A Hero for All Seasons Read online

  Savannah shook her head. “There’s no need to explain anything, Elliott. Besides, there really isn’t anything anyone can say.” Her courage began to flag It was harder and harder to keep up this facade around people who felt her pain.

  She glanced toward Sam, and he nodded ever so slightly. “Maybe you’re right,” she said to Abrahms. “Maybe I’d better go home. There might be some word....” Her voice trailed off before it broke.

  Moved, Elliott took her hand in his and squeezed it. “She’s all right. Savannah. I just know it.” Several others echoed his sentiments.

  Savannah took a deep breath. With all her heart, she wished she could believe that. “I hope you’re right, Elliott.”

  Elliott. appeared absolutely convinced of what he was saying. “I am. Trust me.” His eyes held hers. “Still no ransom note?” Savannah merely shook her head. Elliott looked as if he was searching for something positive to say. “Maybe whoever took her is lonely, and just wants someone to take care of.”

  “He has a point,” Sam told her.

  “Of course I do.” Something akin to a smile passed over the pale face as Elliott glanced in Sam’s direction. But his attention was refocused on Savannah. “You’ve got to hang on to that, Savannah. That Aimee’s alive and well and that everything’s going to be all right.”

  She took a deep breath to steady the nerves that were unraveling again. “I will.”

  Because the moment called for it and it seemed so natural, Sam slipped his arm around her shoulders. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. Instead, she accepted the mute support and allowed him to usher her out. He’d done it purely to perpetuate the illusion that he was trying to create, but the contact between them seeped into his consciousness.

  The heat that flared through him, shooting through his limbs, came as a complete surprise.

  Dropping his arm to his side the moment they were out the door, Sam walked briskly in front of Savannah to his car. He didn’t like surprises. Any surprises. Even pleasant ones. To be surprised meant to be unprepared, and he always liked being prepared.

  The car was unlocked, but he opened the door for her anyway. She was the kind of woman men still opened doors for, despite her independent air—or maybe in diffidence to it. He looked down at her as she slid in.

  “Elliott sounds as if he’s got a crush on you.”

  “Elliott?” Where had he gotten that idea? She couldn’t envision Elliott having a romantic notion in his head. Savannah laughed softly to herself, as Sam got in on the other side. “Hardly. Elliott Reynolds is my closest friend at Big Bytes.”

  “Oh?” At first glance, they didn’t seem to have anything in common. She was a classy lady, and Reynolds was a bland, nondescript little man who probably got overlooked a great deal. Men like that tended to fade into the woodwork around anyone with the least bit of color to them.

  “Yes, he took me under his wing when I came to work for the company. He’s really very brilliant, you know. He can work magic with a computer.”

  That Sam could readily believe. But it didn’t exclude the other possibility. “Doesn’t mean he can’t have feelings.”

  Sam was wrong, dead wrong. What bothered her was that if he could be wrong about this, then he could be wrong about other things. About Aimee. She tried not to think about that.

  It was easier trying not to breathe.

  “If he does,” she told him tersely, “the feelings are directed toward his wife, Claire. Elliott’s completely devoted to her.” Almost too much so, she thought. “To their daughter, too.”

  Sam felt a trace of disappointment. “He has a daughter?”

  She nodded. Savannah stared out the window. Was it her, or did everything look a little grayer?

  “Emily’s a little older than Aimee. They would play together every time we got together socially.” Her voice hitched as she remembered watching Aimee and Emily at the company picnic last fall. Aimee followed Emily around with the dogged faithfulness of a little sister.

  “And they’ll play together again,” Sam promised her.

  Savannah raised her head, determination in her eyes. She had to stop this, had to stop dwelling on the dark side. Sam was right, Elliott was right. Aimee would be back in her arms again. Soon.

  “Yes, they will.”

  That was better, he thought. Her voice sounded stronger. “So tell me more about the people you work with. How long have you known them?”

  She didn’t even have to pause to think. “Six years. I was the last one hired. Straight out of college.” Was that nervous girl back then really her? It was hard to believe. Abrahms had conducted the interview so informally that she’d found herself at ease almost instantly. “The group has stayed pretty much together Larry likes to think of it as one happy family.”

  “And is it?”

  He was looking for dirt, but there wasn’t any. There couldn’t be. “Yes, it is. Since I’ve been here, I’ve attended five weddings and three baby showers—not counting my own.” They’d gone all out for her, making no issue of the fact that she was a single mother. “And two funerals.”

  His ears perked up. “Funerals?”

  “Deaths in the family. Parents,” she clarified. “I know these people very, very well. None of them would do this to me.”

  For her sake, he wanted that to be true, but then that would leave them at square one again

  Sam slowed the car as they came to a stop behind a line of cars funneling into one lane because of construction on this side of the road. It was too late to take an alternative route.

  He turned toward her. “Did you meet Aimee’s father at work?”

  She shifted in her seat, uncomfartable. “No, I met Aimee’s father in college. I was working on my master’s,” she added.

  He could tell by her tone that she didn’t want to talk about it, but he wanted his gaps filled in. All of them. “He was a grad student?”

  “A professor. I was doing an independent study program, and he was independently studying me.” She looked at him in exasperation. She didn’t feel like being probed. They’d already established that this didn’t have anything to do with Aimee’s disappearance. “Is this really necessary?”

  “I’m just trying to get a fuller background, but no, strictly speaking, it’s not necessary.” Not to the investigation at any rate. But if he were being honest with himself, he was having more questions about the woman beside him than the circumstances of the case generated.

  But that, he thought, was his problem—not hers. He was going to have to watch that.

  Chapter 6

  Sam would rather not have taken Savannah with him when he went to see Ben Underwood at the police station, but there didn’t seem to be any way around it if he wanted to meet with the detective today.

  Tall and on the lean side—though Sam thought of them as pretty evenly matched—Detective Ben Underwood of the Newport Beach Police Department had a boyish look that by all rights he should have long outgrown. The quick grin and unlined face seemed somehow misplaced on a police detective. It tended to make people think of Ben as more of a tall Boy Scout than an officer of the law.

  But Ben was sharp. Sam knew that firsthand. Ben also didn’t readily welcome outside interference, and, like it or not, Sam knew he was now considered an outsider. Ben would immediately know Savannah had hired him to help on the case.

  “What brings you here, Sam? Getting nostalgic for the smell of police blotters?” Ben drawled as he gave Sam a long once-over. Pushing his chair back, Ben rose to his feet before Sam answered.

  Sam nodded a greeting. They’d been friends once, but that was a long time ago. They’d gone their separate ways once out of the academy, crossing paths only occasionally.

  Sam kept it simple and played along because he knew the rules of the game. You didn’t move out of turn unless it was absolutely necessary. “Ms. King hired me to help look for her daughter.”

  Ben’s blue eyes shifted to Savannah. She looked more tired, but
he noticed that there was something in her eyes now: a determination that pushed aside the panic and hopelessness he’d seen previously. He wondered if there was a reason for that.

  Was Sam on to something?

  “Wasting your money, ma’am,” Ben told Savannah politely. “Sam’s good, but he’s not about to find anything that we don’t.” Deep, piercing blue eyes looked into hers, delving. “We’re doing all we can to find your daughter.” To back the statement up with physical evidence, he nodded at the tall stack of perforated papers on his desk. Given the nature of her work, he figured she’d recognize computer printout when she saw it. “Those are the phone company records of all the people who’ve called your toll-free number and your house since your daughter’s kidnapping.”

  Kidnapping.

  Savannah tried not to shiver at the sound of the harsh word. Maybe it was absurd, but she’d been using euphemisms, even in the privacy of her own mind. “Kidnapping” sounded so hopeless. So final.

  “I’ve got people looking into their backgrounds,” Ben was saying. His message was clear. Though overworked, the police department still had far more manpower at their disposal than Sam did.

  Savannah bit her lip. Hope was taking a roller coaster ride right over her heart. “And did you find anything?”

  There were a few people in the stack who had piqued his interest, but it was far too early in the game to tell if that amounted to anything. It was against Ben’s nature to carelessly raise hopes without backup.

  “We’re looking into it,” Ben replied guardedly.

  Their eyes locked then, but she knew he wouldn’t tell her. Savannah raised her chin.

  “Which is why I hired Sam and his agency. They might not find anything faster, but at least he’ll tell me what it is when he does come across it.”

  Sam avoided her eyes. That wasn’t strictly true. Like Ben, Sam felt that some things had to be worked out first before they were conveyed. Very gently, he moved Savannah out of the way, and took out the altered photograph that the saleswoman had recognized. As Ben watched him in silence, Sam unfolded the sheet and offered it to him.

  Underwood raised his eyes to Sam in question.

  “You might tell your men that Aimee King probably looked more like this when she was taken from the area,” Sam told him.

  Underwood took the photograph and examined it more closely, then looked at Savannah. His brows drew together in a dark, puzzled line. The child in the photograph had on a baseball cap and a jacket with an Angels logo. “I thought you said she just had on a hooded sweatshirt and jeans—”

  “She did,” Sam cut in. He didn’t want Underwood badgering Savannah, so he proceeded to tell him about how the saleswoman had recognized the doctored image.

  Underwood bit back a curse. The kidnapper had disguised the little girl. The angle was so simple that he’d overlooked it completely. The accusation was ripe in his voice when he asked Sam, “How long have you known?”

  “For about an hour or so. I came to you first thing,” Sam volunteered angelically.

  Maybe he did at that. Ben had never known Sam to lie—although that didn’t mean that Sam didn’t. “Mind if I hang on to this?”

  Sam smiled magnanimously. “I insist on it.” Sam took Savannah’s elbow. “And if you hear anything—”

  Underwood looked at him sharply. Sam knew procedures better than he did. “I can’t tell you anything, you know that, Sam.”

  Looking over his shoulder, Sam inclined his head. “I know. I also know you probably still have my home number. It’s been a long time since we talked. As friends,” he added pointedly. “Friends who go back a long way. I’ll see you around.”

  “Hold it!” Ben called after him. He was going to want to question the saleswoman. “What did you say the saleswoman’s name was?”

  “I didn’t.” Satisfied that he’d driven his point home, Sam added, “It’s Gladys Pease.”

  As Sam ushered Savannah out the tinted glass door that led into the squad room, Ben was writing down the woman’s name on his blotter.

  Savannah pulled her arm free and looked at Sam. “That’s it?” she demanded. “You just give him the photograph and you leave?”

  Rather than stand and argue with her, Sam led the way out of the two-story building. He figured she would have to follow.

  She did, although when he looked over his shoulder, she didn’t appear very happy about it.

  “I have the photographs saved on the hard-drive.” He knew that wasn’t why she was annoyed. She thought he had retreated. But it wasn’t a matter of retreating; it was a matter of knowing who you were dealing with. Getting to his car, Sam turned around. “Besides, Underwood doesn’t know anything new.”

  She didn’t see it that way. Sam should have pressed him. “He said he was checking out things.”

  He got in and waited until she followed suit. It took a minute. He figured she was working off her head of steam.

  “If there’d been anything,” Sam continued once she was inside, “he would have looked more confident. Underwood and I go back a ways. When he’s on to something, there’s this look in his eyes—like he’s on a treasure hunt and he’s holding on to what he thinks is the right key.” Lucky for Ben that he didn’t play poker, Sam mused as he started the car. “That look wasn’t there.”

  “A look?” she echoed. “You’re basing all this on a look?”

  “No, I’m basing this on a look that wasn’t there,” Sam corrected. “You’re paying me for experience, remember?”

  Disappointment poured through her like hot, sticky glue, threatening to paralyze everything inside her. “Then he was lying?”

  Sam didn’t quite see it as lying. “He was being diplomatic. As diplomatic as Ben’s capable of being.” Diplomacy wasn’t Underwood’s strong suit. Solving crimes was. “And, like as not, there are probably more than a few people he wants to check out. One thing’s certain—”

  She was trying very hard to rally, but she was beginning to feel terribly worn around the edges. “What’s that?”

  “Underwood does have more manpower to check out the people on the lists than we do.” He thought of the program Megan had enhanced for their purposes. The one she’d managed to “borrow” from sources that were best left unmentioned. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to get a printout ourselves, and run the names through the program for convicted felons.” There were favors he could call in for that. And a few more he could trade.

  “Convicted felons?” Savannah’s stomach tightened.

  He heard the strained note in her voice. “I prefer going with the theory that she knew her abductor, but the bottom line is that we don’t know who we’re dealing with yet. This kidnapping could have been personal, or it could have just been random. Something about Aimee caught their eye.”

  “But the clothes—” If they had children’s clothes with them, didn’t that mean that the abduction was planned?

  Sam played devil’s advocate. In order to be effective, he had to. No theory was ever airtight. “Lenard’s has a children’s section, doesn’t it? The clothes could have come from there.”

  Shoplifting was done all the time, despite safeguards, Sam thought. It wouldn’t have taken much for the kidnapper to have grabbed the clothes, taken Aimee into the bathroom, and made the change.

  “Then it was all spur-of-the-moment?” Defeat echoed in Savannah’s every word. That meant that they hadn’t really made any headway at all.

  “Could be, although the theory is a little out there.” Still, Savannah had to be made aware of all the possibilities.

  The numbness she felt gave way to an emotional wave. “What are you doing to me? You yank me up, then you push me down—”

  He pulled over to the side of the road and unhooked his seat belt. Because he saw the tears in her eyes, he tried to take her into his arms the way he would anyone who was hurting. She fought him off, vainly pounding her fists against his chest before finally sinking against him. She didn’t sob, but the br
eath she pulled into her lungs was shaky.

  He waited until her breathing became a little steadier. “I said it wasn’t going to be easy.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, afraid that if she spoke any more loudly, her voice would break. “I won’t do that again. I want to know, I really do. It’s just that...”

  She didn’t need to explain. He understood. “I know.” Very gently, using the tip of his thumb, he wiped away the single tear that had trickled down her cheek. “My fault. I shouldn’t be firing all these different things at you at once.”

  “No, it’s all right, really. Keep firing,” she urged. Her mouth curved slightly. “I’ll be thicker-skinned, I promise.”

  He couldn’t resist tracing the path her tear had taken just once more. “Your skin’s fine just the way it is,” he assured her softly.

  Then, as if voicing the sentiment made him uncomfortable, Sam abruptly released her and started the car up again.

  For just a moment there, he’d wanted to kiss her. To hold her and tell her that everything was going to be all right. He had no right to make promises like that, Sam thought, annoyed.

  I already have, he reminded himself.

  Clearing his throat as he got back into the flow of traffic, Sam kept his eyes on the road.

  “There is a possibility that the kidnapper put in a call.” She was sitting perfectly still Sam could feel her eyes on him, waiting for him to continue. “Whoever took Aimee might be having second thoughts after seeing you on television, and just doesn’t know how to go about undoing what’s been done.”

  How could they not know? Savannah shifted in her seat to face him. “Why can’t they just let her go? Put her out on the street somewhere?”

  But as soon as she said it, the thought chilled her. She didn’t want Aimee wandering around aimlessly on the streets. There were so many dangerous neighborhoods, places where Aimee could disappear without a trace. Savannah had always believed in the best in people, had always wanted to believe in the best. But she was being sorely tested. And right now, she felt as if she was failing.