A Hero in Her Eyes

by Marie Ferrarella

  He was going to close the door, she saw it in his eyes. Eliza placed her hand on his arm in a silent entreaty. “The dream keeps recurring,” she told him. “I went to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Web site and looked for someone who resembled the girl in my dream.”

  A very convincing cover story, but that was all it was: a story. A one-story-fits-all with no truth to it. He made no effort to hide his contempt. “Is that how you drum up business?”

  She could almost feel the wall of hostility he’d erected around himself. “No, we have no need to drum up business. Sadly, there’s more than enough to go around. We get calls to search for missing children from all over the country.”

  “Then why are you bothering me?” he demanded, suddenly drained. Too drained to even pretend to be polite. “Go answer them and leave me alone.”

  She tried to stop him, but even as she did, she felt it was futile. He’d already made up his mind. “Please, Mr. Banacek, I know I can help. I just need you to let me see her room, touch some of her things.”

  He wasn’t about to parade Bonnie’s things in front of a stranger, no matter how altruistic she pretended to be. “No. Now go back and pull your innocent act on someone else. I’ve been through it all and I’m not buying.”

  One swift movement was all it took. The door was closed.

  Eliza looked down at the card still in her hand. She knew that even if she rang the bell again, Walker Banacek wouldn’t answer. Wouldn’t listen to what she had to tell him. Wouldn’t be swayed. He’d isolated himself so far away from hope that right now, there was no way to reach him. She needed something tangible to show him, to make him change his mind.

  After debating for a moment, she took her business card and inserted it between the double doors just above the doorknob. Walking away, she glanced back at the card. She had no way of knowing whether he’d take it when he opened the door tomorrow morning.

  Not for the first time, she wished her insight would allow her some way to access it at will.

  But she was as much in the dark about what caused the visions, the sudden rifts in her own present, as most people. All she knew was that it worked when it worked.

  Glancing again over her shoulder as she walked back to her car, she thought of the man holed up inside the big house.

  Despite his pain, Walker Banacek wasn’t the important one here, she reminded herself. It was his daughter. Eliza couldn’t lose sight of that.

  Things would probably be a great deal easier for her if the girl’s father gave her his help, but one way or another, she intended to try to find the lost girl. She knew she wouldn’t get any sleep unless she did at least that much.

  He hardly slept.

  As he got out of bed the next day, Walker blamed his endless night on the woman who had come to his door, offering to do magic for him. Offering to find a child whom he had forced himself to accept was forever out of his life. Several times in the wee hours of his night, he damned the petite woman for disrupting the life he struggled to keep orderly.

  If he were honest with himself, he thought as he got dressed, his life was in a continuous state of disruption and had been for the past two years.

  Nothing was ever going to be the same again. The ache that had suddenly surged through him threatened to undo him completely. He banked it down.

  She had brought it to a head, he thought angrily, this Eliza Eldridge and her claims of clairvoyance. It didn’t take a clairvoyant to see that she was just out to make some money for herself and this so-called organization she belonged to.

  Well, she wouldn’t be making it off him, or his grief. He wouldn’t allow it.

  Too agitated to eat, Walker deliberately walked past his refrigerator without stopping. Crossing to the front door, he decided to pick up a coffee on the way to the office.

  Maybe coffee would wake him up.

  A small, pearl-colored rectangle floated to the step by his foot as he opened the door. He stooped to pick it up, then cursed softly.

  She’d left her card.

  What part of “no” didn’t she understand?

  About to throw the card away, Walker stopped and looked again. Changing his mind, he pocketed it. He’d call his lawyer this morning when he got a chance and tell Jason to look into getting a restraining order against this Eliza Eldridge and ChildFinders, Inc. Undoubtedly, she didn’t give up easily.

  There was something in her eyes…

  He didn’t have time to think about a nicely packaged huckster. Didn’t have time to think about anything that had to do with Bonnie and the life he’d had before everything had turned pitch black for him.

  Forcing himself to think of nothing but the work piled up on his desk in the office, Walker hurried to his car.

  “She’s on the level, Walker.”

  Walker frowned, wondering if the connection had somehow gotten scrambled. Hand on the phone receiver, he sat up in the rigid office chair. “What? Aren’t you too old to believe in witches and women who cast spells?”

  There was a deep chuckle on the other end of the line. “God, I hope I’m never too old to believe in women who cast spells.” Jason’s comment was directed at Walker as his lifelong friend rather than as the client who kept him and his law office on year-round retainer. “But I looked into her just as you asked me to yesterday, and Eliza Eldridge isn’t any of the things you accused her of being. As far as the police are concerned, she’s the real McCoy. She’s helped solve several prominent kidnapping cases here, in Texas and in Georgia.”

  Walker found that impossible to believe. “By doing what, looking into her crystal ball?”

  Of the two of them, Walker had been the more practical one, even as far back as grammar school. His only dreams had revolved around the creation of the company he now headed.

  “Hey, even Shakespeare said there were more things in heaven and earth than we could ever possibly understand.”

  “Yeah, like people who prey on other people’s grief.”

  “Hey, you’ll get no argument from me, Walker. I’ve come across plenty of those in my time. All I’m saying is that it looks as if Eliza Eldridge and the agency she works for are one of the good guys. From everything I’ve read, ChildFinders, Inc. has a one-hundred-percent track record for recovering the children they’re hired to find,” Jason said.

  “And you don’t find that somehow suspect?”

  “There’s a place for everything in this world, Walker. Even miracles. If she came looking for you with some kind of message, I say go for it. What have you got to lose?”

  “What have I got to lose? How about the bits and pieces of me that I’ve managed to pull together over the past two years? Damn it, Jason…”

  Jason felt for Walker, he really did. He’d been there for him, as much as Walker would allow anyone to be there for him, and had seen what the kidnapping had done to him. And to Walker’s wife, Rachel. One tragedy had begat another. “Yeah, I know.”

  “No, you don’t,” Walker said with finality. “You don’t know. You couldn’t possibly know until it’s happened to you what it feels like to lose your little girl. To finally have to admit to yourself that there’s no hope, that she’s never going to come back, never going to throw those little arms around you and hug you as if you’re the most important person in the world. Never feel those tiny little lips on your cheek when you’ve won her heart because you bought her a stupid pair of pink toe shoes—”

  Abruptly, Walker stopped, knowing he’d said too much, had gotten too angry at a friend whose only sin was in wanting to help.

  When he spoke again, his voice quavered. “I just don’t know if I can go through it all again, Jase. I don’t know if I could live with myself.”

  “Could you live with yourself if you turned your back on this, knowing there might be some chance, however slim, that you could find Bonnie? And that you passed it up?”

  Walker made no answer.

  He didn’t have to.

  There
were no two ways about it. Savannah Walters was an absolute gem. Eliza wondered what the firm had done without her before Sam had found her daughter, married her and subsequently talked her into leaving her job and coming to work for ChildFinders. The woman was an absolute whiz at the computer. More to the point, she knew her way around what was, to Eliza, the mysterious world of the Internet. Savannah could uncover information in seconds where it would have taken her weeks, Eliza marveled as she went over the stacks of files, clippings and random bits of information Savannah had assembled for her.

  Specifically, she’d asked Savannah to see if she could dig up any information regarding the Banacek kidnapping. Savannah had unearthed old news articles dealing with the kidnapping and any bodies that had subsequently turned up fitting Bonnie’s general physical description over a nine-state area. She’d also asked for the names and known whereabouts of any registered child molesters.

  It was a humbling mound of information, but Eliza intended to do it all justice. Maybe reading the files would trigger something for her, she thought. She felt she owed it to Bonnie, no matter what the girl’s father thought of her.

  “Hey, there’s the brand-new Daddy now.” Eliza heard Megan Andreini Wichita crow almost right outside her door. It sounded as if Megan was hugging Cade. “How does it feel?”

  Cade had taken the day before off to be with his wife, after having spent the previous evening coaching her through labor and delivery.

  “I’ll let you know when and if I get some sleep. Right now, I’m so tired I feel like I’m walking around in someone else’s dream.” He stopped to pop his head into Eliza’s office. “You were right. Mike had the baby at 3:32. A beautiful baby girl.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out the instamatic photo he’d taken and passed it around for the women to see. “Her face’s a little flattened right now, but—”

  “Her face,” Eliza said, taking the photograph from him to get a better look, “is absolutely perfect. And so is she.” She handed the photograph over to Savannah. “You must be very, very proud.”

  Normally a man of few words, he wasn’t given to bragging. “Just relieved it’s over.”

  “Hey, it’s not over, Papa,” Savannah, the mother of two children herself, told him affectionately. “You should know that. It’s not over for eighteen years. And even then, I hear it doesn’t stop.”

  Megan handed the photograph back to the man she had originally met when she’d come as an FBI agent to question him about his missing son. “Boy, you people really know how to sell motherhood.”

  “Nothing better in this world,” Savannah swore solemnly.

  Megan chewed on her lower lip, seeming uncustomarily uncertain. “That’s good.” She took a deep breath as the others looked at her questioningly. “Because I think I’m on my way.”

  “My God, really?” Savannah asked.

  Megan had only been back to the office for a couple of days. She and her husband, Garrett, had finally managed to coordinate their schedules to take a long overdue honeymoon.

  “Wow, you certainly know how to end off a honeymoon right,” Cade commented.

  Eliza threw her arms around Megan, then stepped back. Megan looked at her with an unspoken question in her eyes. Eliza nodded with a smile. “Yes, you are.”

  Megan squealed and hugged her hard.

  Chapter 3

  The sleek, gray Jaguar slipped into a spot that availed itself of the shade from one of the older benjamina trees that framed the perimeter of the parking lot closest to the office building.

  His palm resting on the hand brake, Walker paused to gather his thoughts as he looked out at the building through the tinted window.

  He wasn’t certain exactly what he’d been expecting. He supposed that in his mind, he’d thought any place that numbered a clairvoyant among its active employees would look like something out of a second-rate, melodramatic movie, maybe even one of those simpleminded screamers that dealt with the supernatural. The entrance to the building would come with a fog machine billowing out dry ice to create the proper surreal atmosphere.

  That ChildFinders, Inc. had an address that put it squarely in the heart of one of Bedford’s most upscale business plazas was almost as encouraging as the verbal voucher Jason had given him over the phone regarding the agency’s sterling reputation.

  A place that dedicated itself to finding missing children—and continually succeeding at it, if he was to believe the publicity—couldn’t be all bad, he told himself.

  Braced for anything, Walker got out of his car and entered the building.

  ChildFinders’s offices took up the entire top floor of the five-story building. The rent on that had to be a pretty penny, Walker mused, getting into the elevator whose outer wall was made of Plexiglas. It allowed him a view of the parking lot he’d just left as he got in.

  If the rent was high, that meant that altruistic publicity notwithstanding, ChildFinders had to charge astronomical rates to stay ahead of the game, he decided, pressing for the fifth floor.

  Not that money was a problem for him. It hadn’t been for almost ten years now. It was everything else that had become a problem, Walker thought darkly, watching the cars below become progressively smaller as he drew closer to the fifth floor.

  When the elevator came to a smooth halt, Walker found himself stepping out into a tastefully decorated reception area. Looking around, he half expected the walls to be decorated with prominent citizens and celebrities the agency had helped, a visual testimonial to its incredible success rate.

  Again, he was wrong.

  Instead of photographs of grateful parents, there was a gallery of children’s photographs. Children, he assumed, that the different operatives had recovered and reunited with their families. Beyond that were several large, colorful pastels scattered about in understated frames. The two blended in to create an atmosphere that was at once soothing and brightly encouraging.

  It was a place meant to put a person at their ease, not impress them.

  Good business sense, he noted absently. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing.

  He looked around for someone to talk to.

  The young woman behind the reception desk at the entrance to the offices hardly looked old enough to be out of high school without a written excuse note from her mother. He vaguely wondered if she was one of the agency’s success stories.

  Approaching the desk, Walker cleared his throat. He was nervous, he realized. Was he was making some sort of ridiculous mistake in coming here?

  Maybe yes, but Jason was right. If he didn’t come here, if he didn’t follow up this absurd—for lack of a better word—lead, he would always wonder if he’d turned his back on the only and last chance he would ever have of finding Bonnie. As far-fetched as this seemed, he couldn’t ignore it.

  Walker stopped short of the desk. Somewhere during the ride here from his corporate offices at the other end of Bedford, he realized, he had given himself permission to think of his daughter as being among the living again.

  The thought startled him.

  He feared that he would live to regret this. But his heart wanted so badly to believe that it was really true—that Bonnie was alive somewhere and that he would find her if only he tried hard enough.

  As if he hadn’t tried hard before, doing everything in his power, hiring everyone he could…

  And it had all come to nothing.

  The girl at the reception desk flashed a thousand-watt smile. “May I help you?”

  “Is Ms.—” His mind suddenly blank, Walker had to pause and look at the card he’d shoved into his jacket pocket just before he’d gotten out of the Jaguar. Funny, he was usually so good with names. Why did hers keep eluding him? Probably had to do with the fact that he was so skeptical. “Is Ms. Eldridge in?”

  She answered his question with a question. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, I don’t. I—”

  Fear leaped in from nowhere. Fear of going on the same gut
-wrenching roller-coaster ride he’d been on before to the same spirit-destroying destination. Fear of subjecting himself to all the same emotions, to the same heartache.

  He just couldn’t do it to himself again. Coming here was a mistake.

  “Never mind, I’ll come back when I have an appointment.” Turning abruptly on his heel, Walker started for the elevator.

  “You could make one now.”

  Her words reached him just as he was about to press for the elevator.

  It was the same low, melodious voice he’d heard coming from the other side of his front door two days ago. The clairvoyant. He hadn’t seen her come out.

  Somewhat embarrassed, like a child caught with his hand wedged into the forbidden cookie jar, Walker turned around to discover that Eliza was standing directly behind him.

  He hadn’t realized she was so delicate looking. She seemed smaller somehow, more petite. Here, on her home territory, she appeared almost elfin. Or maybe it was just his imagination.

  Weren’t elves the ones who were supposed to grant you wishes when you found them in their own lair? Or was he getting that confused with leprechauns? He wasn’t sure. Most of all, he wasn’t sure anymore just what he was doing here.

  She’d felt his presence. Sitting in her office, poring over information that ultimately might or might not have to do with Bonnie’s disappearance, she’d suddenly become aware that something had changed. Walker was entering the building.

  It would probably spook him if she told him that, she thought with a smile. It had taken her a long time to learn exactly what she could share with someone and what she needed to keep to herself, if she didn’t want them to think of her in the same belittling way her father had.

  She’d ventured out of her office, curious to see if she was right, if she actually had sensed his presence, or if concentrating so hard on recovering Bonnie had made her think Walker had come. She’d certainly been hoping that he would. It would make things a great deal less difficult for her to do her job if she had access to Bonnie’s things.