Racing Against Time

by Marie Ferrarella

  For a moment Saunders’s eyes brightened, but then, just as quickly, the light went out again.

  “You’re lying, you bastard. You don’t know where she is. I tried to find her and I couldn’t.” All his computer expertise had failed him. Motioning them back, he stepped forward and picked up Callie’s gun. “Nobody knows where she is.” He shoved Callie’s gun into his belt. “But that’s all right, because I have a new Alice. I can start over again with her.” The look on his face turned maniacal as he taunted Brent. “Your little girl thinks I’m her new daddy, do you know that? I told her that you didn’t want her anymore.”

  Rachel knew better than that, Brent told himself. But she was only five. Had this monster brainwashed her? Made her believe that her father had abandoned her? Rage filled him.

  “Where is she?” he demanded.

  Brent took a step toward the stairs. Nervous, shifting from foot to foot, Saunders pointed the gun he was holding at him.

  “Get back, you bastard, she’s mine now. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

  Callie felt her nerves fraying. How long did it take for Adams to make his way forward with the SWAT team? This maniac was liable to shoot Brent at any moment. She tried to divert his attention back to her.

  Her voice was low, soft, kind. “You’re not well, Mr. Saunders. There are people who can help you.” She took half a step forward, only to have him swing the barrel of his weapon on her.

  The laugh was half-crazed and sent her flesh crawling. “Haven’t you heard? God helps those who help themselves. And I’m helping myself.”

  The look in his eyes made Brent’s blood run cold. He heard the weapon being cocked. It was aimed straight at Callie.

  “Duck!” Brent cried.

  Dropping down, Brent grabbed the edges of the throw rug and pulled it as hard as he could, yanking it out from beneath Saunders’s feet.

  Still clutching the gun, Saunders fell backward, just as Brent had calculated that he would. The shot went wild. Callie’s gun fell from beneath his belt. Brent seized his one opportunity. He leaped on top of the man, struggling for possession of the weapon still in Saunders’s hand.

  Callie scrambled for her own weapon, which had flown halfway across the floor the moment Saunders had gone down. It was lodged under a seated coat-rack. Reaching beneath it as far as she could, her fingers came in contact with the muzzle. She felt as if her arm was coming out of its socket as she struggled for that extra inch that finally allowed her to secure the weapon.

  With the gun in her hand, Callie was instantly on her feet. Spinning around, it took her a second to orient herself. Brent and Saunders were still tangled together.

  Both hands on the weapon, she trained it on the kidnapper.

  “Stop,” she ordered. “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  The words were futile and she knew it before they were out of her mouth. Saunders, even in his present state of mind, must know that he had everything to lose if he surrendered. If he wanted to get revenge by kidnapping Rachel, and that was snatched away from him, then all he had left was killing the man who in his mind had caused his whole world to crumble for him.

  Her heart was pounding as fear ate away at her. Any second now, the gun between the two men could discharge, killing Brent. They kept moving. Getting a clear shot at Saunders was next to impossible. But she had to get the man to stop before it was too late.

  She did her best to try to aim the weapon at Saunders. “Surrender your weapon now, Saunders. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

  The next movement took her by complete surprise. As if the sound of her voice had suddenly set him off, Saunders twisted around, let loose with a wild, guttural scream that sounded as if it was half animal, half human and lunged for her.

  Callie hit the back of her head on the floor as she went down.

  Everything went spinning and she struggled for consciousness. Her gun was crushed between them, her hand bent backward at an excruciating angle. Pain shot through her arm.

  And then Saunders’s hands were wrapped around her throat. Screaming obscenities at her, he tightened his grasp, squeezing, cutting off her air. There was a wild throbbing in her brain as she tried to claw his fingers away.

  She was getting light-headed. Somewhere far away, there was a strange popping noise and then a huge weight fell on top of her, crushing her. The next moment the weight was being dragged off her, and then she felt herself being lifted.

  Desperate for air, Callie gulped it in, filling her lungs, trying to focus.

  With effort, she could make out Brent’s face. He was holding her against him. His eyes looked worried. “Are you all right?”

  The room came back into focus. Saunders lay in a heap on the floor, with blood everywhere. On the floor, on her. On Brent because he’d held her to him.

  Her heart racing, Callie managed to nod. It took her a second before she could talk. “You?”

  Relief filled him as he brushed the hair away from her face. She looked shaken, but otherwise unharmed. “I’m all right.”

  Just then the door behind them flew open, and the room was filled with helmeted policeman. Adams and Diaz were at the head of the group.

  “That would be the cavalry,” she breathed. Still holding on to Brent’s hand, she pressed her free hand to her forehead, trying to pull herself together. That had been close, very close.

  She looked at the SWAT team and quipped, “I’m afraid you’re all dressed up with nowhere to go.” She nodded toward the prone body. “He won’t be giving you any trouble.”

  The other detective immediately crossed to the man on the floor to examine him for any signs of life. Callie heard questions coming at her from all directions, melding together and swallowed up by more noise. She held her hand up. “Hold it, let me get my bearings here.”

  Brent looked at her. There was a gash on her forehead. “I’m calling for the paramedics.”

  “They don’t do bearings,” she murmured. And then she stopped.

  Brent searched her face. “What’s the matter?”

  Callie said nothing. She pointed behind him. To the top of the stairs. Where a small, frightened figure was staring down at the activity below, clutching at the banister with both hands.

  “Daddy?”

  Brent’s heart leaped up into his throat, as Rachel looked down at him. Her expression was timid, as if she was afraid that this was just another dream. That she’d wake up and find that she was still not home.

  “Daddy?” she cried again, louder this time.

  He took the stairs two at a time, reaching his daughter in less time than it took her to repeat his name. Scooping her up into his arms, he held her close, a sob threatening to tear loose from his throat.

  “It’s me, baby, it’s me. It’s Daddy,” he assured her. He never wanted to let her go again.

  Rachel was crying, holding on to him for dear life as he came back down the stairs with her. “The man said you didn’t want me anymore. That you weren’t my daddy anymore.”

  Coming to the landing, Brent kissed his daughter’s hair, her cheeks, her forehead. Tears threatened to undo him. Somehow he managed to hold them back, but they shimmered in his eyes as he looked at Callie, unable to speak the gratitude that vibrated in his heart.

  “I will always want you, Rachel. And I will always, always be your daddy.”

  Callie stepped back, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. Giving Brent a moment alone with his daughter.

  “You okay, Callie?” Adams asked.

  She rubbed her throat. It was going to be raw for a few days, she suspected. And the gash on her forehead was going to need attention. But all things considered, she was wonderful.

  “Better than okay,” she told him. “This one has a happy ending.” She looked over toward the man who’d inexplicably turned the sum of his wrath on her. Maybe in some way she reminded him of his wife, she thought. It didn’t matter now. “Is he—”

  Adams nodded. “He won’t be k
idnapping any more little girls. Saunders is dead.”

  She nodded, numb and relieved at the same time. “Like I said, a happy ending.”

  “What happened?”

  “He lunged at me. Tried to choke me.”

  Adams looked at her, puzzled. “Then how did you—”

  “Shoot him?” she guessed at his question. “I didn’t. The judge did.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.” She looked back at Brent cradling his daughter. “I guess you never know what you have inside you until your back’s against the wall.”

  “Amen to that,” Adams agreed.

  Chapter 15

  “But I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Rachel cried. Her eyes were wide as she pulled on her father’s hand, trying to get him to come away. They were outside the cabin. Behind them, the rear doors of the ambulance were opened and the paramedics stood waiting to take her to the nearest hospital. There was real terror in Rachel’s eyes as she looked up at him, pleading, “I want to go home.”

  Brent looked torn between doing what he knew was necessary and not wanting to cause his little girl any more anxiety. Callie could see that he was about to give in to the child, at least for the time being. She glanced at the paramedics before she crouched down to the little girl’s level.

  “I don’t like hospitals, either,” she confided to Rachel, her voice low. She indicated the gash over her left eye. “But they tell me I have to have this cut taken care of.”

  She smiled encouragingly, slowly taking hold of Rachel’s free hand. For a moment they seemed to form a unit, she and Brent and his daughter. But she couldn’t allow her thoughts to go there. Especially not now. Not when they were wrapping everything up.

  “Tell you what,” Callie continued, her voice guileless, “if you hold my hand while the doctor takes care of me, I’ll hold yours while he takes care of you. Do we have a deal?”

  Rachel pressed her lips together, considering. She glanced at her father then back at Callie.

  “Please?” Callie coaxed hopefully. “It’ll be a big favor to me.”

  A shy smile curved her mouth. The small head bobbed up and down. “Okay. I’ll hold your hand.”

  “Great, I feel better already.”

  Very slowly she drew Rachel over to the ambulance. Then, holding her by the waist, she placed the little girl inside before getting in herself. Only then did she allow herself to look at Brent. There was an expression on his face she couldn’t read. She tried to keep her voice cheery.

  “C’mon, ‘Dad,’” she urged. “You get to ride back here, too.”

  “As if you could stop me,” Brent commented, getting in.

  As one of the paramedics shut the double doors on them, Callie looked at Rachel. She wanted to keep the girl distracted until they reached the hospital.

  “You know, I bet if you ask the driver nicely, he might let you press the siren as we go.” Turning, she looked at the paramedic. “What do you say, driver? Can she press the siren?”

  The burly man grinned at Brent’s daughter. “Sure, come on up here.”

  Rachel scrambled up to the front seat and was safely strapped in before the driver started up the ambulance. The other paramedic rode in the back with them. He eyed Callie’s wound like a chef waiting for a pot to rebel and boil over.

  Brent tried to relax and found that it was next to impossible. He’d packed in twenty years’ worth of living in the last few days and it had definitely taken a toll on him. There was just so long a man could live on a constant surge of adrenaline. He struggled for equilibrium, telling himself that from now on, things were going to be settling down.

  Better than that, they were going to be good.

  He looked at Callie. “You didn’t tell me you were good with kids.”

  Now that it was over, she could feel the numbness leaving her body. It was starting to ache. All over. She’d taken one hell of a spill when Saunders had lunged at her.

  Leaning against the side wall, she slanted a glance in Brent’s direction. “As I recall, the subject never came up. I love kids, why?”

  It was an area he felt compelled to proceed through slowly, as if in a minefield. But it was a minefield he was determined to cross.

  “I didn’t think kids went with your line of work.”

  Callie laughed softly. It hurt her ribs. “Wrong. Kids most definitely go with my line of work. Kids are what my work is all about. Keeping the world safe so that they can grow up unafraid and happy.” They heard Rachel laugh gleefully as the siren went off. “She’s a wonderful little girl.”

  Pure pleasure shone in his eyes as he looked toward the front. “I always thought so.”

  “Would you have more?” The question had just popped up on her lips and she knew she shouldn’t ask. It might give him the idea that she was fishing for something. Nothing could be further from the truth. She knew when to put away her equipment and withdraw.

  “In a heartbeat—” He looked at her, remembering what he had felt when she’d taken Rachel’s hand. There was no doubt in his mind that Callie would make a wonderful mother. “If the opportunity arose.”

  Was he putting her on notice? Or warning her that she wasn’t the opportunity? Her head began to ache, joining the symphony of pain playing over the rest of her body.

  Don’t go there, she upbraided herself. They’d saved Rachel and that was more than enough for one day.

  “Oh,” was all she ventured. With a satisfied smile, Callie leaned further back in her chair, counting the minutes until they reached the hospital. Her temple stung and she had one killer of a headache.

  The warmth she was feeling at a job well done more than helped balance it out.

  The emergency room physician signed off on her, but only when she promised to go straight home. The alternative was to remain in the hospital overnight for observation, something she wasn’t about to do. Callie said the words with her fingers mentally crossed. She stayed in the hospital only long enough to keep her promise to Rachel and hold her hand during the little girl’s own examination.

  The pediatrician who was called down to attend to her pronounced Rachel to be remarkably well, considering the ordeal she’d gone through. He said something about the resilience of children as he made notes on the chart, discharging her into her father’s care.

  By that time Rachel was dancing from foot to foot, a pony anxiously waiting for the starting gate to be opened. “Now we can go home?” she asked hopefully, turning her small, shining face up to her father.

  “Now we can go home,” he echoed. Unable to resist indulging himself, Brent picked his daughter up and carried her down the hall.

  Rachel wiggled a little. “I can walk, Daddy.” But her protest didn’t carry a whole lot of conviction with it. She was happy to be back in her father’s arms.

  “Humor me,” he told her.

  Puzzled, she looked at Callie, who was walking beside her father, for an explanation.

  Callie laughed. The little girl was a sponge. Very much the way her own father had claimed she was at that age. “That means make him happy and let him do this.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Rachel said brightly. She threaded her fingers through each other around her father’s neck. She looked into his face, her voice small. “I missed you, Daddy.”

  Emotion welled up in his throat, choking him. “And I missed you.”

  Her voice grew smaller as she confided to him, “I knew you’d come for me. He said you wouldn’t, but I knew you would.”

  Her faith in him overwhelmed Brent. He was so relieved that he hadn’t failed his daughter. And it was all because of Callie.

  “And I always will,” he promised.

  Time to go, Callie thought as she followed Brent and his daughter through the electronic doors. Activity hummed all around them. She saw only Brent.

  Gently she laid her hand on his shoulder, drawing his attention. “Detective Diaz will get you home.”

  The cold air stung his face as h
e turned to look at Callie. “What about you?”

  She couldn’t resist moving Rachel’s long hair over her shoulder. The kid was going to be fine.

  You did a good job, Cavanaugh, she congratulated herself.

  If something was stirring within her chest, feeling strange, feeling sad, she wasn’t going to pay attention to it. “What about me?”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “The case is over, Judge.” She lightly rubbed her hand against Rachel’s cheek. “And I’ve got a mountain of paperwork to file.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  She shook her head. Don’t make this any harder than it is, Brent.

  “Afraid not. If I leave it, it’ll only find a way to multiply.” She smiled at the little girl. “It was wonderful to finally meet you in person, Rachel. Take good care of your daddy.” She had no idea why her heart ached as she added, “He loves you very, very much.”

  “I know,” Rachel responded brightly, tightening her arms around his neck.

  Go, go! she urged herself. Callie turned on her heel and began to walk away.

  “The E.R. doctor said to go home,” Brent called after her.

  Callie glanced over her shoulder. “The E.R. doctor doesn’t have my captain breathing down his neck.”

  She didn’t trust herself to say anything else, or to linger even for one more moment like an unwanted guest after the party was over. Her business with Brent was concluded. Without the need to be together, she would only remind him of the terror he’d lived through, waiting to find out if his daughter was alive or dead.

  It was best for both of them if she made this clean break for them. She hurried over to Adams, who was waiting by his vehicle. If he was surprised to see her coming his way, he didn’t let on.

  “Get me back to the office.”

  “You sure?”

  She kept her face forward, not wanting to risk looking back. “I’m sure.”