Hero in the Nick of Time Read online

  Anticipating his question, Mac jumped in with an answer. “Is lying in a hospital bed in Harris Memorial Hospital right now and, quite frankly, doesn’t feel like it’s worth living anymore.” Two years apart, they were close enough for her to sense that without words. Moira was the delicate one in the family, the shy beauty whose ways could never have been Mac’s. But there was boundless love between the sisters, and Mac meant to protect Moira any way she could. “The family’s authorized me to act on her behalf.”

  “The family?” The situation was dire, as always, but the term almost managed to bring a smile to Cade’s lips. It sounded like something he might have heard in an old movie about the Mafia.

  Impatience clawed at Mac. She’d spent two days spinning her wheels, getting mired deeper in the mud for her trouble. She wanted to be out and about, doing something useful. Productive. Finding Heather before something happened to her. That it might already have was something she refused to think about, keeping the thought instead under heavy lock and key, away from the light of day.

  “My father, mother, brothers, sister—family,” she repeated tersely, her very manner challenging him.

  There was no question about it, he was dealing with a type A personality, Cade thought. Since he was, by nature, methodical and even-paced, he felt that some adjustment was necessary. The adjustment would have to be on her part, because he wasn’t about to abandon a method that worked for him. “Have you received a note?”

  “No.”

  He jotted that down, underlining the word twice. No note was usually not a good sign. But in this case, there might be extenuating circumstances to consider. He raised his eyes to hers, noting that hers were intensely green now.

  “Any reason to suspect that kidnapping was the main intention?”

  The soothing element in his voice was beginning to have the reverse effect. Mac curbed the urge to jump to her feet and pull him to his as well. “Heather’s gone, isn’t that reason enough?”

  The woman was obviously intelligent, and it was just her impatience that blinded her to something so obvious as what they might be dealing with. Cade began to explain his reasoning to her, wondering if she was going to feel as if he was being patronizing.

  “No, what I mean is that whoever took the ambulance might have taken it for another reason entirely. They might not have even known that your niece was in the ambulance until after they took it.”

  Mac found the thought chilling. “Is that supposed to comfort me?” She didn’t know if that made the situation better or worse and didn’t have the time to try to analyze it. Every moment was precious. “Either way, she’s still gone.”

  “You’re right,” he allowed, “but if the intention was to steal the ambulance and not the child, there’s a large chance that whoever stole the ambulance will leave your niece somewhere conspicuous where she can be found and eventually returned.”

  No, she thought, that still didn’t make her feel better. It meant that Heather had been left somewhere to meet possible dire consequences. She couldn’t let her mind go there, either. She was beginning to feel like a rat in a maze with all the passages being closed off, one after another.

  In mounting desperation, Mac laid her cards on the table. “I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, Mr. Townsend, but while you are expounding on theories, my niece is still missing.” Pulling herself together, she rattled off the details of the ongoing investigation to the best of her knowledge. “The police are trying to locate the missing ambulance and the paramedics who were in it, but so far, they’ve had no luck.” She saw Cade opening his mouth and anticipated what he was about to say. “I appreciate the fact that they’re doing what they can, so spare me that speech, please. But they’ve got a lot more to keep them busy than just my missing niece. I can’t tell them what to do.”

  Cade had more than a passing hunch that Dr. McKayla Dellaventura had already tried to commandeer the Bedford, California, police department and instruct them on what to do, only to have failed—not for lack of effort on her part, he was sure.

  “But you can tell me what to do?”

  If there was something amusing going on here, Mac didn’t notice it. “Paying your fee should entitle me to something.”

  It took effort to keep from snapping the words at him. Though she had a habit of plowing ahead, she wasn’t usually this abrupt with people. But although conscious of her shortcomings here, Mac couldn’t be bothered trying to police herself. There was too much at stake.

  Cade studied her for a second before speaking. He wasn’t annoyed, but he felt that the good doctor had to be made aware of exactly how things operated here.

  “It entitles you, Dr. Dellaventura,” he informed her in slow, measured cadence, “to my very best efforts in locating your missing niece. It does not entitle you to tell me how to conduct my investigation. That is up to my discretion and the discretion of the people who work at ChildFinders, Inc. In short, you’re paying for expertise, not to play leader of the pack.” He searched her face to see if the message was sinking in. He couldn’t tell. “Any questions?”

  She probably had that coming, Mac thought. At least the man wasn’t a pushover, or some smooth-talking bureaucrat.

  The slightest of smiles quirked her mouth. “Well, at least I don’t feel bad anymore about being testy toward you when I first walked in.”

  He smiled at her. Maybe he had sounded a little harsh, but Cade had a feeling that anything less wouldn’t have made a dent. “That wasn’t supposed to come out as a lecture.”

  She shook her head, sending dark waves of hair swirling around her face and shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. My feelings don’t figure into this mix, Mr. Townsend. All that matters, all that counts, is finding Heather. Alive,” she emphasized. She allowed herself a momentary break from form, confessing, “I have this terrible feeling that if we don’t find her soon, we never will.”

  She didn’t strike Cade as the type to walk into a situation cold, without knowing the lay of the land. And it was a known, publicized fact that the more time that passed after an abduction, the less likely successful recovery of the missing child was apt to be. Memories faded, people became confused, forgetful. Facts became jumbled, clues lost or overlooked.

  “If we don’t find Heather,” she continued, trying not to think what that would mean to her and the others, let alone her sister, “Moira won’t have the strength to pull through.” She was sure of that as well. More than anything, Moira’s life seemed to hang by a thread. And that thread was finding Heather.

  “Your sister,” he guessed.

  “My sister,” she echoed, nodding as she realized that she’d forgotten to give him Moira’s name. Only showed how very rattled this had all left her. “Her full name is Moira McGuire.”

  He read the look in her eyes and guessed that the sisters were close. And of the two, Mac was probably the caretaker. Either that, or the steamroller.

  Mac drew herself up, seeming to grow an inch taller in the chair. “You’ll take the case?”

  All things considered, it should have been a question. But it was less of a question than a forceful statement. Cade had a feeling that saying no to this woman was never an easy matter.

  “All my operatives are busy with cases of their own,” he began.

  She cut him off. “I didn’t ask about them, Mr. Townsend,” she told him coolly. “I—my family,” she amended, although she had been the one to bring the matter up, as well as being the one who had found the name of the agency to begin with, “would like you on it.”

  Fleetingly, Cade thought of defending his partners, all of whom were excellent, but he had a feeling that anything he said would fall on deaf ears. She had obviously made up her mind. And there was no reason to make her think that he wasn’t going to take the case. At the moment, he was the only one in the organization who was free.

  Nodding his agreement, he began to explain, “I just wrapped up a case last night—”

  “Good, that means
you’re available.”

  He wondered if she’d gotten her training in the military and just how difficult it was going to be interfacing with this woman. If he had any sense, he’d pass.

  God knew he was pushing the envelope, accepting this. He was drained. Emotionally and physically spent. If he were a pile of coins, he could have been down to the last penny. What he needed was a vacation.

  But he couldn’t take a vacation from his mind, and that was all that counted. And he certainly couldn’t just sit here, staring at Darin’s photograph, looking at the calendar and going slowly crazy. He’d be insane inside a week. He wouldn’t be any good to anyone then, least of all to Darin when they found him.

  Not if, but when.

  Cade held on to that slim thread of hope as firmly as he instructed all his clients to hold on to theirs. The difference being, their ships had come in. His was still lost at sea.

  Looking at the woman, he held back his answer for a moment. The smile on his lips peeled back slowly. “I would have pegged you as an only child.”

  Distracted momentarily by the expression that seemed to change the contours of his proud, angular face, Mac blinked. Where had that observation come from? “Why?”

  “You sound accustomed to getting your own way.”

  Coming from him it sounded less of a criticism than an observation. She let it go as such. “Being an only child has nothing to do with that. The courage of your convictions, my father used to tell me, would see me through. I’m convinced you’re the best man for the job and convinced that if there’s a way to get Heather back, you’re the one who can do it. Do we have a deal?” Mac pressed.

  “I’m flattered, Ms.—Dr. Dellaventura.”

  It hadn’t been her intent to flatter him. She was only telling him the truth. She shrugged, her shoulders moving restlessly beneath her blue suit. “If that helps, fine. You’ll also be well paid. Over and above your usual fee.”

  Flares went up, alerting Cade. People did not throw money around for no reason, even people who were well off, as she apparently seemed to be. Of late, a trend had begun to take over at the agency. As of yet, it hadn’t overtaken him, but Cade had a hunch that his number was up.

  “And why would you be paying me over and above my standard fee, Dr. Dellaventura?”

  “The name’s Mac,” she informed him. “I figure you might as well get used to it since we’re going to be living in each other’s shadow until Heather’s found.”

  Chapter 2

  “Living in each other’s shadow,” Cade repeated.

  When the woman nodded as if what she was proposing was the most plausible of suggestions, he could only shake his head incredulously.

  His first rule was to work alone. People tended to get in his way. He was a team player only in the sense that he would return to interact with the team sporadically and at his own discretion.

  Sitting back in his chair, Cade studied McKayla before finally saying, “Unless you’re paying me to be your backup in a mime performance, I seriously doubt your terminology applies here.”

  Mac had butted against enough heads to know hard-line opposition when she saw it. She handled it the only way she knew how. She plowed straight through it. “It applies, Mr. Townsend. I intend to work with you on this investigation.”

  At this point in his career, Cade figured he would probably have trouble working with a trained professional, and she was as far from that as was humanly possible.

  He smiled with a touch of indulgence. “My teeth don’t need cleaning.”

  It was a common-enough mistake, given her gender, but Mac didn’t feel very forgiving at the moment. “I’m a pediatric dentist, not a hygienist.”

  Cade had never gotten into the battle of the sexes. To him a person was a person, gender and other distinguishing features were secondary, just so many colorful strokes on comparable canvases.

  He inclined his head. “My mistake.”

  His knowledge, or lack thereof, of her field wasn’t important at the moment. Something else was. Rising to her feet, Mac leaned over his desk. “Your mistake, Mr. Townsend, is in thinking that a person can only do one thing and nothing more. I minored in law enforcement.”

  She didn’t add that she was damn good at it, or that she’d briefly flirted with the idea of joining the police force. He’d only think she was trying to impress him. She wasn’t. All she was doing was trying to convince Cade Townsend that she wouldn’t be a deadweight during his investigation.

  The woman didn’t give up, Cade would give her that. Tall and willowy, she still reminded him of a Scottish terrier, unwilling to open her mouth once she’d clamped her teeth around something.

  “I minored in studio art,” he told her. Art had been a fleeting passion for him. It was in his first art class that he’d met Elaine—and fallen in love with a number two pencil in his hand. “That doesn’t make me Jackson Pollock.”

  “No,” Mac agreed in an easy tone that belied the agitation within, “that makes you Cade Townsend, someone who might be just as good or better than the aforementioned artist—in your own way,” she emphasized. “We’re all multilayered, Mr. Townsend, and we shouldn’t be afraid to delve into those layers.”

  The phrase “talk the ears off a brass monkey” floated through Cade’s mind. The words fit the woman in his office to a T. “Was that law enforcement or just law that you minored in?”

  “Law enforcement,” Mac repeated. She couldn’t tell if she was wearing him down or not. There was no indication in his eyes, and it frustrated her. She wasn’t about to be out-argued. Mac had been at the game all of her life, bucking odds, fighting for every inch she gained. She was very good at holding her own and even better at winning. “You’ll be doing my patients a service if you let me come along.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “I don’t have my mind on my work.”

  Even though Mac’s patients had always come first for her, she’d felt scattered and anxious since the accident. Worried about her sister, about her niece and about the effect all of this was having on her family, particularly her mother, who had always been in poor health. For the first time in her life, Mac was having trouble pulling her mind together and concentrating. The best thing she could do for everyone concerned, herself included, was to find Heather as quickly as possible. Any other course of action had disaster and failure written all over it.

  “The threat of lawsuits should prevent your mind from straying too far.”

  She was obviously wasting precious time debating with this man. If he had some sort of prejudice about working with women he couldn’t overcome, so be it. Mac wasn’t looking to make a true believer out of him, she was just trying to get someone who’d be willing to let her work with him.

  She glanced toward the door behind her. “Perhaps another one of your operatives might not have as much of an objection to having someone come along on the investigation.”

  Cade thought of Rusty, who had no set procedures as yet. Rusty would have been the likely candidate, if he wasn’t already working on a case. Megan and Sam were both in the middle of cases as well. He’d just checked with them this morning when he’d come in.

  That left only him.

  “Perhaps not, but they’re all busy on other cases.” She was still standing over him, as if hovering might help convince him. Studying her, Cade tried to second-guess what was going on in her head. “I’m not sure just what you think is going to happen here, but working a case like this requires a lot of slow piecing together.” More likely than not, she was weaned on Hollywood’s idea of what a private investigator was and did. “There’s very little high-energy racing around, very little ‘bursting in with guns drawn’ type of thing. It’s methodical, painstaking work. More along the lines of putting tiny mosaic tiles together in order to get at a much larger whole.” Every speck, every report from the crime scene was a potential clue waiting to be linked up to another to make the all-important whole.

  If he was hoping
to make her back off with his analogy, he was in for a sad surprise, Mac thought. Her mother had once said her middle name should have been Tenacious instead of Theresa. “I put my first thousand-piece puzzle together at the age of eight.”

  Amused, Cade whistled softly. Her determination obviously had some very deep roots. “You’re just an all-round overachiever, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been called a royal pain at times, Mr. Townsend, but I can also think on my feet. I promise you that I’ll be more of a help than a hindrance. You’ll be in charge,” Mac told him. It was understood that she was giving him her word. “Anything you say goes.”

  He laughed shortly. “I doubt that. I’ve already told you no and that doesn’t seem to be getting me very far.”

  “All right,” she conceded, “with some reservations.” Her eyes became very, very serious. She was pleading with him as much as she was able to plead. “I’m trying to save my niece and my younger sister, Mr. Townsend. Moira lost her husband in a car accident just before Heather was born. Financially, she is well off. Emotionally is another story. She’s not as resilient as I am.”

  Cade caught himself thinking that probably very few women could be.

  “Another blow will probably break her. I’m not about to let that happen,” she told him fiercely. “So, what do you say?” Mac’s eyes pinned Cade, willing the right response from him. “I really will make it worth your while.” She began to name a sum, but he seemed not to hear.

  “Finding your niece will accomplish that,” he informed her.

  The fees were necessary for expenses, for maintaining the latest in high-tech equipment and to pay off his partners. Cade himself required very little in the way of monetary compensation. The satisfaction of being present when parents were reunited with their missing children was something priceless.

  The only thing that would ever top it would be to find his own son.

  Cade thought of what he’d said to Sam when Savannah King had turned to him, asking that he tell Sam that he had to take her along. He’d empathized with her, pushing Sam into agreeing. But there had been extenuating circumstances in that case. Savannah was looking for her child. The missing child they were about to search for was not McKayla Dellaventura’s daughter. Mothers were one thing, aunts having rules broken for them were quite another.