So had Eve. She could hear the beating of his heart, and it seemed to be beating within her, too. She always felt closer to Joe in special moments like this.

She had always been alone.

She was more alone now than ever.

That poignant thought from the nightmare again. It just proved how disjointed and foolish it had been. Eve had never been less alone in her life. She had Joe and family and friends she loved around her. Life was never perfect, but loneliness was no longer one of her problems. She pushed the memory away, firmly blocking it.

She cuddled closer to Joe, her gaze on the moonlight on the lake.

No panic. No danger. No wrenching loneliness.

Not here with Joe.

*   *   *

“I’VE LOST HER,” Drogan said, when Dr. Harry Pierce picked up the phone. “It’s your fault, Pierce. She wasn’t what I expected. I would have handled it entirely differently if I’d realized that she wasn’t what you told me.”

“Excuses, Drogan?” Pierce asked softly. “What a tough guy you are when you can’t even handle a woman who’s spent almost two decades in an institution. You were recommended very highly, but I suppose they were wrong.”

“I’ll handle her, but I’ll handle her my way. I shouldn’t have trusted a man who doesn’t have the guts to follow through on a job. You’ve probably been collecting from the Avery family for years, and you still have to come to me when they want to pull the plug on sweet Beth.”

“Why should I trust you? You failed me. I’d do better hiring someone else.”

“Go ahead. But I’ll still go after her and cut her throat. I’m not going to take you or anyone else telling me how that crazy drug addict got the best of me.” He paused. “And after that, I may go after you, Pierce. Did it occur to you that the Avery family might be tired of dealing with you? After the woman is dead, you’ll be useless to them. Yes, I think I may contact them and see if they need me to tie up a loose end.”

“Stay away from them,” Pierce said harshly. “None of this must touch them. Do you think they won’t take both of us down if they see a threat? Do you know the kind of power they have?” He drew a deep breath. “Maybe I was hasty. We can work together. I’ve already had that mess in her room cleared, and I’ve put out the word that she’s run away from the hospital. It shouldn’t take you long to find her. She won’t be able to think straight with all the drugs we pumped into her. You probably scared her, and she panicked. I don’t even know how she managed to get away from the hospital without someone’s seeing her.”

“Bullshit. She didn’t act scared.”

“As I said, panic. She’s like a child, and she’ll have no idea how to hide from you. But when you find her, no violence, no slitting her throat. It has to be a tragic accident brought on by her mental condition. One that could be expected from a woman who has delusions and could suffer disorientation when faced with having to cope with the outside world.”

“Tragic accidents can be violent … and painful. You’re a doctor. You can make it look like anything you want it to be.”

Pierce didn’t like the sound of that. He had heard some strange things about Drogan when he had hired him. “Look, I won’t tolerate any of that voodoo stuff I was told you like to pull on occasion. That’s not what I hired you to do. It has to look natural, dammit.”

“And it will if she doesn’t make me any angrier than I am right now. If she does, then I may have to introduce her to the Snake God. I’ll tell you when I get close to her.” He hung up.

Problems. I don’t need these problems, Pierce thought with irritation as he pressed the disconnect. He liked his comfortable life and the generous favors thrown his way by the Avery family. He couldn’t see why Nelda Avery had decided that Beth Avery had to die. He’d had Beth under control all these years, and she hadn’t bothered anyone. He had even tentatively suggested that they keep the present arrangement in place.

“Have you told the old bitch yet?” Stella Lenslow stood in the doorway. In her nurse’s uniform, she should have looked crisp and businesslike, but the white made her red hair blaze in contrast, and she exuded an overpowering sexuality. “No, I can see you haven’t. You still have your head on your shoulders.” She closed the door behind her. “I told you that you should do the job yourself.”

“Or give it to you.” His lips twisted. “I can’t see you taking a risk that could cause you to end up on death row. You have a very good sense of self-preservation. So don’t tell me what to do, Stella.”

“But you like me to tell you what to do.” She crossed the room and stood before his desk. “When it pleases you.”

And most of the time, everything she did pleased him. They had been together for six years, and he’d found her sexual appetite as voracious as her greed. She’d been his “patient” since her parents had brought her to him for private therapy after a run-in with the law for prostitution. She’d only been seventeen at the time and totally out of control as far as her parents were concerned. Upright, churchgoing people, they had been frightened and bewildered by their daughter, who had been a bad seed all her life. Even as a small child, she had been totally remorseless and without conscience, and, lately, she had begun to terrorize them. The Lenslowes didn’t know how to deal with someone who had no sense of right or wrong and could not be taught. They had come to the point that they had only wanted to get rid of her and salvage the remainder of their lives. They had eagerly accepted Pierce’s suggestions as to how to do it and were probably lucky they’d washed their hands of her. Pierce had diagnosed her as an incurable sociopath during the first month of therapy. But he had no problem with that when she provided him with such intense and extreme entertainment. “Well, you’re not pleasing me at the moment. I told you to give Beth enough pills to put her out. You didn’t do it.”

“I gave her plenty.” She dropped down onto the chair beside his desk. “Don’t blame me, Harry. Just tell me when you’re going to get her back. I don’t like the idea of her running around out there. It could cause trouble if anyone connects me with her. They’ll find out I’m not a real nurse. I’m still on probation, and they could send me to prison. I like it just fine here.”

Because he took such good care of her, he thought dryly. He bought her whatever she wanted. He’d even given her the perfect job for her temperament. She dealt out medicines and gave the shots. She liked the feeling of power over the patients.

She liked the feeling of power, period.

“I’ll get her back. But you’d better keep a low profile for a little while. I’m trying to keep the media from finding out that we’ve lost her, but I had to tell the staff when we were searching for her. Someone may talk.” He smiled. “And you never bothered to make any friends among the other employees. You’ll probably be a target.”

“Low profile?” She shook her head. “Not me. I won’t fade away for anyone. That’s for other people. That’s for that mousey, plain excuse for a woman who you’re trying to run to ground.” She wrinkled her nose. “I never did like her.”

“You never like anyone. You don’t know what it means.” He raised his brows. “But that usually means you did something that wasn’t quite ethical. What did you do, Stella?”

She shrugged. “I cut down her drugs a little.”

“In hopes that it would cause her to go into withdrawal and experience severe pain. You are a complete bitch, my darling.”

“She’s nothing. She was like a dummy. She annoyed me. I wanted to see her hurt.” She added quickly, “But she had a full dose last night, just as you told me.”

“That had better be true.”

“I got tired of everyone tiptoeing around and treating her like a princess. She was only a zombie.” She met his gaze. “You should know that’s all she was. You’re the one who made her like that.”