him?”
“If you were me,” Eve replied, something almost beseeching in her tone, “you would have done the same.” She looked down, impossibly long lashes casting shadows on her face. “Toby and I went off the grid, but someone was tracking us, stalking us like prey. Toby wouldn’t tell me who we were running from, but on Monday, he said that we had to split up. The plan was for us to meet back up three days later. I waited. I stayed off the grid, just like he’d taught me. Yesterday, I showed up at our meeting place.” She shook her head, her green eyes glistening. “Toby didn’t.”
“Maybe he had second thoughts,” I said, wanting that to be true. “Maybe —”
“No,” Eve insisted desperately. “Toby never lied to me. He never broke a promise. He wouldn’t—” She cut herself off. “Someone took him. You don’t believe me? I can prove it.”
Eve pulled her hair away from her face. The dried blood I’d seen was just the tip of the iceberg. The skin around the cut was mottled, a sickening mix of black and blue.
“Someone hit you.” Until Oren spoke, I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“With the butt of a gun, I’m guessing.”
Eve didn’t even look at him. Her bright green eyes stayed locked on mine. “Toby didn’t show up at our meeting place, but someone else did.”
She let her hair fall back over the bruise. “They grabbed me from behind and told me that if I knew what was good for me, I would forget all about Toby Hawthorne.”
“They used his real name?” I managed to form the question.
Eve nodded. “That’s the last thing I remember. They knocked me out. I woke up to find they’d stolen everything I had on me. They even went through my pockets.” Her voice shook slightly, and then she steeled herself.
“Toby and I had stashed a bag for emergencies: a change of clothes for each of us, a little cash.” I wondered if she realized how tightly she was holding that bag now. “I bought a bus ticket, and I came here. To you.”
You have a daughter, I’d told Toby when we found out about Eve, and he’d replied, I have two. Swallowing back the twisted bramble of emotions inside me, I turned to Oren. “We should call the authorities.”
“No.” Eve caught my arm. “You can’t report a dead man missing, and Toby didn’t tell me to go to the police. He told me to come to you.”
My throat tightened. “Someone attacked you. We can report that.”