Hero For Hire

A kidnapping for money meant, at the very least, that the kidnapper was in some way familiar with his chosen target, with the family’s lifestyle, as well as their comings and goings. That it might be someone that Veronica was at least slightly acquainted with might make this case easier.

Or more difficult, he thought, depending on the circumstances.

It was his experience that familiar surroundings helped clients. “There’re still a great many questions I have to ask you,” he said. “Would you be more comfortable at home?”

“I’m not going to be comfortable anywhere, Mr. Andreini, until I get Casey safely back.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

The way he said it, she had the impression that he actually did. But how could he? How could he know what it felt like, having a son just snatched away? There one moment, gone the next without a trace. She bit her lower lip to keep from accusing him of being patronizing. He was trying to be nice. But she didn’t want nice, she wanted results. Now. Before she lost her mind.

“But I still do have more questions to ask you, Ms. Lancaster,” he was saying. “You might feel better answering them at home. And seeing Casey’s room might give me a better sense of your son.”

She didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to walk in and know that Casey wasn’t going to be there somewhere, bedeviling Angela, her housekeeper, with his antics, winning a free and clear pardon with nothing more than his infectious laugh and a smile that lit up a room.

But he was right, this tall, solemn-eyed blond detective. She should be home. And if there was something there that helped him find Casey even a minute sooner, then it was worth the agony she knew she was going to go through.

With a nod of her head, Veronica began steeling herself for the ordeal.

The emptiness assaulted her the second she closed the door behind her. She’d never thought she’d go through anything worse than having Robert die. She was wrong. Though every part of her tried feverishly to hang on to the hope that Casey would be home soon, fear was attempting to beat her down into a deep, slick-walled pit of despair.

Turning when she didn’t follow him, Chad saw the look in her eyes. Knew the dangerous state her mind was in. Instinct had him taking her hand, as if the physical act could pull her out.

“We’ll get him back,” Chad said again, this time with more feeling than he generally employed. “You have to believe that. We are going to get him back, and whoever took him is going to pay.”

“I’m not interested in revenge.”

“Then you’re a rare woman, indeed, Ms. Lancaster. But the kidnapper is playing a dangerous game and he has to be made to pay for it.” He squeezed her hand, surprising himself with the intimate action. He usually stood on the perimeter, gathering information and doing what he was paid to do. “It’ll be all right,” he promised. “Now, why don’t you show me Casey’s room?”

With a single nod of her head, she led the way up the stairs. Without thinking, Veronica left her hand in his. It helped.

The door to Casey’s room was open. Facing west, it received the afternoon sun, which was even now spilling out into the hall. It gave the room a warmth Chad instinctively knew was part and parcel of the boy.

He took a step inside and looked around slowly. It wasn’t a huge room, but there was a great deal to take in.

Veronica hung back in the doorway, warning herself not to cry again. She’d done all the self-indulging she intended to do. Her eyes came to rest on the drawings on his bulletin board.

“He’s just a normal little boy.”

A smile in reaction to her words played on Chad’s lips despite the gravity of the situation. There was a regular computer, not a child’s version of one, on one side of the room. Stacked around it in neat piles were boxes of educational software. A fifteen-inch television set was directly across from it. The set was hooked up to, not one, but two different gaming units, one on each side. In between were hip-level bookcases with either books, games or action figures occupying every available space.

For all its paraphernalia, he had to admit that the room was the neatest child’s room he’d ever seen.

“Not hardly,” he commented under his breath. “It looks like a toy store exploded in here.”

It was a valid observation. Veronica lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I suppose I’ve spoiled him a little since his father died, but Casey doesn’t take anything for granted,” she said proudly. “I was more self-centered as a child than Casey is. There was as much joy in his eyes when he got a new action figure as when I gave him that game set.” She indicated the one closest to Chad.

He’d taken note of that one first. It was all the rage these days, according to Rusty. His younger brother had the heart of a boy and kept him abreast of what was in and what wasn’t. The gaming unit was definitely the hot item of the moment.

“I never have anything to complain about with Casey. I couldn’t have asked for a better son than if I’d ordered him directly from heaven.” Veronica found herself before the bulletin board, staring at the drawing he’d done just the other day. It was of the two of them. She had gangly legs and wayward curls, courtesy of a yellow crayon. She was holding what passed for flowers in her elongated hands. Like the flowers Casey had picked for her out of the garden, much to the gardener’s dismay. Veronica’s eyes filled with tears again. Blinking them back, she turned away before she trusted herself to look up at Chad again. “In a way, I guess I did.”

Was the boy adopted? That brought in a complete set of new possibilities if he was. A natural mother, suffering the pangs of delayed regret, could have taken Veronica’s son. The ransom aspect might be a ruse. “Come again?”

It wasn’t something she talked about, but if this man was going to find Casey, maybe he needed to know all the details. At least he needed to know how precious the boy was to her.

Taking out the thumbtack, she held the drawing to her chest. “It took me a long time to get pregnant with Casey. Five years.” Looking back, it seemed a great deal longer than that. “There were endless tests, exploratory surgery…” Her voice trailed off. Everything she’d been subjected to faded the instant she’d held her baby in her arms for the first time.

A fresh volley of panic shot through her. Veronica gripped Chad’s arm. “I can’t lose him now. I’ll give you anything you want—”

He cut her short. She had to understand that for him, for all of them at the agency, it wasn’t about money. “Standard rates, Ms. Lancaster. I put in the same amount of effort—one hundred and ten percent—into finding a lost child whether there’s a family crest or not.”

She would have traded in every last cent if it meant that Casey would never have had to go through this. It was because of who he was, who she was, that he’d been kidnapped. Children from poor families didn’t get kidnapped for ransoms.

Veronica shook her head. “No family crest.” A hint of a bittersweet smile whispered faintly across her lips. “My grandfather would probably roll over in his grave if he could hear me saying this, but that ancestor who came over on the Mayflower was an indentured servant just one voyage ahead of a hangman’s noose. He and his wife both were.”

Chad nodded as he took in the information. At least she wasn’t a snob. “The common touch.”

“Very common.”

It remained to be seen, Chad mused, if their kidnapper fell into that category.

He took his time looking through Casey’s things, trying to get a sense of the boy. He talked to Veronica as he worked. For all intents and purposes, Casey seemed like a child with above-average intelligence, a happy-go-lucky kid with eclectic taste. The action figures, arranged in a scene of combat, looked as well used as the second game set did.

What caught Chad’s attention was a framed photograph on the far end of the bookcase of Veronica on her knees, holding her son to her. He examined it, trying to envision the scene that had been taking place when the photograph was taken. They were both laughing. Veronica looked radiant.

Someone had taken her child and extinguished that light.

Veronica came up behind him. Despite the raft of photographs she had from professional sittings, the one Chad was holding was her favorite of the two of them.

“That was taken the first day of kindergarten.” She could vividly remember every detail. Casey had been torn between wanting to run off to the new adventure and wanting to remain behind with her. She’d encouraged the former and loved him dearly for the latter. “This past September,” she added for clarity.

There was a building in the background. Chad peered more closely at the photograph, trying to make out the name. It seemed vaguely familiar, and he assumed that he had passed it on one occasion or another. “What school does Casey attend?”

“Los Naranjos.”

The name clicked. Chad looked at her. “That’s a public school.”

“Yes, I know. That’s part of keeping Casey grounded and not letting him get a swelled head about who he is.”

Had that been a mistake? she wondered suddenly. Was it someone she’d encountered at the school who had planned this awful thing? Would Casey have been safer if she had sent him to a private school, where the screening process was exacting and the security was tight?

“Do you know anyone who might want to take him? Have you seen someone hanging around lately? Have you received any threatening phone calls in the last month or so? Any strange calls at all, people hanging up, that sort of thing?” Chad asked.

To each question Veronica shook her head, feeling more and more agitated. She looked at the tape recorder Chad had placed on Casey’s computer desk. The soft whirring noise was almost undetectable, especially compared to the racing of her heart. But she hated it. She’d assumed since he hadn’t instructed her to talk into it or near it that it could pick up sounds from all over the room. Like an invasive intruder. Like the intruder who had come into her world.

In an effort to gather her nerves, she took a deep breath, then let it out. “As far as I can tell, I don’t have any enemies, Mr. Andreini. There’s nobody who would want to do this to me.” She felt a flash of temper. “Don’t you think if there had been I would have reported it to the police or gotten a bodyguard?”

Hindsight, he thought. Veronica Lancaster was upbraiding herself for not having it.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be an enemy,” he said. He studied her face for a sign as he asked, “No disgruntled boyfriend trying to get even?”

“No. I don’t have time for boyfriends, Mr. Andreini.”

Chad resumed going through Casey’s things. “Chad,” he corrected without looking at her.

He hated being called Mr. Andreini. It made him think of his father. There’d been a time when he had toyed with the idea of changing his last name, severing all ties with the man who had upended his life so brutally. But in the end, because Megan and Rusty had made no effort to change their surname, Chad had dropped the idea. The name tied him more to them than to his father.

“How about your husband’s parents?” Turning, he looked at her again. “Are they still alive?”

There’d been a card at Christmas. And a generous check in lieu of a gift, which would have required time and effort on their parts. But she bore the couple no malice. It was their loss. She’d deposited the check into the account she’d started for Casey with the money from Robert’s life insurance.

“They live in Europe, Mr.—” she corrected herself “—Chad, and are frankly far more interested in their three poodles than in their only grandchild.”

She was trying hard not to show it, but he’d caught a hint of bitterness in her voice. Undoubtedly on Casey’s behalf. “Your husband was an only child?”

“He has a brother—” She stopped abruptly. She wasn’t some soft-brained person to be led from question to question without understanding the direction. “Where are you going with this?” she wanted to know. Surely he couldn’t be thinking of accusing Neil. Casey’s uncle wasn’t exactly an eager beaver when it came to doing anything meaningful with his life, but he adored the boy. “Neil dotes on him. Some monster did this.” She began to sound more like herself to her own ear. Confident. In control. “I don’t know any monsters, Chad. Can’t you get that through your head?”

She was loyal, protective. All good qualities. But at times they tended to make a person blind. He’d learned not to instantly rule out anything on faith. He had to be convinced. Still, he wasn’t about to waste time arguing, either, other than to say, “Well, some monster apparently knows you, Veronica.”

Veronica opened her mouth to respond but never got the chance.

Chad was about to suggest that she take him to the site of the party—Anne Sullivan’s house. He wanted to find out what agencies the woman had employed to supply the food and the entertainment, as well as the names of any regular household help she had. From where he stood, he was looking at all the earmarks of an inside job. This had not been a random kidnapping, but one that had been planned. Someone knew something, and it was up to him to follow whatever trails there were until he came to a scrap of information he could use. It was a little like being a rat following different paths in a maze. One of the paths had to lead to something substantial.

But before he could make the suggestion, a high-pitched, urgent ring came from the purse she was still holding.

Veronica stared down at her purse dumbly for a moment, as if the sound rendered her incapable of thought. And then the words “The kidnapper!” burst from her lips. She had forgotten to cancel call-forwarding when they’d walked into the house.

“Answer it,” Chad instructed quietly.

The urging snapped her back to the world of the functioning. Wrapping her thoughts around a fragment of a prayer, she quickly took out the cell phone, snapping back the lid as she did so. Chad motioned for her to tilt it slightly so that he could hear.

Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe.

“Hello?”

A high-pitched whine preceded the first word. “Took your sweet time answering. I was beginning to think maybe you’d changed your mind about the boy and didn’t care if you got him back.”

She wanted to scream at the person on the other end, to demand the reason he was doing this to her. To Casey. It was everything she could do to keep her voice level. The only thing she could ever remember her father saying to her was never negotiate from a position of fear. The other side could always smell fear.

So she did her best to sound annoyed at the suggestion. “Yes, I want him back. I want him back very much.”

The laugh, metallic, discordant, went right through her. “I’m counting on it.”

Her eyes met Chad’s. She could feel her breathing begin to regulate. Having him here helped her cope. “What is it you want?”

“What do you think?” The sneer transcended the metallic sound.

Her father’s edict began to fade. “I’ll give you anything you want, just don’t hurt him.”

“Hey,” the voice said carelessly. “If he gets hurt, it won’t be my fault.”

A fresh wave of fear assaulted her. Holding the phone in both hands, she angled it closer to her. “What do you mean?”

Very gently Chad moved the cell phone so that they could both hear it again.

The voice on the other end said, “You’re a smart lady. You figure it out.”

“Please, no games, just tell me how much you want and where to bring it.” She disregarded the expression on Chad’s face as he shook his head.

The voice laughed again. “Oh, but I like games, Ronnie. I really do—”

The line suddenly went dead.

“Hello? Hello?” she cried frantically, her voice going up. There was no response. “Damn it, answer me!” Veronica shouted into the telephone.

Chad took the cell phone from her, placing it to his own ear. The line remained dead.

The eyes that met his were bordering on frantic. “I charged it—it can’t be dead.”

“It’s not the phone’s fault.” Chad flipped it closed again and then handed it back to her. “In all probability, he’s just playing with you.”

“Playing with me?” she echoed in stunned disbelief. “Why? Why would he do something like that?” This was about money, wasn’t it? She’d already established to her own satisfaction that it wasn’t anyone out for revenge at some slight.

“To accomplish just what he’s done,” Chad said. “To keep you off balance so you don’t start thinking and piecing things together. Things he doesn’t want you to piece together.”

“Like what?” she demanded.

“That’s what we’re going to have to find out.” He took out his own cell phone and began punching in numbers.

She was so frustrated she could scream. Panicking when she saw him take out his phone, Veronica placed her hand on the keypad. “What are you doing? You’re not calling the police, are you?”

In his estimation, having the police around, except perhaps for a chosen few individuals, was not advisable at the moment. He’d seen too much on the force he’d left behind to be blindly trusting.

“No, I’m playing a hunch.” He drew the phone away from her. “It’s what you’re paying me for,” he reminded her gently. The phone on the other end rang three times. Sam Walters, he knew, was away on a case. But his wife wasn’t. A soft voice filled his ear. “Savannah? Chad. I need a little information.” He thought he heard the sound of laughter in the background. That would be Savannah’s girls, he thought. Two very live wires who rarely slept. He didn’t know how the woman did it. “Can I get you to look up something for me on your computer?”

“If I can,” Savannah replied. “What is it you need?”

He saw Veronica looking at him, undoubtedly trying to second-guess his request. “See if there’ve been any power outages or downed phone lines anywhere between here and L.A. County and Riverside.”

Savannah’s soft laugh filled his ear. “Don’t ask for much, do you?”

“Never more than you can deliver. Call me on my cell when you find out.”

“Will do. New case?”

Savannah had come into Sam’s life when he had set out to find her missing daughter. She knew firsthand what a mother in this situation felt like. He could have used her earlier in his office when Veronica had broken down.

“Yes.”

“Tell your clients they couldn’t be in better hands. Good luck, Chad.”

He smiled. “Thanks.” Breaking the connection, he flipped the cover shut on his phone.

Veronica watched him put away his phone. She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she spoke again and found that her lungs ached. “Now what?”

“Now I continue asking you questions.”

She wanted to be doing something. Hitting something. “But the kidnapper…”

He’d seen all he needed to in the boy’s room. Gently he escorted her out into the hallway. “He’ll call again. And we’ll be waiting for him.”

The operative word, she knew, was waiting. She didn’t know if she was going to be able to much longer.

Chapter 3

“Who calls you Ronnie?”

Veronica stopped at the head of the stairs and turned to look at Chad uncomprehendingly. “What?”

“The voice on the other end of the line called you Ronnie.” He didn’t see her as a Ronnie. Ronnies were dark-haired women who excelled in competitive sports and laughed out loud when something tickled their funny bone. The woman before him looked far too sophisticated to manage more than a small smile. “Who calls you Ronnie?” he repeated.

Her response was immediate. “Nobody.” And then she stopped, backtracking. Remembering. “Robert did. And sometimes I do—in my mind when I’m frustrated,” she added. “But nobody else does.” That wasn’t altogether true. “Except for Stephanie,” she amended. “That’s my younger sister. She was the first one to call me that when she couldn’t wrap her tongue around ‘Veronica.’” That seemed so long ago now, she thought. She found herself wishing her sister was here, instead of on the other side of the country.

She hadn’t mentioned a sister before. Getting information in dribs and drabs was not something he was unaccustomed to. “And where is your younger sister?”

Veronica could feel herself growing defensive. “In New York. She’s a curator at the Museum of Natural History. And not a candidate for suspicion.” He was wasting time looking in directions that led to dead ends.

He could almost read the thoughts crossing her mind. “I’m just trying to get a clear picture, that’s all, Veronica.”

She was vaguely aware that he’d stopped addressing her formally. “The picture is crystal clear. Someone, not my sister, not my brother-in-law, but someone,” she emphasized, “came to Andy Sullivan’s birthday party and walked off with my son.”

According to her, there had been a great many people at the party. Still, children that age did tend to shy away from people they didn’t know. “Would he go off with a stranger that easily?”

Feeling suddenly weak, Veronica leaned against the wall. She ran a hand over her pounding forehead, but the throbbing continued. The headache was nearly blinding. She should have been stricter with Casey, should have made him more wary of people.

She could feel the sting of gathering tears again and willed them back.

“I wish I could say no, but other than a phobia of clowns, Casey is the world’s friendliest kid. I’ve tried to tell him over and over again not to talk to strangers, but…” Helpless, she tried to ward off the feeling with a shrug.

That one simple gesture transformed her from a regal queen into someone who embodied vulnerability and frailty. Chad felt something distant stir within him, prompting responses that were nearly foreign to him. It made him want to comfort her.

The best comfort she could possibly have would be the recovery of her son. He pushed on. “And there’s no one else who calls you Ronnie?”

Fighting her headache, she straightened again. “No, why? Is it important?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “Might have narrowed the playing field a little. ‘Veronica’ is rather a formal name while ‘Ronnie’ is on a different, more intimate level.”

She gave a laugh, short and without humor. “Which is a polite way of saying that ‘Veronica’ sounds like a snob.”

Memories from her past, cruel ones with taunting children who took painful shyness for aloofness and used insults and gibes to make themselves feel better, surfaced. She pushed them aside. This wasn’t the time for that, or for feeling sorry for herself.

She rarely felt sorry for herself. Hadn’t felt the inclination since Robert had died. Now the emotion waited for a moment of weakness to suck her in.

“My word would have been ‘regal,’” Chad told her easily. “‘Ronnie’ sounds familiar. As if whoever’s on the line knows you.”

The idea was completely foreign to her, completely unacceptable. When she finally spoke, her voice was hollow. “I don’t know anyone who would do something like this. It’s not hard to get money from me, Mr.—Chad. I’m a soft touch.”

Soft wouldn’t be the first word he’d think of, looking at her. But it had definitely suggested itself in the first few minutes.

He studied her for a moment. “Are you?”

“Yes.” She thought of Robert. The few times they’d had words, it was over her largesse, her tendency to be taken in by every sad story, not so much because she believed it word for word, but because she hated seeing people worried over money matters. Money was there to ease suffering, not be the cause of it. Robert disagreed. “So much so that my husband took over the finances when we were married. He said that otherwise, I would single-handedly get rid of money in a decade that took three generations of Lancasters to accumulate.” She dismissed her generosity of spirit with a single disparaging sentence. “I’m a sucker for any sob story.”

He sincerely doubted if the dictionary definition of the word was applicable to her. “Funny, I wouldn’t have pegged you as a sucker.”