A Hero for All Seasons Read online

  Sam’s palms itched. He wanted to touch her, to feel her skin. To feel her against him. He was acutely aware of her, acutely aware of the feelings that were twisting inside him.

  The better part of valor was knowing when to retreat. And Valor was his middle name.

  Sam backed away from her. Away from the mistake he was about to make if he remained standing within a heartbeat of her.

  “I’d better go take my shower.”

  Only when he left the room did Savannah realize that she was holding her breath.

  She let it go.

  To occupy her mind, she’d asked him all sorts of questions about his extended family, as he drove them to his office less than forty minutes later.

  Grateful for a neutral topic, Sam told her their names and ages, their hobbies, and a few anecdotes about them.

  As they talked, Sam began to see why people were so drawn to Savannah. When the sadness in her eyes abated even marginally, there was something bright and compelling in them. In her entire manner.

  Something that made a person want to open up to her and be in her light.

  The thought almost made him laugh out loud. He was waxing poetic. Sam Walters, the man who had almost flunked high school English the semester they had to tackle all that “dumb poetry,” as he’d called it then. He found it rather amazing.

  But amazing or not, he couldn’t allow this to happen. Couldn’t allow himself to think of Savannah as other than a client, a woman in need who had come to him to find her child. Anything else was out of the question. And unethical.

  It was hard keeping that uppermost in his mind when the sun insisted on tangling in her hair as they drove down Pacific Coast Highway to his office

  Cade and Megan were both out of the office when Sam arrived with Savannah. He’d planned to touch base with them, but he could do that later if he really needed to. He left a note for Megan to see if she could pull up anything on George Cartwright. And maybe Elliott Reynolds.

  The one person he did need to see was in the office.

  Glancing up from the report she was typing, Alex looked surprised to see him walk in.

  “Alex, can you get me Rusty on the telephone?”

  Miniaturizing the window with the report she was typing, Alex pulled up the list of telephone numbers she had stored. She jotted down the one she needed.

  “Megan said something about his taking summer school classes,” Sam said.

  “He’s a student?” Savannah asked. She thought the agency only employed professionals.

  “Rusty is Megan’s younger brother. He’s in his last year at UCI,” Sam told her. “Criminology. Wants to follow in his big sister’s footsteps, except he won’t come out and say it.” Taking the number from Alex, he winked at Savannah as he walked past her into his office. “It’s a macho thing.”

  The small flutter that suddenly materialized in the pit of her stomach caught Savannah entirely by surprise. She pressed her hand against her stomach, as if to rub away its existence.

  It lingered a moment anyway.

  With his back to her, Sam quickly pressed the numbers on the keypad. He heard the line being picked up on the third ring. He kept his fingers crossed that it wasn’t an answering machine.

  It wasn’t.

  “Hey, Rusty, how’s it going?”

  He paused as he listened to the young man on the other end. He’d known Rusty since before Rusty could shave. The image remained embedded in his mind despite the fact that Rusty was now well over six-two, with the kind of brawny frame bodybuilders pined for.

  “Got a class today? Oh? When?” Sam paused, listening. The time was right. “Good, how’d you like to do a little legwork for me? Yes, I’ll pay you—” Sam laughed “—although you could think of it as on-the-job training. Get your tail on over here as fast as you can.” He glanced at Savannah before adding, “We’re pressed for time.”

  She waited until he hung up before asking, “What is it you want him to do?”

  “Canvas the development right behind the mall. Maybe someone was walking their dog at the right time, or watering their rosebushes, or washing their car on the driveway. Or just staring out a window. We keep asking until we get an answer from someone.”

  Sam sat down at his desk and turned on his computer, unconsciously waiting for the familiar notes it gave off when it was ready for use.

  “You might want to get comfortable.” He indicated the chair behind her. “This might take a while,” he warned. “I don’t type very fast.”

  Finally, something she could do. Savannah was at his elbow.

  “Get up.” It came out as more of an order than she’d intended. Sam looked at her quizzically. “This is my field. Tell me what you want.”

  He swallowed the answer that rose to his lips. But he thought it nonetheless as he got up and gave her his seat.

  You.

  Chapter 10

  Taking the seat that Sam had just vacated, Savannah was immediately aware of the warmth that caressed her limbs as she sat down. His warmth. The sensation seeped into her system, jolting her as it carved out a place for itself.

  Other than when he had kissed her that one time, Sam had made no moves toward her. Instead of behaving like a predatory male, the way some men she knew had done, he’d been nothing but courteous and thoughtful. She deeply appreciated the fact that though Sam Walters was as good-looking as they came, he was not full of himself. He’d been exactly what she needed: a supportive male who didn’t crowd her.

  From the outside, the relationship between them all seemed very aboveboard, very cut-and-dried.

  And yet it wasn’t.

  She could feel something between them. A quiet sizzle that was evident when he so much as touched her elbow, or looked at her a certain way. It was in his words and in his expression. And in the way she reacted to them.

  To him.

  For the most part, she’d sworn off any sort of relationships with men since Jarred had boarded the plane for England and flown out of her life. Having given him her heart, only to have it thoughtlessly tossed back to her after the affair was over, she’d found that she had nothing left to give anyone else. She’d tried to build something with George purely because she’d felt that she had to give Aimee a father, a balanced life.

  It was doomed to failure from the start, because while she had the utmost respect and a measure of affection for George, she couldn’t bring herself to go through with the wedding. She didn’t love him. Didn’t feel that strange tingling, down-to-her-toes electrical sensation the way she had with Jarred.

  The way she did at this moment.

  This was ridiculous, Savannah chided herself. She was just being vulnerable—and maybe even just a little needy. It wounded her pride to admit it, but she needed someone in her life to hold her hand, and Sam was holding it.

  She was paying him to do that, she reminded herself. And since it was for pay, it wasn’t the kind of thing to base a relationship on.

  Banking down any further thoughts on the subject, and forcing herself to block the warm sensation penetrating the backs of her thighs, Savannah scooted the chair closer to the desk. She cleared her throat as she looked up at Sam.

  “What do you want me to type?” she asked.

  The look in his eyes broke through miles of barriers she’d erected for herself. Savannah took a deep breath and waited.

  Sam recited the proper Internet address for the Missing and Exploited Children National Center. He knew it by heart, and wished he didn’t. Wished that there was no need for a site like that to even exist. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be. But he’d known since he was eleven years old that the world was far from perfect.

  As the accessed site came into focus on the monitor screen, the blood from Savannah’s face felt as if it were drained away.

  Hitting the scroll button, she saw name after name. Picture after picture. So many missing children. How were they ever going to find just one?

  How were they ever going t
o find Aimee?

  Sam could read her mind as easily as if the thought had been written in ten-inch letters on a huge chalkboard set up in front of him.

  He laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “We’ll find her, Savannah. Children on that board get found every day.”

  And some never do. The haunting thought throbbed in her brain.

  The positive side—she had to remember to focus on the positive side, she thought fiercely. “Tell me what you want me to write.”

  Hearing a knock at the door to his office, Sam glanced at his watch. He knew exactly how long it took to get here from Rusty’s apartment under favorable traffic conditions. Rusty had shaved corners off the record. He wondered if somewhere there were traffic tickets with Rusty’s name on them.

  “What took you so long?” he cracked.

  Rusty tucked his helmet under his arm. He looked more like a squeaky-clean, would-be astronaut, than someone who rode a motorcycle.

  “I decided to take the scenic route.” His eyes slid appreciatively toward the woman at Sam’s computer. It occurred to him that he knew her from somewhere. Her face teased his mind, eluding recognition. “What’ve you got for me?” he asked Sam

  Sam had always liked Rusty’s eagerness The uncomplicated boy had grown up to be an uncomplicated, open man. It had to be nice not to have any baggage to carry around.

  Russell Andreini had been called Rusty all his life despite several sporadic attempts on his part to get people to call him Russell, or at least Russ. His sister Megan had christened him Rusty when he was three days old, and the name had stuck. He no longer resented it. It wasn’t in his nature to resent anything for more than a few moments at most. He was as easygoing as his sister was quick-tempered. Together, his mother had once said, they made the perfect person. He never thought to disagree.

  Long before Megan had joined ChildFinders, Inc., and ever since Rusty had devoured his first Sherlock Holmes novel at the age of ten, the boy had wanted to become a private investigator. When Megan had become part of the agency, he’d volunteered his services time and again until Cade had finally taken him up on it. Nowadays, they called on him regularly.

  Pulling a scratch pad closer to him on the desk, Sam wrote down the name of the residential development that hugged the northern perimeter of the outdoor mall where Aimee had disappeared. He handed the sheet to Rusty, then gave him a copy of the altered photograph.

  “I want you to knock on a few doors and see if anyone saw this child last Thursday morning around eleven a.m. or thereabouts.”

  Stuffing the paper into his back pocket, Rusty studied the face in the photograph. Another missing kid. He couldn’t begin to understand the type of monster who would rip a child away from everyone they knew. But then, he didn’t have to understand, he just had to stop them whenever he could.

  Nodding more to himself than to Sam, Rusty folded the photograph and slipped that into his pocket, too. “You got it.”

  “Call me if you come across anyone who thinks they might have seen anything unusual. Maybe someone actually saw her in a passing car.” Sam knew it was a long shot, but as with lottery tickets, someone had to win—eventually.

  Rusty nodded again, eager to get started. He stopped only long enough to look at the woman in the room with Sam. Even though the child’s face was partially obscured by the baseball cap, he could see the resemblance between them. He’d always been good about details, picking up things others missed in passing.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to her. “Sam’ll find her. Sam’s the best.”

  “How can you tell it’s a girl?” Sam wanted to know. Between the jacket, cap and jeans, there was no hint of gender.

  To Rusty, there was something definitely feminine about the set of the small face in the photograph, even partially obscured by a cap.

  “I can always tell,” Rusty assured him as he was leaving.

  Sam nodded toward the computer. “Why don’t you sign off now?” he said to Savannah.

  He’d had her scan the latest image into the computer and post it on the web site. They’d gone as far as they could, filling in all the pertinent information as the blanks came up on the screen.

  Savannah hit the appropriate keys on the keyboard and waited until the computer shut down. She turned off the monitor.

  “What’s next?” she wanted to know.

  Though it was getting late in the day, they hadn’t stopped to eat since breakfast. He could do with some food, as could she, he thought.

  “Next we try to force-feed you something. I know I could really go for a thick roast beef sandwich right about now.” Sam stopped as he heard the office front door open and close again. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and neither Megan nor Cade were due in for quite some time. He hoped it wasn’t a new client. There was no one available to work another case.

  Before Sam could step out into the reception area to see who it was, Rusty walked into the office. His helmet was hanging off his arm by the chin strap, and he was carefully carrying a large cardboard box.

  “What’s this?” Sam nodded at the box.

  “You tell me. I found it in the hall just outside your front door.” But instead of handing the box to Sam, he placed it on the desk in front of Savannah. Though Sam hadn’t introduced them, when Rusty saw the name on the box, things clicked into place. He realized that he’d recognized her from the news broadcast he’d seen. “It’s addressed to you.”

  She looked at Rusty blankly. “To me?”

  “Care of the agency.” Rusty was careful not to touch any more of the box than he already had. He pointed to the label as he glanced at Sam. “I guess they figured you’d bring it to her.”

  Savannah looked at the box uneasily. There were no stamps on it, canceled or otherwise, which meant the box had been hand-delivered by someone.

  The kidnapper?

  Eagerness to find out what was inside vied with fear at what she might actually find. “Why didn’t they just leave it on my doorstep?”

  Everything kept pointing toward his theory, Sam thought. “My guess is that whoever left it wanted you to get this right away, but they didn’t want to take a chance on being recognized. Maybe they thought someone would notice them dropping it off at your house.” There was always a neighbor somewhere, looking out a window. “Someone who might know who they were.”

  Which meant that whoever had dropped off the box was someone who had been at, or at least reasonably near, her home before.

  One theory might suggest a stalker, but he dismissed it quickly based on what Savannah had already told him. She’d received no messages, gotten no mysterious phone calls, no unwanted gifts—all typical calling cards for a stalker.

  This was a kidnapper, not a stalker.

  Taking a letter opener out of his desk, Sam turned the package toward him and began to work the opener under the tape running across the top.

  But Savannah placed her hand over the handle, stopping him. He looked at her quizzically.

  “It’s addressed to me. I’ll open it.” Maybe it was silly, but it was important to her. Whatever was in this box had some sort of connection to Aimee. She wanted to be the one who opened it. “It’s not as if we’re dealing with a terrorist.” Although he had struck terror into her heart by his heinous action. “At least, not one who leaves bombs.”

  Sam surrendered the letter opener to her. “Be my guest.”

  Savannah took the hilt in her hand and held her breath as she began working through the tape. What could the kidnapper have sent to her? If it was the kidnapper, she amended.

  Maybe this was just some elaborate hoax by someone with a really sick sense of humor—and no heart.

  She debated the point back and forth as she struggled with the tape. Savannah could feel her own heart beating hard.

  It felt like an eternity before she finally cut through the tape and drew back the top of the box. Looking inside, a strangled gasp escaped her mouth.

  “Oh, my God.”

 
Blinking back tears, she pulled out a small article of clothing, and pressed it to her chest. It was a hooded pink sweatshirt with a frayed drawstring Savannah could swear it still smelled faintly of her daughter.

  She looked up at him. “It’s Aimee’s.”

  At first glance, the sweatshirt looked like a hundred other sweatshirts. There was nothing remarkable about it.

  “Are you sure?” Sam pressed.

  “I’m positive. One of the ties was frayed.” She held it up. “See?” And then she turned large, luminous eyes up to Sam, pleading for him to make sense of this for her. “Why would the kidnapper send this to me?”

  Sam took the sweatshirt from her and carefully examined it. It struck him that Aimee was small for her age. He turned it inside out slowly. There were no tears in the material, no pulled threads.

  And most important, there was no sign of blood on the garment. -

  “My guess is that whoever sent it wanted you to know she was all right. Somehow, they thought this might be the proof you needed.” Which made the kidnapper appear remarkably compassionate. The thought nagged at Sam. “There’re no missing buttons, no rips. The sweatshirt’s in good condition, ergo, so is the person who was wearing it.”

  It wasn’t a conclusion Savannah would have reached on her own, but she took heart in his words.

  Sam checked the pockets out of habit, though he didn’t expect to find anything.

  He was wrong.

  There was a small folded piece of paper in the left pocket. Unfolding it, Sam saw the words in the middle of the page. It had come from a printer, an ink-jet one, judging by the smudge.

  He read the words aloud to Savannah. “‘She’s all right.’”

  “Let me see that.” Savannah took it from him, wanting to read the words for herself. She stared at them. Was it true, or was whoever had taken Aimee just toying with her for some cruel reason of his own? “Just like the telephone message,” she murmured. “The one the police couldn’t trace.”