Her One and Only Hero

by Sharon Hartley

  Her soft floral fragrance enveloped him, as did the sadness vibrating off her. And a raging resentment hurled like a flaming arrow straight at him. She’d jerked away from his touch as if his fingers contained a caustic poison.

  But why? He couldn’t figure out what he’d done. Until last night, he’d had no clue they’d created a daughter. He’d never intended to have a family, so, yeah, he’d been resistant to the idea, and he sure wasn’t happy about it. Talk about a life-changing event.

  But, damn, he’d accepted the fact that he was a father of a rebellious and clueless runaway. His new daughter was every parent’s worst nightmare. Especially a cop’s. But he was here, wasn’t he, driving Fran for a sit-down with the FBI? What the hell else was he supposed to do?

  “Tell me about her,” Dale urged.

  “What do you want to know?” Fran asked.

  “Anything you want to tell me. I know she has asthma. Any other health issues?”

  “Only the asthma, and the doctors hope she might grow out of that. She draws beautifully, better than me.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You have to know how good you are.”

  She shot him a look, a slight smile curving her lips, seeming pleased at his praise.

  He decided not to tell her he still had every sketch she’d left with him. He’d revealed way too much of himself already.

  “What else?” he asked. He’d seen a photograph, but needed more details, wanted to formulate a profile of the missing girl.

  Missing girl? He needed to start thinking of her as his daughter.

  “Bella is intelligent,” Fran said. “Exceptional.”

  “Now you sound like a proud mother.”

  “Maybe, but she skipped a grade in school, although I wonder if that was a mistake. She is younger than her friends and, mio Dio, so independent.” Fran shook her head. “Bella is a little rebel, always wanting to go off with her older friends to do anything American. Perhaps I trusted her too much.”

  “Has she ever done anything like this before? Run away, I mean?”

  “Never. Until recently, Bella was always happy and well adjusted.”

  “But if you’re a workaholic who spends all her time in the studio, how would you know she was happy?”

  Fran muttered in rapid Italian. Thinking it sounded like curses, Dale shot her a look. She’d closed her eyes, bit her bottom lip and was pounding the tops of her thighs with fisted hands.

  “Fran?” he asked.

  She fixed dark furious eyes on him. He returned his attention to the road.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. He’d obviously struck a nerve.

  “You—” she jabbed a finger at him “—have no right to judge me a bad mother.” Her voice was tight, filled with outrage. “You do not know anything about our lives.”

  “I’m not judging you.”

  “Yes, you are. Do not lie.”

  Dale shifted in his seat. Was he judging her as a mother?

  “We will get nowhere if we are not honest with each other,” she said.

  “Sorry. You’re right about that.”

  “Do you have other children, Dale?”

  “No.”

  “Bah.” She waved a dismissive hand at him. “Then you know nothing.”

  “Hey, you know how I helped raise my sisters.”

  She muttered more lively but beautiful words in Italian, and then said, “It is not the same thing.”

  He remained silent. Yeah, she was right about that, too. And losing a daughter in this way would be devastating to any mother.

  “Bella has always been proud of my work,” Fran said. “She encourages me, saying she understands why I need time in the studio to create.” Fran swallowed. “Time away from her.”

  “Did she have any boyfriends?” Time to change directions, an interview technique he’d learned over the years when suspects became defensive.

  Fran took a deep breath, which seemed to calm her. “She is too young to date. A few boys would sometimes be included in the group activities with her friends.”

  “So she wasn’t sexually active?”

  “No, of course not. She is twelve.”

  Dale nodded and decided to let the subject go. But maybe she was unaware of what took place on those group activities. Every patrol cop had run into pregnant thirteen-year-olds on the job, sometimes raped by their mother’s live-in boyfriends.

  “After thinking about it overnight—and don’t tell me you didn’t—do you still insist your husband couldn’t have molested her?”

  “Absolutely not a chance of that, and, yes I did think about it. A lot.”

  “Sorry, Fran, but that’s the first question a cop has to ask.”

  “And it made me realize how intuitive Bella is,” she said. “I should have known sooner or later she would sense something was off between me and Paolo.”

  Now there was a subject Dale wanted to explore, the relationship between Fran and her husband, but now wasn’t the time. And it wasn’t relevant to finding her daughter.

  His daughter.

  “Bella sounds a lot like you,” he said.

  “No,” Fran insisted. “We are nothing alike.”

  “I disagree. You’ve described an intuitive, intelligent artist who found a way to come to America against all odds. That sounds exactly like the Francesca I met my senior year in high school.”

  When she didn’t answer, Dale shot her another look. She blinked and stared straight ahead. He must have struck another sensitive nerve.

  “You do not know her,” Fran said at last.

  Dale got the impression what Fran really meant was she wasn’t the young girl he remembered anymore. Well, hell, he wasn’t the same boy, either.

  “True,” he said. “I don’t know our daughter.” Or you. “Which is why I’m asking these questions. Tell me about her. What does she like to do?”

  “Meet her friends for coffee at the American coffee shop. They are fascinated by America, especially the cinema, even the old Western movies.”

  “What’s her favorite color?”

  “As a child, she liked yellow. Now—” Fran shrugged. “I honestly do not know.”

  “Her favorite subject?”

  “Art.” Fran sounded certain of that answer.

  “Does she have a pet?”

  “You mean a dog or a cat?”

  “Or a fish, a bird?”

  “No. She wanted a puppy once, but I would not allow it because they are so much trouble. I should have agreed.” Fran’s voice broke, but she swallowed and managed to say, “Maybe she would not have left if she had a dog she loved.”

  “Come on, Fran. Don’t think like that,” Dale said. “It won’t do you any good.”

  Shaking her head, murmuring in Italian again, Fran rummaged in her giant purse and withdrew a rumpled tissue.

  They rode in silence for several long minutes while she composed herself. He didn’t remember Fran being such a crier. He’d thought telling him about Bella would be good for her, but the more they discussed the daughter, the sadder the mother became. She would likely have to repeat much of this to Javi. He could wait and hear it then.

  Time to change the subject. He needed to learn all he could about the man who’d nabbed Bella. He’d become so bogged down in researching the subject, he’d run out of time to research the man.

  “How much further?” Fran asked.

  “We’re almost there. Tell me what you know about Joaquin Zarco. Did you research him, too?”

  She squared her shoulders and sat up straighter in the seat. “He is a pervert.”

  “Yeah, I get that. Do you know if he’s ever been arrested?”

  “Once, but it was a long time ago. I do not remember the year.” />
  “For sex trafficking?”

  “No, I forget the specific charge, but he’s wanted for a murder somewhere. He broke out of jail in South Africa and has been an international fugitive ever since. One FBI special agent used the term shadowy to describe Zarco.” She shrugged. “Whatever that means.”

  “It means they can’t catch him.”

  Dale spotted the sign for his exit and changed lanes, glad that Fran had stopped crying. Tears wouldn’t help her daughter.

  Their daughter, he corrected himself again as he pulled into the parking lot of a huge glass building that featured no signage to indicate it housed this district’s headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Concrete barriers prevented any vehicle from getting close, a security precaution necessary in today’s world.

  They exited the car and approached the entrance without speaking. Inside the building, Dale handed his service weapon to a guard and accepted a receipt. He knew the drill. The feds didn’t trust anyone. His badge could be fake and the gun real. Perps holding a grudge did all kinds of whacko things.

  After emptying their pockets so the contents could be x-rayed, he and Francesca passed through a metal detector and got a second wanding by a grim-faced security guard.

  Dale gave their names to a uniformed attendant behind a desk. The guard checked a list and nodded.

  “Agent Rivas is on the seventh floor,” he said, and handed them each a temporary badge to hang around their necks.

  Inside the elevator, Fran smashed the button for the seventh floor.

  “You okay?” Dale asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think,” he said, “Javi will have a lot of questions for you. Are you going to be up to it?”

  She whirled, finally meeting his gaze. Dale stepped back from the fury in her dark eyes. What had he done now?

  She raised an arm. He wasn’t certain if she intended to strike him or theatrically wave her hands in the air as she often did. Instead she closed her hand into a fist and lowered it. She faced front again.

  “I guess you will just have to wait and find out.”

  Dale stared at her, thinking her comment sounded a lot like a threat. Francesca had become volatile, like unstable C-4 waiting to explode.

  How much collateral damage would there be when she detonated?

  * * *

  FRANCESCA BURST OUT of the elevator when the doors opened, staring blindly ahead. The thing she had feared most had come true, and it was even more horrible than she had imagined.

  For over a decade she had kept her secret. For so many reasons, she had vowed Dale would never learn about his daughter. His knowledge of Bella had in fact been the worst thing imaginable to her, and, mio Dio, she had imagined him learning the truth countless times.

  In that fantasy the result was always the same. All of their lives were disrupted. He would become aware of how much she had suffered when he had abandoned her, and her pride could not allow that. It would be too cruel. Too cruel to both of them.

  The fates must hate her, because they had forced her to face that worst nightmare head-on. Circumstances had compelled her to do the one thing she had sworn she would never do: tell Dale he was Bella’s father.

  And she had done it. Maybe the reveal had not gone well—she could admit that—but she had done it. But to what end? Would facing her fears help find Bella?

  Dale touched her arm, jerking her back into her living nightmare.

  She was in Miami, in the FBI’s office. She needed to talk to law enforcement about Bella. How many times had she done so?

  “This way,” Dale said.

  Fran shrugged away from his touch but walked in the direction he indicated. She needed to fall back on old coping methods, old strengths. She needed to do as she’d done when Bella was an infant. Right now she needed to insulate herself, make herself numb so she wouldn’t feel the pain of living with a man she did not love and losing the man she did. She would focus only on her daughter and her needs. My needs, my pain, even my hunger remain secondary to Bella’s. The strategy never works for long, but it can work for the next hour.

  Dale stopped before an open office and knocked lightly on the door. “Javi?”

  “Dale. Good to see you, man.” A tall dark-haired man rose and stepped forward to shake Dale’s hand. He appeared to be Hispanic and was quite good-looking.

  Fran listened while they exchanged pleasantries, and then Dale introduced her to his friend. After shaking his hand, she and Dale took a seat before his desk. While the men reminisced about a case they had worked together, she glanced around the office, taking in photos of a stunning red-haired woman and countless beautiful orchids in bloom. There were also photographs of the woman and Javi on a sleek sailboat, both smiling and appearing totally in love with life and each other. Fran imagined sailing somewhere off the coast of Greece, feeling a cool breeze in her hair, the warm sun on her skin.

  Until she became aware of silence in the room.

  “Fran?” Dale asked.

  “What?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” she murmured.

  “Javi asked for your daughter’s date of birth.”

  “I’d like to access the database already created on her case,” Agent Rivas said.

  She gave the date. The agent typed on his keyboard and read what appeared on the monitor. When finished, he nodded, clicked the mouse and smiled at her. He had a nice smile, unlike most of the federali she had dealt with.

  “I wanted to make sure I was up to speed on your daughter’s situation,” Agent Rivas said. “But Dale has already made me aware of most everything in the file.”

  He reached behind him, grabbed several sheets of paper and handed them to her. They were still warm from printing.

  “See if there’s anything missing, something you want to add.”

  “Thank you,” Fran said, relieved she didn’t have to relay her entire sad story for what surely would be the hundredth time.

  She quickly read the report, pleased to find the history accurate and complete. There was even a notation of Bella’s asthma. So the FBI had actually listened to her. At the bottom were several recent dates and a brief recitation of incidents where agents had made contact with young females matching Bella’s description who turned out not to be her. So efforts were being made. That fact only made her feel worse. She lowered the printout, hoping she could keep this copy.

  “I cannot think of anything else,” Fran said.

  “First let me say how very sorry we are for what has happened to you, ma’am. I can’t imagine the pain of losing a daughter in this fashion.”

  “Thank you. Do you have children?” she asked, suspecting the answer would be no as there were no little ones in the many photographs.

  He smiled. “My wife is expecting our first.”

  “Hey, congratulations, man,” Dale said.

  “Thanks,” Javi said, his smile morphing into a huge grin. “Cat is due in two months.”

  With a pang, Fran perceived that Agent Rivas was overjoyed about the fact he was soon to become a father. Did his lovely wife know how fortunate she was?

  “So what do you think?” Dale asked. “Can you offer us any advice on where to start?”

  “This is a tough one,” the agent admitted, rubbing his chin. “As I’m sure you’ve been told, Ms. Scarpetta, the fact that so much time elapsed before the alert is problematic.”

  “Yes,” Fran said. She blamed the Italian authorities for much of that delay.

  “Dale indicated you believe nothing has been done to find your daughter, but believe me a lot of federal resources have been activated. All of our special agents have photographs of your daughter. She is definitely on our radar.”

  Fran swallowed her response. Was that supposed to make her feel better? The
fact that the FBI could not find Bella only made the fact that she remained missing more bleak, since it took away the hope that once they looked, they would find her.

  Dale placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She shot him a look. His beautiful green eyes—Bella’s eyes—met hers, and she was surprised to read sympathy. He understood his friend’s words provided no comfort.

  “How do you two know each other?” Agent Rivas asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Fran sucked in a breath. The agent had obviously noted Dale’s gesture. How would Dale answer? Would he admit to his friend that he was Bella’s father?

  Dale dropped his arm, his gaze still locked to hers.

  “We met in high school,” he said. “Fran was an exchange student.”

  “Been a while,” Rivas murmured.

  “I looked him up when I learned Bella had flown into Miami,” Fran said.

  Rivas’s sharp eyes swept them both, but then he glanced back to his monitor. “I’ve researched this Joaquin Zarco. This may be hard to hear, but I suspect he was in Rome looking for a certain ‘type’ for a wealthy client with particular desires.”

  “A type?” Fran asked.

  “Her age,” Rivas explained. “The color of her hair, her eyes, maybe even height and weight. Spirit.”

  “What do you mean spirit?” Fran asked.

  Javi sat back. “Unfortunately, young girls are easy to obtain in some parts of the world. There are hundreds of hungry children living on the streets. Desperate parents will even sell their children, mistakenly believing they’ll have a better life. But these girls are usually broken. Zarco’s clients have a predilection to tame their sex slaves, so he hangs out in places where happy young girls congregate.”

  “That is disgusting,” Fran said.

  “Yes,” Rivas agreed. “Your daughter met a client’s requirement that’s hard to find. When Zarco spotted her, he moved in and gained her trust. No doubt he drugged her once he had her under his control.”

  “I plan to interview the flight attendants tomorrow and see if anyone remembers Bella from the flight,” Dale said. “That might tell us something.”

  “Good idea,” Rivas said.

  Fran shot Dale a look. He hadn’t told her about that. What else had he not told her?