Hero in the Nick of Time Read online

  Though Cade always thought positively each time he undertook a new case, hearing the prophesy of success weighed heavily on his shoulders.

  He saw what looked like a glimmer of hope flicker through the dark eyes as they shifted to focus on him. It took a moment before the resemblance actually became apparent to Cade. At first glance, the sisters looked nothing alike.

  But on closer scrutiny, he saw that the pale woman who appeared to be almost swallowed up by the hospital bed she was lying in looked like a preliminary sketch of the woman standing beside him. It was as if with McKayla, all the colors had been filled in, while Moira’s colors were muted, applied behind a gauzelike screen. She made him think of one of those rare flowers that wasn’t expected to be able to survive outside of a controlled environment.

  If the circumstances hadn’t been urgent, Cade would have opted to withdraw from the private hospital room and return at some later time, when Moira looked as if she was more up to talking.

  Cade smiled at Moira. “I’m Cade Townsend, Mrs. McGuire. I need to ask you some questions.”

  His statement was met with an annoyed huff from the man standing on the other side of Moira’s bed. Gray eyes narrowed beneath tufted, grayer eyebrows. “Can’t you go to the police instead?” the man demanded sharply. Concern was etched into the deep lines on his thin, angular face. “My daughter’s been through a great deal, she needs her rest.”

  “In case you haven’t guessed—” Mac turned toward Cade “—this is my father, Dr. Arthur Dellaventura. And this is my mother, Sylvia. My brother—” she indicated a younger, even taller man by the window “—Danny.”

  Cade nodded at each introduction in turn, but his attention was drawn to Mac’s father. “I appreciate your daughter’s condition, Dr. Dellaventura, but if we’re to find your granddaughter, I need to get Mrs. McGuire’s perspective on the incident if it’s at all possible. Sometimes the smallest clue—”

  “Please, Arthur,” Sylvia entreated quietly, laying a hand on her husband’s arm, “let him do what he has to to find Heather.”

  It struck Cade that Sylvia was far more like Moira than her older daughter. Almost wraithlike, both women appeared as if they needed to be looked after, cared for. McKayla hadn’t given him that impression from the first word she’d uttered. Obviously, she took after her father, Cade mused.

  Frowning, Arthur acquiesced to the validity of his wife’s words. With a second, far more helpless, far more frustrated huff, Arthur Dellaventura waved his hand at Cade to proceed.

  Cade looked at Moira. Her pupils were dilated. They’d undoubtedly pumped her full of pain medication. For her daughter’s sake, he hoped she could manage to think clearly. “Can you tell me in your own words what happened?” he asked softly.

  Stepping back, Mac allowed Cade better access to her sister. It killed her to see Moira this way. If she ever got her hands on the person who did this to her... One thing at a time, Mac cautioned herself silently. First they had to find Heather. She was impressed, despite the dire, urgent situation, by the way he spoke to Moira. Softly, gently, as if she were a wounded bird on the verge of dying of fright. Ever since she could remember, everyone had always treated Moira as if she were about to break. Mac was no exception. It was just the way things were.

  Both Moira and her mother were cut from the same finely spun, delicate cloth. Like her brothers, Mac took after her father. She was direct and blunt, though not as blunt as Arthur could be. At times, secretly, she wished that, just for a day, she could cross the line and be like her mother and sister. See what it felt like to be taken care of, to bring out protective instincts from those around her instead of having them drawn out of herself.

  But she knew that even if things could arrange themselves so that came to pass, she’d have no patience with it after the first five minutes. She was a doer, a caregiver, not taker. She’d been that way all of her life; it was too late to change things now, and for the most part, she was satisfied with the way they were.

  Confronted with Cade’s question, her sister seemed to sink even further into her pillow. “Try, Moira,” Mac coaxed softly. “For Heather.”

  Breathing heavily, Moira moistened her lips. The look on her face told Cade she was trying to piece together her scattered thoughts.

  In a reed-thin voice, she began. “I was driving down PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway.” She used the highway’s full name, as if to make the story clearer to herself as well as to him. “We’d just left the toy store in the mall. Heather and I. Someone... someone was driving behind me. They kept coming closer, faster.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I changed lanes but they kept following. And then they ran me off the road.” Her voice hitched. Mac took her hand in mute support. Moira didn’t seem to notice. “The car was spinning. I was screaming.” Drained, she looked at Cade. He saw the fear there. “I thought we were going to die.”

  He didn’t allow himself to be sidetracked by the emotion he was experiencing. “Did you notice the make of the car? License plate? Anything?”

  Moira moved her head from side to side, frustration whispering over her pale features. “Blue. The car was blue.”

  So were tens of thousands of other cars on the road, Cade thought. Not much to go on. He came to the payoff question. “Did they stop?”

  “No.”

  But she wasn’t sure, he saw it in her eyes.

  “I don’t think so,” she amended. “It’s all fuzzy.” Moira struggled to remember. “There was an ambulance. Paramedics.” She’d kept passing in and out, losing consciousness. “I thought Heather was there with me. They told me she was alive, but she had cuts. They were afraid that there might be internal bleeding.” After that, it was all blank until she woke up in the hospital. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I hit my head, nothing’s clear.”

  The barest trace of color had appeared, then disappeared from her cheek when she relived the accident. The bandage across one side of her forehead looked more vivid than Moira did. Moved, Cade laid a hand over Moira’s thin, translucent one.

  “That’s all right, ma’am. You’ve been very helpful.” As he stepped back, Sylvia and Arthur closed ranks around their daughter’s bed. Sylvia sat down, taking up her vigil again.

  Mac was at Cade’s side the moment he left her sister’s bedside. Cade wondered if she thought he was going to ditch her somehow. The thought was tempting.

  Arthur separated himself from the circle around Moira’s bed for a moment. Danny took his place as Arthur approached Cade. Taking his arm, he moved with Cade to the side of the room.

  The gray eyes took measure of him before the man spoke. “What do you need from us?” Though gruff, the motive behind the question was sincere.

  “Nothing right now.” Cade glanced at Mac. “Your other daughter has offered to provide me with all the extra help I might need.” But Cade liked to keep as many options open as possible. You never knew. “If I need anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  Arthur nodded curtly and returned to his post.

  Mac waited until they were back out in the hall outside the room and past myriad relatives. She tried not to dwell on the fact that Cade had referred to her as her parents’ “other” daughter. Without meaning to, he’d hit the way her parents viewed her right on the head. In comparison to Moira, she’d always been “the other one.” It was something she had come to terms with, although every once in a while, like now, it managed to take her by surprise all over again.

  She lengthened her stride to keep up with him. “Not much to go on, is there?”

  He stopped by the elevator, pressing the down button. “I’ve worked with less.”

  Mac turned toward him, lowering her voice though there was no one around other than Cade to hear her. “You don’t have to sugarcoat things, Mr. Townsend, I’m the strong one. I prefer the truth.”

  The strong one. Was she comparing herself to her sister, or to everyone in her family? Cade had a hunch it might very well be the latter.

  “T
he truth is that I have worked with less,” he repeated.

  “Successfully?” she challenged, unwilling to be patronized. If she was going to grasp onto hope, she wanted at least a nylon thread of provocation.

  The elevator arrived. He let her enter first. “Yes.” Cade pressed for the lobby.

  Mac stared at the steel-gray doors as they closed. “All right, what’s our next move?” But before he could answer, she said, “Because I thought that we might talk to the ambulance drivers who brought her here—”

  “That’s our next move.”

  Their eyes held for a second. Long enough for Mac to feel something like confidence seeping into her. She smiled. “Told you I wouldn’t get in the way.”

  Yeah, right. Her very presence was beginning to get in the way. In subtle ways Cade hadn’t been prepared for. He blocked out things he couldn’t waste time with exploring at the moment.

  The doors parted and they got off, making their way through a crowd of people, all determined to use the same car to reach their destination.

  “Did your sister mention that anyone suspicious was hanging around her?” Seeing the puzzled look in her eyes, he elaborated. “Calling her on the phone at odd hours, maybe ‘bumping’ into her more times than might be thought of as coincidental?”

  “You mean like stalking her?” When he nodded, Mac stifled a shiver at the thought of someone slinking after her sister like that, lying in wait, shadowing Moira’s moves. “No.”

  “Are you sure?” Cade stopped to read the signs at the corner, pointing in various directions. Administration was to the right.

  Mac found herself hurrying to keep up. “Yes, I’m sure. Moira would have mentioned it if there were. She tells me everything. Moira tends to be a little on the timid side.”

  She was given to understatement as well as being a steamroller. A smile played on Cade’s lips for a moment, softening the sun-bronzed, angular features that had come to him via his grandmother’s Cherokee bloodlines. “Doesn’t take up sword and shield, the way you do, eh?”

  Mac didn’t know if he was laughing at her or not. She dismissed the question, by saying, “I’m older.”

  Cade seriously doubted that age had anything to do with it. It was temperament and outlook that dictated the differences, not age, but that wasn’t his concern. Only finding Heather was.

  The redheaded clerk in the administration office was more than eager to help in any way she could, She gave them the name of the ambulance company, all the while assuring them that nothing like this had ever happened before in Harris Memorial’s seventy-three-year history.

  Sensing what motivated her agitation, Mac assured the woman that her family wasn’t looking to bring any legal action against the hospital. The administration supervisor appeared visibly relieved.

  “It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” Mac said in response to Cade’s raised brow as they left the office. “People are too eager to sue everyone for everything these days.”

  “Are you speaking for yourself, or your family right now?” Cade asked. Had the family practice been sued? Was there perhaps a disgruntled former patient seeking twisted revenge behind the kidnapping?

  “Both.” It wasn’t the hospital’s fault what had happened to Moira, any more than it was Moira’s fault for driving off the road to begin with, Mac thought. A look at his face told Mac what he was thinking. “And no, we’ve never been sued. Not even close.”

  She was good. Damn good, Cade thought with admiration as he drove to the ambulance company that had brought Moira McGuire to Harris Memorial. Mercy Ambulance’s office was just off the Pacific Coast Highway.

  On the way, Mac pointed out the site of Moira’s accident. Cade took his foot off the accelerator and steered his car toward the same side of the road.

  “Think there might be something here?”

  He doubted it, but there was always a chance. “Maybe.” Cade opened the car door. The road, so crowded at times that traffic would come to a complete standstill, was fairly empty now. Just as it had been, he surmised from what McKayla had told him, at the time of Moira’s accident. “You can stay in the car. This shouldn’t take long.”

  But as he got out, Mac followed suit on her side. He had a feeling she would.

  Cade sighed quietly as he reached into the back seat for his camera. It looked as if McKayla Dellaventura meant to live up to her word. For all intents and purposes, he had himself a shadow for the duration of the investigation.

  Or until it got dangerous, he thought, walking up to the skid marks on the road. The first sign of real trouble and he was sending her on her way, no matter what kind of argument she tendered.

  Squatting, Cade studied the ground. The tires’ skid tracks were still fresh where Moira’s sedan had gone careering up the side of the road. He was working on a hunch. Maybe the other driver had meant only to frighten her, not to cause a serious accident.

  Standing over him, Mac looked at the ground. The tire tracks stood out against the sun and traffic-faded asphalt. She didn’t see anything of particular significance. Maybe if she got closer.

  She crouched down beside him, but still saw nothing to capture his attention. But then, he was the professional. “What are you looking for?”

  “Just pieces of the puzzle.” Rising, he aimed his instant camera at the ground and snapped twice. He put his hand out and waited for the camera to spit out the photographs.

  No debris, he noted. No extraneous parts lying in the road. Glancing at the photographs before he pocketed them, he looked at Mac. “How badly was the car damaged?”

  Mac shrugged. “I don’t know.” Cade had turned on his heel and was walking back to the car. She hurried to catch up. “I didn’t see it. The police had a tow truck take it away. Danny tracked it down and had it towed over to our mechanic’s shop.” Obviously, this was important. “Want his number?”

  Cade tossed the camera on the back seat before getting behind the wheel. “Yes.”

  Getting in, Mac took a card out of one of the zippered compartments in her purse. Cade started the car again. Once they were on the road again, he took the card from her.

  “Thanks.” The woman was incredibly organized, he thought, slipping the card into his pocket next to the photographs. Most women of his acquaintance, outside of Megan, weren’t. Organized and sexy. Not a bad combination.

  “What does it matter what condition the car’s in?”

  “Maybe nothing,” he conceded. Pressing down on the accelerator, Cade picked up speed. They just made it through a yellow light. “On the other hand, it might confirm whether or not the other driver was intentionally following your sister and just wanted to run her off the road so that he or she could kidnap Heather.”

  “Well, Moira did drive off the road. If that was their intention, why didn’t they just grab the baby then? Why wait? And how does the other ambulance figure into all this?”

  He wasn’t accustomed to talking out his ideas, or having to field a volley of questions coming straight at him. Usually, he let his hunches simmer in his mind until a few more pieces came into play.

  Cade spared her a glance. “I don’t know—yet.”

  Despite his mild tone, Mac detected an edge to his words. “Don’t get annoyed, I’m only trying to get ideas moving back and forth here.”

  Cade was very aware of what she was trying to do. And of the by-product she was creating. Even Elaine had complained about how closed-mouth he often was. If he wasn’t accustomed to sharing his thoughts, he was even less accustomed to experiencing a flicker of annoyance.

  So he tempered his response, turning toward amusement as he turned down the next block. “I thought I was in charge.”

  “You are, but I’m not a mute.” Silence was not a medium she could deal with.

  Cade laughed softly to himself. Among other attributes, the woman truly did have a gift for understatement. “No, that you are not.”

  They had their answer to Mac’s question when they finally got the opportunity
to question the paramedics who had taken Moira to the hospital.

  On a break, the two men were found in a claustrophobic room at the back of the Mercy Ambulance’s office buildmg. The room served as a combination kitchen, dining and recreational area. The men were sitting at a table that had seen better decades, playing cards.

  After introducing himself and Mac, and explaining why they were there, Cade asked, “Who called you to the scene of the accident?”

  The men exchanged looks. The taller of the two stopped rocking on the rear legs of the chair and leaned forward. The front legs made contact with the floor with a jarring noise.

  “Nobody.”

  That didn’t make any sense. “Then what were you doing there?” Mac beat Cade to the question.

  His curiosity about the answer was greater than his need to remind Mac about their agreement, so Cade held his tongue.

  “We were driving back from making another run,” the taller man said. “Saw the whole thing. This blue Camry—”

  “Maxima,” his partner corrected him in an irritating, high-pitched voice.

  The first paramedic, Jake, according to the name stitched over his pocket, looked across the table, clearly annoyed. “It was a Camry,” he insisted. “My brother works in a garage, I ought to know my cars—”

  His partner, Andy, made a disparaging sound. “Just because your brother—”

  Cade held up a hand, stopping the men before the questioning could degenerate into a heated argument. “This blue car, what about it?”

  Jake took up his narrative. “It ran into the Camaro, ramming it. Not hard, mind you. It shouldn’t have spun out of control the way it did, but I think the woman probably panicked—”

  Cade noticed that Mac was struggling to keep from interrupting. He wondered how long she could refrain. “Did the driver of the other car attempt to stop?”

  “Yeah, he did,” Andy remembered, obviously eager to put in his two cents’ worth. And then he shrugged his broad shoulders. “At least, his car slowed down. But it picked up speed again when he heard the siren.”