Racing Against Time (11 page)

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.” Enraged, 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…”

Jennifer’s green eyes washed over her. “I’ve often said that.”

He had to get her out of here before she caused any more of a scene than she already had. Taking hold of Jennifer’s arm, he jerked her toward the door. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Callie watched them leave. He was taking her home. Since the woman resided in Los Angeles, she figured that meant Brent was driving Jennifer to the house they had once shared as man and wife.

A knot tightened around her midsection.

Not her problem, she reminded herself. Her only concern was finding Rachel.

The knot stayed where it was.

Exhausted, Callie let herself into her apartment. Tossing her purse and keys in the general vicinity of the coffee table, she began shedding her clothes as she made her way to the bathroom. Her gun and holster found a home on the sofa instead of its customary place on top of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

A false alarm had sent them hurrying with dread in their hearts to the city dump. To search for Rachel’s lifeless body. It had turned out to be a small-boned homeless woman, who, from everything the ME could ascertain, had died of natural causes. As natural as causes for death could be when you were in your late twenties.

Callie silently blessed the foundation her father had given her, which allowed her to go on after days like today.

All she wanted to do now was to soak in a hot tub until she washed away the grime of the day from her body and then go to bed. Barely digestible hero sandwiches from a lunch truck had made a place for themselves in her stomach where they remained, still making their presence known after eight hours. The thought of food was out of the question right now.

Maybe forever.

She was in the tub before the water had finished filling it. White foam parted as she slipped in. Her eyes closed, she let the heat work its magic and ease the tension from her body.

It took a while.

Despite a mountain of phone tips, they still had no real leads, nothing to grab on to. And by tomorrow morning at eight, four days would have gone by.

“Rest, Callie, rest,” she ordered herself. But she felt frustrated no matter what direction she turned in. The case was stymieing her. And then there was the matter of Jennifer’s dramatic performance. It hadn’t helped any.

Neither had the fact that Brent had taken her home. He’d never returned.

Why should he? she asked herself. He had no real business being at the precinct. Being at her side. Jennifer Montgomery was still a very beautiful woman. And the mother of his child.

Callie wondered if they were together right now. If Jennifer was consoling him at this very moment.

“Not your concern,” she announced loudly.

Damn, she should have brought her radio in with her. If it was on loud enough, it could have drowned out her thoughts.

But the only thing she’d brought in with her was the telephone. And it rang now.

Staring at the offensive receiver, Callie sighed. Couldn’t whoever it was have waited ten more minutes? And then guilt washed over her. What if this was about Rachel?

With another sigh, Callie braced herself as she reached for the receiver where she’d left it on the floor next to the tub.

“Cavanaugh.”

“I just wanted you to know, there’s nothing between Jennifer and me anymore.” Brent’s rich baritone voice filled her ear.

She felt her pulse scrambling as she leaned back in the tub. Dissipating soap suds rallied around her from either side. She could feel her mouth curving. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

“Yes, yes I do,” he insisted firmly. “As little as six months ago, maybe it wouldn’t have been true, the answer might have been different, but my feelings for Jennifer have long since been drained away. A little like a bad sinus infection, I guess. I’m over her.” There was an awkward pause. “Like I said, I just wanted you to know. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Right.”

Callie stared at the wireless receiver for a long while. Waiting for her pulse to become steady, for the unrelated, scattered thoughts to settle down and stop linking up in her head. He hadn’t said why he’d stayed away all day, she reminded herself.

Somehow, it didn’t matter.

She sank even deeper in the tub, letting the warmth take her away. And smiled.

Chapter 11

B
rent felt the dirt crumbling beneath his right foot and stepped back from the edge of the ravine just as a small shower of gravel and earth rained down below.

A little more than ten feet beneath him, a team comprised of police and firefighters were working to retrieve the lifeless body of a child and raise it up to level ground.

He held his breath for an indeterminable length of time. Praying for the best, he expected the worst, despite all his efforts to block those thoughts from his mind.

As the light faded the din around him continued. The rescuers were working swiftly, although there was no life to save any longer.

Was it Rachel?

Oh, God, he hoped not.

He was barely aware of Callie being by his side. She’d kept him apprised of everything that was or wasn’t happening. It was day number four, and until an hour ago there had been no progress despite the best efforts of the Aurora police force.

He prayed there was no progress now. That that small body discovered by some hikers wasn’t his Rachel. He wasn’t sure if he could hold it together if it was.

An Amber Alert was out, flashing across the bottom of television screens, blinking bright yellow lights to commuters on all the freeways, inviting the public to come forth with any information, however minute it might seem, in order to help them solve this heinous crime.

All the bus drivers who had driven past Bristol and Oak in either direction any time within an hour of the estimated time of abduction had been called in for questioning by the police to see if they had noticed anything. No one had.

Numbly, Brent looked at a piece of paper that flapped noisily in the late-fall breeze against the utility pole. It was a flyer with Rachel’s picture and description, identical to thousands of other flyers that his friends and volunteers had placed on every available surface in and around Aurora, hoping to jar someone’s memory. Hoping to get a clue that would bring his baby back to him.

Staring straight down, watching the rescuers, Brent shoved his clenched hands deep inside the pockets of his navy windbreaker. He wasn’t accustomed to this kind of inertia. He was a doer, a man who had never allowed himself to stand on the sidelines. Yet here he was, on the sidelines, completely impotent, completely at a loss as to what to do.

He’d already gone on the air, not once, but twice, to offer a substantial reward for any word that would help lead to Rachel’s recovery. The only thing the second appearance had led to was an upsurge in phone calls to the police station. There was now an entire separate unit set up to handle the calls, trying to winnow out the genuine ones from the crazies.

Several of the calls that had come in reported seeing a girl fitting Rachel’s description sitting in the rear passenger seat of a black or navy-blue Mercedes 500SL. One caller had the car heading north, the other three had the car going south.

Brent felt like a dog chasing his own tail, running in circles and going nowhere.

This morning there were three bands of local Scout troops out, moving in slow motion at arm’s length, searching the surrounding parks in the area. Looking for clues.

Looking for Rachel’s body.

Brent stifled the shiver that went over his own. There was no getting away from that reality. She could be dead. He’d presided over enough cases to know that reality could be grim.

It shouldn’t be, he thought, not for a five-year-old. For a five-year-old, life should be nothing but ice cream, merry-go-rounds and laughter and Christmas morning.

Please God, let me have Christmas morning with her,
he prayed.

But Christmas morning was still weeks away. And he was standing here now, at the edge of the wilderness preserve, fear throbbing in his heart. Awaiting word that might very well forever destroy any Christmas morning he could ever hope to experience.

Twilight descended on the area. It would be dark soon. The men worked as quickly as they could. The call had just come in less than an hour ago. Hikers had found a body. He’d been with Callie in her office at the time.

His heart had shouted “No!” even as his mind whispered the worst word in the world: Maybe.

The rescuers were almost done. Callie looked at Brent. By all rights she should have gone down with the others to help recover the small corpse, but she’d sent Ramon Diaz in her place. Someone had to remain here with Brent.

The man looked as if he were a granite stature, about to be shattered by one well-placed, strategic blow. She prayed that he wouldn’t receive it. “You shouldn’t be here.”

His eyes shifted toward her. “Where should I be?” he demanded heatedly. All the frustration he felt came pouring out at once. He was powerless to stop it. “At home, throwing back a brandy? My little girl’s out there somewhere, going through God knows what, waiting for me to come and rescue her. Maybe even down there—” He stopped, unable to finish.

The gurney the recovery team was hoisting out of the area appeared over the edge of the ravine. The small body was only a few feet away now.

Brent caught his breath. Afraid.

Callie turned and placed herself between Brent and the stretcher. She wanted to see it first before he did. To prepare him if she had to.

The small body was badly decomposed. Too decomposed to be his daughter. She let out a long sigh of relief. “It’s not Rachel.” Turning to Brent, she explained, “Whoever this is has been here longer than four days. It’s not Rachel,” she repeated.

Grateful, he nodded, backing off. Backing away. His eyes stung badly.

Callie was torn for a moment as to just where her duty lay. Making a decision, she looked at Diaz. “Get the body to the M.E. I want identification as soon as possible.” Her heart aching, she looked down at the remains of what had once been a human being.
Who did this to you, little one?
There were times she truly hated her job. “This is somebody’s child.”

“Right away, Cal,” Diaz replied. He looked at the team of rescuers. “You heard the lady, we’re going to the M.E.”

Brent was standing off to the side. Callie went to him. His back to her, she gently laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Let me get you home.” His back remained rigid. “This wasn’t Rachel,” she told him for the third time.

“No, it wasn’t. Thank God.” There was a look of anger in his eyes as he turned around to face her. He scrubbed his hands over his face, hating the ambivalent feelings that were bouncing around inside of him. “Here I am, rejoicing because that body isn’t my daughter. Rejoicing because someone else has to hear those words and not me.” He’d always thought of himself as being compassionate. Now he didn’t know. “What kind of person does that make me?”

“A parent,” she answered quietly. It tore her up to see him this way. Too close, she was getting too close to all of this. She knew it was no way to operate, that being close, making it personal, took away her edge. But she couldn’t help herself. Any more than she could take herself off the case. “Focus on the positive, Brent. That’s the only way any of us ever gets through a day. Focus on the positive,” she repeated. She took hold of his arm. “Let’s go.”

After a moment he inclined his head and allowed himself to be ushered away from the scene.

There was paperwork waiting for her, but she let it wait. Right now she had something more pressing to take care of.

Callie drove straight to Brent’s house and pulled her Crown Victoria into his driveway. They’d hardly talked at all on the way over. She’d tried to beat back the silence several times, but the conversation had remained one-sided, with Brent hardly offering a word in response.

Couldn’t say she hadn’t tried, Callie thought.

Only the front lights were on. They cast a bleak, haunting illumination along the front walk. His sister and brother-in-law, she knew, had gone back to their own lives. Still concerned about their niece, they needed to see to their own family.

At least there would be no one asking him questions tonight, she thought. Brent needed peace and quiet.

Her foot on the brake, she looked at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Brent put his hand on the door handle, then stopped as he looked at the empty house. “Callie?”

“Yes?”

He turned to look at her. “Come in with me. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Her eyes met his. Something stirred within her. The same something that she’d felt the first time Brent had approached her at the fund-raiser and asked her to dance. Except more so.

She knew what would happen if she agreed to come in with him.

If she stayed.

Feelings that had gone dormant the instant Kyle had been killed suddenly sprang back into existence. They pressed forward. But even as they did, she remembered all the pain, all the heartache that was attached to feeling something for someone, that came with loving someone.

Brent wasn’t asking her for love, he was asking her to keep the shadows at bay.

Didn’t matter what he was asking, Callie thought, she still knew what would happen. How she would respond. She wasn’t a woman who believed in casual liaisons. Her heart had always been in everything she did. And her heart, she reminded herself, had been badly wounded once.

The light within the vehicle was poor, but she could still see the pain in Brent’s eyes as he looked at her. The pain and the need.

It wasn’t in her to say no.

“Then you won’t be,” she replied quietly.

With that she got out of the car.

Brent followed her in silence. She moved aside at the entrance. Brent took out his key and opened the front door.

“You told me not to give up hope,” he said without looking at her. “That they would find Rachel.”

“Yes?” This was going somewhere, Callie thought, hoping the final destination was at a place she could handle.

“What do you think the odds are?” he asked her, trying to sound detached. Trying to sound as if his whole world wasn’t riding on her answer.

She softly closed the door behind her. The sound still echoed in her brain. “Miracles don’t have odds, they just happen.”

There was a challenge in his eyes as he turned them on her. “So you’re telling me that it’s going to take a miracle to find her?”

He was twisting things. She reminded herself that he’d been a lawyer, one of the best, if she was to believe her father. That meant he knew his way around words, how to make them bend to his will.

The more tense his tone, the calmer she became. She supposed it had something to do with the yin and yang of a situation.

“I’m telling you that every child we find alive is a miracle, that every hostage situation that’s resolved satisfactorily is a miracle. That every breath we take is a miracle. There’s an X factor involved in everything, something that defies calculation. It throws off equations,” she said, “but it makes things happen.”

The expression on his face was completely unreadable. “Is that what they’re teaching you now at the police academy?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s something I picked up at my father’s knee.” Callie nodded toward the kitchen. “Now, why don’t you let me get you some dinner?”

The thought of food turned his stomach. “I don’t want any dinner.”

He could at least go through the motions, swallowing a few forkfuls. She debated what to make. “You have to eat, Brent. You can’t keep running on empty.”

He looked at her. She’d been at his side throughout the whole ordeal. Granted, it was her job, but comforting him wasn’t. And she had known just what to say. And when not to say anything at all. He was grateful.

And very drawn to her.

Whether it was because of the situation and the moment was something he didn’t feel like exploring. He was only aware of the end result. And that he wanted her.

“I don’t need food right now.”

She knew exactly what he needed. What they both, in their own ways, needed. And she surrendered herself to it. To him. To the burning need to fill the emptiness within her own soul.

Callie held her breath, willing her heart to cease hammering as Brent slowly swept his long fingers over her cheek, tilting her head up just slightly with his thumb.

And then his lips were on hers and any orders she’d left with the rest of her body disintegrated without a trace.

It was as if she’d been waiting for this all along. Since before there was a way to gauge time.

A contented sigh racking her body, her arms went around his neck. She cleaved her body to his as the kiss erupted from something soft to something questing and erotic.

Gentleness gave way to urgency, to need.

The breath she’d been holding evaporated as heat consumed her, licking at her body from all sides.

She wanted this, needed this. Desired this. Desired him.

With sure, capable hands, she began unbuttoning his shirt, her mouth never leaving his. Savoring the tangy sweetness of his lips.

She wanted nothing else but to be his. If comfort came later, his, hers, theirs, so be it. But right now there was an overpowering need just to be possessed.

She felt she couldn’t see another sunrise without it happening. Without his taking her the way a man took a woman he cared about.

And if in the morning she discovered that she’d fabricated things in her own mind to justify what she was doing right now, so be it.

All that mattered was now.

He wasn’t thinking clearly, he knew that, but it wasn’t the time to think. Thinking hurt. Feeling hurt, and yet he was feeling.

Feeling what? Lust? Desire? He wasn’t sure. All Brent knew was that the pain humming now through his body was a good pain. It was a feeling of coming home, of finding a way to renew himself in something that was life affirming.

Callie was everything he had once hoped he would find in a woman who would swear to spend the rest of her life by his side. What he’d once hoped, blindly, he had found in Jennifer.

But in Jennifer, there had been only emptiness; the words that had been sworn to had covered shallowness. The irony of it would have amused him had his senses not been spinning faster than the speed of light right now.