A Hero for All Seasons Read online

  Was he going to duplicate the information that had already been gathered? It felt as if suspicions were waiting to assault her at every corner. “Why, is that important?”

  It was very important, but it served no purpose to get into chapter and verse with her. Sam gave her an abbreviated answer.

  “I don’t like stepping on toes any more than I have to. As a rule, the police are not crazy about private investigators.” He knew he hadn’t been, when he was on the force. A great many P.I.s impeded investigations rather than aided in them.

  That sounded like rivalry to her. “Aren’t you all working toward a single goal?”

  It was a reasonable enough assessment on the surface. In a perfect world, there would be no need to worry about thin-skinned police detectives. Everyone would just pool their information.

  But the world was far from perfect. “Yes, but each team wants to be the one that scores the winning run.” There was competition between the departments, between agencies. It was a fact of life.

  Sam knew of several police detectives who considered him a traitor for having left the force, and who would rather see him drawn and quartered than share the time of day—much less information—with him. At the very least, he needed to know who was heading the investigation on this one.

  Sam’s metaphor must have registered on the perimeter of her mind. A light came into her eyes as she remembered. “Baseball fan?”

  There’d been a time he’d been rabid about it. But that seemed as if it belonged to another lifetime, maybe even another person. When he’d had an actual life.

  Still, he was fond of the sport. “Whenever I get a chance to go.” Usually, it was to take one of his nephews to a home game.

  Savannah’s father had been an enthusiast in his time. She’d gone for the hot dogs, and to keep him company. Back when she had still thought that she could bond with him. Memories nudged at one another. The world had seemed so much simpler then.

  Savannah squeezed her eyes shut, pushing back the threat of tears.

  “Aimee loves the Angels. She thinks they’re real ones. She always asks if they’re going to be wearing their wings to the game.” Savannah blew out a breath, reeling in control again. For one second, she thought she’d lost her grip on it. She raised her eyes to his. He was still waiting. “His name’s Detective Ben Underwood.”

  Underwood. The familiar name set him at ease. Sam had gone through the academy with Underwood and his cousin Mike.

  “Good guy,” he assured her. Underwood was thorough, if a little short in the people skills. “Knows his stuff.” Rounding his desk, Sam sat down and pulled over his notebook. “Okay, we’re going to get to work now. I’m going to have to ask you a whole barrage of questions.” He wondered if she was up to it. If he didn’t miss his guess, her edges looked as if they were becoming a little frayed. “You have time?”

  Every moment passed like a fly with its wings dipped in glue. “I have nothing but time, Mr. Walters.” Still feeling agitated, she sat down again, perching on the edge of the chair.

  “It’s Sam,” he told her. “Just Sam. Then let’s get started.” The sooner he got this out of the way, the sooner he could begin trying to put the pieces together.

  But as he picked up his pen, the telephone rang. Sam frowned at it. Alex knew better than to let a call come through when he was with a client. He wondered why she’d let this slip by. When the telephone rang again, Sam stopped the tape recorder.

  “Excuse me a minute.” Picking up the receiver, he immediately began talking. “Alex, I’m a little busy right now.”

  The secretary’s soft Southern lilt filled his ear. “Yes, I know, Sam, but he said it was an emergency.”

  Sam heard the smile in Alex’s voice. “‘He’?”

  “Joey.”

  Sam sighed, then flashed an apologetic look toward Savannah as he held up his index finger. He had to take this call.

  “This’ll only take a minute,” he promised. “Put him through, Alex.”

  The next moment, he heard the childish voice of his godson: his brother Terry’s youngest son. “Hi, Uncle Sam.”

  A giggle followed the salutation. It always did. At six, Joey was still tickled by the fact that his very favorite uncle in the whole world could be addressed the same way as the venerable old symbol for the country in which he lived.

  Joey knew all about Uncle Sam because Sam had made a point of telling him. Sam loved Joey’s exuberance and innocent joy. But right now, it was intruding.

  Turning his chair away from Savannah and toward the window, Sam lowered his voice. “Joey, I’m in the middle of something. I’ll have to call you back.”

  Joey seemed not to hear. Like an arrow, he went straight to the target on which his mind was fixed. “Are you going to come to my party a week from next Saturday? It’s my birthday and Mom says I can have anyone I want. I want you.”

  The declaration warmed his heart. There wasn’t anything purer than the love of a child. He’d always believed that. Sam felt he was one of the lucky ones. He had no children of his own; but he enjoyed a unique relationship with his nephews. With all his nephews, in fact, as well as his niece. The only unmarried one in the family, Sam could afford to lavish both time and gifts on the children the way their parents couldn’t.

  He knew exactly how he’d feel if someone snatched Joey away from him. Just the way the woman in his office was feeling.

  “Hey, I know it’s your birthday. Wouldn’t miss it for the world, partner, but right now I have to help a nice lady find her little girl. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay Good luck,” Joey added as an afterthought. His dad had told him what Uncle Sam did for a living, and Joey was very proud of him. “If anyone can find her, you can. ’Bye.”

  Here’s hoping you’re right, Joey, Sam thought, replacing the receiver in the cradle He moved the chair around again.

  “Sorry about that.”

  She’d heard the love in Sam’s voice, the patience when he’d spoken to the child. It made her feel a little more secure in her belief. “Your son?”

  He laughed as he shook his head. Sam glanced at the framed eight-by-ten on his desk. It was a photograph taken of the whole family at Big Bear last year. His arm was hooked around Joey’s waist. Joey was laughing. “My nephew.”

  That impressed her even more. The man’s extended family felt free to call him. He understood children. She couldn’t put into words why that was so important to her, but that didn’t diminish the fact that it was.

  “How old is he?”

  “Joey’s going to be seven in two weeks.” Even as he told her, Sam could hardly believe it. It seemed only the other day that Terry was telling him Gina was pregnant again. “I was just getting an invitation to his party,” he explained, nodding at the telephone. A smile played on his lips as he remembered something Joey had said to him. “According to his friends, I bring ‘the coolest gifts.’” Sam stopped abruptly as he realized he’d allowed himself to stray into a private area. That wasn’t why she was here. “I’m sorry, this must be hard for you.”

  That was putting it mildly, she thought, but she had enjoyed hearing the one-sided exchange. For one moment, it made her feel almost normal again. Almost.

  “Everything is hard for me, Sam,” she admitted. “But at least I know you’re the right man for the job.”

  He didn’t ask her what brought her to that conclusion. It was enough that she’d reached it. “I wouldn’t be sitting here in this chair if I wasn’t.” He pressed the record button again on the tape recorder. “Let’s get to work.”

  Savannah liked the sound of that. Liked, too, the feeling that fleetingly passed through her. The feeling that she was doing something beyond just staring at the walls, holding her breath. Something beyond praying and making deals with a God she was no longer sure was listening.

  She moved forward in her seat, eager to do anything that might help.

  Though none of what he had to ask her to relive was
going to be easy, Sam knew that this might very well be the most awkward section. He wanted to get it out of the way first.

  He watched her carefully for any telltale reactions. “Before we explore any other avenues, I have to ask this.” She stiffened slightly, and he wondered what she was bracing for. “Is there any chance that Aimee’s natural father might have taken her?” Savannah opened her mouth, and he was quick to stop her. “Think carefully,” he cautioned. “Was there anything he might have said or done the last time you spoke that—”

  She held up her hand to stop him. There was no need for Sam to go down that alley. There was only a dead end waiting.

  “I don’t have to think carefully. Aimee’s father is in England right now.” Aimee’s father. She didn’t think of him that way. Not even in the beginning. Jarred was more like the donor she’d inadvertently gone to to create something exquisitely wonderful. “He’s been living there for the last four years.”

  She could see by the look in his eyes that distance wasn’t enough to convince Sam that Jarred was out of the picture. Sam obviously needed more.

  Savannah dug deep, giving him a piece of herself that she never shared. This was for Aimee.

  “The affair was very passionate, very satisfying and very quick—at least on his part.” She, on the other hand, had taken longer to get over him. But she’d managed. A disparaging smile twisted her lips. “Like the old song goes, it was too hot not to cool down. I just didn’t realize it.” But that was because she’d believed in love once. Believed with all her heart. The same heart Jarred crumbled. Jarred had been her teacher. In more ways than one.

  Savannah looked at Sam. She hated talking about this. It made her feel so vulnerable. She supposed that at the time, she had been. But it was different now. Her heart was her own, and it only belonged to Aimee.

  “The affair was over long before Aimee was born. He didn’t even know I was pregnant.”

  Sam found himself wondering how a man could walk away of his own accord from someone like Savannah King. She didn’t seem like the type of woman who would come along every day.

  “Didn’t you tell him when you found out?”

  His question took her back over the years. She’d thought about it. Long and hard. It had been her first impulse when she’d found out, but she’d forced herself to put down the telephone. Those weren’t the terms on which she wanted Jarred back in her life. She wanted him to return because he loved her—not because he felt bound to “do the right thing.”

  “No. I didn’t want to make it seem as if I were using pregnancy to get him back.” But in the interest of fairness, she had to let him know he had a child, a beautiful, blue-eyed smiling daughter. “I did, however, send him a birth announcement when she was born.”

  Savannah stared straight ahead, looking out the agency’s first-floor window, knowing if she saw the least shred of sympathy in Sam’s eyes, she would get up and walk out. And she didn’t have the luxury of taking that option.

  So she looked past his head, watching a seagull—less than a mile from the ocean—soar on a current of air.

  Even now, what she told him next hurt to admit. “He sent a savings bond in the return mail. A very generous one.” Though she tried to filter it out, a note of bitterness seeped into her voice. Not for herself, but for Aimee. “No note, no inquiry.”

  “No denial?” Some of the guys he’d known when he was in his early twenties would have been quick to deny any paternal responsibility.

  With regal calm, Savannah turned her eyes to his. “He knew Aimee was his.”

  She didn’t bother adding that Aimee’s father had been her first love and her first lover. It seemed so hopelessly old-fashioned to admit to that. Besides, that was no business of his. Knowing that wouldn’t help him find Aimee.

  “And you’ve had no contact with him since then?” Sam probed.

  Though it happened every day, Sam personally found that difficult to believe. How could you have a child and never try to get in contact with him or her? Never want to know how that child was doing, or even if he or she was well? He just didn’t understand people like that.

  She pressed her lips together. How many ways was he going to explore this? “None.”

  Sam drew a line through the top sentence. That ruled out parental abduction.

  And made the possibilities a little more gritty—a little less safe, he thought grimly.

  Sam went on to his next questions.

  Two hours later, Sam was at the outdoor mall, retracing the steps Savannah had told him she’d taken that day that would forever be burned into her memory.

  Savannah had looked drained when she left his office, Sam thought. She’d told him that she was going to her parents’ house. Calling in another favor, her father had gotten an 800 number set up yesterday morning to field the calls they’d all hoped would come in after her appearance on the news. She told him the calls had come in far greater numbers than they’d ever expected. Her parents, sister and several of her friends from work were right now manning the lines set up in her parents’ house.

  Experience told Sam that the calls that were coming in would probably all lead nowhere, but he refrained from saying so to her. You never knew. Telecasts had occasionally been responsible for the capture of criminals. He’d learned early on that no stone should ever be left unturned, no possibility unexplored.

  Maybe his job would be done before it was even started.

  But he doubted it.

  As she was leaving, Savannah had given him her cell-phone number, and asked him to call immediately if he thought he found anything that might give her hope.

  She’d flushed a little as she said it, and he remembered thinking that it made her look as if she were barely out of her teens, instead of a woman who had just entered her third decade.

  “I know I must sound as if I’m begging—”

  “You sound,” he’d cut in, “like a concerned mother. I’ll call,” he promised.

  But he wasn’t going to, he thought—not if he didn’t have anything to tell her. So far, he wasn’t turning up anything that might be helpful, other than a theory he was playing with.

  He’d gone back to Lenard’s and shown Aimee’s photograph to everyone he could find associated with the department store. Some of the clerks were eager to help; others, after being subjected to police questioning, had already become tired of the ordeal.

  He talked to the pushcart vendors next. But no one had seen anything unusual prior to the police’s arrival. Questioning one vendor after another, Sam came up with the same answers. There’d been no one who stood out, no man or woman tugging on a child’s arm, or trying to drag a child who fit Aimee’s description away. Nothing noteworthy to break the monotony of a Thursday morning until the police had shown up

  Sam was down to his last vendor when an idea struck him. He pocketed Aimee’s photograph “How about a little boy around that height?” Sam asked the man.

  The vendor, a man far more interested in pushing overpriced hot dogs onto a hungry lunch crowd, looked at him in confusion as he speared the last order and set it comfortably onto a bun “I thought you said you were looking for a little girl.”

  Was that a glint he saw in the vendor’s eyes? Sam pressed on.

  “Whoever took her didn’t necessarily have to be clumsy about it. He or she—or they—might have thought to disguise the little girl before they took off with her.” He’d struck a nerve, Sam thought. The man was now paying more than passing attention to him. “It’s possible that they took her into the bathroom and changed her clothes, stuck her hair under a cap. At that age, it’s not hard to disguise gender,”

  Plunging his arm into a sea of ice, the man dug deep for the can of cola that had just been requested by his customer. He grinned at Sam over his shoulder. “Hey, that’s pretty clever.”

  “Yeah, clever.” From where Sam stood, it was pretty disgusting. It took all kinds. Still hoping to be on to something, Sam continued to press. “Did yo
u see a boy being dragged away?”

  Quickly, pushing change into his customer’s hand, the vendor lost no time in taking out a small, battered notepad he kept tucked in his back pocket. He scribbled a note to himself that looked more like one continuous wavy line.

  “No, but I can use the idea for this screenplay I’m working on.” A grin split his face. “This is just my day job. My agent says—”

  But Sam didn’t have time to listen to what the man’s agent said.

  “Here.” Sam pressed his business card into the hot-dog vendor’s hand. “If you remember anything, or hear anything—” after all, the vendors did talk and maybe he’d missed one today “—call me.”

  The vendor read the name on the card. “ChildFinders, Inc. Pretty catchy.” He turned the card around between his forefinger and thumb, obviously thinking. “Got a patent on that?”

  “Yeah, we got a patent on it.” Sam had no idea whether Cade did or not, but he wasn’t about to waste any more time discussing it.

  Sam walked away quickly, before he told the man what he could do with his screenplay, his agent and, for that matter, his pushcart full of overpriced hot dogs.

  Chapter 3

  “You look like hell.”

  The voice, low and smooth like fine old scotch being poured over ice, pushed its way into Sam’s consciousness and mingled with the notes he was reviewing on his desk. Notes that had begun to merge and scramble, telling him he needed to take a break.

  Sam looked up, surprised that daylight had managed to covertly slip into the office to usurp the dark. He was even more surprised that he was no longer alone in the office. Megan and Cade had walked in without his even being aware of it.

  So much for being in the running for the title of Supercop of the Year, Sam thought sarcastically. “Thanks,” he muttered. “Nice to see you, too.”

  Sam caught his reflection in the window. If anything, Megan’s assessment had been kind. He could do with some sleep, and then a shower and shave. Fresh clothes wouldn’t hurt, either.