Free Evan's Gate by Rhys Bowen Page A

struggled to sit up.
    “Any news?” she asked.
    Watkins put a hand on her shoulder and eased her back down. “We’re doing everything we can, but don’t worry. We’ve alerted all the ports. Your husband won’t be able to leave the country with her. It’s only a matter of time before we find them.”
    She nodded, pressing her lips together.
    Watkins looked up at Evan, who stepped forward. “There was one thing, Mrs. Sholokhov,” Evan said. “I understand that your little girl had a heart transplant. Is that right?”
    She nodded again. “One of the youngest recipients the hospital had ever done,” she said.
    “So she’s presumably on medication?”
    “Of course she is.”
    “But you didn’t think it was important to mention it to us this afternoon?” Watkins asked.
    “I should have done, shouldn’t I?” She brought one hand up clumsily toward her face. “I just can’t think straight. But don’t worry, if she’s with Johnny, he’ll make sure she takes it. He was always fanatical about her taking her pills. And he has copies of her prescriptions for the times she stayed overnight with him. So she’ll be fine, unless he takes her to Russia.” A sob rose in her throat. “Oh, God. Who knows what kind of primitive medicines they have over there?”
    W.P.C. Howells sat on the bed beside her and patted her reassuringly.
“They’ll find him before he gets to Russia. Now you just try and have a little sleep.” Her look told Watkins and Evan to leave.
    “She’s pretty much convinced that Ashley’s father took her, isn’t she?” Evan said, as they walked back to the car.
    Watkins stared up at the mountain. “I hope to God she’s right.”

Chapter 8
    The sun was sinking as a red ball into the layer of sea fog on the horizon as the tired search party finally picked its way down the mountain. They had found nothing but a child’s hair slide with a teddy bear on it, which could have been lying there for ages. Evan and Watkins had taken the main path up to the summit while the crew fanned out, moving up through the rocks and heather from the road. After all the rain, the path was extremely muddy.
    “We might just get lucky and pick up footprints if anyone brought the kid up here,” Watkins said. “Of course, if anyone brought her up here, he was probably carrying her, but then his prints would be heavier than usual.”
    Evan stared at the path ahead. “That’s interesting,” he said. “Those Germans said they hiked the mountain this morning, but they certainly didn’t take this path. Look at this—a herd of sheep came across here and there were no sheep on the mountain today —and there are no prints on top of the sheep, are there?”
    “They could have chosen not to take the path,” Watkins agreed. He glanced up at Evan. “You suspect those Germans of something, don’t you?”
    “Let’s say they made me a trifle uneasy.”

    “I think you’ve got good instincts, boyo. When we come down, I’ll have their car stopped and searched, and we’ll get in touch with the German police too—just in case.”
    Pink twilight was glowing on the mountainsides and highlighting the last of the snow as Evan finally drove up the pass to Llanfair. Rivulets of water cascaded down the steep green slopes and danced along the side of the road. The bleating of new lambs floated on the evening breeze. Evan felt the tension melting away. Now he knew why it was so important to live in the cottage. It was remote, removed from all the tensions and tragedies going on in the world. Once he got home, he’d be in a haven of peace.
    For now, of course, home was not a haven of peace on the mountainside, but a dreary two-up-two-down terraced miner’s cottage in the village. Evan had been living there since he moved away from Mrs. Williams’s tender care to prove that he could fend for himself. In truth, he hadn’t been doing too well at the fending. He had learned to boil eggs and cook spaghetti, but that was about