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  "Yeah, I got that problem, too," Nathan muttered, gathering the two sketches together.

  They were striking out when they should be forging forward. Brenda turned toward Dax. "Now what?"

  Her eyes were bright, he thought, as if she was barely harnessing the energy within her. He knew what she had to be feeling. Desire to do something was knotted up with the realization that everything was moving forward much too slowly.

  "Now some of the patrolmen and I get a canvas of the area around the school grounds, see if anyone might have noticed something." He glanced at his partner. "Nathan, see if we can get those sketches onto the local news stations—"

  At the suggestion, the housekeeper came to life. She rose to her feet, her expression utterly horrified: "Mr. Tyler wouldn't want the media alerted. He absolutely abhors publicity about his personal life."

  While he was sensitive to a parent's anguish, Dax could have cared less what an overpaid Hollywood director did or didn't want.

  "I'm afraid this is out of Mr. Tyler's hands," Dax told the woman crisply, then because she still looked terrified, he relented. "The public is incredibly helpful, Ms. Danridge. Someone might have seen something." And that, he thought, was all the time he had to spare for hand-holding. He turned to his partner.

  "Nathan, we're going to need phone lines set up at the precinct for the calls that are going to start coming in."

  The notepad was out again. "You pulling together a task force?"

  "That's what I'm doing," Dax responded glibly.

  He looked as if he was about to walk out. Brenda shifted so that she was directly in his path. "What can I do?"

  Dax would have thought that by now, all she would have wanted to do was go home. "You've already done a great deal."

  He was putting her off, she could tell by the tone of his voice. She didn't want to be swept under the rug. "What can I do?" she repeated.

  He glanced over toward the technician who was wiring the telephone Brenda had just used in hope that when the kidnapper called the next time, they might be able to trace the call. Even if they did, he had a hunch it would probably be coming from a public phone. But sometimes they got lucky.

  The blonde with the killer legs was still waiting for him to answer her. "You could stay here and talk to the Tylers when they arrive home." He was leaving someone from the task force to speak to them, but there was no harm in their seeing a familiar face, especially if that familiar face could walk them through what had happened at the school.

  He was brushing her off. "Mrs. Tyler won't be due in for another couple of hours and Mr. Tyler will probably be here in the morning."

  "Good estimate." Sidestepping her, he set his sights on the front door.

  Didn't he understand that she could be useful? That she knew Annie better than anyone and that maybe that knowledge might be helpful? Moving quickly, she got in his way again. "What do I do until then?"

  He put his hands on her shoulders and deliberately moved her to the side, out of his way. "You might try praying," he told her as he left.

  She was at her wits end.

  The journey to that destination hadn't been an overly long one. As the brash, annoying Detective Cavanaugh had suggested, she'd remained at the Tyler estate, waiting for Annie's mother to arrive. Secretly, she'd hoped that perhaps the kidnapper might have a change of heart and call again.

  But he didn't.

  Trying to keep her frustration under wraps, she'd spent the time she was waiting for Rebecca Allen-Tyler to make her appearance talking to the policeman who had been left on duty.

  Exactly seven-hours after she had placed the call to her, Annie's mother swept into the mansion riding on a tide of reporters. By now, the story of Annie's kidnapping as well as her sketches of the two kidnappers had led off every station's evening news broadcast. The little girl's abduction from the Harwood Academy was fodder for the newest media feeding frenzy.

  Brenda braced herself as she faced the former actress. To her credit, Annie's mother did look distraught, and she did have the housekeeper shut out the media reporters. Her personal bodyguard, a man who looked as if he'd just walked off with the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding crown, stood like a towering sentry at the front entrance.

  "How could you have allowed something like this happen?" Rebecca screamed at her the moment she recognized her.

  "Mrs. Tyler, I'm very, very sorry—" Brenda began.

  "Sorry? You don't know the meaning of the word sorry. You'll be sorry all right, sorry you were ever born when Simon and I finish suing your asses off for this."

  She'd already given the woman the details over the telephone when she'd placed the original call. Brenda supposed that three thousand miles was a long distance to work up her anger. That didn't excuse what had come out of the woman's mouth, though.

  "With all due respect, Mrs. Tyler, we thought there was a fire going on. And if it were my daughter, my first thoughts wouldn't be about suing people, it would be about moving heaven and earth to get her back."

  "How dare you!" Rebecca Tyler shrieked. "How dare you?"

  Brenda looked at the patrolman closest to her. "I don't think I'm needed here right now." She began to leave.

  The patrolman came to life. "Wait, Detective Cavanaugh said I was to take you to your car."

  Her car was still parked in the school lot. She was about to call for a cab, but this made things easier. "Always thinking, your detective."

  The patrolman flashed her a smile. "We like to think so."

  Once they got past the media reporters camped outside the door, the trip was relatively quick. Hers was the only vehicle left in the lot. Danvers, the patrolman, pulled up beside it.

  Dusk had descended, and with it a strange clamminess in the air. It was a strange May night. But then, it had been a strange day all around.

  "I can follow you home," Danvers offered as she unlocked her car.

  She shook her head. "I'll be fine," she assured him. Brenda got into the driver's seat. She thought of the scene they'd just left behind. "I think your partner might need help with Mrs. Tyler, though. You'd better get back there."

  Danvers sighed, looking none too happy. "Right."

  As he drove off, she turned her key in the ignition. But as she began to drive out of the lot, she changed her mind. Making a U-turn that brought her right back to where she'd parked, she turned off the engine.

  The night promised to be a very long one. She sincerely doubted she was going to get any sleep. If she was going to remain awake, she might as well put the time to good use.

  She needed to feel as if she was doing something. Anything.

  Getting out of her car, she locked it again, then walked slowly toward the school. The evening was eerily quiet. The sound of her heels hitting the concrete reverberated back to her, adding to the surreal atmosphere.

  There was yellow police tape draped across the front entrance. She debated ducking under it, then decided to use the side door.

  The way the kidnapper probably had, she reasoned. Except that Brenda had a key.

  "Hang on, Annie," she whispered to the night air. "We'll have you home soon."

  She refused to believe anything else.

  "What are you doing here?"

  Brenda shrieked as she spun around. She nearly jumped out of her chair and wound up hitting her knee against the side of the desk. Nerves vibrated throughout her entire body as she pressed a hand to her hammering heart. Her throbbing knee would have to wait.

  As far as she'd known, the building was empty.

  She stared at Dax in the doorway.

  "That's some scream you have there," Dax commented as he approached her. He nodded toward her leg. "Your knee okay?"

  It throbbed, and there would probably be a bruise, but that was of no consequence. She shrugged carelessly.

  "I'll be fine." As soon as my heart stops pounding. It didn't seem to be an appropriate comment to share with the good-looking detective at the moment.

  What w
as she doing here, he wondered. Was she more deeply involved than he'd thought? "There's yellow tape on the outside of the doors," he pointed out.

  "Yes, I know."

  He noticed the tape hadn't been touched. She'd probably used the side entrance. "That means it's a crime scene."

  She knew that, too. But this was the only place she could think of that had the proper tools she needed in order to work up the flyers with Annie's picture.

  Sitting at the state-of-the-art-computer, she indicated the printer. There was a stack of colored flyers beside it. "I wanted to print up flyers to distribute around the area. The school has the best program for that sort of thing."

  "You have a photograph of Annie?"

  "I always take photographs of my class during the school year. I like to keep albums."

  She didn't add that having photographs of the various children and tracing their progress over the school year helped to give her the sense of family she so sorely lacked in her own life.

  Dax picked up one of the flyers she'd run off from the industrial-sized printer. It looked very professional. "I'm impressed."

  She thought he was referring to the equipment. "Mr. Harwood feels that the students deserve nothing but the best at the school."

  "No, I meant by the flyer." He put it back on top of the pile. "Nice work."

  She shrugged. "It's not hard when you know how."

  He wouldn't have thought that a woman who looked the way she did would be so self-deprecating. Every time he gave her a compliment, she discounted it.

  Having replenished the paper just before he'd entered the room, Brenda pressed the print button again. "What are you doing here?"

  "I was driving by, I saw the light." In actuality, he'd come by to see if she'd picked up her car yet. Seeing a light in the second-story window had made him investigate.

  She tried to second-guess his reasoning. "And thought the kidnappers might have come back to the scene of the crime?"

  "Actually," he leaned against the desk, looking down at her, "I didn't know what to think." And that, he decided, was the case here with her. Every time he made up his mind about Brenda York, something else was thrown into the mix. "I try not to jump to conclusions until all the evidence is in." And then, because the moment was so serious and begged to be lightened, he smiled at her. "But it doesn't hurt to stay on top of things."

  The air felt a little rare. She moved back a little. "How did the canvas turn out?"

  "Nothing so far." How long did it take for perfume to fade, he wondered. Hers was still getting to him. He rose, moving back toward the printer. "We have an Amber Alert going." Over the last couple of years, it had become standard procedure every time a child went missing. Descriptions of the little girl now flashed across freeway signs up and down the state. A great deal of distance could be covered in eight hours.

  She nodded toward the radio she had on beside the desk. "Yes, I know."

  She'd been on his mind ever since he'd left her at the Tyler estate. He wasn't even sure exactly why, but she was, lingering in the corners like the scent of some potent flower drifting invisibly through the warm summer night air. When he'd gone back to the Tylers—and spent some time with a tearful Mrs. Tyler—Danvers had told him he'd dropped her off at the school.

  Seeing her car in the lot had given him a measure of concern. And made him wonder if he'd written her off a little too soon.

  "How are you doing?"

  She blew out a breath. Maybe it was because she was too tired, or too stressed, but for once in her life, she didn't hide her feelings behind a smoke screen. "Not too well."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  Looking closer at her, he could see the definite signs of weariness. Her skin was almost translucent.

  He curbed the urge to run the back of his knuckles against her cheek, as if that could somehow bring the color back to her face.

  The girl's abduction had taken a toll on her. He thought of his gut feelings, the instincts that had absolved Brenda of the crime. If she was faking it, then she was a damn better actress than he would have thought she was.

  "How did it go with Mrs. Tyler?"

  "Not well." She was trying to be charitable toward the other woman, but it was difficult. Frowning as she remembered the encounter at the mansion, Brenda pushed herself away from the desk. "She blames the school, blames me." She sighed, dragging her hand through her hair. "Is probably on the phone with her lawyer right now, discussing a lawsuit."

  He parked himself on the corner of the desk. He'd formed his own opinions about the actress after only several minutes in her presence. His sympathies were entirely on Brenda's side.

  "Lawsuit?"

  Brenda nodded. "Those were the last words Rebecca Allen-Tyler said to me. That she was going to 'sue my ass.'"

  Was that what had drained the color from Brenda's face? Fear of being taken to court? "I don't think you really have to worry about that."

  The threat had never concerned her. She had precious little that could be taken from her.

  "I'm not worried. I'm annoyed, maybe, but not worried." Her thoughts returned to Annie. "Not about her, anyway."

  "Annoyed?" He wasn't sure he followed her. "Why annoyed?"

  Try as she might to suppress it, her anger rose up like bile in her throat. She thought of the sad look in Annie's eyes when she tried to get the little girl to talk about her mother.

  "Because this woman can't spare fifteen minutes for that little girl. Because she's always 'on,' not to mention the fact that she's usually away on some trip. And now suddenly she wants to sue everybody because her daughter's been kidnapped? Why isn't her first concern to do everything she can to have Annie found? Why isn't she taking herself to task because up until now, she's been such a lousy mother?" With every word, her anger grew. "I went to see her once to discuss Annie's shyness with her and she fluffed me off—this after breaking I don't know how many appointments." She straggled to calm herself down. "Rebecca Allen-Tyler is not my candidate for mother of the year."

  "What about her father?" When he'd left the house, Simon Tyler hadn't returned yet.

  Brenda waved her hand in dismissal. "Worse than her mother." It struck her as such a tragedy. And it all could have been avoided. "Annie worships the ground they both walk on and they just keep walking on it, not bothering to look down, not seeing the wonderful little human being they're ignoring."

  He couldn't help notice that the color had returned to her cheeks. And that it made her even more attractive. "You sound pretty passionate about this."

  She blew out a breath as she sighed. "Maybe because I am. I hate seeing a kid get a raw deal." The printer had stopped. She hit the appropriate button again. The machine began spitting out fresh flyers. "They've got such a very short time to be innocent, they should be allowed to enjoy it."

  "Did you?"

  Brenda raised her head, caught off guard by the question. "What?"

  "Did you?" he repeated. When she continued to look at him quizzically, he elaborated on the reason for his question. "I get the feeling you're speaking from firsthand experience." In response, she got up and crossed to the printer, her back to him. He'd struck a nerve, he thought. "What was your childhood like?"

  She lifted her shoulder in a vague, noncommittal shrug. She'd talked too much. That was her problem, she thought. She always shared herself too quickly. You would have thought that she would have learned not to by now. That having a mother who abandoned her and a father who took out every failure in his life on her would have taught her to keep her own council. Even Wade had been closemouthed and had cut her off more than once when she tried to talk to him, to get him to share his feelings with her.

  All of her life, there had been nothing but emotional disappointment after emotional disappointment. Except for the children.

  "I don't remember," she murmured, putting more paper into the printer's tray. "It was a long time ago."

  She was putting
him off. But he had a feeling she needed to talk, so he pressed. "Not that long ago, you're what, twenty-two?"

  "Twenty-six."

  Because she continued to keep her back to him, Dax rounded the printer and faced her. "I'm impressed, you preserve well."

  She laughed then and it was like the breeze weaving its way through wind chimes. Not the annoying ones like his neighbor had that clanged, but the small ones, the ones that sounded like music.

  "That's nice," he told her softly. "You should do that more often."

  She stopped stacking the finished flyers beside the printer. "Do what?"

  "Laugh."

  Her thoughts returned to Annie. "I guess there isn't that much to laugh about right now."

  He curbed the urge to put his hand on her shoulder, to make some sort of contact that could convey comfort far better than any words that might come out of his mouth. "There will be. We'll find her."

  Her mouth curved slightly. Sadly. She wished she could believe him. But she knew what the world was like. "You sound so certain."

  "Only way to go."

  She looked at him for a long moment, gazed into his eyes. He truly believed that, she realized. It gave her a measure of comfort to have the man in charge of the investigation so sure of the results. She wouldn't have thought that a cop could be this optimistic.

  "You must have had a very good childhood."

  "As a matter of fact, I did."

  With little effort, she could almost see him as a child. Bright, gregarious, taking over any room he walked into. "Apple of your mother's eye?"

  More like the source of most of her gray hair. "I don't know about that. There were too many of us around to be anyone's favorite."

  Because she was one, she'd pictured him as an only child. "How many is too many?"

  Dax paused, doing a head count. "Eleven, counting me."

  Brenda was aware that her mouth had dropped open. "Your mother had eleven children?" At least she got a chance to go home at night. Being responsible for that many little souls twenty-four hours a day seemed like the surest path to early burn-out to her. "That poor woman. She probably didn't have time to even eat an apple, much less—"