Hero For Hire. Marie Ferrarella

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      Veronica tried again. “Anne Sullivan, Andy’s mother. Anne said she hadn’t seen Casey since the cake was served. The children were playing different games…”

      He nodded, encouraging her. “How many children would you say were at the party?” He saw the bewildered look in her eyes. She was focusing on her son; the others didn’t exist for her. “Take a guess. Five? Ten?”

      She shrugged helplessly before she could stop the gesture. “Thirty, forty—Anne Sullivan knows a lot of people.”

      With that many around, it was simple enough to lose track of one small boy for a few minutes. And he knew that a few minutes was all it took. “Was the birthday party being held at the house?”

      Questions, he was asking her questions when all she wanted him to do was run out and find Casey. Now. Bring him back to her before anything…

      She was behaving like a madwoman, like someone she didn’t even know.

      Biting her lower lip, Veronica forced herself to focus. She nodded. “Outside. On the grounds. There were other parents there, and Anne had clowns…”

      Strangers working their way easily amid the children. It got harder. “Maybe…”

      She knew what he was thinking before he said it and shook her head. “Casey hates clowns. He would never have gone off with one of them. Not without screaming.”

      This investigator, Chad Andreini, sounded so calm, she thought, as if they were discussing a movie they’d both seen, instead of something that was ripping her apart with sharp, lethal talons. She was desperate to have this all said and out of the way so that this somber-faced man leaning back against the desk in front of her would make it right somehow. She would give him anything he wanted, as long as he would make it right. As long as he would bring Casey back to her. Nothing meant anything without Casey.

      Chad made a notation to check out the clowns, anyway. He stopped writing when Veronica continued in a faltering voice.

      “Anne started to help me look for Casey and then the housekeeper came out to say there was a phone call for me.”

      As he waited, she paused as if to gather together courage to face the rest of the words she had to say. The phone call that turned vague uneasiness into a stark, frightening reality.

      “The voice on the other end said that he had Casey. That if I told the police or anyone else, even Anne, about this, I’d never see Casey again. He said that Casey was safe and that he wouldn’t be harmed if I did exactly as I was told. And then he said he would be in touch later with instructions.” Anger and loathing filled her voice. “He told me to be ‘a good girl’ and then the line went dead.”

      “Did you recognize…?”

      Again she shook her head, this time adamantly. Did he think she’d be coming to a stranger for help if she’d had the slightest suspicion about who had kidnapped her son?

      “No. I’m not even sure if it was a man or a woman talking.” She saw the way he raised his brow. He probably thought she was losing her mind. Maybe she was. “The voice was tinny—metallic, like something you’d hear coming out of a robot. It didn’t even sound human.”

      The kidnapper was using a synthesizer. Which could mean that she might be able to recognize the voice under ordinary circumstances, Chad thought. Or not. His habit was not to let any one thought lead him off until he’d heard everything.

      “What did you tell Mrs. Sullivan when you hung up?”

      Veronica shrugged vaguely. “The first thing that came into my head. That Casey’s uncle had come by and picked him up without telling anyone. That he was the one on the phone, calling to let me know.” Her eyes asked him if she’d done the right thing. “I—I didn’t want to take any chances.”

      He nodded. The woman could think clearly in a crisis. He wondered how clearly. The next question that came to him came from his own past experience. “Are you and your husband together?”

      Startled by the query, Veronica stared at him in silence for a second before answering. “No.”

      Chad’s father had stolen him in the aftermath of what had been an ugly custody battle. His father had been denied access to his family except for a handful of holidays, and even those, Chad had later discovered, were to be under supervision. History had a nasty habit of repeating itself. “Do you have any reason to believe that your husband would take your son?”

      Veronica closed her eyes, pushing away the fresh onslaught of pain. She felt like a mouse, running from corner to corner, trying to elude a cat hot on its scent and bent on swallowing it whole. She hated this feeling, hated this helplessness she was trying to conquer.

      Her voice was hollow when she answered. “My husband is dead, Mr. Andreini. He died in a plane crash almost eighteen months ago. I’m a widow.”

      And she hadn’t come to terms with that yet, he thought. A kernel of sympathy pushed forward. “I’m sorry.”

      The words, tendered politely, still had a devastating effect on the emotional fences Veronica was desperately attempting to keep up. The last of her composure shattered.

      “I don’t need you to be sorry, Mr. Andreini,” she snapped at him. “I need you to be good at your job. I need you to find my son for me before…before…”

      Embarrassed by her behavior, Veronica swallowed a curse at her own frailty and at him for bringing it out. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you.”

      “No need to be sorry, Mrs. Lancaster. I understand.”

      She wished he wasn’t being kind to her. Right now she didn’t need someone being kind; she needed someone snapping at her, making her angry. Making her cope. Kindness was dissolving her resolve.

      “It’s Ms. Lancaster,” she corrected him. “Lancaster’s my family name. Robert said it sounded better than his—Reinholt. He joked that maybe someday he’d change his name to mine. He was very progressive that way…”

      Talking about her husband drove her over the edge of endurance. The next thing she knew, she was breaking down completely and sobbing, unable to stop.

      At a loss, Chad looked at the closed door and thought of calling his sister into the office. Megan was so much better at this kind of thing than he was. She knew how to be sympathetic while he had no idea how to handle a woman’s tears. It wasn’t in his nature. Even Rusty, his brother, who had come into the firm just before he’d joined it himself was better at dealing with this than Chad was. Rusty was warm, engaging and outgoing.

      Hell, they were all better at this than he was, probably even the janitor.

      But they weren’t here in the room with this woman, and he was. And her sobs were tearing at his heart. He thought of leaving, of getting someone, but that was the coward’s way out and too close to abandonment, however fleeting, to suit him.

      Awkwardly he took hold of her shoulders and raised Veronica to her feet. She didn’t seem to be aware that he was doing it. But the moment he did, she collapsed against him, burying her face in his chest and sobbing uncontrollably.

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