Racing Against Time

by Marie Ferrarella

  She noted that the man was safely surrounding himself with words that couldn’t be pinned down yet. “A kidnapper in a Mercedes, now there’s something you don’t hear about every day. Any idea what model?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Can’t ask for more than that,” she murmured. “Let me know the minute you have anything.”

  “Goes without saying.” The man had already gone back to his work.

  Pleased finally to have something, however small, to offer, Callie lengthened her stride, heading to her own floor. Too impatient to wait for the elevator, which always seemed to be somewhere else and took its time reaching her, she used the stairs.

  A sudden need for coffee had her redirecting her steps toward the vending machine. Everything always went better with coffee.

  It wasn’t the vending machine’s finest hour. It served the coffee before the paper cup. Callie knew that a second monetary offering would only bring about the same results. She had no alternative open to her but to face Will Durango’s coffee.

  Divorced, with no children and relatively no life to speak of, the burglary and homicide detective was always the first one in the office every morning, and for some unknown reason he liked his coffee to taste like three-day-old ashes garnered from a smelting oven.

  Still, heated ashes was better than no coffee at all. Resigned, she stopped to pour some of the barely flowing tar into her mug and plunked her coins in the metal can beside the coffee machine.

  All things considered, she mused, it was Durango who should have been paying them for tolerating what he did with coffee. Asking him to lighten up or use a sparing hand never got anyone anywhere.

  Fortified, she turned around. Only lightning reflexes had her pulling back before she bumped into Seth Adams and sent the contents of her mug making contact with his chest.

  The five-foot-nine detective took a step back, recovering. Until last month he’d been her partner, but unlike the scenarios that were so popular in the movies and on TV, they didn’t get along. It didn’t take long for Callie to see that there was something about her being a woman that rubbed him the wrong way. She knew that having her in charge of this investigation was quickly rubbing his skin raw.

  She didn’t like the look in his eyes. The tentative apology over the near collision faded from her lips.

  “See you’ve got a new partner.”

  Callie almost asked what he was talking about, then realized that Brent was probably waiting for her by her desk. There was no doubt in her mind that Adams already knew that she and the judge had spent a good part of the evening in his chambers. Her ex-partner always liked being on top of things. That had been one of the major sore points from early on. Because one of the things he wanted to be on top of was her.

  She looked at him coolly. “The captain said it was okay to keep the judge in the loop. Judge Montgomery’s father and the captain go way back.”

  Steely blue eyes stared at her intently. “Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s what’s impeding this investigation.”

  Since the investigation was less than twenty-four hours old and progressing as fast as it could, all things considered, Callie hadn’t a clue what the snide remark was referring to. But knowing Adams, it couldn’t be good. “What do you mean?”

  “Okay.” His tone was patronizing. She tried hard not to bristle. “Let me paint you another scenario.” The moment he began talking, she realized Adams must have seen her preliminary report, clearing Brent. The detective’s approach to life was simple: everyone was tainted. She was certain that he had skeletons of his own, but for now, no one knew just where they were buried. “Our grieving father back there does some very unfatherly things with his little girl. He comes to his senses, or more likely, thinks he’s been discovered. This could ruin his career, his life, so he takes steps to fix the situation. The nanny might be the only one who can point a finger at him, so he does away with her, takes the kid to make it look like a kidnapping and disposes of her to make sure she keeps her mouth shut. Public sympathy, no scandal. Best of all worlds. End of story.” He gave her a look. “He wouldn’t be the first father to get too close to his offspring.”

  For a split second she felt like punching him, but that would only have made her look like an emotional female and play right into his hands. She thanked God she’d managed to convince the captain to reassign Adams to someone else. As a rule, the captain didn’t like to be told how to run his department.

  With effort she reminded herself that at times Adams had his moments and was more than a decent investigator. But this wasn’t one of those moments. And “decent” had nothing to do with the situation.

  “No, not this man.” She stood her ground. “I’m not buying it.”

  “Why? Because he’s a judge?” He cocked his head, a smirk on his lips. “Or because you know him?”

  She knew he wasn’t talking about acquaintances. To Adams the only way people knew each other was in the carnal sense. “The first part has nothing to do with it. Men in high places fall all the time.”

  “Then it’s because you know him.”

  She wasn’t about to have him relish even a moment of triumph here. The next thing she knew, he would be spreading rumors about her and Brent. As if the man didn’t have enough to contend with.

  “I know my gut,” she contradicted. “And it tells me that this man is on the level. He loves that little girl more than life itself. I can see it in his eyes,” she added when Adams was about to discount her intuition.

  The look in Adams’s eyes bordered on a leer as he regarded her. “What else do you see in his eyes?”

  She was dying to tell the man where to go, but again that would be giving in to a fit of temper. She divorced herself from any emotion as she said, “Pain, a hell of a lot of pain. Now if you’re through spinning alternative theories, Adams, maybe you might give a thought to getting back to doing something that might help us find that little girl.”

  One hand wrapped around his own mug of coffee, Adams raised the other in mock surrender. “Hey, you’re the primary on this one.”

  And it was eating him up, she thought, knowing that taking orders from a woman stuck in Adams’s throat. “Yes, I am. Now why don’t you put in some time fielding phone calls? I’m sure after the judge’s press conference the phones’ll be ringing off the hook.”

  “And what will you and the judge be doing until the press conference?” he asked. Sarcasm fairly dripped from his voice. “I saw His Honor hovering around your desk.”

  “We’re going over the list of people he sentenced who might have it in for him.” To underscore her point, she nodded at the files she was still holding.

  “The captain’s in this morning. That means you’re going to have to find yourself a new cozy place to hole up in.”

  Enough was enough. Even at her best, Callie wasn’t in the mood to put up with Adams, and she was far from her best right now. “Look, Adams, you have something to say, get it out in the open now. Otherwise, get back to work.”

  Again, he held up his hand in surrender and began backing away.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Giving her a smart salute, the detective turned away from her and went back into the squad room.

  Ass, she thought tartly. It was all she could do to keep from shouting the word after him. But instead she took a deep cleansing breath, let it out again and centered herself. It was time to get back to the only thing that mattered.

  Finding Rachel Montgomery.

  Brent knew it was probably ridiculous, but he could feel his heart tighten in his chest the moment he saw Callie walking into the room that had been turned into the gathering point for his daughter’s task force. There was no earthly reason to hope that something had happened between the time he’d talked to her earlier and now, something good that would lead him to his daughter. And hoping certainly wasn’t his style.

  But he hoped nonetheless.

  Hoped that this long-legged, take-charge blonde in the
dark-green jacket and skirt would take away the pain he’d been living with since yesterday morning, or at least ease it. After all, she’d been the one who’d created it in the first place by telling him his daughter had been kidnapped. Hers had been the voice that had set his world completely off-kilter.

  Every nerve ending he possessed went on alert. She had something, he could tell.

  It was there in her eyes, a nugget of hope. It began to stoke the ashes in his chest, coaxing out a flicker of a flame, however weak. He wanted to run to her, but forced himself to stand still. The longer he waited, the longer he could pretend it was going to be all right.

  Callie started talking the second she got within Brent’s hearing range, ignoring the fact that Adams was standing on the sidelines, supposedly looking at the back bulletin board. The large one that accommodated some of their major data and the time line that had yet to be filled in. Right now what dominated the board was the photograph of Rachel that had been distributed to every single set of eyes within a five-mile radius.

  And what dominated Callie’s attention was the expression on Brent’s face. He looked hopeful. She wished she had more to tell him.

  Chapter 7

  “The medical examiner found a partial grill impression on Miss Culhane’s body,” Callie said as she approached him. “The CSI team thinks it belongs to a Mercedes. They’re trying to narrow that down for us.”

  “A Mercedes?” Brent echoed incredulously. “He must have stolen it.”

  “Probably.” Callie stopped at her desk. There were twenty of them on the task force so far, with more promised manpower on the way. Right now the room looked like the center of LAX. People were coming and going, and the din steadily grew. “We’ll look into any reports of a Mercedes being stolen around the time of the kidnapping.”

  He still couldn’t come to terms with the word. He dealt with crime every day, was surrounded by criminals accused of all sorts of heinous acts. Through it all, he’d managed to maintain an inner sanctum, a haven for himself and his daughter. And now that was gone.

  “But what good will that do?” he wanted to know. “That still doesn’t get us to the kidnapper. Anyone could have stolen the Mercedes.”

  She knew how frustrating it had to be for him. Which was why she had always tried to keep herself divorced from what was happening. Emotions only caused a person to make mistakes. But in this case, it was hard not to get involved.

  Callie glanced over and saw that Adams had given up the pretense of looking at a file and was watching them. She turned her back on the man. “We keep gathering facts and trying to piece them together. It’s a little like one of those thousand-piece puzzles. When you start out, there’re only all these pieces that don’t look as if they’ll ever come together. But in the end, you’ve got a whole picture.”

  “The difference there,” Brent pointed out, “is that you start out knowing what the puzzle is supposed to look like. We still have no idea who took Rachel and killed Delia.”

  “But we will,” she assured him with as much conviction as she could infuse into her tone. “The challenge might be greater, but my team’s up to it.” She shifted, holding out the files she’d taken home with her. “I went over these files again last night, and I have a few questions that might help us narrow down the scope somewhat. Are you game?”

  He wanted to leap, to fly, but all that could be done was to take tiny baby steps. From where he stood, it felt impossible to reach journey’s end. Resigned, he nodded. “Lead the way.”

  Callie looked over to the glass-enclosed office at the far end of the room. Captain D’Angelo, a tall, thin man with silver-gray hair and an aptitude for keeping peace among the ranks, was standing there, talking to one of the detectives. She couldn’t use his office again.

  “The captain’s in today. We’re going to have to use one of the interrogation rooms.” There were six on the floor. Windowless rooms meant to make you feel as if you were sealed off from the immediate world. She wasn’t sure how Brent would react to being in one. “You okay with that?”

  “I’m okay with anything that gets us closer to finding Rachel.” Because time was precious, he glanced at his watch.

  Callie began to lead the way out of the task force room. She looked at him over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you downstairs in time for the press conference.”

  He’d only talked to Captain D’Angelo about appealing to the public for help earlier this morning. The captain had promised he would handle everything. “You know about that?”

  She flashed a smile at him that did more than just hearten Brent. But there was no time for him to dwell on anything else. Not now. Not when his daughter needed him.

  “I keep up,” she told him.

  She did more than that. She stayed ahead. Which was what allowed him to continue holding on to the slender thread of hope.

  Forty-five minutes later, Callie’s questions answered, Brent walked out of the interrogation room behind her. He’d found the room somewhat claustrophobic. He could see how, after a while, a suspect might feel as if the very walls were closing in on him.

  Or maybe it was the situation that made him feel that way.

  He watched Callie as she called several members of the task force over and divided the possible suspects among them. Out of all the files, twelve men and three women had emerged as viable contenders. Each was going to have to be tracked down and checked out.

  No stone unturned, he thought. But there were so many stones and so little time.

  He tried not to think about it, about what life would be like without Rachel if they couldn’t find her. He wasn’t going to allow that to become an option, even if he had to move heaven and earth himself in order to finally find her.

  The last of the files distributed, Callie turned back toward him.

  “We’d better get you down for that press conference.” She walked quickly with him to the elevator. The doors opened as if the car had been waiting there all along. “Just for the record,” leaning over, Callie pressed for the first floor, “none of the suspects drives a Mercedes. Eight don’t have access to any sort of moving vehicle at all, unless it might be the prison laundry wagon.”

  “But you’re having them checked out?”

  “Every possibility is being examined,” she assured him.

  The elevator car stopped, but he made no move to get out. Instead he looked at her. “Tell me we’re going to find her.”

  The vulnerability in his eyes took her aback. He was such a powerful-looking man, the contrast was astounding. She was surprised that he allowed her to see it. “We’re going to find her.”

  He nodded. The moment evaporating, he squared his shoulders and walked to the lobby where the news media had converged with their microphones and their cameras, eager to help, eager to be part of this latest tragedy.

  Callie hung back. This was the captain’s area. In general, she thought of the Fourth Estate as being comprised predominantly of vultures who fed on the sorrows and misfortunes of the average man and woman. Their enthusiasm for being the first with breaking news often caused them to lose sight of the fact that there were people with hearts behind each story.

  But if the reporters could help by making the general public aware of the particulars, if having Rachel Montgomery’s photograph plastered across every screen in California could help in finding the little girl, then venturing out amid the vultures was a small enough price to pay.

  She would have done it herself if it hadn’t been for the captain. Luckily, Captain D’Angelo took to the sight of a video camera like a duck to water.

  As she stood on the sidelines, Callie listened to the judge make an impassioned plea to the kidnapper to take out any grievance the man or woman had on him and not on his innocent daughter.

  Brent was a private man, a man accustomed to keeping his own counsel. She knew this had to be hard on him. Harder still was making an appeal to the public for help, to come forward with any information, how
ever small, that they had. He asked them to consider the matter carefully because perhaps they didn’t know that they knew some important detail. He closed by going over the approximate time and the exact location of the accident.

  The moment he ended his appeal, questions came flying at him like bees swarming around the entrance of a hive. Bearing up to it, Brent fielded them all. Until one reporter threw him a question about Jennifer.

  “Do you think your ex-wife might be behind the kidnapping?”

  That door opened, the other reporters didn’t give him a chance to answer. Instead, more questions came, fast and furious.

  “Where is she, Judge? Why isn’t she here?”

  “This is an election year, Judge. All this attention, do you think it can help your reelection?”

  Callie had begun to move forward as soon as Jennifer’s name had been mentioned. She saw Brent’s eyes grow progressively colder with each question. The press conference was turning in directions they hadn’t foreseen. From a genuine life-and-death situation to something that had the makings of a tabloid melodrama.

  The captain stepped in to divert the media’s attention. Callie saw her moment and came up to Brent. Taking hold of his arm, she drew him quickly away from the podium.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she urged. “You’ve done all the good you can.”

  Without waiting for his reply, still holding on to his arm, she forged a path back to the elevators. Several reporters broke off from the crowd and followed in their wake.

  The elevator car was standing open. Getting in, Callie quickly pressed for the doors to close. Once they did, she sighed with relief and pressed the button to get them back to her floor.

  “Thanks.” His deep voice boomed behind her.

  Callie smiled in his direction. “Thought you might need a breather before we wound up having to peel your fingers off the throat of that obnoxious reporter.” She referred to the one who’d asked about the upcoming reelection.

  “The thought crossed my mind,” he admitted. The doors opened on Callie’s floor and they got out. “When are they releasing Delia’s body?”