Hero in the Nick of Time

by Marie Ferrarella

  A slight sting pricked at her before she asked, “I annoy you that much?”

  She’d lost him. “What?”

  “Why the separate offices?”

  “Because we need two phones. You can take line one, I’ll take line two.” He passed a directory to her. “First order of business is to call the local hospitals to see if anyone brought a little girl fitting Heather’s description into the emergency room yesterday. There’re five in the area.”

  “I’ll call them.”

  “After that, call the cab companies listed on the first page. I’ll take page two.” He knew Megan kept her own copy of the yellow pages in her office. “Ask—”

  “If they picked up a fare with a little girl in the Huntington Beach vicinity yesterday morning,” she supplied.

  He had to admit, albeit a bit grudgingly, that he did like the way her mind worked. “Ahead of me as usual,” he quipped.

  She wasn’t about to apologize for having a quick mind. Mac thought of it as her only asset. “That does annoy you, doesn’t it?”

  “Not particularly.” He had to be honest. “Having you finish my sentences, however, does.” Lingering even though he knew he shouldn’t, he smiled at her. The woman had very expressive eyes. If he watched them, he could almost see what she was thinking. The key word here, he thought, was almost. “I admire a quick mind.”

  “Just not on a woman.”

  He paused. He wondered if being defensive came naturally to her, or if something had made her that way. “You’re not as good at reading people as you think, Dr. Dellaventura. Megan Andreini is one of my closest friends. Last time I checked, she was both a female and a damn sharp human being. I wouldn’t have taken her on as a partner if she wasn’t.”

  “Then it’s just me,” Mac concluded. Without realizing it, she hugged the directory to her chest. “I have a habit of rubbing people the wrong way.”

  She was being defensive, Cade thought. And maybe just a bit vulnerable. “You don’t rub me the wrong way, Mac,” he said quietly. “I’m just not accustomed to working with a partner.”

  “But you just said—”

  He hadn’t been clear, he realized. “Megan’s my partner in the agency. But we don’t live in each other’s pockets. She works her cases. I work mine. Sometimes we pick each other’s brains. But we don’t make field trips together. This is an entirely new experience for me. You’ll have to cut me a little slack.” He nodded at the directory she held against her. “Yell if you come up with something.”

  She looked down at the telephone book. More time was going to go by. Time they didn’t have. “Wouldn’t the police already have this information?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. They might be doing exactly what we are at this stage of the investigation. And even if they were ahead, I don’t know the detective working this.” He’d gotten a name, but he had no association, no history and no one who knew someone who knew someone who knew the detective. In this case, there were no degrees of separation to fall back on. “In order to pick a brain, you have to be familiar with that brain.” He tapped the phone book. “Start calling.”

  Resigned, Mac walked over to the desk and sat down, then flipped the directory open to the Cs.

  Mac drew a line through another name on the page. That made fifteen calls. Fifteen strikeouts. Nothing but dead ends.

  Tired, she rotated her neck, then lifted her hair off it and massaged the tense cramps that were forming. She struggled to hold a feeling of growing despair at bay. She needed to refuel.

  There’d been a pot of coffee in the waiting area when they’d walked into the office. Maybe that would help recharge her.

  Getting up, she walked across the hall to the office Cade. was in. Megan’s office. Mac noticed the slight feminine touches here and there, but mostly, the office was utilitarian. Like Cade’s. She wondered if the word partner had a deeper meaning for the two.

  Cade looked up just as she popped her head in, a silent question in his eyes. Moving her head from side to side, Mac jerked her thumb toward the hall. “Is that coffee for anyone?”

  On hold, Cade was waiting while the person on the other end of the line checked the various driver logs for the previous day. He tucked the receiver against his neck and shoulder. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” She took a step out, then stopped. “You want any?”

  “Sounds good.” He thrived on coffee. The stronger the better. “Black, no sugar.”

  Just the thought of that made her shiver. “Sounds more like penance than coffee.”

  She took plenty of cream and sugar in hers. It was the caffeine she required, but it had to go down smooth. Since Heather had been kidnapped, it felt to Mac as if she’d been going strictly on coffee. Exhaustion would come, then go, chased away by a wave of fresh coffee. So far, it was Mac two, exhaustion nothing. She hadn’t slept more than a few minutes in two days, but eventually, Mac knew she was going to crash.

  Returning with two mugs, she placed Cade’s in front of him on the desk. “One cup of mud,” she announced.

  Raising his eyes to hers, Cade nodded his thanks. His attention was focused on the voice on the other end of the line.

  “Is he there now? Any chance we can talk to him? We can be there in—” he paused, looking at the address he’d circled in the book “—twenty minutes. Right. No problem.”

  Eager, Mac wanted to tug on his arm, but she waited until Cade hung up. The instant he did, she fairly pounced on him. “Did you find him?”

  Cade jotted the number down on a separate piece of paper. “Looks that way.”

  She was at his elbow as he headed for the door. “What’s ‘no problem’?”

  Cade tucked the address into his back pocket. “The dispatcher said we couldn’t keep the driver tied up too long.”

  Excitement began building up inside her. She’d been right to hire him. “Just long enough for him to tell us where he dropped that woman off.”

  David Hutton scratched a day-old beard and stared at the sketch for less than a second. He’d already told them that he had picked her up on the side of the road and had appeared surprised when they’d mentioned an ambulance. He hadn’t taken note of any in the area.

  “Yeah, that’s her. I never forget a face.” He handed the sketch back to Cade. “But she was smiling. And talking to the baby.”

  When they found her, Mac promised herself, she was going to pull every hair out of the woman’s head. Heather had been in the accident along with Moira. Was injured enough for the first set of paramedics to call in another ambulance. There was no telling how bad Heather’s condition actually was.

  “How was the baby?” Mac asked him.

  The cab driver shrugged. He hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, although his attention had been centered on the woman. “I don’t know, like a baby, I guess. I don’t know all that much about babies. This one was real quiet.”

  “Quiet?” Mac didn’t like the sound of that. Heather was a lively, active baby.

  “Yeah, like she was sleeping. The woman said she was a very good baby.” He folded the fifty-dollar bill Cade had just given him, growing uncomfortable. “What’s this all about, anyway?”

  “The baby was kidnapped,” Cade told him.

  The driver’s leathery face was a mask of surprise. “From that woman?”

  “By that woman,” Mac corrected him tersely.

  A low whistle came between teeth that badly needed straightening. “No kidding.”

  Cade took out a second fifty, holding it aloft when the driver reached for it. “No kidding. Where did you take her?”

  “The Bedford Chandler.” He smiled as Cade placed the fifty in his palm and his fingers closed around the bill quickly as if he were afraid that Cade would decide his answers weren’t worth the money.

  Cade knew Mac was concerned about Heather’s condition. For the kidnapper to go to a doctor, though, would be difficult, arousing suspicions not easily fielded. There would be questions to answ
er and forms to fill out.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Mac asked.

  He nodded. “The hotel is near the airport.”

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking.” Turning on her heels, Mac was already out the door when Cade caught up to her.

  He saw the expression on her face. She obviously thought they were close to recovering Heather. It was rare, in his experience, that cases were resolved so quickly. There were usually a great many red herrings to weed out first.

  He wondered if she could stand the disappointment if this lead petered out.

  “You know,” Cade pointed out, “she might not still be there. Or she might have used the address to throw people off in case they tracked her this far.”

  He was the professional, Mac thought. There was more than a chance that he was right, but she didn’t want to think about it. She had to believe that she was close to getting Heather back. She couldn’t face Moira again, not until she could bring Heather to her.

  “Or maybe she got overconfident.”

  “Maybe.”

  He hurried to keep up with her, knowing that she was capable of running headlong into the situation. Being McKayla Dellaventura’s guardian angel had just been added to Cade’s list of responsibilities.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m sorry, we do not give out the room numbers or the names of our guests.” The clerk behind the front desk of the Bedford Chandler gave them a disapproving look as he waved away the sketch Cade had taken out.

  “This guest stole a baby,” Mac informed him, barely curtailing her anger.

  The man looked surprised. “That child wasn’t hers?”

  Mac pounced on his words like a prize-winning mouser on a cornered rodent “Then she is here.”

  “Not is, was,” the clerk corrected her, still a little uncertain about how on-the-level this story was. “She checked out late last night. Seemed in a hurry to go. Said she missed her husband.”

  “Did she happen to tell you where this husband was?” Cade pressed.

  The clerk shook his head. “No.”

  “What about telephone calls?” Cade asked. “Did she make any from her room?”

  The clerk shrugged, still unwilling to pull up the data. “I wouldn’t know, although most people do.”

  Mac reached across the desk, laying her hand on his arm. “Can we get a look at the telephone records?”

  The dour expression was back in place on the clerk’s face. “That is highly irregular—”

  “So’s kidnapping,” Mac pointed out. She took out her checkbook. “What will it take to see them?”

  Glancing around to see if anyone was nearby, he leaned slightly in Mac’s direction. “The baby was really kidnapped?”

  They were getting somewhere, Mac thought in relief. “She’s my niece. That woman who stayed here ran my sister’s car off the road. She stole my sister’s baby while my sister lay bleeding. She’s in intensive care right now, clinging to life by a thread. Won’t you please help me bring her baby back to her?”

  Clearly moved, the clerk typed something into the computer. “Give me a minute,” he told her with compassion as he began to scroll down the page.

  Finding what he wanted, he hit the print button. The printer on the counter behind him came to life, humming softly until it spit out the completed page.

  It was done in less than half a minute. The clerk placed the list in front of Mac with a flourish.

  “On the house.”

  Standing behind her, Cade looked over Mac’s shoulder at the list of telephone numbers. Her hair brushed against his cheek and he tried not to take note of the slight tingle of electricity that snaked through his body. Moving his head away, he focused on the paper.

  According to the sharp letters on top, the woman who had occupied room number 824 had been named Susan Wiley, from Seattle, Washington. Cade had his doubts that either the name or the address she’d given the hotel were genuine.

  There were four phone calls on the printout. The last number was a local one, the other three were long-distance calls to the same number.

  “Area code look familiar to you?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at Cade.

  “No.” But the moment he denied it, something in his head nudged at a distant recollection. “Wait a minute.” Picking up the sheet, Cade studied the first three digits, trying to crystallize the memory. “This is Phoenix, I think.”

  Raising his eyes to the desk clerk, Cade saw no confirmation or denial.

  The clerk had already turned down Mac’s initial bribe, but he was about to ask for something larger in magnitude than a room number or a telephone printout. Cade took measure of the clerk and decided that the man could be flexible if the inspiration were right. Gently, he elbowed Mac aside, taking over the counter.

  “How much would it take for you to give me her charge card number?”

  “I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” he said, shaking his head. And by his expression, it was apparent that the clerk felt he was, too. His eyes widened as he saw a fifty dollar bill being taken out. And then he sighed at the lost opportunity. “She paid for everything with cash.”

  Tucking away the fifty, Cade exchanged it for a twenty and placed it on the counter as payment. The man had been as helpful as he could be—and he hadn’t tried to string it out. That was worth something.

  “And that didn’t strike you as a little odd?” Cade asked him.

  The man quickly concealed the twenty beneath his short, stubby fingers like a spider obliterating its prey. “Hey, we get odd people at the Chandler all the time, same as the other hotels.” He tucked the bill into his trouser pocket. “Besides, she looked very respectable.”

  “So we’ve been told. Best kind of cover,” Cade murmured. He glanced at Mac. She seemed to be holding up well. Better than he would have guessed someone in her position would have. “Where’s the nearest public telephone?”

  The clerk pointed to an alcove just off the main lobby.

  “Thanks.” With a nod in his direction, Cade crossed to the phones, found one that wasn’t being used and called the one local number on their list.

  Three rings later a personable voice said, “U.S. Airlines. If you’d like to make a reservation, please press—”

  Just as he thought. Now at least he had the airline’s name. Hanging up, Cade cut off the recording.

  “Well?” Mac demanded the moment he’d hung up the receiver.

  “She flew out on U.S. Airlines.”

  It gave them an airline, now he needed to verify the destination. The calls to Phoenix would suggest she’d gone there, but he was taking nothing for granted. Cade glanced at his watch. No wonder he was beginning to feel tired. It was getting late. He’d put in more than a full day on this. Outside, the world had long since slipped into its black, velvety case. There were still things he wanted to do, but Mac didn’t figure into them.

  “Maybe we should call it a night and start fresh in the morning.”

  He wanted to quit? Now? Struggling, Mac curbed the agitation that threatened to burst out. Instead, she marshaled her self-control and nodded.

  “Fine, I’ll fill you in then.” Turning away from the small cluster of telephones, she headed for the revolving door in the front of the building.

  Stunned, Cade hesitated half a second before he realized that she was walking away from him. Taking long strides, he caught up to her before she managed to leave the hotel. His hand on her shoulder, he turned her around. “What do you mean, fill me in?”

  With a slight lift of her shoulders, she shrugged off his hand and went through the revolving door. “On what I find out,” she called out.

  He joined her at the curb, but she was no longer paying attention to Cade. Her destination was uppermost in her mind.

  Seeing the valet, Mac waved at him, pointing the five-dollar bill tucked between her second and third fingers straight up. The pubescent man dressed in dark green livery hurried over to her. She handed him
the money. “I need a cab, please.”

  Exasperation, quickly losing its foreign status within Cade’s range of experience, pushed its way forward again. “No, she doesn’t.” Matching the five she’d handed out, Cade waved the man away.

  Befuddled, but very obviously pleased, the valet smiled at the unexpected windfall. Pocketing the two bills, he looked hopefully from the animated woman to the tall man beside her.

  “Anything else I can’t get for you?” The look Cade gave him had the valet quitting while he was ahead and retreating.

  “What did you do that for?” Mac demanded hotly. If she was still trying to curb her impatience, she was having no luck at it.

  “Because you don’t need a cab.”

  She frowned, her annoyance clearly showing in her eyes. “I’m not too sure what part of the country you come from, but for me, it’s too far to walk.”

  “You’re going to the airport, aren’t you?”

  The smile on her lips had no emotional backup. “I guess that’s why you’re so good at your job.”

  The woman was a severe test to his patience and good manners, Cade thought. Right now, he was just barely passing. With a sigh, he took her arm. “C’mon, I’ll take you over.”

  “I’m not twelve years old,” she pointed out, trying to shrug off the hold he had on her. This time, she failed. “I don’t have to be dragged.”

  “Being twelve has nothing to do with it,” he assured her.

  He maintained his hold on her arm until they reached his car. The last thing he wanted was to have her run off on his watch. The case was his, and as long as it was, he wanted to keep casualties to a minimum. Cade had a feeling that the woman who took Heather wasn’t operating alone and that the participants in this little drama were a great deal more sophisticated than they’d first thought.

  Sophisticated people took just as dim a view of being caught as run-of-the-mill scum. At times, even more so.

  He didn’t release her until they reached his car. With a loud, indignant sigh, she rubbed her arm where his fingers had dug in. “I was beginning to think you were going to strap me to the roof.”