Not a Moment Too Soon

by Linda O. Johnston

  As far as he knew, she didn’t even have a boyfriend.

  Written strategy plan or not, he’d considered marrying her years ago, had envisioned planting his seed within her.

  And then everything had gone to hell, and his daughter had been born to Margo instead.

  “How far is the next place?” Shauna asked, thankfully interrupting his musings. She sounded a little grumpy after once more getting Chiles’s answering machine.

  “Not far. It’s in the San Fernando Valley.”

  “My checking things out worked fine at Salinger’s,” she said. “I’ll do it again, and you can—”

  “Forget it.”

  They were on the San Diego Freeway again, traveling up one of its many hills in a herd of other cars speeding in the multiple lanes on either side of them. He made his glance toward Shauna a quick one.

  The grin she’d aimed at him made his groin stand up and take notice. “Want me to distract you again the way I did last time?”

  He couldn’t help smiling back, though he kept his attention straight ahead. “You do, and we’ll wind up smeared all over the freeway.”

  “I mean after we’re parked.”

  He took his right hand off the steering wheel and placed it on her thigh, squeezing gently. “On the other hand, I could distract you this time.”

  “No fair.”

  The thing was, this wasn’t a joking matter. Or one that could be gotten around by playing games.

  “It’s more than fair, Shauna,” he said seriously, pulling his hand back. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. If it turns out that one of these creeps has Andee, you could get hurt. This isn’t even your problem.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said quietly.

  “Just because you wrote one of your stories?” He hadn’t meant to raise his voice, so he said, “Sorry. I know I’ve given you a hard time about them. You have to realize it’s not easy for someone to swallow—something that could rock his life is spilled out onto a computer by a woman miles away. And it’s true.”

  “I’ve never said any of it was easy,” she acknowledged. “Not for me, and not for the people I write about. Even as a therapist, all I can do is try to guide them so they survive the best they can.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  “And you don’t like it. I understand that, too.”

  “You’re just too damned understanding.” He took a deep breath to regain control. “This was a bad idea, Shauna, bringing you here. Especially since I told you I didn’t believe your stories were true. I’d have to be damned stupid after all that happened before to ignore that they do come true, at least sometimes. But you also said you can’t change anything that gets saved, and last night you did. Right now, I don’t know what to think.”

  “Neither do I. I’m sure I made it clear that has never happened before. But whether it’ll change things at the end—”

  “I know you don’t think so. Look, I want you to go home tomorrow.”

  “What? Why?” Her brown eyes went wide with shock.

  “Because I said so.” He hadn’t intended to say it till it burst from him, but now it made sense.

  “All the more reason for me to stay.”

  Hunter gritted his teeth. Stubborn woman.

  Tomorrow would be two long days since Andee had been snatched. Damn! Every minute she was gone was another minute his daughter remained in danger.

  But Shauna was too distracting. He needed to focus every iota of his concentration on the critical search for his daughter, and on carefully evolving his strategy as each new bit of information got factored in.

  Not on the woman beside him whose presence played havoc with his plans. All too often he had urges to touch her. Kiss her. More. When all he should be doing was looking for his daughter.

  And now she had purposely distracted him with a kiss.

  Plus, she never fell in line with what he told her to do. Yeah, her info-gathering at Salinger’s had been helpful. He probably wouldn’t have done as well, talking to the creep’s new wife. But Shauna could have put herself in danger.

  “You can play with the story on your computer at home,” he reasoned, “and then I won’t have to worry about your getting hurt, too.”

  “I’m not here for you to worry about me.” For the first time in the conversation, Shauna raised her voice. “If I want to take chances to help out, that’s my business. Despite my doubts, if there’s anything in my power I can do to make things turn out different from the ending I wrote, I’m going to do it. I’ve no intention of running home because you’re worrying about me. I’m not your concern. Andee is, since I wrote about her.”

  They’d reached the freeway exit. Hunter turned onto it in relief. Driving while distracted wasn’t a good idea anywhere, and particularly not on one of L.A.’s busiest freeways.

  As they stopped at the light at the bottom of the ramp, he looked at Shauna. “Tell you what. I won’t worry about you. We’ll scope out this place, and if it makes sense for you to help check it out, fine. But I’ll be your backup. Tonight, we’ll have a long talk. And tomorrow, you’ll go home. Understand?”

  “I hear you, Hunter,” she said, and turned toward the passenger window.

  As it happened, Shauna didn’t have to argue with Hunter about tagging too close for her to learn anything at the next place they visited. The guy wasn’t home.

  For the following one, Shauna insisted on calling first on her cell phone. Hunter had argued. In case any of their prey was the real thing, he didn’t want anything to broadcast a possible warning.

  But she’d prevailed, in the interest of saving precious time—time in which Andee had not yet been found. And the dwindling time before Banger’s official investigation would likely be picked up by the media.

  Shauna had therefore used her cell phone, a number Sol Perina couldn’t possibly recognize. When he’d answered, she’d identified herself as a representative of a local phone company calling about a wonderful new offer. Of course he’d hung up, but they’d confirmed he was home.

  Only, he wasn’t. And the result was inconclusive.

  Perina lived in a large apartment complex surrounded by a fence. Shauna felt uncomfortable sneaking in after a tenant who’d used a key to open the door. She entered anyway, talking on her cell phone, ostensibly to a person in one of the apartments—but actually to dead air.

  When she got to Perina’s and rang his bell, a man came to the door—taller and chubbier than the guy Hunter had described as the subject of an embezzlement investigation he’d done for a local bank. The amount taken had been too small to spend company time and resources in having the guy tried for a crime, but there had been more than enough evidence to fire him immediately, with no references.

  Perina hadn’t been pleased, Hunter had said. And when this large, scowling man who didn’t smell particularly good came to the door, Shauna hoped that this time Hunter had sneaked in, too, and was watching her back. And her front. She felt very uncomfortable under this man’s stare.

  “Hello, Mr. Perina,” she said brightly. “Your name was chosen at random among the residents of this building to have a free apartment cleaning by Maid-of-the-Week. We just need to look at the condition of your place to determine how many people to send, and then we can set up a time and date. May I come in?”

  “No,” the man said curtly. “Sol’s not here right now, and I know he doesn’t want a damned maid coming in.”

  “Then you must be Mr.—” Shauna grasped for a name so the guy hopefully would correct her. Preferably with something that began with T. “Mr. Taylor?”

  “Koffleman.” The door was shut in Shauna’s face.

  She returned dejectedly to the parking lot beside the complex, where Hunter was to pick her up. She didn’t see him at first, but then noticed him slip out the building’s side door.

  He had been inside, watching over her. Of course it was only because he falsely felt responsible for any jeopardy she might stumble into while he
lping to find Andee, but his protectiveness still washed a warm sense of security over her.

  She smiled sadly as he approached.

  “I gather by your expression that you didn’t find her,” he said. He took Shauna’s elbow, a once-familiar gesture, and led her to the far side of the lot, where she soon spotted his car.

  “I didn’t eliminate him as a suspect, either,” she said dejectedly. She explained that the man in the apartment, most likely the same one who’d answered the phone, wasn’t Perina but Koffleman. That meant Perina could be anywhere.

  Including somewhere holding Andee.

  “Okay,” Hunter said when they were in the car. “Another one to keep on the list, including the suspect who wasn’t home. That’s three we’ve gone through. Two more to go.” He sounded neutral, a P.I. on a difficult case for a client he barely knew—if she ignored the way his hands trembled as he shuffled papers he’d withdrawn from beneath the seat. “I’ll check with Simon while we’re on our way.”

  His assistant’s success rate had been about the same, Hunter reported to Shauna after a brief cell-phone conversation. One possibility had been pretty much eliminated by location, circumstances and probably witnesses. A couple hadn’t been around for Shauna to check on, and a fourth, whose first name was Timothy, remained high on the list.

  Of the final two Hunter and she planned to scope out that day, one didn’t answer his phone. That left one more, who responded at his office number. He worked in Glendale.

  While they were on the way there, Shauna’s cell phone rang.

  “I’m really sorry there’s been no big breakthrough so far,” said Kaitlin after Shauna answered. “And that you’re feeling so miserable about it. But why were you so nervous about half an hour ago? I don’t like that at all.” Kaitlin’s special sense was obviously still honed in on Shauna, who appreciated it.

  “It’s great to hear from you, Kaitlin,” Shauna said, smiling. She had only been gone just over a day and knew her restaurant was in good hands—and that Kaitlin would call her in an instant if anything was wrong. Still, she had to ask, “Is everything okay at Fantasy Fare?”

  “Have you written any horror stories about it? Of course you haven’t. Everything’s hunky-dory. But what’s with this guy in your life? When I tuned in a while back, I also had a feeling of arguing, but it wasn’t that. It was…oh, never mind. It’s not my business.”

  Shauna knew just what she was talking about, though—her disagreement with Hunter that she had cut off with a kiss.

  Kaitlin could sense even that from so far away? But Shauna already knew how attuned she was to emotions.

  “No,” Shauna agreed, “it’s not. What happened is also not what you may think.”

  “Yeah, and I’m Buster the Barker. It wasn’t even the first time, though I didn’t call you then.”

  Buster was a big, polka-dot dog that Shauna had made up as a character for a lot of her Fantasy Fare stories—a character who meant well but sometimes got in trouble for going about helping others the wrong way.

  The kids loved Buster, and often asked for stories about him that reflected their own concerns.

  “Okay, Buster,” Shauna said. “I’ll fill you in on what really happened when I get back there. Which I expect will be tomorrow.” She darted a glance at Hunter. He seemed to be concentrating hard on his freeway driving. Too hard. Obviously he was listening.

  He had said he would send her home tomorrow. She recognized it would be better for both of them. But though she hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place, now she didn’t want to leave. And not solely because she hoped she could help him cope with whatever was going to happen to Andee.

  She was enjoying, much too much, spending time with Hunter.

  Which told her that he was absolutely right. She had to leave, the sooner the better.

  “Sure. Well, kiddo, I’m keeping fingers crossed that everything works out great.”

  This time, as Shauna hung up, her field of vision behind her eyelids was filled with disembodied hands—cartoonlike, and white gloved. Some snapped fingers in rhythm, and the rest were all knotted up, with digits all crossed over one another.

  Once again, Shauna had to smile at the image Kaitlin had sent her way.

  “Your manager again?” Hunter asked. His expression seemed bemused.

  “That’s right.”

  “I figured,” he said. “More shorthand.”

  “Uh-huh,” Shauna agreed.

  Hunter was silent, but Shauna could see, by the way his lips flattened then opened, that he wanted to say something.

  She recalled their earlier kiss—feeling those lips on hers in what should have been only a distraction…and was a lot more. It prompted memories.

  And longings.

  Neither of which belonged in her beleaguered brain.

  “Something wrong?” she asked hurriedly. She’d mentioned leaving tomorrow. It had been his idea, after all.

  But had he changed his mind?

  Did she want him to?

  “No,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

  They met Simon at the end of the day, at one of Hunter’s favorite dives on Santa Monica Boulevard, in West Hollywood.

  Whoever built the place had never heard of acoustics, for with the music and the crowd all shrieking at full volume, there was no way to hear oneself think.

  But it was a good way to have conversations one didn’t want overheard—too noisy.

  He sat across from Simon and beside Shauna at a square table near the entrance. Flatware and napkins had been dumped unceremoniously into a heap by the single empty place. Simon had wrinkled his nose so much at the rudeness that his mustache, which usually looked a lot neater than his straight, dark hair, appeared wavy. He parceled the utensils around, then set his own precisely in front of him.

  Hunter knew better than to smile at his right-hand’s idiosyncrasies. Simon was a darned good P.I. That was what counted.

  “Okay,” Hunter said after they’d given their orders to a gum-chewing waiter, “let’s compare notes.”

  They went over everyone on his list, describing what contact, if any, had been made with each.

  “I think you can rule out Jerome Salinger,” Shauna offered. “But not Sol Perina.”

  “So our fearless leader Hunter allowed you to participate in the investigation?”

  “He didn’t allow it,” Shauna said, “but he didn’t stop me.” The conspiratorial glance she shared with Simon annoyed Hunter.

  They continued their discussion over meals of enormous hamburgers and crispy fries. Not that Hunter had much appetite.

  Though they had been able to whittle down the list a bit, not many suspects had been completely eliminated. Simply finding them at home alone wasn’t enough. The kidnapper could have hidden Andee someplace else.

  “All right,” Hunter said. “Let’s discuss what to do next.”

  “You know what that is,” Simon said, so quietly that he almost couldn’t be heard over the din.

  Putting down his glass, from which he’d just taken a swig of cold, watered-down cola, Hunter glared. Of course he knew what Simon had in mind. He just didn’t agree with it.

  “What?” Shauna asked.

  “I believe it is time to fully unleash our compatriot Banger,” Simon replied. “Figuratively, of course.”

  Most of the time, Simon’s use of language amused Hunter. But nothing about this discussion amused him now. “I know Banger hasn’t liked keeping a lid on things,” Hunter said, “and that he’s had to work hard to do it and still get the ball rolling at LAPD. The day he gave me is nearly up. I’m going to ask for more time, even though he’s already gone way out on a limb for me. If nothing else, it’ll give me more time to get the money together.”

  “Caving in to an extortionist’s demands is not necessarily the wisest way to catch him and end the situation,” Simon replied. “I believe he’s more likely to return Andee safely if he knows he is the subject of an intense manhunt, an
d his only chance of a light prison sentence is to give her up unharmed. Let the authorities loose, Hunter. It’s what Banger wishes.”

  “But the newsmongers’ll grab on to it,” Hunter protested. “Having cops after the guy is one thing. But having the whole scenario the subject of a media circus is something I don’t want to chance. It could scare him into doing something really bad.”

  “But Hunter…” His name tapered off on Shauna’s lips. Obviously she didn’t want to finish what she’d started to say.

  That told him what it was.

  The word had somehow gotten to the media in her story. Plus, the cops’ all-out effort had expanded.

  He knew how she thought that turned out.

  Hell, it was how he figured it’d turn out, too.

  “If we’d made more progress today,” Shauna finally said, “I’d agree with you, Hunter. But we’ve barely eliminated anyone on your list. And that’s even assuming you’ve remembered everyone.”

  “And that it is actually one of those many citizens who have vowed revenge on the owner of Strahm Solutions,” Simon added.

  They were right, of course. But he’d had to continue with his mapped-out strategy and follow up on whatever meager clues he had. No way would he just sit around twiddling his damned thumbs while the cops ran around in circles looking for his daughter.

  But he couldn’t even say with certainty that any of them—himself included—had made headway toward finding her.

  Andee had been missing for almost thirty-six hours.

  Shauna and Simon were both looking at him. Amazing how he wasn’t much affected by Simon’s expression of understanding, but the anxious compassion in Shauna’s brown eyes made him want to roar in anger and give in to self-pity all at the same time.

  “All right,” he finally agreed. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called Banger.

  “You find her?” his police detective friend asked immediately.

  “No. You?”