Racing Against Time

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can expect me.”

  “Good.” He leaned over and pressed for the elevator. “I was hoping you’d say that.” And then he surprised her by kissing her forehead.

  “What was that for?”

  Brent’s tragedy brought home to him just how lucky a man he was. All of his children were accounted for. “Just counting my blessings, Callie. Just counting my blessings.”

  Chapter 10

  The doorbell rang just as she was putting on her holster. Muttering under her breath, Callie slipped on her jacket and hurried to the door. She hadn’t the slightest idea who would be standing on the other side this early. It was barely seven.

  She said “Yes?” as she opened it.

  The last person in the world she expected to see was there on the second-floor landing, framed in the hazy morning light. The dampness in the air curled the ends of his black hair. He didn’t look like a criminal court judge, just a very sensual man.

  “How did you get my address?”

  “There are certain privileges that go along with being a judge.” He frowned disapprovingly. “You have no peephole.”

  She felt that inexplicable “something” coming to life within her. The same something that sent her blood flowing through her veins just a tad faster than it had been. Than it should be.

  Callie shrugged, hoping he couldn’t read anything in her face. “The apartment didn’t come with one.”

  That was no excuse. She was a young, attractive woman living alone. That meant she needed all the edge she could get to hold her own in the city. He didn’t like the fact that she was lax with her own safety. “Don’t you even ask who’s there? You’re a detective, shouldn’t you know better?”

  “I’m a detective,” she echoed. “That means I can protect myself.” Callie opened the door wider to allow him entrance, then turned and walked away. She needed to finish getting ready. “What are you doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?” She’d expected him to be at the precinct, not here.

  He’d asked himself the same question as he’d pulled up to her apartment complex. There had been no real answer to that. He was here because he needed to be here. “I thought I could take you to work.”

  Throwing a roll of mints into her small, utilitarian purse, she looked up at him. “I need my car.”

  He lifted a single shoulder carelessly. “Then you can take me.” Brent sighed. The truth didn’t come easily for him. Not when it was about him, and personal. But he owed it to her to be honest. “The truth is, I need someone to talk to before I go crazy.” He saw the surprised expression on her face. She was going to ask about his sister. He headed her off. “Someone professional who won’t just pat my hand and feed me empty platitudes.”

  Callie closed the flap on her purse. “I’m not going straight to work.”

  He didn’t care where she was going, just as long as she talked to him. Made him feel by her very competent presence that this was going to come to a satisfactory conclusion instead of the one that haunted him every time he was alone with his thoughts. “Do whatever you usually do. I just need the human contact.”

  He needed to be kept busy. Too busy to think. “Have you thought about going back to work?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” he replied. However, his integrity wouldn’t allow him to use his position on the bench as a way to block out his thoughts. “But in my present preoccupied state, I wouldn’t be doing the state or the course of justice any service by presiding over cases.” He watched her take out her keys. “Where do you have to go first?”

  She stopped at the front door and looked at him, wondering how he’d react to knowing that she still made it a point to see her father almost every day. Without realizing it, she raised her chin in a movement of defiance.

  “I usually stop by my father’s house before going in to work. He makes breakfast for the clan. It gives him a sense of purpose, of unity.” She realized she sounded defensive and did her best to tone it down. “I guess it gives all of us a sense of unity.”

  The idea was completely foreign to him. When he was growing up, he couldn’t wait until he didn’t have to look at his parents across any table. “How many of you are there?”

  “Any given morning?” She did a quick calculation, then laughed. “A crowd. He likes to have my brothers, my sisters and me there as often as possible. And sometimes our cousins and uncle pop up.”

  A family affair. Maybe he’d just go on to the precinct and hook up with her later. “Then I’d be intruding.”

  “You didn’t let me mention assorted friends,” Callie pointed out. “My father sets a very large table. The more seats, the better.”

  Brent figured that as a retired police chief her father’s pension was a sizable one. Still, feeding a lot of people on a regular basis had to take a large chunk of change out of it. “That sort of thing must get expensive.”

  She waited for him to walk out, then followed, locking the door behind them. “Not if you count it in terms of warmth. Then it’s priceless.” Hunting up her car keys on the ring, she smiled at Brent. “Now that I think of it, you could benefit from a trip to the House of Cavanaugh.”

  He resisted the urge to take her arm, helping her down the stairs. This wasn’t a date, he reminded himself, no matter how attracted he was to her or how comfortable she made him feel. Instead he followed her down the wooden steps.

  “Is that anything like the House of Pancakes?”

  Reaching the bottom, she turned to look up at him. “I doubt if anyone at the House of Pancakes would take you to task for being late.” With that she led the way to space 189 and her car.

  He had his doubts about barging in.

  Pulling up at the curb in front of the pleasant-looking two-story stucco structure, Brent was beginning to have second thoughts about sitting at Andrew Cavanaugh’s table. It was one thing to show up on Callie’s doorstep. After three days of being together, he felt as if he’d known her forever, as if he could turn to her during low points in this crisis and somehow, by just knowing she was there, manage to get through it.

  But even though he knew Andrew Cavanaugh, it wasn’t on the same level. He’d exchanged words with the man on several occasions and they had mutual friends, but that was the extent of it. And as for the others, he wouldn’t have known any of them if he’d tripped over them in the street. How rude was it to just drop in on all of them like this?

  Very, he decided. His hand covered the key he’d left in the ignition, debating.

  Callie got out of her car and looked behind her. Brent had pulled up to the curb at the same time she’d reached the house, but his door wasn’t opening.

  Had he changed his mind? Or was something else wrong?

  She hurried down the driveway. “What’s the matter?” she called out.

  Brent shook his head. This had been a mistake. “Maybe I shouldn’t—”

  But he never got a chance to finish what he was about to say. Callie was opening his door. “Maybe you should,” she countered, leaving absolutely no room for argument in her voice. Just in case he was having second thoughts, she took hold of his hand and tugged.

  Brent had no choice but to get out of the car and follow her into the house.

  The front door was unlocked.

  This was even worse than her apartment. At least she had her door locked. “Don’t you people believe in prevention?”

  She closed the door behind him. “Anyone who’s going to walk into a houseful of cops to pull off a heist has a death wish and deserves what’s coming to him.”

  Not taking any chances for an abrupt departure, she continued to hold his hand as she led the way to the kitchen.

  “There she is, late as usual,” Andrew announced to the others at the table. As usual, he didn’t bother turning to look at his errant daughter. Instead, taking a plate, he began building a pyramid of pancakes for her.

  “The only reason Rayn
e’s here ahead of me is that all she has to do is roll down the stairs,” Callie protested. And then, because all five pairs of eyes at the table—she noticed that her cousin Patience had joined them this morning—had turned to look at the man behind her, she obliged them with an introduction. “I brought a guest. Everybody, this is Judge Brenton Montgomery. Brent, this is everybody.”

  Plate in hand, Andrew turned from the stove to look in Brent’s direction. If he was surprised by the man’s appearance, he hid it well.

  Taking charge, Andrew stepped forward. “You do my table honor, Judge. And you’ll excuse my daughter, she has a congenital defect. She was born without any manners.” He handled the introductions properly, going clockwise around the oval table. “This is Shaw, Teri, Clay and Rayne, my children. And that perky young woman seated at the far end is my niece, Patience. My late brother Mike’s daughter,” he added.

  “Patience doesn’t count,” Callie cracked as she took her place at the table. With a nod of her head, she indicated the seat next to her. Brent sat down. “She’s a vet.”

  Patience pretended to take offense at the slight. “I see all the police personnel I need to when they come into the office with the K-9 unit.”

  “So, Judge,” Andrew placed the heaping plate of pancakes he’d compiled in front of Brent instead of Callie, “what brings you to my table?”

  Brent looked at the offering, a little overwhelmed by the stack. Did people really consume this much for breakfast? He was accustomed to a piece of toast, if that much. “Actually, Callie did. I originally thought we were on the way to the precinct.”

  Andrew shot an approving look at his daughter. For her own safety she decided not to make anything of it. “All in good time, Judge,” Andrew said. “Can’t start a day without a good breakfast.”

  On Brent’s other side, Rayne leaned her head into his and conspiratorially confided, “Can’t get away from the table without one, either.”

  In response, Brent looked at Callie questioningly.

  “I guess I should have warned you,” Callie murmured. She offered him a smile that he found particularly compelling. You would have thought, he caught himself musing, that he’d been brought to his girlfriend’s house to meet her family for the first time. The whole scene smacked of Norman Rockwell.

  Were people really that normal out there? he wondered. It actually comforted him in this time of turmoil to believe that they were.

  Within moments, despite the emptiness he’d been harboring in his chest since the moment he’d learned of Rachel’s abduction, Brent found himself being drawn into this inner circle. The sound of good-natured voices, all trying to top one another, echoed around him.

  This was so different from anything he could ever remember at his own table when he’d been growing up. He and his two siblings rarely took breakfast with his parents, and when they had, they were required to be silent. Both his parents subscribed to the ancient adage that children should be seen and not heard.

  Obviously, no such edict had ever existed in the Cavanaugh household. Or, if it did, it was completely ignored.

  The din ebbed and swelled. Finally he leaned toward Callie, turning his head so that his mouth was close to her ear. He doubted his voice would carry otherwise. “How can you hear yourself think?”

  She grinned, licking a drop of maple syrup from her finger. “I don’t have to. Someone else’ll tell me what I’m thinking.”

  Watching her tongue flick along the point of her finger, he felt something tighten within his stomach. He realized he’d stopped talking. And for the moment, stopped breathing, as well.

  “More coffee, Judge?”

  The voice at his elbow startled him. He did his best not to show it. “All things considered, I think you should call me Brent.” In response to Andrew’s question, Brent moved his cup to the edge of the table.

  Andrew poured and then stood back for a second, looking at Callie and the man she had brought with her. All things considered, I think I’ll be calling you son before long if I don’t miss my guess.

  He inclined his head toward Brent. “All right, ‘Brent,’ I want to see you making short work of that stack of pancakes.”

  Callie saw the look of dismay on Brent’s face and quickly came to his rescue. She nodded at the plate. “Three Egyptians toiling on the pyramids for the Pharaoh couldn’t make short work of that, Dad.” She shook her head. “You overfeed people.”

  Andrew eyed his daughter. This one would go to her grave arguing. “Not everyone is content to weigh in at ninety pounds, missy.”

  The familiar refrain had her packing it in. “Which is my cue to leave.” She glanced at her watch. They’d been here longer than she’d intended, but Brent really looked as if he was enjoying himself. He was sorely in need of this distraction and, if nothing else, her family certainly was distracting. She laid a hand on Brent’s arm. “We’d better get going.” Brent was on his feet immediately.

  Andrew frowned, shaking his head in abject disapproval. “Last to arrive, first to go.”

  Picking up a piece of hardly browned toast, Callie patted her father’s cheek. “Always leave them wanting more, isn’t that what you taught me?”

  “Them,” Andrew emphasized, fisted hands on his hips. “Not me.”

  “Thanks for breakfast,” she said over her shoulder, already hurrying to the door.

  Brent paused to take his leave properly. He shook hands with Callie’s father. “Thanks for having me.”

  For a moment Andrew gripped the hand that Brent offered, giving it a firm shake. Brent felt as if he’d just entered into a covenant of some kind. “You hang in there,” Andrew counseled.

  A slight smile on his face, Brent nodded toward the others, grateful that they hadn’t all fallen into stupefying silence at his appearance, or that they hadn’t awkwardly offered words of comfort. He realized this was just what he needed to give him the strength to continue.

  “Nice family,” Brent told Callie as he hurried out after her.

  She turned up the lapels of her jacket. It was windy this morning. Windy and damp. She wondered if it was going to rain. “Yeah, I’ve decided to keep them. Actually, I don’t think I have much of a choice. They’d overwhelm anyone else.” She looked at him. “Did they overwhelm you?”

  “No. They were just what the doctor ordered.” He looked at her before he got into his vehicle. “But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  She merely grinned. “I had my suspicions.” Her car purred to life and she backed out of the driveway.

  Callie could feel the tension the moment she walked into the task force room. It took her less than a heartbeat to discover the source. Seated at her desk with a police officer posted on either side was Jennifer Montgomery.

  The moment she saw them walk into the room, Jennifer jumped to her feet. Her eyes blazed as she zeroed in on the woman whose name had been mentioned when she’d been brought in.

  “How dare you treat me like a suspect!” she shouted at Callie. Anger smoldered like a smoky aura. “I was almost dragged from the plane in chains!”

  When confronted with anger, Callie had found that the best way to combat it was to remain nerve-numbingly calm. She also consoled herself with the thought that it would probably irritate the hell out of the woman.

  “Don’t exaggerate, Mrs. Montgomery,” Callie said mildly, doing what she felt was a marvelous job of hiding her animosity toward the woman. What kind of mother had to be forcibly brought into the police station when her daughter was missing? She met Jennifer’s fiery gaze head-on. “I’m sure no one dragged anyone and there were no chains involved.”

  Looking angry enough to spit, Jennifer whirled toward Brent. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she demanded.

  “Detective Cavanaugh is in charge of this investigation, and if she finds Rachel, she can talk to anyone she wants any way she wants,” Brent said.

  Her eyes blazed. “Might have known I couldn’t depend on you.” Enra
ged, Jennifer turned toward Callie again. “All I know is that you’d better have a damn good reason for having me manhandled or I’m going to sue you and this police department for everything they’re worth.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked more closely at Callie. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?

  Callie felt herself stiffening. “I don’t travel in your circles, Mrs. Montgomery.”

  Her lips curved in a sneer. “I already know that, but your face is familiar.” And then it seemed to come to her. “Wait, I think…” She looked back and forth between Brent and Callie. “Yes…” There was triumph on her face. “Didn’t you pour yourself all over my husband a few years back?”

  She’d gone too far. It hadn’t taken long. “Jennifer—” Brent warned.

  With the smug look of someone restored to the driver’s seat, Jennifer patted his arm condescendingly. “Don’t worry, dear. All I care about is finding Rachel.” Her eyes narrowed again as she looked at Callie. Jennifer flounced down on the seat again. “Now, ask me your questions and let me get the hell out of here.” She looked at Brent over Callie’s head. “I want you to know I’m hiring a private investigator to find our daughter.”

  He curbed the urge to ask her if the investigator was perhaps also her latest lover. But there was no point in going there. What she’d done while they were married had been his concern. Now she could have a dozen lovers and it didn’t matter to him anymore.

  The sooner Callie asked her questions, he told himself, the sooner Jennifer would leave.

  Except that she didn’t leave.

  When the question session was finally over, since she had no car of her own, Jennifer insisted that he drive her home.

  “I’ll call you a cab,” he offered.

  “No.” Her eyes shifted over to Callie, then back to Brent. “I want you to take me. You owe me that much. Rachel was in your custody when she was kidnapped.”

  Callie clenched her hands, digging her nails into her palms. “That isn’t fair, Mrs. Montgomery. The judge has no control…”