Racing Against Time

“It’s about his housekeeper. And his daughter,” she added, unwilling to reveal anything further. If she’d wanted a third party to take care of this, she would have phoned the courthouse and brutally left a message.

Just as she uttered the word daughter, Brent raised his penetrating blue eyes away from the face of the youthful offender before him and looked toward the back of the room.

Right at her.

Chapter 2

He knew her.

Brent looked at the woman in the light-gray suit who’d just walked into his courtroom. Recognition set in instantly. In the space of one extraordinary moment, the entire scenario returned to him in total. From beginning to end.

He’d been at a charity fund-raiser, one of those boring things he was obligated to attend. He hadn’t been appointed a judge yet, but there were whispers, rumors. And he knew he couldn’t displease the gods in charge even though he would much rather have been home, dressed in his oldest clothes, standing over his daughter’s crib, watching her breathe.

It seemed like little enough to ask, to stand in awe and watch a miracle breathe.

Besides, he and Jennifer were riding the cusp of another one of their eternal disagreements and he hadn’t felt like putting on his public face, the one that appeared unperturbed by anything. He hated glad-handing, hated being anything but genuine.

But there was the pending judgeship to consider, and Jennifer would have given him no peace if he’d declined the invitation to the event. So he’d accepted and made the best of it. Making small talk with even smaller people.

His wife was off somewhere in the huge ballroom, politicking. Rubbing elbows and who-knew-what-else with men she thought might further her life and his career. Or maybe just her life.

He remembered feeling completely cut off from everyone and everything, and longing just to go home.

And then he’d seen her.

Surrounded by men who bore vague resemblances to her, leaving him to guess, to hope, that they might be family rather than ardent admirers. As if that could possibly matter to him in his position. He was hopelessly married.

That had been the word for it. Hopelessly. Because there seemed to be little hope that his marriage could transform into what he’d first thought it might become. Happy. Fulfilling. Tranquilizing.

A surge of all three feelings, plus a host of a great many more shot through him the first time he looked in her direction. In the direction of the most exquisite creature he’d ever seen.

Her hair wasn’t pulled back the way it was now, in a thick braid the color of wheat the instant it first ripened. It had been loose about her bare shoulders then, sweeping along them with every movement she made. Creating havoc in his gut as he found himself wanting to do the same with his fingers.

She was wearing something light and gauzy and blue. It seemed to be held against her body by magic. Certainly not gravity, which should have been on his side and sent the garment pooling down to her strappy, high-heeled sandals.

He remembered there was music. The first he’d become aware of that night, even though the band had been playing all evening and would continue to do so for the remainder of the event.

He wasn’t quite sure how he came to find himself standing in front of her, or where he unearthed the courage to introduce himself to her. He didn’t normally do things like that. He was given to hanging back and observing. It was both his failing and his strength. Standing on the perimeter of life where he felt he could do the most good. Impartially.

Maybe he’d come forward because he recognized the man standing to the woman’s left. Andrew Cavanaugh, the retired police chief of Aurora. Her father, he was to learn later. The others were her brothers and cousins.

Whatever the reason that had prompted him to shed his cloak of silence, he was suddenly standing before her. Introducing himself and asking her if she would like to dance. Something else he didn’t do willingly, even though he’d been instructed in the fine art of dancing only recently. Jennifer had insisted on it. So he wouldn’t embarrass her, she’d said.

He had no desire to embarrass Jennifer. Had no thoughts of his wife whatsoever. For the space of a score of heartbeats, she was completely excised from his brain, if not his life.

He vividly remembered the way Callie Cavanaugh’s smile had gone straight to his head as she’d raised her eyes to his and accepted the hand he held out. Remembered how low her voice was, like fine, hundred-year-old brandy being reverently poured into a crystal glass. Low and sexy.

Remembered, too, the electricity, the tension, the indescribable feeling of lightness that came over him as he held her in his arms and danced.

One small dance, a simple exchange of words, and a connection was made that felt as if it had been forged out of steel in the beginning of time.

Before.

He’d looked down into her eyes and gotten lost.

But he had a child and a position and a wife—who intruded into the moment the instant the music faded away. Like an avenging hawk, jealous that her cast-off had attracted someone else’s attention, Jennifer had swooped down from wherever it was that she had been roosting to reclaim what was hers.

And he was obliged to let her.

Even though his eyes followed Callie as she moved from the floor.

He had no idea what they called it. A connection, chemistry, kismet. Some term invented by inert poets who had nothing better to do than to bury people in rhetoric. He couldn’t put a label to it himself. All he knew was that he’d felt something nameless. Something wonderful. Something he’d never felt before. Or since. Something that whispered into his ear “If only” long after the dance, the fund-raiser itself, was over.

If only…

But the timing then had been all wrong.

As it was now.

Brent roused himself, realizing that he’d paused and that his secretary and his aide were both unabashedly staring at him.

“Court is in session.” He shot an accusing look at the bailiff in the rear of the room. The latter raised his hands helplessly.

Callie circumvented the man, her attention on Brent. God, but he had only gotten better looking since she’d seen him. The next moment, she upbraided herself. How could she even think something like that? She was here to give him awful news, not appraise his appearance.

“Excuse me, Your Honor.” She took another step toward him, only to find herself in a dance now with the bailiff who tried to get in front of her. “I need a word with you.”

Brent hated disruptions. “Can’t it wait, Officer Cavanaugh?”

“Detective Cavanaugh,” Callie automatically corrected, wishing what she had to say could be put off. “And no, I’m afraid it really can’t.”

Brent looked to his left, to his aide, Edwin Cambridge, who in turn looked pained as he stared down at the calendar he had drawn himself to accommodate the judge’s cases. Precision was Edwin’s passion. He felt it a matter of honor to have things running smoothly in the court.

The man sighed, then gave a small, almost imperceptible nod of his head.

“There’ll be a slight recess,” Brent announced to the two opposing lawyers, who looked at him with exasperation. The plaintiff was seated to the far left of the center. The man, barely in his twenties, looked greatly relieved at the interruption, like someone who had been granted a stay from the governor just before the switch was thrown.

Brent beckoned Callie forward. He wondered if she’d ever married that detective he’d heard she was engaged to and what had brought her into his courtroom today. Had there been a bomb threat? Should they be evacuating? After the events that had rocked the country very recently, nothing seemed impossible anymore.

“Make this quick, Detective Cavanaugh,” he demanded, suppressing the urge to ask her how she’d been since that evening. “I have a very full schedule today.”

“You have a full schedule every day,” Edwin informed him.

Brent chose to ignore the man. It seemed simpler that way than to engage in a dialogue with him. Edwin liked getting in the last word.

“You might want to reschedule your cases,” Callie suggested tactfully as she followed Brent to his chambers.

Brent closed the door behind her, locking Edwin out, much to the latter’s displeasure, then turned around. The judge crossed his arms, looking for all the world like an angel of darkness to her.

“All right, Detective, I’m waiting. And this had better be good,” he warned her, although a part of him didn’t believe that she would just waltz into his courtroom without a damn good reason.

Callie took a breath. “Actually, it’s not. It’s bad.” Her eyes met his. There was no easy way to do this, no way to prepare someone for the words she was about to say. There wasn’t even a way to prepare herself to say them. They felt like molten lead in her mouth, and even while she wanted nothing more than to expel them, she knew the damage they would do the second they were out. “Very bad.”

Something seized his gut, tightening it so that for a moment he stopped breathing. A prayer materialized out of nowhere as he hoped that, for whatever reason, the woman he’d once held in his arms and danced with was overstating the matter.

“I didn’t realize that you have a flare for the dramatic.”

If only. If only this wasn’t more than she thought it was and the little girl was somewhere, safe but frightened, hiding. Ready to be found.

Callie pressed her lips together, wishing it was so. But the truth was all she’d ever known and she couldn’t sugarcoat this. “I don’t.”

The two words hung in the air between them, foreboding. Frightening.

He tried not to let his imagination run away with him. It couldn’t be helped.

Was this about his wife?

His ex-wife, Brent amended. The first in his family to don black robes and become a judge, he was also the first in his family to get a divorce. Not all firsts were commendable, he’d thought bitterly at the time. Just unavoidable. Had this woman come to tell him that something had happened to Jennifer?

Inner instincts had him bracing himself. “Well then, what is it, Detective? I really—”

Do it. It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid. The faster, the better.

Her father had counseled her with that. She was not entirely sure if that was the best approach to use. All she knew was that she didn’t want to prolong this any more than was absolutely necessary.

Sympathy flooded through her as she said, “Your housekeeper was killed this morning.”

Brent stared at her as if she’d just spoken in tongues. He’d just seen his housekeeper, what, two, two and a half hours ago. How could she possibly be dead?

“Delia? Killed?” he echoed in blatant disbelief. “How?”

Beneath the composure she could see that he was genuinely upset. Was it just shock? Or was there something more going on between the judge and the crumpled woman who had been reduced to a chalk outline by the cruel whimsy of fate?

“Hit-and-run.”

The words were only marginally sinking in. And then fear sprang up, huge and hoary, seizing him by the throat.

Rachel.

“What time?”

Callie blinked, thinking she’d misheard the question. “Excuse me?”

“What time?” he demanded again, his voice rising, booming about the small chambers. “What time was she killed?”

Callie thought back to the coroner’s estimation. “Approximately eight o’clock.”

Approximately. Delia always liked to be early. Had the housekeeper gotten his daughter to school before eight and been on her way home when the car had struck her?

Or—

His mind couldn’t, wouldn’t go there. Not if it didn’t have to.

As if he were poised on a spring, Brent suddenly turned from the woman in his room and began dialing the phone on his desk. Halfway through, he realized he’d transposed two of the numbers. Swallowing a curse, telling himself that everything, at least for Rachel, was all right, he began dialing again.

“Judge, who are you—”

Callie didn’t get a chance to finish her question, to ask the judge who he was calling. The expression on his face as he looked up at her stopped her dead, sucking out her very breath.

There was controlled terror in his eyes.

“She was taking my daughter to school. I want to find out if Rachel is in her classroom.”

Very gently Callie placed her hand over his to stop him. The man needed more information before he called anyone. He deserved it.

Callie hated this, absolutely hated this. But he had to be told. “We found your daughter’s backpack at the scene.”

Brent could feel the blood draining out of his face as he looked at the woman who was discharging the nail gun straight at his heart.

“Where is she?” Everything inside of him was shaking, and it was all he could do not to allow it to take complete control.

Was he going to go into shock? She looked toward the chair behind him. Maybe she could get him to sit down. “Your Honor—”

He felt like shaking her, grabbing her waist and squeezing out of her the words he needed to hear. Why was she putting him through this? Why this torture in slow motion?

“Where is she?” he demanded again, his voice bouncing along the walls of the small, austere chambers like captive thunder.

Callie hated this feeling of helplessness. She knew everything took time, that good police work was far removed from magic or the quick solutions that the public was spoon-fed via TV dramas. But that didn’t keep her from wishing she had answers for this heart-broken father standing before her.

She curbed the urge to place a comforting hand on his shoulder, knowing it wouldn’t be appreciated. Knowing he’d push it away.

“We don’t know,” she told him honestly. “We think she might have run off when she saw your housekeeper struck by the vehicle.”

Brent shut his eyes, searching for strength, for resolve. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t do that.”

But even as he said the words, his brain demanded: How do you know? How do you know what a traumatized five-year-old would do? He knew he was operating on hope and nothing more.

Get hold of yourself, man. She’s fine. She probably ran off to school. It’s Delia who you should be concerned about.

Brent thought of the bright young woman who’d formed such a bond with his daughter. Delia had come to him with excellent references and a real hunger to make a difference in someone’s life. Rachel had been that someone.

Still, denial was part of survival and it was strong. He looked at Callie, a kernel of hope popping up. Maybe there was some mistake. “Are you sure it was my housekeeper?”

She knew what he was asking, what he was hoping. Her heart went out to him. He hadn’t had an easy time of it, and she admired the fact that he was a single father. Like her father had been for the past fifteen years.

Grimly, Callie took out the plastic-encased wallet that the CSI agent had inserted into a bag at her request and given to her. Delia Culhane’s wallet had been placed inside, opened to the woman’s driver’s license. Callie held it up for the judge’s benefit.

“Oh, God.” He took it into his hands, staring at the woman’s face through the plastic. The license hardly did her justice. It didn’t capture the sparkling eyes, the laughter that his daughter was so quick to respond to. “Did she suffer?”

Callie continued to watch every nuance that passed over the judge’s face. She felt like a voyeur and hated it, but this was her job. To read people and look for telltale signs that gave them away. She didn’t have to like it.

“Coroner said she died instantly.”

At least that was something. Brent nodded, handing the bagged wallet back to her, his eyes on the telephone on his desk. He was dialing again the moment Callie took the wallet from him.

Callie tucked the wallet back into the wide pockets of her jacket. She indicated the telephone. “Are you calling your daughter’s school?”

He nodded, then raised his eyes to hers. Maybe she was right. Maybe Rachel had run off, hurrying to the school to notify someone about what had happened. She was a bright little girl, a feisty girl, far older than her young years. Rachel would know that Delia would need help. He pressed the last button on the keypad.

“It’s all I can think of.”

It was a logical next move. “Where does she—”

He heard the question begin, but his attention suddenly shifted to the voice that was coming from the other end of the receiver. A high, sweet voice that was asking him how she might direct his call.

“Principal Walsh, please.” He struggled to sound calm. “Yes, this is an emergency.”

Brent shut his eyes as a click and then silence greeted him. The operator had placed him on hold. Placed his very life on hold.

He felt a hand touch his black-draped arm.

He was still wearing his judge’s robe, he realized. Somehow that struck him as ironic, given the fact that at this moment he felt as if there was no justice in the world. Not if hardworking women could be struck down and left like so much litter on the road. Not when young children, babies really, could vanish on their way to school in a city where they were supposed to be safe.

The detective was looking at him, compassion in her blue-gray eyes.

“If you give me the name of the school, I can have someone there probably before you get taken off hold,” Callie told him helpfully.

He was about to tell her the school’s name when he heard a click and then a woman’s deep voice echoing in his ear. It was the school’s principal. The one time he’d met her, he remembered thinking she looked like a feminine version of a U.S. Marines drill sergeant. He also remembered thinking that Rachel would be safe in a place run by a woman like that.

“Yes, this is Judge Brenton Montgomery. My daughter attends the morning kindergarten sessions at your school. Could you have someone check to see if she arrived this morning? Rachel Montgomery,” he said in reply to the question. “No, I don’t remember her teacher’s name.” He almost lost his patience, then fought to regain it. “No, wait, it’s Preston, Presley, something like that. Yes, Peterson, that’s right. Mrs. Peterson. Could you please check if Rachel arrived? Because there’s been an accident, that’s why.”

What a hollow phrase that was, he thought in disgust. There’s been an accident. Delia Culhane’s life was cut short and it could be explained away by a single sentence that consisted of four words. It just didn’t seem right or fair.

He blew out a breath, the last of his patience tethered by a thin thread. “Yes, I’ll hold.”

Brent turned from the wall and looked at Callie. He felt as if he was tottering on the very brink of hell, waiting to plunge down into the fires below as he stood there listening to the sound of silence pulsing against his ear. Waiting until the principal’s messenger returned and she in turn told him what he wanted to hear. That Rachel was miraculously there.

Or was that pulsing sound his own heart, marking time, waiting, hoping?

Praying.

But Bristol and Oak was such a huge intersection and Rachel was such a little girl. Would she have run across it, terrorized by the sight of her beloved nanny being hit by a car?

Or was she still somewhere in the area, hiding? Crying. Waiting for him to come and rescue her. He wanted to be down there, looking for her. His inertia was strangling him.

Placing a hand over the receiver’s mouthpiece, he turned toward Callie.

“Was it a drunk driver?” What other explanation could there be for hitting someone? No matter that it was early, maybe someone was still celebrating something from the night before. And death had stolen in at the end of the celebration.

Her own negative answers wearied her. “We don’t know. We don’t have any real details yet.”

“What did the witnesses say?”

“We haven’t found any witnesses. Yet,” she emphasized.

Of course they hadn’t, he realized. If there were witnesses, someone would have been able to tell them where his daughter was. Which direction she’d gone in. He wasn’t thinking straight.

Callie saw Brent suddenly stiffen, his eyes intent as a voice came on the line. She didn’t hear the words, only the muffled sound of someone talking.

She didn’t need to hear the words. She read his expression.

The receiver slipped from Brent’s fingers to the cradle beneath. Dread washed over him as he looked at Callie.

“Rachel didn’t come to class today.”

Chapter 3

Callie’s heart immediately went out to him.

It wasn’t the first time she’d seen that look of complete devastation; the look that said the person’s insides had just been seized and twisted into a knot. Fifteen years ago she’d seen it on her own father’s face.

For the sake of his children, Andrew Cavanaugh had kept up a good front the night his wife’s car had been found nearly submerged in the river. So good a front that Callie had thought perhaps her parents’ arguments had taken their toll and he’d ceased to care for her mother.

But then Callie had come up behind him late that second night, when the hopelessness of the situation had hit him and he’d thought he was alone. And heard him quietly crying.

It was a sound she would never forget. It marked the first time that her very secure world had been breached. The first time the door to that world had been thrown open, leaving them all vulnerable, and she realized that no one was ever completely safe.

Nothing had brought it home to her more acutely than when Kyle had been killed right in front of her eyes. Her fiancé hadn’t even known that she had reached him a heartbeat later, that she’d held him to her on the sidewalk in front of the bank and sobbed his name over and over again. He was already dead by then. As dead as the man she had shot an instant before she’d reached Kyle. Shot and killed the bank robber who had first turned his weapon on her—the man who had killed Kyle.

Callie struggled to get her emotions under control now, struggled to keep a steady voice. Emotions only impeded progress on the cases she worked. She more than anyone else knew that.

She glanced toward the back of the framed photograph on Brent’s desk. “I’m going to need a recent photograph of your daughter, Judge. The sooner we have police officers looking for her, the sooner we’ll find her.”

He nodded numbly, feeling like a man who was underwater and drowning. His brain seemed to be processing everything in slow motion. But he knew the credo. “Every minute counts.”

“Yes, it does.” She took out her pad, ready to jot down any shred of information that could be used. “How much does she weigh?”

At first his mind was blank, then he remembered. Delia had told him the information after Rachel’s last pediatric checkup. “Forty-eight, no, forty-nine pounds.”

“Height?”

“Three foot three.” He looked at her. “She’s small for her age.”

She offered him a smile she knew wasn’t going to help, but she felt bound to try, anyway. “Do you remember what she was wearing this morning?”

He opened his mouth to tell her, but this time when no words came out, there was no belated memory to struggle to the foreground. “Something blue. I think.” Damn it, why hadn’t he looked at Rachel? “I didn’t notice,” he confessed.

Didn’t notice because he was late. Because today was his day to preside over his court a half hour earlier because his docket was so overcrowded. So he hadn’t looked at his daughter because he had to listen to some jaded lawyer plead the case of an equally jaded two-bit drug dealer. And because of these two people who mattered less than nothing to him, he hadn’t sat down to breakfast with his daughter, hadn’t noticed what she was wearing.

Hadn’t kissed her goodbye.

The knot inside of him twisted a little more. He looked toward Callie as he upbraided himself. “I didn’t kiss her goodbye.”