Hero for Hire

  HERO FOR HIRE

  Marie Ferrarella

  Chapter 1

  He saw the pain in her eyes the moment she walked into his office.

  Another man not in his line of work would have noticed the young woman's slender figure, the honey-blond hair smartly done up in a variation of a French twist with just a few rebellious hairs out of place at her temples, or the cut of her clothes. She was wearing a powder-blue, single-breasted jacket and skirt that most definitely hadn't come off some department-store rack fingered by the general public. This woman, with her hundred-dollar-an-ounce perfume that softly entered the room with her, was someone of taste and breeding who knew exactly what was becoming to her and who could easily afford it, no matter what the price.

  All those things registered, but only on a secondary level. Because the pain in her eyes captured the bulk of Chad Andreini's attention and immediately expressed to him the fact that a life-and-death situation had brought her here.

  He half rose in his chair, fragments of manners his mother had once tried to teach him before she wasn't able to teach him anything anymore surfacing automatically. Politeness, she had liked to say, never went out of style. He hoped, in the world his mother now inhabited, that it never did.

  The woman entering his office seemed oblivious to the courtly gesture. It was apparent that she was fighting for composure as she moved toward him. She was employing that strange, disembodied gait that people find themselves unconsciously resorting to when their entire worlds are crumbling down around them and they can't understand why they are still drawing breath, still alive, when something very precious has been snatched from them. Perhaps forever, though the thought was always far too horrible to contemplate.

  She had that look about her.

  He'd seen it before and would see it again, but it was nothing he would ever get used to.

  Carrie, the secretary he and the others at ChildFinders, Inc. all used, had buzzed him half a minute earlier, telling him that a new client was here. It was his turn to try to pick up the pieces of this latest case and glue them into some semblance of a whole as he attempted to solve the puzzle. He knew nothing more about her than her name. Veronica Lancaster.

  She looked like a Veronica, he thought now, silently taking measure of her. The woman's bearing was regal. Regal even in the time of a parent's worst nightmare.

  At least, that was the facade.

  But Chad knew how easily and quickly facades could crack and break apart, letting everything within spill out. Leaving only an empty vessel and a fading memory of composure in its wake.

  Veronica Lancaster, for all her effort, looked close to breaking apart.

  He liked to keep his distance. It helped keep his mind clear and focused on what was important. Right now, he felt like a spectator at a pending disaster. The feeling left him wanting to do something to prevent it. It was not only his job to do something about it, it was his calling.

  "Please sit down, Mrs. Lancaster."

  Veronica heard the gently worded instruction. The voice was deep, strong. It penetrated the constantly recurring fog about her brain, and she looked around the room, focusing for the first time. There was a chair right in front of his desk.

  Veronica complied with the man's urging. It didn't occur to her not to.

  Hands on the chair's arms, she lowered herself into it slowly, as if some part of her was afraid that any sudden movement might make her collapse into it.

  Or collapse entirely.

  Oh Casey… baby… how could this have happened? she thought.

  Veronica felt moisture beginning to form at the corners of her eyes and she blinked as she drew air into her lungs. The silly thought came to her that if she filled herself completely with air this way, it would prevent anything from spilling out that wasn't supposed to.

  Like the wail of agony that scratched and clawed at her throat, threatening to burst out.

  She couldn't break apart, she couldn't, she ordered herself silently. She had to hold herself together. Every second counted. Every moment she gave way to despair and the abject terror that was tightening around her heart was a moment she couldn't use, a moment that was taken away from rectifying this incredible, horrible wrong that had been done.

  A moment that might mean the difference between Casey's coming home and not.

  Taking another breath, she began, "My baby…"

  No, he wasn't a baby. Casey hadn't been a baby for quite some time. He liked to draw himself up importantly and crisply informed her of that fact whenever she slipped and called him that.

  I'm not your baby. Mama.

  But he was. He would always be her baby. And someone had stolen her baby.

  And her world.

  "My son, Casey," she corrected herself with effort, "has been kidnapped."

  Chad Andreini nodded his head slowly, encouragingly, as if what she had just said was a revelation and not the obvious reason anyone would come to the agency in the first place.

  ChildFinders, Inc., specialized in recovering kidnapped children and in locating runaways. It had originally been established when Cade Townsend's own son, Darin, had been kidnapped. The agency had a record of success rivaled by none. Recovering kidnapped children was a cause very dear to Chad's own heart, having been one himself once. There had been no terror involved in his kidnapping, other than the lie that had been tendered to him as the truth—that his mother, younger brother and sister had all been killed in a car accident. No terror and no suspicion because the man telling the lie had been his own father. His father, who had abducted him from his home so cleverly that no one had suspected a thing.

  It would probably have continued to remain a secret for a long time, instead of just two years had Chad not, in a fit of youthful rebellion, left his father's house and hitchhiked back to his old neighborhood. It had come in the wake of yet another argument with his father, and Chad had been determined to return to a time and place when life had been less traumatic for him.

  The trauma had come, anyway. Seeing his mother, barely functioning in her grief over losing him, and his brother and sister alive had been a shock. But it paled in comparison to the fierce sting of betrayal he felt when he realized that the man he had placed at the center of his universe, had kidnapped him from life as he knew it and lied to him.

  It was something he frequently buried in his mind, but never managed to quite get over, even after his father had been sent to prison.

  Odd how things worked. That event in his faraway past had brought him to this place in time, sitting at this desk. Waiting to listen to this woman with the pain-filled green eyes.

  Eyes that were fighting back tears.

  In a fluid motion, Chad reached over to the small, state-of-the-art tape recorder beside his computer and pressed the record button. The second he did, he saw apprehension bloom in her face.

  Her eyes darted to the small sleek machine. "What are you doing?"

  "Recording this meeting." Did she have something to hide? He studied her quietly, toying with half-formed notions.

  Distaste entered her eyes as she continued looking at the recorder. Veronica Lancaster had grown up living a fish-bowl existence where microphones and cameras were periodically pointed at her for one reason or another through no fault of her own. Her great-great-grandfather had assured the family fortune through methods that had not always welcomed scrutiny in the light of day. It took three generations and sizable contributions to almost every major charity for that to be smoothed over.

  Now all that was remembered was that there had been a couple named Lancaster on the Mayflower, newly married young travelers who had made that first crossing to a brave new world almost four hundred years ago.

  It seemed to Veronica that people
were always interested in what the Lancasters were doing, treating them as if they were a cross between their next-door neighbors and visiting gods. Veronica had grown up hungering for privacy the way a person on a never-ending diet hungered for a taste of chocolate.

  Knuckles taut and white, she struggled to keep her voice from quavering as she nodded at the tape recorder, "Is that really necessary?"

  Chad made no effort to turn the machine off. His yes was silent.

  "It helps us piece things together. You might forget things later," he told her, his voice low, quiet. "Sometimes things you've overlooked come back to you when you listen." The machine remained on, softly whirling. There were few rules at the agency, other than Don't Fail, but Cade insisted on having the first interview with a client recorded. Chad saw no reason to break that rule. But he saw that having the recorder on troubled his client. He understood the desire for privacy, too. "Pretend it's not there."

  The half smile, tinged in irony, rose to her lips unconsciously. Easier said than done, she thought. "I've spent half my life pretending it wasn't there."

  Light-brown brows drew together over the bridge of Chad's nose. "Excuse me?"

  She raised her eyes to his. Veronica knew she sounded as if she was babbling. Her mind felt so scattered, so out of focus. She couldn't seem to catch hold of a single thought for more than a moment.

  Was it possible he didn't know who she was? Maybe. Right now, she wasn't certain who she was herself. Other than a mother whose heart had just been ripped out. When she'd first realized what had happened, it had been a struggle just keeping herself together and breathing. Every fiber of her being had wanted to cry out for help.

  But who was there to call? Just acquaintances. And family members who were on the fringe of her existence. Not even her own family, but Robert's.

  Robert was gone and he had been the only one she had ever permitted herself to lean on. So there had been no one to turn to, no one to call.

  Just as well. The voice on the phone had warned her not to call anyone. Not to tell anyone that Casey had been kidnapped.

  Or else…

  Or else. The two most horrible words she had ever heard. Veronica couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence, not even in her mind. The consequences were too terrible for her to contemplate.

  "Nothing," she murmured, dismissing her rambling comment.

  Talk, damn it, Ronnie. You're wasting precious time.

  "I went to pick up my son this afternoon and he wasn't there." This time the tears did break through, trickling from the corners of her eyes. Angry with herself, she quickly wiped them away with the side of her hand. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm not like this normally."

  Coming around the front of the desk, Chad handed her a tissue. "There's nothing normal about this." Gently he prodded her along. "Where were you picking your son up from?"

  Veronica drew what composure she could manage back to her, covering herself in the remaining shreds. It was hard to think.

  "A birthday party. Andy Sullivan's fifth birthday party. The Sullivans don't live far from us and…" Her voice broke. Why hadn't she remained with him? Why had she left Casey and gone? Other parents had stayed. Defending herself from her own accusations, she raised her head and looked at Chad. "I didn't want to be one of those overprotective mothers. I didn't want him being afraid of his own shadow, the way—"

  Abruptly she broke off, waving away the rest of her words. The investigator looking at her with intense blue eyes didn't need to know about the fears that had been inflicted on her by a feelingless nanny to whom her grandfather had arbitrarily handed over the responsibility of raising his two orphaned grandchildren—her and her sister, Stephanie. That had no bearing on this.

  Nothing had a bearing, except finding Casey.

  Struggling, she continued. "I went to pick him up and he wasn't there. Anne—"

  "Anne?" Looking at her, he jotted the name down on the small pad before him.

  She was getting ahead of herself again, tripping over her thoughts as they ran up at her from all directions at once. It wasn't going to do Casey any good if she kept falling apart like this.

  Veronica tried again. "Anne Sullivan, Andy's mother. Anne said she hadn't seen Casey since the cake was served. The children were playing different games…"

  He nodded, encouraging her. "How many children would you say were at the party?" He saw the bewildered look in her eyes. She was focusing on her son; the others didn't exist for her. ''Take a guess. Five? Ten?

  She shrugged helplessly before she could stop the gesture. "Thirty, forty—Anne Sullivan knows a lot of people."

  With that many around, it was simple enough to lose track of one small boy for a few minutes. And he knew that a few minutes was all it took. "Was the birthday party being held at the house?"

  Questions, he was asking her questions when all she wanted him to do was run out and find Casey. Now. Bring him back to her before anything…

  She was behaving like a madwoman, like someone she didn't even know.

  Biting her lower lip, Veronica forced herself to focus. She nodded. "Outside. On the grounds. There were other parents there, and Anne had clowns…"

  Strangers working their way easily amid the children. It got harder. "Maybe…"

  She knew what he was thinking before he said it and shook her head. "Casey hates clowns. He would never have gone off with one of them. Not without screaming."

  This investigator, Chad Andreini, sounded so calm, she thought, as if they were discussing a movie they'd both seen, instead of something that was ripping her apart with sharp, lethal talons. She was desperate to have this all said and out of the way so that this somber-faced man leaning back against the desk in front of her would make it right somehow. She would give him anything he wanted, as long as he would make it right. As long as he would bring Casey back to her. Nothing meant anything without Casey.

  Chad made a notation to check out the clowns, anyway. He stopped writing when Veronica continued in a faltering voice.

  "Anne started to help me look for Casey and then the housekeeper came out to say there was a phone call for me."

  As he waited, she paused as if to gather together courage to face the rest of the words she had to say.

  The phone call that turned vague uneasiness into a stark, frightening reality.

  "The voice on the other end said that he had Casey. That if I told the police or anyone else, even Anne, about this, I'd never see Casey again. He said that Casey was safe and that he wouldn't be harmed if I did exactly as I was told. And then he said he would be in touch later with instructions." Anger and loathing filled her voice. "He told me to be a good girl and then the line went dead."

  "Did you recognize…?"

  Again she shook her head, this time adamantly. Did he think she'd be coming to a stranger for help if she'd had the slightest suspicion about who had kidnapped her son?

  "No. I'm not even sure if it was a man or a woman talking." She saw the way he raised his brow. He probably thought she was losing her mind. Maybe she was. "The voice was tinny—metallic, like something you'd hear coming out of a robot. It didn't even sound human."

  The kidnapper was using a synthesizer. Which could mean that she might be able to recognize the voice under ordinary circumstances, Chad thought. Or not. His habit was not to let any one thought lead him off until he'd heard everything.

  "What did you tell Mrs. Sullivan when you hung up?"

  Veronica shrugged vaguely. "The first thing that came into my head. That Casey's uncle had come by and picked him up without telling anyone. That he was the one on the phone, calling to let me know." Her eyes asked him if she'd done the right thing. "I—I didn't want to take any chances." He nodded. The woman could think clearly in a crisis. He wondered how clearly. The next question that came to him came from his own past experience. "Are you and your husband together?" Startled by the query, Veronica stared at him in silence for a second before answering. "No."

&nb
sp; Chad's father had stolen him in the aftermath of what had been an ugly custody battle. His father had been denied access to his family except for a handful of holidays, and even those, Chad had later discovered, were to be under supervision. History had a nasty habit of repeating itself. "Do you have any reason to believe that your husband would take your son?"

  Veronica closed her eyes, pushing away the fresh onslaught of pain. She felt like a mouse, running from corner to corner, trying to elude a cat hot on its scent and bent on swallowing it whole. She hated this feeling, hated this helplessness she was trying to conquer.

  Her voice was hollow when she answered. "My husband is dead, Mr. Andreini. He died in a plane crash almost eighteen months ago. I'm a widow."

  And she hadn't come to terms with that yet, he thought. A kernel of sympathy pushed forward. "I'm sorry."

  The words, tendered politely, still had a devastating effect on the emotional fences Veronica was desperately attempting to keep up. The last of her composure shattered.

  "I don't need you to be sorry, Mr. Andreini," she snapped at him. "I need you to be good at your job. I need you to find my son for me before… before…"

  Embarrassed by her behavior, Veronica swallowed a curse at her own frailty and at him for bringing it out. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be taking this out on you."

  "No need to be sorry, Mrs. Lancaster. I understand."

  She wished he wasn't being kind to her. Right now she didn't need someone being kind; she needed someone snapping at her, making her angry. Making her cope. Kindness was dissolving her resolve.

  "It's Ms. Lancaster," she corrected him.' "Lancaster's my family name. Robert said it sounded better than his—Reinholt. He joked that maybe someday he'd change his name to mine. He was very progressive that way…"

  Talking about her husband drove her over the edge of endurance. The next thing she knew, she was breaking down completely and sobbing, unable to stop.

  At a loss, Chad looked at the closed door and thought of calling his sister into the office. Megan was so much better at this kind of thing than he was. She knew how to be sympathetic while he had no idea how to handle a woman's tears. It wasn't in his nature. Even Rusty, his brother, who had come into the firm just before he'd joined it himself was better at dealing with this than Chad was. Rusty was warm, engaging and outgoing.