Heart of a Hero

by Marie Ferrarella

  He glanced at his watch when she walked out of the bathroom.

  “That had to be the fastest shower on record,” he remarked. “You couldn’t have been in there more than five minutes.”

  “Seven,” she corrected, strapping on her watch. She’d timed herself. “I only linger in a shower if there’s a reason to.”

  He had the distinct impression there was more to the sentence than she was saying. As in, she only lingered if there was someone to linger with.

  He shook his head. What was the matter with him? Not even nine in the morning and he was making himself crazy with thoughts he had no business having.

  He wasn’t sure just what was going on in his own head because for him, keeping the line between business and pleasure had never been a problem before.

  But he had to admit that he’d never worked a case where the victim’s mother was attractive enough to melt butter at twenty paces.

  Closing the notebook he’d been writing in, he rose to his feet. “Okay, let’s go get some breakfast.”

  Dakota still had her doubts. She looked at the dormant telephone. “You’re sure this detective can reach you?”

  He slipped the notebook into his breast pocket. “As long as the signal comes through. And if it doesn’t, the cell phone has an answering machine built into it.”

  Dakota was fresh out of objections and hungry. “Okay.”

  When she was next to him, he realized that her hair was still damp. “Don’t you want to dry your hair first?”

  She touched the ends as if she’d forgotten about that. The light streaming into the room was abundant and warm. She shrugged. “The sun’ll do that.”

  He’d never met anyone so careless about the way she looked. And who looked so damn good at the same time.

  Forcing himself to reroute his thoughts, Rusty opened the door for her and waited until she stepped outside.

  Chapter 10

  The restaurant they went to for breakfast wasn’t too far from where he had seen Lisa. He knew that there was no reason for her to be there at this time, but he looked anyway, hoping that she wouldn’t stray too far until someone came for her.

  Provided someone came.

  Their identical orders of ham and eggs, given to the waitress whose hair was just a shade too bright to be called auburn, arrived quickly. Rusty made short work of his.

  Dakota, he noted, seemed intent on rearranging hers on the plate after each small bite. As a result, he was finished eating while she appeared not even to have started. How did this woman ever keep up her strength?

  Studying her as he sipped his coffee, Rusty shook his head. “You eat like a bird.”

  She smiled at that, raising her eyes to meet his. “No, I don’t.” With effort, she swallowed another bite. But everything that hit her stomach felt like lead. And would probably continue that way until she had Vinny back. She’d resigned herself to that. Even last night’s late dinner hadn’t gone down well. “Birds usually eat up to twice their body weight in a day. Takes a lot of energy to fly around like that,” she added.

  He grinned, raising his near-empty cup in a mock toast. “I stand corrected. What did you do—” he wanted to know “—swallow an encyclopedia?”

  “No, I just liked to read a lot.” She toyed with her fork, trying to sublimate the restlessness that insisted on rising to the surface no matter what she did. “Reading took me away from where I was.”

  Everyone needed a form of escape. “How long were you in the system?”

  She began to tell him that it was none of his business, but decided not to. He’d only find another way to ask the question later. “Three years. I decided to stick it out long enough to graduate from high school and then I took off. That time, nobody came to look for me. Or if they did, they didn’t find me.”

  “Maybe they didn’t look because you were eighteen.” An eighteen-year-old seemed far too young to be considered a legal adult, he mused. Most eighteen-year-olds had very little sense of reality and responsibility unless they’d been forced to grow up too fast. It occurred to him that, because of circumstances, both Dakota and he had. And that it gave them something in common.

  She shook her head. “Seventeen. I skipped a grade in elementary school.”

  Elementary school. Even as she said it, it seemed as though that had been a completely different world. She’d had a mother and a father back then, as well as a baby sister. The word family had meant something to her, instead of just being six letters surrounding an empty feeling.

  He tried to envision what she’d been like then. Bright, studious. Hopeful. If he looked really hard, he could almost detect a trace of that in the woman who sat in front of him. But then, the next moment, it was gone.

  “How does a potential prodigy wind up as a Las Vegas showgirl?”

  The laugh was short, dismissive. She’d wound up better than most runaways. But that was because she’d never been down on herself, only on those around her. The ones who tried to strip her spirit away.

  “Even potential prodigies have to eat. I lied about my age, said I had experience and studied what the other girls did on stage.” A flicker of a smile graced her lips. “I’m a quick study. It’s not a bad life if you don’t let it get to you. Besides—” she turned to her coffee, taking a sip and making a face before setting the cup down “—I had plans.”

  “Which were?” His voice was low, coaxing, just interested enough. Or so he thought.

  Dakota looked up at him sharply, suddenly realizing that she was sharing far more than she’d intended or wanted to.

  “What is this, a segment for Biography?” She’d never trusted too many questions. He was digging for something. What? “Why all the questions?”

  In the face of her suspicions, he shrugged innocently. “Just trying to get to know you.”

  “Why?” She wasn’t buying his excuse. There had to be an ulterior motive. Sarcasm dripped from her voice. “Will it help us get Vinny back?”

  He shrugged carelessly, finishing his coffee. “You never know.” His eyes met hers again. They were beautiful, he thought, but so filled with pain. He caught himself wanting to alleviate it. Not just by finding her son, but by making up for what the world had tried to do to her. He’d never come across a plea for help, silent or otherwise, that he could turn down. “Besides, I’m curious.”

  Her eyes went flat. She turned her head, looking out the window without seeing the street just beyond. “Don’t be.”

  If he were in the habit of giving up that easily, he would have changed his line of work. “You know, my brother was kind of like you. Not as snippy, but just as closed-mouthed.”

  Her head snapped around. “Snippy? I’m snippy?”

  He knew that would get her going, but hid his smile. “Bad choice of words, probably. My vocabulary isn’t the most accurate.” Rusty paused. “Just my instincts.”

  “Oh, and what do your instincts say?” she asked sarcastically.

  “That you could use a friend.” He reached for her hand, placing his over it.

  She jerked her hand back, but there was a small, reluctant feeling in the center of her indignation that she tried to squelch. She couldn’t let herself fall into that trap, the trap of leaning on someone, no matter how fleetingly. She’d already seen where that led.

  “What I could use is an investigator.”

  “That, too,” he allowed. “But you’re paying for that.”

  She eyed him for a long moment. “And the friend comes free?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wrong,” she contradicted coldly. “Dead wrong. Nothing comes free. One of the first lessons I learned.”

  The lessons belonged to a past she didn’t want to reexamine, except as far as it helped keep her determined to never again allow herself to be in a position where she could be taken advantage of. Where she could be hurt in countless ways.

  She pushed her plate away with finality. “And a lesson you should learn is that if you’re determined to save s
ouls, you’re in the wrong business. Get yourself some sackcloth and ashes and find a shelter full of people to minister to. I don’t need saving, or whatever it is you think you’re doing.”

  “Just talking.” He put his hand over the mouth of his cup as the waitress approached, ready to pour more coffee. He smiled at the woman. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “You sure are, honey,” the woman said, giving him a look that could only have one interpretation. “You sure are.” Winking at him, she glanced at Dakota’s cup, saw that it was still full and sauntered away.

  “Why don’t you go and save her soul?” Dakota prompted. “Or take whatever she’s got to offer. She looks like she can talk. For a while, anyway.” The woman would probably be all over him in a heartbeat, Dakota thought. And she supposed that the waitress couldn’t be faulted for her taste. The man was very attractive.

  Rusty wasn’t about to let himself be sidetracked by the switch in focus. He saw through it. And, in his own way, he felt he was making some progress. She’d opened up a little.

  “You throw up a lot of roadblocks, Dakota, but I think I’m getting past them anyway.”

  “Think again,” she said defiantly. There was no way he was getting anything else out of her that didn’t directly have to do with Vinny. She wasn’t paying him good money to play twenty questions about her personal life. “So what are we going to do, spar over bad coffee, or get moving?”

  The liquid under debate was fair to middling. He’d had better, but he’d certainly had worse. Rusty kept his voice low, thinking it best not to give offense to whoever was responsible for it.

  “You think this is bad coffee, you should try my sister’s. Coffee so thick, you could break a shoulder diving into it.”

  She shook her head at the image. “You dive into coffee a lot?”

  He grinned in response. “Keeps me moving.” He peeled off a twenty and left it on the table. “Okay, let’s go.”

  She looked at the bill. “Breakfast wasn’t nearly that much, don’t you want your change?”

  He left the twenty where it was. His hand to her elbow, he guided her to the door. “The waitress looks like she can use it.”

  Dakota pushed the door open with the flat of her hand. “Right, to fine-hone her skills.”

  Habit had him glancing up and down the street before crossing to where the car was parked. “No, for her little girl.”

  She stopped, looking at him curiously. The waitress hadn’t acted as if she recognized him. “You’ve been here before?”

  “No.” He opened her door before moving to the passenger side. “She’s got a picture of a little girl in a wheelchair taped to the side of the cash register.”

  She hadn’t even seen that. Getting behind the wheel, she glanced at him with grudging admiration. “You don’t miss much, do you?”

  “No, not much,” he affirmed. He reached for the seat belt, then decided there was no need. In the event that they were in an accident, he’d be wedged in the car anyway.

  The cell phone rang just as she was about to start the car. Immediately alert, she dropped her hand from the ignition key.

  “Answer it.”

  Rusty was twisting around as best he could. “I’m trying, I’m trying.”

  But the cell phone was in his back pocket and sitting the way he was, it was impossible to retrieve. Watching his futile effort for a second, Dakota muttered under her breath and reached around his waist to dig into his rear pocket.

  The sensation of her body pressed against his, her hand digging almost intimately against his posterior was definitely not an unpleasant one and he found himself smiling down into her face as she struggled to pull the cell phone out.

  Her flashing eyes only heightened the feeling for him.

  “Here!” she declared, slapping the cell phone into his hand and straightening. She could feel her heart racing and refused to believe it had any other stimulus than the ringing phone.

  The slight smile on his face made her feel that he was reading her mind. Dakota flushed as she watched him flip open the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Rusty?” The voice on the other end was deep, resonant. “This is Gray, where can I meet you?”

  As Dakota strained vainly to hear both sides of the conversation, Rusty gave the police detective the address of the rental agency that was to be their next stop. It wasn’t far from where they were.

  “I can make it in half an hour,” Gray told him.

  “We’ll be there,” Rusty promised. The other end of the line went dead and Rusty flipped the phone closed.

  “Well?” she demanded, wondering if the other man had said something significant.

  “Sounds like we’re moving forward.” He looked down at the phone in his hand. The thought of trying to get it back into his pocket was daunting. “Maybe I’d better just leave it out.”

  “Good idea.” Her response was terse.

  Pink color crept up her cheeks in direct contradiction to her tone. Rusty found himself being fascinated.

  Detective Graham Redhawk looked exactly the way Dakota had pictured him, except for the contented look in his eyes. Tall, dark and solemn, he was decidedly a man at peace with the world he found himself in. The right job, the right life. The right woman at his side.

  It wasn’t always so, but she had no way of knowing that. She envied him the moment she met him, wondering if that kind of tranquillity would ever be hers to enjoy.

  Spotting him hadn’t been difficult. His was the only pink Cadillac in the car rental lot as they drove up. He was standing beside it like a proud father silently basking in the glory of his offspring.

  It took all kinds, Dakota thought. But as long as the man helped her get Vinny back, she didn’t care if he rode a pet llama decked out in purple rigging to get to where he was going.

  “I’ve only got a few minutes,” Graham told them after Rusty had introduced Dakota and they all shook hands. Gray got down to business immediately. “One of Del Greco’s men phones in daily orders by noon. Del Greco likes to keep everything nice and orderly,” he explained when Dakota looked mildly surprised. “Superstitious that way. He shops at a place called Santini’s Grocery.”

  It was Rusty’s turn to look surprised. “Not a supermarket?” If nothing else, the variety there would be much broader, as would the anonymity.

  It was another quirk they’d uncovered. “Del Greco likes the little man. In more ways than one. The little man is easier to fleece,” he explained. “Easier to control and keep under his thumb. Del Greco’s old-fashioned. He clings to the old rules in a modern world. What that boils down to is that he gets his money from protection and from silent partnerships—usually—in gambling establishments. No drugs, no prostitution.”

  “A regular Boy Scout,” Dakota commented bitterly.

  “He could be worse,” Gray replied, but there was sympathy in his dark eyes.

  “Not to me.”

  Rusty took in what was being said, but he was focusing on the immediate future, on finding a way to deliver the groceries into Del Greco’s kitchen himself. “What can you tell me about Santini?”

  Gray took out a sheet he’d printed up less than an hour ago.

  “Way ahead of you. Here’s a bio on the man in case anyone asks any questions.” He handed Rusty the sheet. “You get in any trouble, call. Old-world principles or not, Del Greco and his organization are a nasty crew by anyone’s standards. Don’t play hero.”

  Rusty grinned, folding the paper and tucking it into his pocket. He thought of what Dakota had said to him in her apartment. She’d asked him to be her hero. “That’s my job.”

  Gray didn’t crack a smile. “Cemetery’s full of dead heroes.”

  Rusty glanced at Dakota. “You two have a lot in common. Same sunny outlook.”

  “Better grim than dead,” Gray told him. Just then, his beeper went off. Barely glancing at the number that flashed there, he muttered, “This is it.”

  “Breaking case?”
Rusty asked as Gray hurriedly opened the door on the driver’s side of his gleaming car. Though still composed, the man seemed to be just the slightest bit agitated.

  “Breaking water,” Gray corrected. He fumbled with his key, pushing it into the ignition. “My wife’s just gone into labor.”

  His “Goodbye” and “Good luck” were swallowed up by the roar of his engine as he peeled out of the spot. The car’s siren went on half a second later.

  Rusty turned to Dakota. “Okay, let’s trade this Smurf car in and then get back to the motel.”

  “The motel?” She took the steps up to the rental agency’s front door. “Why can’t we just get started?”

  Reaching around Dakota, he pushed open the door for her. “We are started, but I’m going to need to pick up some extra equipment and see if Savannah’s finished arranging for a vehicle for us yet.”

  That didn’t make any sense to her. “If she’s arranging for one, why are we bothering to exchange this one?”

  “Because we need some practical wheels to travel around in.” He lowered his voice so that the woman at the far end of the counter couldn’t hear. “If we’re going to hang around in Del Greco’s vicinity, we need something that can be hidden in plain sight. Like a van from the cable company, or one of the utility companies.”

  She looked at her watch. Redhawk had said the orders were placed every day by noon. “Are we going to be able to get all this done before twelve o’clock?”

  He gestured toward the counter. “We’re going to damn well try.”

  The cell phone rang just as they pulled into the motel lot. The vehicle they were in was a midsize car with plenty of room for even someone of Rusty’s height.

  He looked at Dakota. “I guess I can get this one myself.”

  She pressed her lips together, trying not to think about the last call. “Yeah.”

  Angling so that he could reach the phone in his pocket, he pulled it out. “This is Rusty.”

  “Hey, Saint Rusty,” Savannah greeted him on the other end, “believe it or not, we have a taker on that baby streetwalker whose photograph you e-mailed me last night. Took some sifting, but I finally found her on the Web site. I missed her the first time because she looked so well scrubbed in her photo. I called her parents—they live on a ranch in Montana—and told them where she was. The father cried incoherently for ten minutes. A Mr. Henry Bradford, in case you’re wondering. Said that his daughter Lisa had been missing for almost six months. Ran off after an argument. He’s planning on flying to Las Vegas to bring her home the minute he can get a flight out. Best Christmas present he ever had. Told me to bless you before he hung up. Consider yourself blessed.”