Hero for Hire

by Marie Ferrarella

"Savannah tried cross-referencing everything she could think of this morning, and she came across something really odd. Josephine's last name is Sharpe. So is Anne Sullivan's maiden name. There might be a connection. Oh, and one more thing. Rusty sent your tape out to the lab for a final breakdown early this morning. That voice on the tape belongs to a woman."

  Bingo. "Thanks, Megan. You've been a great help." He flipped the cell phone closed.

  Veronica grabbed his arm, determined to get his attention. "What is it?"

  "Our kidnapper's a woman." He looked at Rusty. "Megan said the lab results came in." His hand to the small of her back, Chad began to usher Veronica out of the terminal. "I'll fill you in on the way." He glanced over his shoulder at his brother and Sam as he left. "Thanks for your help, anyway."

  "On the way to where?" Veronica asked as they hurried through the parking lot to Chad's car. "Do you know where Casey is?"

  "No," he answered, "but I think I know someone who might." He opened his door and got in.

  Veronica slid in on her side. "We're going to Anne Sullivan's house."

  The seat belt slipped from her fingers, and she grabbed for it. "Anne? But we've already talked to her about the caterers." This wasn't about the caterers, she realized. This was something a great deal darker. "What does Anne have to do with Casey's kidnapping?"

  It hurt him to break apart the few illusions she had allowed herself, and he didn't even understand why it hurt. He just knew it did. "Maybe everything." He glanced at her quickly, trying to read her expression. She looked numb. "Did you know that her maiden name's the same as Neil's girlfriend's?"

  "No. I told you, Neil never told me Josephine's last name, and I didn't bother…" The mention of her brother-in-law reminded her of what else she'd heard. "Chad, you said Neil was shot."

  "He was." Her pale complexion turned almost alabaster. "That was Megan calling from his apartment. There's a police-band radio in the office. She heard a 911 call come in from Neil. No details. She recognized the name and took off. Someone apparently shot your brother-in-law. Megan said the only thing she heard him say was your son's name."

  She didn't want to believe it. How could Neil be involved? He loved Casey. There had to be some mistake. Afraid that there wasn't, Veronica covered her face with her hands, praying for strength, praying for her son, and most of all, praying they would be in time to save him.

  She wasn't saying anything. Concerned, Chad allowed himself another glance in her direction before looking back at the road. One o'clock was still lunchtime, and the streets were crowded with people hurrying to squeeze in a day's worth of errands into an hour or less. "Are you all right?"

  She emerged from behind her hands, her expression stony as she struggled to reconcile what he'd told her with what, until a few moments ago she'd felt she knew.

  "No, I'm not all right. But I will be the minute we get Casey back." Determined, she sat up, leaning forward as if that could somehow add to the momentum and get them to Anne's house faster. "Step on it."

  He didn't point out that they were already weaving in and out of traffic, flying across intersections whose lights had turned amber and were about to blush into red. "Consider it stepped on."

  The speedometer strained forward as he kept an eye out for other speeding vehicles that could impede them—and for the police. The latter would only be a plus. They could use police backup right about now.

  It was beginning to fit together, albeit with gaps. He'd been right all along about Casey knowing his kidnapper. They'd just been looking at the wrong gender. "When you saw that photograph of Casey, you said he looked happy."

  It took Veronica a second to focus, and then she nodded. "He did. I thought… I was hoping that the kidnapper told him they were playing a game."

  "Maybe," he allowed. "And maybe the reason Casey looked unafraid was because he knew his kidnapper."

  "You mean Neil."

  "Neil figures into it somehow," Chad replied, "but Megan said it was a woman's voice on the tape. That doesn't make any sense if Neil was behind the kidnapping scheme." He didn't care for the man, but Veronica's brother-in-law had seemed genuinely surprised when she had told him Casey had been kidnapped. The man just didn't strike him as that good an actor.

  He was thinking out loud. The more he talked, the more things continued to drift into place.

  "When you went to pick Casey up from the party and found he wasn't there, did you try looking around for him?"

  "I was going to, but then the kidnapper called, asking for me."

  Just before she was going to start looking, Chad thought. Which could mean that the kidnapper was watching her the entire time. That placed Casey's kidnapper somewhere on the property.

  Chad hadn't had a very good look at the Sullivan place. He should have. "If you had looked for him," Chad pressed, "where would you have looked?"

  She tried to think. "Andy's room, I suppose. The grounds—most of the party was held outdoors." She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to visualize the premises. "Maybe the guest house."

  The light was red a full second before he reached the intersection. Chad stepped down hard on the brake. The car fishtailed before stopping. He looked at her. "The guest house?" He didn't remember noticing one.

  "Way in the back," she told him. "It's little more than a pool house, really. Anne had it converted about a year ago. Casey loved hanging around the construction site. He said it was a house just his size." A light dawned. "Oh, God, you don't think he was there all the time, do you? But he couldn't have been. I was with Anne when the kidnapper phoned. She couldn't have been the one who made the call."

  The light changed and he hit the gas. A sense of urgency refused to release him. "She's not in this alone." The woman was far too high-strung to have done this on her own. "She had a partner. Someone who could keep Casey occupied." He looked at her as they took a sharp turn. "Someone like Neil's latest girlfriend."

  The voice on the machine had been distorted. She had naturally thought it was a man. The possibility that it had been a woman had just never occurred to her. Now that they knew it was, the thought filled her with horror and revulsion. "Neil said Josephine played in a band. He bragged that she was an expert with audio equipment. I thought he meant in setting up the speakers."

  "Don't blame yourself. These days, almost any amateur could distort their voice. All it takes is a little software, a synthesizer and a computer."

  It was all so clear to her now. "Neil came by a couple of times to take him to the ballpark, and she was with him. Casey likes her—" she cried.

  "He'll grow up to have better taste," Chad assured her. If we get to him in time.

  He had the uneasy feeling that the money had been taken without exchanging it for the boy for a reason. Casey could identify his kidnappers. Which meant he was a liability and had to be disposed of.

  Chad felt his blood run cold as he pressed the gas pedal harder.

  "Can't this car go any faster?"

  "Not unless we're willing to cause a major accident." He pulled out his phone again, hitting Rusty's number.

  "Rusty, I need you to get to Josephine Sharpe's apartment. If she's there, hold her any way you can. Savannah's got the address for you. I'm on my way to Anne Sullivan's house. Nearly there, in fact." He glanced at Veronica's face, conveying encouragement as best he could. "I think between the two of us, we might be able to wind this up today."

  "You got it, Chad."

  Chad dropped the cell phone onto his lap as the connection ended, grabbing the wheel with both hands and swerving to the left to avoid being hit by the car that was barreling down Anne Sullivan's driveway.

  A small blond child twisted around in the back seat and waved gaily at Veronica.

  Chapter 14

  "Omigod, that's Casey!" Veronica cried. She rose in her seat as if to leap out of the car.

  "Hang on," Chad warned.

  He swung the wheel all the way to the right, turning his car a full 180 degrees. Tires scr
eeched and the brakes groaned in protest as he brought the car forward again. Pressing down hard on the gas pedal again, he began to chase the maroon Mercedes. The other car had already made it down the winding hill and was flying into the main flow of traffic. Cars swerved right and left to avoid a collision.

  Veronica watched in horror as Anne's car careened in and out of traffic. "She's going to get him killed. Do something!" she begged.

  "Call Ben for me on your phone," he ordered.

  Chad couldn't risk taking his eyes off the road to make the call himself. Swerving to avoid the nose of a Honda that had just swerved to get out of the Mercedes's way, Chad rattled off the phone number to Veronica.

  Frantically pawing through her purse, she located her phone. The numbers danced through her head. "What is it again?" Chad repeated Ben's number and she punched it in. A sound finally buzzed against her ear as she prayed. "It's ringing." Veronica thrust the cell phone into his hand.

  "Hello, Ben? Chad. I'm traveling south on Deerfield, just passed MacArthur, and I've got the kidnapper's car in my sights. Maroon Mercedes, California plates." He recited the numbers he could no longer see but had committed to memory. "I think she might be on her way to the airport. I need squad cars as fast as possible."

  "You're sure it's the kidnapper?" Ben asked.

  Chad had seen Veronica's stricken face when she'd recognized Casey. "The boy's in the back seat. I'm sure."

  "I'm on it." Ben didn't even bother signing off.

  Every second counted. Chad knew Ben was already calling the plate numbers in to one of his friends on the force. Now all they needed was luck. A lot of it.

  He could feel Veronica's disbelief being eaten away by tension.

  She was hardly aware of taking the cell phone back from him. "Anne was in the driver's seat, wasn't she?"

  "It might have been. The woman had auburn hair, but I didn't get a good look at her." He'd been too busy trying to get out of the way. "Could have been Josephine." Now that he thought of it, their hair color was similar.

  It seemed incredible, yet she'd seen Casey in the car with her own eyes. A brief glimpse was all she'd gotten, but there was no mistaking that grin. It was her son. "How could Anne have done something so awful? Our kids are best friends. We've been close friends for ten years."

  "Obviously not as close as you thought."

  He was going more than fifteen miles over the speed limit, and the kidnapper was still getting away. Thoughts of cars crashing into one another in his wake had Chad's adrenaline pumping to new heights.

  The distant sound of sirens became audible. The cavalry was coming, he thought, relieved.

  Veronica was leaning forward, straining against her seat belt, her fingers digging into the dashboard. She gasped as the Mercedes narrowly avoided crashing into a city bus.

  "Is Anne capable of doing something desperate?" he asked her.

  Her mouth twisted in a half smile at the irony of the question. "You mean, other than kidnapping my son?"

  "Point taken." Chad left it up to her to answer or not.

  "I don't know." She never took her eyes off the maroon car, scarcely breathing. It felt as if her heart was 'lodged in her throat. "I didn't think she was capable of doing anything desperate at all. Until now." Afraid, Veronica turned her gaze to Chad. "Why?"

  "Because we're closing in on her, and unless my hearing's off, so are about three squad cars."

  The Mercedes was driving erratically, abruptly turning into the parking lot of a small shopping mall. People scattered right and left as the driver tried desperately to elude pursuers and get away.

  Suddenly a squad car pulled up directly in front of the Mercedes, turning so that its hood faced the fleeing car. Chad slammed on the brakes, stopping directly behind the Mercedes. Between them they cut off any avenue of escape for the Mercedes. Two more squad cars pulled up on either side of it. Policemen poured out of all three vehicles, their service revolvers drawn and trained on the occupants of the Mercedes.

  Chad leaped out of his car. Veronica was less than a heartbeat behind him.

  "There's a child in there!" he shouted, waving his arms over his head to get the policemen's attention. Out of the corner of his eye, he recognized Ben's car pulling up in the distance. Reinforcements.

  Warily the policemen lowered their weapons, but left them unholstered.

  Unable to wait a single second longer, ignoring the guns, Veronica ducked around Chad to reach the Mercedes rear door. She yanked it open just as Anne was emerging from the driver's seat, sobbing, her hands shaking as she raised them in the air.

  "Mommy, where have you been?" Casey exclaimed, his voice echoing with curiosity and pleasure as he wrapped his arms tightly around her. "I've missed you."'

  She tried very hard not to cry as she held him close. She was failing miserably. "And I've missed you." Pressing the boy to her heart, she rose to her feet again, thinking she was never going to let him out of her arms again.

  Tears blinding her, she looked for Chad.

  "Mommy, you're squashing me," Casey protested.

  "Sorry,'' she murmured, kissing the top of his head.

  Anne stood blocking the driver's side, her arms over her head. "Please, please, don't shoot. My son's in the car. Don't shoot," she begged.

  Gabriel Saldana moved ahead of the other policemen, taking charge. "Ben filled me in," he informed Chad, recognizing him from Ben's description. Taking cuffs out, he gently but firmly turned Anne around and took hold of her wrist. "Anne Sullivan, you're under arrest for the kidnapping of Casey Reinholt. You have the right to remain silent…"

  He never got a chance to put on the second handcuff. Anne gave a little moan and fainted.

  Managing to catch her before she hit the ground, Gabriel shook his head. "First time I've had a suspect faint on me."

  Andy wriggled out of the car, running to Anne, fear and confusion on his small face. "Mommy, Mommy, get up!" He began to tug on her shoulder "Please get up."

  Still holding Casey, Veronica shifted him so that he rested on her hip. Supporting him with one hand, she extended the other to Andy, smiling encouragingly at the boy. "You're going to come home with me for a while, Andy."

  Overhearing, Chad looked at her. He would have thought she'd want to distance herself from anything that had to do with the kidnapping and Anne. She was an endless source of amazement to him.

  "Is the game over, Mommy?" Casey wanted to know.

  She pressed another kiss to his hair, her heart quickening when she thought of how close she'd come to losing him. "Yes, baby, the game's over."

  "Mom, don't call me baby," he said in what he thought was a whisper. He jerked his head toward his friend, who was now clutching Veronica's free hand. "Andy'll hear you."

  "Sorry, I forgot." A quirky smile played along her lips. He was still her normal little boy. She was one of the lucky ones.

  She turned to look at Chad, tears welling up in her eyes for the second time in as many minutes. There were absolutely no words she could say to thank him, to thank any of them, for what they had done.

  For a second Chad let himself go and put his arm around her shoulders. "You're crying again."

  She sniffed, a smile breaking through even though tears were sliding down her cheeks. ''Good tears."

  "Oh." As if he understood the difference.

  Digging into his pocket, Chad fished out a handkerchief that was badly wrinkled, but clean. He offered it to her, then realized she didn't have a hand available. Chad started to say something to Andy, then thought better of it. Instead, he wiped away the tears himself. Something nameless, but no less unsettling for its anonymity, stirred within him as she looked up at him. Clearing his throat, he pocketed the handkerchief and walked toward the lead squad car.

  Just now coming to, Anne had been placed in the squad car's back seat, her hands cuffed behind her. Hurrying by Chad, Gabriel rounded the hood, then stopped for a second to look at the Mercedes. He gave a low whistle of appreciation.
He looked at Chad.

  "That baby's no more than six weeks old by my estimation. What's a woman with that kind of money doing kidnapping her best friend's kid?"

  "That's what I'd like to find out. Mind if I tag along to the station?" Chad took out his wallet, showing Gabriel his identification by way of supporting his request. "Got a few people on the LAPD who will vouch for me." Ben finally managed to reach them. The crowd around them had gathered quickly and was six deep in places. "Including Ben," Chad added, nodding at the man.

  "Good enough for me," Gabriel told him, getting into the squad car. "Just as long as you don't get in the way."

  "Thanks." Chad glanced in Veronica's direction. She was unfinished business. "I'll follow in my car," he said, stepping back. He turned toward Veronica.

  "Is Anne all right?" she asked, nodding at the unconscious woman in the back seat.

  "She just fainted. I think everything finally sank in." He motioned for Ben to come forward. "Ben'll take you and the boys home in his car. I'll be by as soon as I learn anything," he promised.

  "All right." About to leave with Ben, she stopped to kiss Chad, catching him completely by surprise. Her eyes held his for a moment. "Thank you."

  A warm spot opened up in his chest. He ignored it, or tried to, and dismissed her words with a shrug. "Just doing my job."

  He stood a moment longer, watching her walk off with the children. Trying to get his bearings. They kept eluding him.

  He'd come to the realization that Veronica was full of surprises. So when she turned up half an hour later in the hallway of the Bedford police station, outside one of the rooms reserved for interrogation, Chad wasn't entirely caught off guard.

  Still, there were other places he had expected to see her first.

  "What are you doing here?" He looked directly behind her, expecting to see a small entourage. "Where are the boys?"

  "I left Casey and Andy with Angela. She was overjoyed to see Casey. Andy's a little shaken up, but Casey seems fine." She smiled. Casey was more than fine. He was his old self, playful and incredibly thoughtful for a boy his age. "He's trying to distract Andy with the latest video game."