Secrets of the Rose

Aimee’s photo on the window ledge stared at her, the image so real she reached out to touch it before reality impinged.

Why had she thought she’d find an answer here?

Whoever had taken Aimee had gone to incredible lengths to leave no trace.

Her field staff were skilled at concealing themselves in any situation. She and Grant had trained them to be resourceful and as far as she could tell no one had stepped over the company line by even a feather. In fact, during the past ten months they’d honed their skills, adapted, changed, while she’d remained at home. Now she needed to be sharper than they. It was possible that Shelby had lost the edge that had once made her the best tracker in the world.

But she intended to get it back.

THREE

“I must see her now.”

The strident voice from the hallway drew Shelby’s attention from the information she’d found. She glanced at the door, blinked several times to refocus her eyes, bleary now from studying her computer screen. But when the noise outside didn’t abate, she got up, walked over and pulled the heavy door open. So much for soundproofing.

“Joanie?” She looked for her secretary, saw her face-to-face with Russ Carson.

“I’m sorry, Shel. Apparently he doesn’t understand English very well.”

She knew Russ had taken Joanie’s words as an implied slam against his foreign birth because two spots of angry red colored Russ’s sharply chiseled cheekbones. If ever there were prototypical face and body features for a spy, Shelby had long ago decided that Russ had them. He didn’t possess the suave debonair style of a spy from a movie, but with his gaunt body and sharply honed features, he certainly looked like someone who’d come in from the cold and never warmed up. Of course, Russ dressed specifically to enhance the tough-guy effect with lean-fitting jeans, a black turtleneck and always a black leather jacket.

“Have we got a problem here, Russ?” Shelby modulated her voice to its mildest tone. With the company since its inception, Russ would no doubt recognize she barely controlled her temper, but right now Shelby didn’t care. She needed to make progress if Aimee was to be found and thanks to his interruption, she was getting nowhere fast.

Russ assessed her from between narrowed eyes. Finally he shook his head, his shoulders dropped their arrogant slant. But he didn’t back down.

“There is no problem here. But I must speak to you, Shelby. It is very important.” As usual when Russ was excited, his accent became more pronounced in spite of his attempts to cover it. Each word he spoke was precisely enunciated, but doing so slowed his sentences to a stilting structure that only emphasized his language difference.

“I’m busy right now, Russ. I’m sure Joanie told you that.” She turned, moved toward her office. “We can reminisce later.”

“Reminisce?” He shook his head. “I do not speak of the past. The present is what concerns me. You cannot find the little Aimee without help, Shelby. I am that help.”

Something in the timbre of his voice stopped her. She turned, scrutinized him.

“You? What do you know about Aimee’s disappearance?” she demanded, mentally running through his history with the company.

Russ Carson—Grant’s partner in past covert operations that neither had ever openly discussed—knew exactly how to get in and out of a building without being detected and his means did not employ disguise. Perhaps Natalie was right to suspect Finders’ staff. Russ certainly had the training and know-how to carry out an abduction. But it made no sense for him to take Aimee. He loved her, she’d seen that for herself a thousand times over.

Shelby told herself to get a grip. Suspecting every person who crossed her path wouldn’t help. Answers, not speculations, she reminded herself.

“What do you know about my daughter, Russ?”

“Probably less than you, right now.” He shrugged. “But I do know the police are not as efficient as we are in these matters.”

“By we, I’m assuming you mean Finders?”

“But of course.” He stepped closer, dropped his voice. “I have been doing this work for years. I know my record, and so do you. I get results.” The proud arrogance was back. “I’ve found a hundred items, located people no one else could find through sources no one else can use.” His voice dropped, his accent grew more pronounced. “I can find the little one, Shelby. Give me the chance. For Grant’s sake.”

She’d just spent four grueling hours sifting through a plethora of documents, and nothing, not one single clue had emerged. She was no closer to finding her daughter than the police were. There was no way to tell how much longer she had before the kidnappers did something drastic.

If they hadn’t already.

Shelby made up her mind in that instant. “Come in here, Russ.”

He followed her into her office, his kid leather boots making no sound on the hard tiled floor. Russ was like a panther, he could move faster, quieter, than anyone she’d ever met. His passport might say American, but thanks to his foreign birth and his father’s diplomatic status, he also had more connections than any other agent they employed. Maybe, just maybe…

“I’m quite sure the police wouldn’t appreciate the aspersions you just cast on them, Russ.” She smiled. “But you’ve got a point, and right now I don’t care about what the police think. I want my daughter back. This is where we are so far.” She laid out the sequence of events for him in crisp, concise points, knowing that even though he took no notes, his brain would absorb every detail. When it came to information, Russ’s mind worked like a microcomputer.

“So the police think that because this note was written on our company paper, the abductor is one of us.” He raised one eyebrow. “This is also what you think?”

“I can’t afford to write anyone off. I want my child back. That’s my primary goal here.” She met his gaze, held it. “I won’t lose her, Russ. I will not lose another member of my family. Do you understand me?”

His eyes flickered, lost their clear blue sheen and turned the gray of a Russian blizzard.

“I understand.” His confident voice changed, the inflection soft, entreating. “The death of Grant changed all of us. But I am here to help, Shelby. I would never allow his child to be hurt. Never.” He muttered something unintelligible, probably one of the foreign idioms he often used but seldom explained.

Shelby knew the decision was hers. She could authorize him to go ahead and conduct his search, or she could reject his help. Which probably meant he’d keep right on looking anyway. Russ didn’t give a fig for authority figures. But his search might go faster if she approved it.

Shelby was reminded of Russ’s visit to their home last Christmas, how he’d comforted Aimee with tales of his grandfather and the things he’d done to make Russ’s childhood Christmases special.

He must have seen the decision in her eyes.

“All right. We begin now. You will tell me all, please, Shelby. The police, what have they done?”

She told him what she knew, which wasn’t much.

“Imbeciles.” He kissed his fingers into the wind. “I could get more from a stone. No prints, no tracks, no knowledge of how the security was breached? It is preposterous!” He turned, strode to the door and yanked it open.

“Where are you going? What about these files?” she demanded, frustrated by his whirlwind exit. But then Russ had always ignored the usual routes, had always forged his own way. In the past, Grant had sometimes chastised him for rushing in. But Russ got results. At the moment, Shelby wasn’t about to question him on his methods. That could come later. If he found something.

Russ held the door open with the toe of his boot.

“I do not believe the answers lie in your files, Shelby. But before I know where to begin, I must have more information. I will get it. Now.” He disappeared out the door.

“Well, thanks for the help.” She sighed. Personally she, too, was less than convinced that the abductor was among her staff but she wouldn’t quit until she’d ruled everyone out. It was boring, lonely work that she despised. These were her friends, her coworkers. Or they had been. It seemed disloyal, even hateful to suspect one of them of doing this.

Shelby flopped down in her chair, staring out the window at the fading sun. Her glance landed on the picture on her desk and she picked it up, stared into the cherubic face with its feathery-blond hair, button nose and Grant’s wise eyes.

“Where are you, sweetheart?” she whispered. “Please help Mommy find you.”

She longed to feel those chubby fingers tickle her neck, yearned to hear that high-pitched voice squeal with delight. It had taken so long to accept Grant’s death as part of God’s plan. Even now she still had questions. But taking Aimee, too—surely God didn’t want that?

“I love her so much, God. I want her to come home so we can make our double fudge strawberry peach sundaes.” The tears would not be stopped. “I want her to come home because I don’t think I can look after our butterfly garden without her help. I don’t think I can go on if she’s not there, God. Please send her home.”

The silence in her office was exactly what she’d craved earlier. But now Shelby would have gladly exchanged it for just one of Aimee’s giggles.

“God, you know what’s happening. You know where she is. Please keep her safe. Please don’t let anyone touch—” She gulped down the words, refused to say them. “You love her more than I ever could. Please bring my child back to me.”

Shelby opened her eyes, stared at the beloved face once more. As she did, she felt the band of tension around her heart begin to ease. God knew what she was going through. He understood. In the depths of her mind, she comprehended that He was in complete control of everything that happened to her. But somehow she wished she understood why He’d allowed this.

She remembered Tim’s words. A little bit of faith.

Right now, that’s about all she had.

She replaced the photo and, with a sigh, turned back to the computer. God would do His part. Now it was time for her to do hers.

By the time Shelby had completed the last of the files, the clock on her computer read 10:45. She’d checked in twice with Natalie. No call had come in regarding Aimee’s whereabouts, no ransom call had been made. No note had been delivered, no new evidence reported. Natalie sounded curt, as if she were holding back her temper when she said Russ had dropped by the house. So had Tim.

In an odd way, Shelby understood Natalie’s frustration, knew exactly how she felt. They had all gone over and over the same things. If there had been some tiny clue to latch onto and ferret out, she could sink her teeth into it, bury herself in figuring it out. But there was nothing. Whoever had done this knew exactly what he was doing and had left no trace evidence, no witnesses to their silent departure, not even any footprints in the freshly turned soil below Aimee’s window. Natalie must be as frustrated as she.

For Shelby there was no reason to go home. The house was empty without her daughter. But she did need to rest, shower, change clothes. Besides, if she hung on to that crumb of faith, maybe tonight the nightmare would end.

Reluctant to stop, but well aware that she’d made little progress, Shelby logged off, secured the file with her password and waited while the machine shut down. It seemed to take longer than usual and she made a mental note to have the company technician check for malfunctions. She locked the files in her desk, pocketed the key.

She was almost at the door, about to leave, when a knock halted her actions. Her nerves inched up a notch, though she knew the company’s security system would be on, that no one who didn’t have the correct security clearance would be able to get into the building. But…

“Come in,” she called, fingers clenched around her purse.

“So you are still here.” Daniel stuck his head in. “I’m not sure it’s good for you to be working such long hours your first day back, but I am glad you’re here. Have you got a moment for me?”

She wanted to go home, to see if her faith had worked, if someone somewhere had found out where Aimee was being held. But Daniel’s serious expression stopped her.

“I was leaving, but I can spare a few minutes. Nothing to rush home to,” she tried to joke, then bit her lip.

“We’ll find her, Shel. Just keep hanging on.” He moved toward her, patted her shoulder. “Actually, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. I heard about the ruckus with our resident bad boy this afternoon. I’d have been here, but I only found out a couple of hours ago, too late to be of assistance.”

“It’s all right, Daniel. Russ just wants to help.”

“And you’re letting him?”

The tone of his voice bothered her.

“Why not? You two used to be best friends. Has something happened to change that?” Shelby watched the guarded look cloud his eyes. “Have you argued with Russ about something?”

“Not really. I just thought you and I agreed that I would head up things here. But now Russ has practically taken over, countermanding my orders—”

“Daniel.” She stepped closer, laid her hand on his arm. “You know that I’ve depended on you, and will continue to depend on you to keep Finders going. You have my full support. But this is my child, and she’s missing. I can’t afford to turn down anyone’s help.”

“Ah, but why should she refuse my help, eh, Daniel?” Russ stood in the doorway, hands on his hips. “I am the only one who seems to get results.”

His arrogance had once made Shelby laugh. But now, the word results took her breath away. “You found something.”

“Ja. I found—something.” He strode in, leaned one hip against her desk. “This Natalie, the oh-so-elegant police detective. You know her well?”

“I don’t know her at all. Except that when I called the police, she came. Why?”

“Curious.” He shrugged. “The lack of clues, that is surprising, yes?”

“I guess they were very careful.” She nodded. “But yes, to answer your question. I would have thought there would be something they could use.”

“Yes, I think that, also. But Miss Natalie—she says there is nothing. The security panel has only one code entered for that night, a code which the good Natalie says belongs to you. The fibers from a snip of cloth left in the window belong to material in men’s pants sold by the thousands. It may have been there for months. These police find no fingerprints, though they have thrown their powder all over the house. Even the handwriting on the mirror is childish, like that of a thousand kindergarten children—and so virtually untraceable.”

“Stop being melodramatic and tell us what you found.” Daniel’s eyes blazed with anger. “Can’t you see how you’re upsetting her?”

Russ glanced once at Daniel, his face hardened. He seemed about to say something, but after a glance at Shelby, changed his mind.

“I apologize, Shelby. I do not mean to act inadvisably. But before I say more, I must ask a question. When you stood at the window that night, you did not hear a car, did not see someone drive past? Perhaps you heard footsteps below, running away?”

She shook her head.

“No. Russ, you talked to the police. You’ve been to my home. You know Aimee’s room is at the back, above the garden. Grandmother owned a huge section of land behind the house, which I’ve kept undeveloped. There’s no road back there for a very long way.”

“Exactly so.” He straightened, crossed his arms over his chest. “Yet this thief, this abductor, he steals this child, not a tiny sleeping baby, you see, but a little girl who is liable to awaken when picked up by a stranger. And yet, there is no sound. Why? Does he drug her? C’est possible. But I do not think there is time before Mama Bear arrives. And he has no getaway car waiting for him at the back, therefore he must carry the child around to the front of the house.” He shook his head. “Very strange.”

Russ had been partly raised in France. Perhaps that’s why he fell into the language whenever he spoke of Aimee. Shelby said nothing, simply stood, waited. Russ was onto something, she could see it in the glint of his eyes.

“He is a wonder, this phantom of ours. In truth, our thief is so accomplished, he does not even leave footprints in the flower beds below. How is this possible? Is he a ghost? I do not believe in ghosts.”

“The police said there was no evidence of footprints.” She glanced at Daniel. Clearly he didn’t understand what Russ was getting at, either.

“No, there is no evidence. This I checked for myself.”

“And?”

“There is no evidence of footprints because someone has raked the area.”

“Raked it? But how? When?” Shelby shook her head. “I was there, Russ. I hit the alarm as soon as I heard someone in the hall. I couldn’t find Aimee. The police came almost immediately and they were all over the place. Surely they would have noticed if someone had worked in the garden.”

“I am not so sure of that. You yourself were there but a few hours before, no? Your neighbor said he saw you raking the ground under some bushes near the house.”

“Yes…” Tim. It would have been he who’d seen her. The old carriage house he rented was the only thing near enough their yard, since originally the two properties were one.

“And yet, on this freshly worked soil, there is no outline of a shoe, no markings whatever.” Russ shook his head. “No.”

“So someone came along behind and raked over his tracks? Is that what you’re saying? But what does that tell us? That there was an accomplice?” Shelby couldn’t wrap her mind around whatever he was intimating. The entire thing seemed like a nightmare, something that would happen to someone else. Not to her. Not to Aimee.

“Yes. I’d like an answer to that question myself. What exactly are you trying to say, Russ? You insinuated that you had something big to tell us. Well, let’s hear it. Or is this another one of your hot air dances? Promise the world, deliver nada.” Daniel’s lips curled in a derisive smile.

“I always deliver. And you would do well to watch what you say, my friend.” The words were spoken calmly enough, but it was the steel threading through them that made the impact. “I have nothing to apologize for. My record is clean. Can you say the same?”

“Why don’t you come right out and accuse me of Grant’s death?” Daniel demanded, his jaw locked so tightly it grew white with strain. “Why pretend to be a friend when all the time you blame me for not being here, for not backing him?”

Shelby gulped. The gloves were off now, and she had no idea how to stop this. They looked like two raging animals, each daring the other to step past an invisible line. But what was it all about? Daniel mentioned Grant. What had he to do with this feud? Did he feel guilty for his friend’s death?

“Yes, you are right. I do blame you, Daniel. You should have been here. He was on a case that only you knew about. If you could not be there for him, you should have phoned me. I would not have left him here alone. To die.”

“Stop it!” Shelby stepped between them. “No one knew the fire would start, Russ. Daniel wasn’t here because Grant insisted he simply wanted to check out something. Who could have imagined he would get caught….” She stopped, drew a breath. “You have nothing to be guilty about, Daniel. The fire was an accident. Grant is gone. But I cannot, I will not lose Aimee. So say whatever you’re getting at, Russ, and let’s get busy trying to find her.”

“Very well.” Russ stepped back. “This is my opinion. The person who took Aimee knew exactly what he was doing. It was a professional job by someone who knew your routine, the house, the grounds, the security code, everything. Our ‘ghost’ left nothing to chance.”

Shelby tamped down the questions.

“If you know, tell me!” she demanded. “Who did it?”

“I do not know that. Yet.” He glanced up through his black lashes at Daniel. “But I believe it was someone close to you.”

“You’re hinting at me? This is ludicrous! Pure supposition with no facts on which to base it.” Daniel turned his back and strode to the door. “I do need to speak to you, Shel. But I can wait until tomorrow.” He twisted to look at Russ. “I suggest you wait till then also. In the meantime, find something solid on which to base your ideas.”

He walked out, slamming the door behind him. Shelby turned on Russ.

“Daniel did not do this, Russ. I can’t believe you would think he did. You, he and Grant were friends not very long ago.”

“Yes.” Russ held her gaze. “We were friends. Once. But things change. The person who stole your daughter had personal knowledge of things an ordinary thief wouldn’t know. He left nothing to chance, not even his footprints in the garden. Either he or someone helping him knew the freshly worked ground would imprint and was prepared to cover those tracks.”

“And you believe that person was Daniel?”

“I do not say exactly that. I say merely that you must be wary of whom you trust. I will keep digging, but you must be alert. These are people who wish you harm, Shelby. Be very careful.”

While she stared after him, Russ walked out of the room, leaving her door ajar. A moment later she heard the elevator doors whoosh close.

She stood alone in her office, staring out the windows into the blackness while the sounds around her magnified a thousandfold.

The words of the Psalm she’d repeated over and over in the wee hours of the morning now echoed through her mind. She couldn’t remember all of it, but one line sang through, sharper, more poignant than the rest.

“May He grant your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.”

Her heart’s desire was known to Him. He alone could help Aimee now.

FOUR

Tim wandered through the house he’d rented for the past nine months, pausing beside the windows from time to time to see if Shelby was home yet. One hand absently rubbed the keloids forming on his face, an unpleasant reminder of the burns he’d suffered and of yet another operation the doctors had insisted he have—soon.

Like a looming cloak, the reminders of past operations hung suspended in the shadows of his mind—black timeless moments when he first came out of the anesthetic and the pain was too real, too piercing to be controlled. That space before the morphine kicked in, that was when the specters of what should have been threatened to tear his heart from his body.

No! He wouldn’t go back there now, would never allow himself to dwell in that black pit of despair when he could stop it. They were gone, why think about what could have been? He thought of Aimee, sweet innocent Aimee, who had pushed against his self-imposed barriers, insisted he accept that life went on in spite of great tragedies. He missed her sweet giggle, her charming laugh and the tender way she touched his scars, as if they were somehow precious.

From the corner of his eye he saw Natalie, the police investigator, walk through Shelby’s rose garden, pull out a cell phone and speak on it. Moments later she clipped it closed and returned to the house. Something about her had bothered him from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, but Tim had no justification for those feelings. In the past eighteen hours she hadn’t left her post or handed over the assignment to another—which should have garnered her some Brownie points. Instead an irritating niggle at the back of his brain wouldn’t be silenced. Something wasn’t right.

Finally Shelby arrived. He watched her plain black car roll up the driveway. Even at this distance he could tell from the slump of her shoulders that she’d found nothing new, learned no more than she’d known when she left this morning. Inside he felt a flood of awareness when she stepped out of the car.

She was so beautiful. Her hair flowed out behind her like a golden burnished cape, tousled curls dancing in the freshening wind, tall and slim yet still elegant, even after her ordeal.

She might have been any other businesswoman returning from a day at the office except that three men protected her from the cameras and microphones shoved into her face. Looking for another headline, no doubt. He glanced down at the newspaper he’d tossed to the floor in a fit of anger. Rumor, speculation—they had no facts. Why did they need to hound her so?