A Hero for All Seasons Read online

  “Sure thing.” The man lumbered to his feet as well, looking crestfallen. “You don’t all have to leave, do you?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Sam felt Savannah urgently tugging on his hand. “We’re trying to track down the child you think you might have seen.”

  “No ‘think’ about it.” Harvey followed them to the door. “I saw a kid, plain as day.”

  “We appreciate your help.” Savannah was already outside the house, waiting for him to join her.

  “Then I suppose you’d be wanting the license number as well.”

  Sam stopped dead and turned around. Why hadn’t the man said anything before this? “You have the license number?”

  “Sure do.” Pleased as punch, Harvey rattled off the number. “It’s a game I play to keep my mind sharp. I memorize everything. Hell—’scuse me, little lady,” he apologized to Savannah. “As I was saying, I’ve gotten so that I can memorize whole columns in newspapers.”

  Uttering his thanks again, Sam hurried Savannah and Rusty out before Mr. Silverstone felt called upon to give them a full demonstration.

  Rusty left them at the curb. “If you don’t need me for anything else, I’ve got to stop at the library before I go to class.”

  “You did great,” Sam told him. Rusty beamed, then hurried off to his motorcycle.

  Now all they had to do was verify Silverstone’s story, Sam thought.

  Once in his car, Sam called on ahead to his office and asked Alex to track down a license plate number, name and address.

  “Oh, God, Sam,” Savannah murmured as he hung up. “This is too good to be true.”

  That was just what he was afraid of. When things seemed too good to be true, they generally were. But he didn’t say as much to her.

  “Hang on just a little longer, Savannah,” Sam told her.

  By the time they arrived at the office twenty minutes later, Alex was waiting with the name and address of the owner of the car.

  “Don F. Starling,” Sam read aloud, then looked at Savannah for any sign of recognition. “The name mean anything to you?

  Savannah shook her head. “Never heard it before.”

  Maybe his theory had been all wrong after all. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  Looking at the address, Sam got an itchy feeling through his shoulders. The one he always got when something didn’t feel just right.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Savannah wanted to know. “Let’s go.”

  He caught her hand, wanting to talk to her before they left. Wanting to prepare her for the possible disappointment she might have to face.

  “Savannah, this might turn out to be a wild-goose chase. Silverstone could have been mistaken about what he thought he saw, or maybe he got the license scrambled and it’s not this car at all, or—”

  “I know, I know.” Savannah understood what he was trying to do, to cushion a possible fall. She appreciated that, but while they stood here talking, if it was the right man, he could be moving on—with her daughter. “But I still can’t help hoping—”

  “Yeah, me too.” He opened the door for her.

  Savannah hurried outside. Reaching the car first, she waited impatiently for him to unlock it. “Do we have to go to Underwood?” She assumed that was the next step, though she would rather just get to Starling directly.

  “No, not yet. We need to do a little more checking first.” This was different from bringing in Aimee’s sweatshirt, or asking the police to drag a lake. This very possibly could be a dead end. He didn’t want to waste Underwood’s time if it was. It was something he could handle on his own, one way or another.

  Nerves were pole-vaulting through Savannah’s body by the time they parked several doors down from the Laguna Hills single-story house where Don Starling lived. Just before Sam got out, she placed her hand on his arm.

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t call in the police?”

  He was sure. “We might be wrong.” And they’d already put Ben through one wild-goose chase at the lake. If he struck out twice, there would be no getting to bat a third time.

  She didn’t want to be wrong. She wanted this to be over. To go home with Aimee in her arms. “And if we’re right?”

  He understood the unspoken question. “Then you follow my lead, and if anything looks wrong to you— anything at all—” he emphasized, “I want you out of there. Fast.” He would rather leave her in the car as a precaution while he went to the house, but he knew he hadn’t a prayer of persuading her.

  Sam pulled a gun from where it was tucked into the back of his jeans, and took off the safety. Savannah stared at the weapon.

  “When did you—?”

  “Just after you sailed out of the office. That’s why I wasn’t right behind you.”

  Tucking it back into place and covering it with his jacket, he motioned her out of the car.

  The pseudo-Cape Cod house looked innocuous enough as she approached it with Sam. Maybe that was what the kidnapper was counting on. Savannah braced herself, as Sam rang the doorbell.

  He rang it several times before there was an answer. The sound of a little girl screaming from within the house had Savannah clutching Sam’s hand.

  “Is that her?” he asked.

  “I can’t tell.” What was wrong with her? she thought. A mother should be able to tell her own child’s screams. Why wasn’t she certain?

  The door was opened by a tall, heavyset man. He looked clearly annoyed.

  Glaring at them, he growled, “Yeah?”

  “’Scuse us for bothering you,” Sam drawled in a heavy, Texas accent. “But our car went dead. That’s it down there.” He pointed vaguely down the block. “None of your neighbors are in. I was wondering if we could use your telephone to call a tow truck. My missus is feeling a little faint—what from the heat and all. It’s a hot one today, isn’t it?” Sam felt that would explain Savannah’s pale face.

  The man looked at them skeptically, as if debating. Another scream came from within the house. Sam took the opportunity to elbow his way in past him. Surprise was his best weapon.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Starling demanded, more alarmed now than angry.

  At that moment, a blond little girl came rushing into the room, still screeching at the top of her lungs. She was being chased by a little boy who looked to be a little younger than she was.

  For an instant, while the girl was still a blur, Savannah’s heart leaped into her throat. But even before she had a chance to focus on the girl’s face, she knew it wasn’t Aimee.

  The girl abruptly stopped yelling and stared at the strangers with keen interest. The boy bumped into her, and she pushed him away. He began to cry.

  “Who are they, Daddy?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” the man said uneasily. “If you’re here to rob us, the only thing I’ve got worth anything is right here in this room.” He placed a protective arm around each child.

  “I’m sorry,” Sam apologized. “It looks like we’ve made a mistake.” He went to take Savannah’s arm, but she crossed to the little girl.

  “How old is she?” Savannah asked the man. The ache in her chest felt large enough to choke her.

  Fear left the man’s face, only to be replaced with suspicion. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

  “A misunderstanding.” Sam shook his head. “Long story. Sorry to have bothered you.”

  The man studied Sam and Savannah for a moment. Finally, he said, “Gerrie’s five.” He sighed wearily. “It’s like having triplets. I can never get her to sit still. Even in the car with a seat belt, she’s all over everything. I’m going to have to wind up tying her up one of these days.”

  That would explain the struggle that Silverstone witnessed, Sam thought.

  “Their mother’s in the hospital right now,” he told Savannah, “having another. I don’t think 1 can take it.”

  “Yes,” Savannah said softly, stroking the little girl’s blond hair, “you can. Thank you for yo
ur help.”

  Sam slipped his arm around Savannah’s shoulders as he ushered her out. Any promises he’d made to himself this morning about reestablishing boundaries had temporarily been put on hold. She needed comfort.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m all right.”

  But he knew by the hollow tone in her voice that she was far from that.

  Returning to his office, Sam knew they were back to square one. And to his original gut feeling. The kidnapper had tried to reassure Savannah. To Sam that meant that this was not a professional ring, out to steal children to fill a market quota. This was an amateur—someone who had taken Aimee out of some unknown desperation.

  Someone who had feelings.

  Someone, Sam felt fairly confident, who was rather well acquainted with Savannah’s life.

  Savannah paced the length of Sam’s office. Though she trusted his instincts, what he said still went against everything she held dear. She didn’t like it any more now than when he’d first suggested it.

  “But why? Why would someone I know want to kidnap Aimee? What would their reason be?”

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to try to figure out who it was. I’d know.” He switched on his computer. A preliminary check through accessible records had yielded nothing. As far as the police were concerned, the people who worked at Big Bytes were clean. But there were other records that could be checked. “I need to get my hands on as much information as I can about the people who work with you.” Someone in the office the day they had come in had Aimee—he was fairly certain of it. “Now you said there are no fingerprints on file, but there have to be some kind of records.”

  She nodded. “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. It was a matter of knowing it when he saw it. “If I did, we could find it a lot faster.”

  “The employee records are in a database.” One that she had helped tailor to the company’s needs at Larry’s request. “Marital status, age, education,” she enumerated, “health history forms.”

  The last struck a chord. It was as good a place as any to start. “How about fertility testing?”

  She sat down at his desk. “That would be in insurance records, although I’m not sure if our insurance covers it.” His logic eluded her. What did fertility tests have to do with Aimee? “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe someone at work was trying to have a baby. The stress of trying and failing can take a toll on a marriage after a while. Make you desperate. Maybe make you act a little crazy.”

  The jump from point A to point B was extreme, she thought. “Enough to steal Aimee? Under those circumstances, wouldn’t they have tried to steal a baby—not a four-year-old?”

  “I’m reaching,” he admitted. “But if we go through all the personnel records, we might find something. Maybe a couple put in for adoption and were turned down. If someone came to check them out, it would be noted in the file, wouldn’t it?”

  “Possibly.” Savannah bit her lower lip. “I’m going to have to hack into the records.”

  Megan was the one who was a whiz at the keyboard. He’d been prepared to wait for her. He looked at her dubiously.

  “Can you?”

  “I redesigned the program.” Of course, this would be working without it, but there were ways around that. “Give me a while.”

  A while might be all that they had. Sam shoved his hands into his pockets and waited, uncomfortable in the knowledge that this lead might not take them anywhere, either. And then he would have failed Savannah on two counts. Because he hadn’t found her daughter, and because he’d allowed his own feelings to get in the way of his better judgment and gotten involved with her emotionally. It shouldn’t have happened, but it was too late for regrets.

  The only way he could make it up to her was to find Aimee—no matter what it took.

  Chapter 13

  Sam felt as if his eyes were crossing. Blinking, he massaged his temples, trying to alleviate the tension building there. A little of it dissipated. The rest remained, hovering, waiting to take over the moment he started working again.

  They’d been at this for hours, he and Savannah, searching through a mountain of hay for something that might vaguely resemble a needle if held up to the light in just the right way.

  All they kept finding was more hay.

  Sam slumped in his chair and stared at the screen, no longer seeing the data. It was all beginning to run together for him. Six years of accumulated information on sixty-five people made for a great deal of reading. And he read everything, refusing to skip over the smallest detail—afraid that if he did, he would miss the one all-important lead.

  So far, there was no lead, all-important or otherwise. Just one hell of a headache in the making.

  It was time to stop.

  Leaning back, Sam glanced through the open door that led into Megan’s office. Savannah was sitting ramrod straight at Megan’s desk, going over the same records. He figured that two sets of eyes were better than one, and she knew the people she was reading about. She’d know if something was off-kilter or unusual.

  How could she sit so perfectly straight after all these hours? It made him tired just looking at her.

  It made him ache, just looking at her.

  And remember. Last night came vividly back to him. Guilt trailed after, but not even a close second. He was too tired for that.

  But not too tired to want her.

  With effort, Sam shook off the thought.

  He reached for his hamburger, and remembered, when his fingers came in contact with only an empty, greasy wrapper, that he’d eaten it. Alex had gone down to the local drive-through two hours before to get a couple of orders of burgers and fries for Savannah and him.

  Now that he thought of it, the fries were still sitting like a hard lump in the pit of his stomach. He was going to have to remember to take his business elsewhere. Either that, or stock up on antacids.

  Alex, he knew, had gone home more than an hour ago. It was time to do the same.

  Stretching, Sam pushed his foot against the desk leg and eased his chair back. There was no point in trying to read any more health claims tonight. They were all beginning to meld together for him. He scooped up the empty wrapper and crumpled French fries container and tossed them into the wastepaper basket, then rose to his feet.

  Walking into Megan’s office, he came up behind Savannah. Her eyes intent on the screen, she didn’t seem to realize he was in the room. Her long blond hair was pushed over to one side, dipping down so that the ends brushed against her breast, the way he longed to.

  What he needed, he told himself as he watched her, was a cold beer. And fewer warm thoughts. The former wasn’t available. The latter came anyway.

  Sam looked at her desk. The takeout sack that Alex had brought to her was still standing there, its contents leaving a deepening stain on the bottom. He should have known, Sam thought.

  If her back was straight, her shoulders were as stiff as a pair of work gloves left out in the rain. That couldn’t be good. Moving behind her, Sam placed his hands on her shoulders. He meant to knead out some of the tension there.

  Surprised, Savannah jumped in her chair.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. You look tense,” he explained when she jerked around to look at him.

  He left his hands where they were—gentling her the way a wrangler would a skittish colt. Very slowly, he began to knead.

  Savannah tried to relax. It felt impossible. There was too much going on inside her.

  “I feel like a Peeping Tom.” With a sign, she withdrew her fingers from the keyboard and dropped them in her lap. “I know these people. I shouldn’t be doing this.”

  Her knowing them was exactly the point, but he refrained from mentioning it again. He turned Savannah’s chair halfway around until she faced him. Holding on to the armrests, he leaned forward until his face was level with hers.

  “Why don’t we knock it off
for tonight?” he suggested. “We’ve been at this for hours, and maybe we just need to be fresher.”

  She had a different idea. She dragged her hand restlessly through her hair. “Or maybe we’re wasting our time and there’s nothing here.”

  “Maybe,” he allowed. There was always that very real possibility. “But right now, I don’t have any better ideas. There’s no one left to question outright. No one else has reported seeing her. The lab analysis of her sweatshirt isn’t in yet.” And even if it was, he knew he would have to drag it out of Ben. Covertly. “We’ve talked to all the people in and around the mall several times over with no new information. Checking out the people who called on the 800 number hasn’t produced any leads, either.” This he’d gotten by way of a friend of his who worked in Ben’s office. “You’ve gone on the news—”

  Savannah raised her hand defensively to stave off any more words.

  “I know all that,” she snapped, then flushed. “Sorry.”

  Sam nodded, knowing it was the stress and not Savannah talking. “It’s okay.”

  She looked back at the screen. She was up to the Rs. Elliott’s medical chart was pulled up. Seeing it spread across the screen rubbed against her conscience. “But this just seems wrong somehow.”

  There was a time to listen to your conscience, and a time to ignore it. This was one of those gray areas that she was paying him for.

  Crooking his finger beneath her chin, he drew her attention back to him. Sam’s eyes held hers. “Is it wrong to find Aimee?”

  “No, of course not—”

  “And if this leads us to her...” Sam’s voice trailed off meaningfully.

  She turned to look at the screen again. Sam’s hand brushed against her cheek, reminding her how safe she’d felt in his arms last night. Safe and protected and confident that everything would be resolved.

  The feeling seemed a million miles away right now. Savannah desperately needed it back. “You really think it will?”

  He thought of the sweatshirt. It had been sent to her because of what she’d said. He’d bet his soul on it. “Yes. Right now, it’s the best bet we have.”