Childfinders Inc - Hero For Hire Part 18

"Yes." The sound of the word was almost too painful to bear. She longed in vain for the comfort, the luxury of denial. "If I don't have the money, my son will be harmed."

Browne looked at Chad suspiciously, as if to check whether or not there was any sign of duress between the two. Chad guessed that the man thought he was forcing Veronica to make the withdrawal. He wondered if Browne was going to give them a problem.

He pinned the much smaller man with an authoritative look. "How quickly can you get the money together? Cash," Chad emphasized. "Fifties and hundreds. Old, well- used bills. Not in sequence." The kidnapper would spot that immediately, and Chad wanted nothing to go wrong.

"It will take half a day. Two hours," he amended when Chad stared at him in piercing silence. When he continued to stare, Browne cleared his throat. "Maybe an hour and a half," he said, then qualified quickly, "But I'm not sure.";

"See what you can do," Chad instructed tersely. Automatically taking Veronica's elbow, he helped her to her feet. "We'll be back in two hours."

Browne walked them to the door of his, office, obviously relieved to see them go.

"Yes, of course." Timidly he reached out and touched Veronica's arm. When she looked at him, he took a hesitant step back. "Ms. Lancaster, is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?"

"You can make it an hour," she told him as she and Chad walked out.

"Yes, well..." Browne's voice trailed off. "I'll call you when the money's ready,"

he said before retreating back into his office.

"Well, he certainly came around quickly enough," Chad commented. He unlocked the pa.s.senger side of his car for Veronica, then opened the door before going around to his side.

"He wants to make sure I won't switch my accounts once this is all behind me."

Veronica slid her seat-belt tab into the slot, subconsciously listening for the click. Her expression was philosophical. "People generally wind up doing what I ask them to." Her mouth curved ruefully. "Money's a powerful incentive."

He was a student of nuances. Of inflections and things left unsaid. He sometimes learned more about people by what they didn't say. "You don't sound very pleased about it."

"Well, I'm pleased that he's getting the money together to help me ransom my son, yes. But pleased that the Lancaster name has some little man in a suit that cost him over a month's salary jumping through hoops, no." A note of pa.s.sion crept into her voice that Chad had a feeling she wasn't aware of. He listened all the more intently. "Just once I wish I knew that someone was doing something for me and not the money or the Lancaster name."

Closing her eyes, she sighed. A touch of bitterness entered her voice as she thought of the kidnapper who had turned her world upside down. She was complaining about trivial things. What if there hadn't been enough money to get Casey back? "I suppose there are far worse things to complain about."

He knew what she was saying. Funny thing was, he understood. The truth becomes a desirable commodity when you're surrounded by nothing but lies.

"Yeah, but I can see your point." Feeling her gaze on him, he looked at her for a second. There was a warmth in her eyes. A yearning beneath the sorrow that almost took his breath away. He reminded himself of his position. "You want to feel people are being genuinely honest and up-front with you."

She would have said he was just paying her lip service, placating her like the others. But there was something in his voice that told her he understood. "Who taught you your manners?"

He blinked, broadsided by the question. "Excuse me?"

Even his question was evidence of his upbringing, she thought. He didn't just say, what? At any other time, she would have found that intriguing. Right now it was just a way to keep her mind off what she was afraid to think about.

"Your manners. You're awfully polite for a-" She stopped abruptly.

"For a what?" Amus.e.m.e.nt lifted the corners of his mouth. "A private investigator?

We don't all chew gum, talk out of the side of our mouths and sound like Mike Hammer."

"Who?"

"Mike Hammer." The reference had just come to him. His father had had copies of the Mickey Spillane books lying around. Chad had read one out of curiosity, at the time desperately seeking some common ground between them. "Private eye in a mystery series written sometime in the fifties I think. Never mind." Chad paused, turning down the block. It was beginning to rain. He turned on the windshield wipers. The rhythmic sound was all that was heard for a moment. "My mother." He saw that Veronica was confused. "My mother taught me. She was very big on manners. 'Just because we're not well-off doesn't mean you have to behave like you were raised by wolves.'" The memory made him smile. "She used to say that a lot."

She caught the note of affection in his voice. "Sounds like she had a pretty good effect on you."

"She did." He looked at her. There were some things he just knew, like the fact that Veronica was a good mother. Too bad his instincts had kicked in in his teens and not before. Otherwise, maybe he would have realized what his father had been up to, asking him to slip out of the house without telling anyone to meet him at the skating rink. "Probably like you have on Casey."

She was accustomed to flattery, to pandering people who hoped to curry favor by saying what they thought were the right things. He didn't fit that mold. "How would you know that?"

"Call it a gut feeling."

He gave her no more of an explanation than that, but there was something about the way he looked at her. It cut through all her pain and comforted her. More than that, it made her want to rest her head on his shoulder and just let him take over.

That hadn't happened to her in a very long time.

Veronica roused herself. The feeling was without basis. She was paying the man for his help, his expertise, and that was where it ended. She looked out the window, trying to guess where they were going. "So what do we do now?"

He updated her. "Rusty and Ben are canva.s.sing the neighborhoods around where the phone call was made last night. I'm going to drop you off and visit your friend, Anne Sullivan." Her body tensed instantly. She wasn't about to be dropped off. "I'm going with you."

Politely but tersely, he tried to dissuade her. "I think you'd be better off at home."

She refused to listen. "This isn't up for debate, Chad. I'm going with you and that's that." Her angry tone softened to an entreaty. "I can't sit home alone, waiting for the phone to ring, letting my imagination get the better of me-"

"There's Angela," he reminded her. "And the offer to get someone to stay with you still stands."

Sam's wife would be the perfect candidate for the job, Chad thought. He knew she'd be willing to help. It had happened before he'd joined the agency, but Savannah had gone through this herself. Except in her case, her daughter had been taken to fill a void in someone's life, not a bank balance. But the terror had been the same.

"No," Veronica retorted flatly, then added, "thank you. But I have to be with you. Besides, Anne is one of those high-strung people. Especially now. If you come at her with questions, you might not get very much out of her except tears."

He didn't like the sound of that. Chad spared Veronica another glance as the light turned green again. "Tears?"

Veronica nodded. Casey's kidnapping had made her completely forget about Anne's heartache. "Her husband, the plastic surgeon," she added in a cryptic tone, "just left her for a younger woman. The improved, reconstructed kind, from what I gather."

Chad wasn't sure he was following her. "Reconstructed?"

"Plastic surgery from head to foot. She was his patient." She'd never cared for Anne's husband. There was something about the way he looked at people, as if he was cataloging their physical flaws and marking them for future improvement. "Seems he fashioned the perfect woman, then fell in love with his own handiwork. Like Pygmalion." Veronica frowned, feeling sorry for Anne all over again. The woman deserved better. "Anne's pretty distraught. It happened just two months ago. The party for her son was a way of trying to put it all out of her mind," she explained.

"I'll do my best to be gentle."

There was no flippancy in the promise. She looked at Chad and knew that he meant what he said. "I know you will."

For the first time since she had taken the phone call at Anne's house, she began to think that maybe everything was going to work out, after all.

Anne Sullivan was a small sparrow of a woman with voluminous auburn hair that swirled around her shoulders like a dust cloud at sunset. Her hands seemed to be in perpetual motion, toying with the ends of her hair, gesturing, straightening things around the den that didn't need straightening.

She reminded Chad of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. There was no doubting Veronica's a.s.sessment that the plastic surgeon's wife was taking the pending divorce very hard.

A half smile flashed on her lips and then vanished. "I'm so glad you enjoyed Andy's birthday party enough to want to hire the same people. I have their card somewhere." Halfway to her desk, she stopped and turned to look at Veronica again.

"But you weren't really here for it."

Veronica forced a. smile to her lips, forced herself to sound as if her biggest concern was putting together a children's party. "Casey told me."

"Casey?" Anne echoed blankly as she stared at Veronica. The next moment she blinked. "Oh, well, yes, I guess a child could say that, couldn't he? Casey's a very intelligent, perceptive boy for his age. For any age, really. Not like my Andy." The laugh was nervous, indulgent. "Now, where is that card?" Gamely Anne rummaged through what could only, through the grace of charity, be called a mess.

The smile she offered Veronica was apologetic. "I'm sorry, it's just that I haven't really been myself lately. Harold always insisted on handling everything. I'm afraid I'm not very good at this living-on-my-own business yet." Anne stopped. Her voice seemed about to break.

Doing her best to curb her impatience, knowing that what Anne was going through was painful, Veronica stepped forward and pulled the corner of an embossed letterhead out. There was a gay profusion of balloons running along the left margin. If held up, the watermark was seen to be a clown.