“I need you for protection.”

He waited for her to start making sense. “Go on.”

She moistened her lips. This sounded so damn melodramatic, she thought, but it was all true. “I need you to help me steal my son back.”

“Then you do know who has him.” He’d had a feeling all along that she did.

She nodded. “I think so.”

“Look, Ms. Armstrong, if this is some kind of a custody battle, you need a lawyer, not me.”

“No,” Dakota insisted, “I need you. Or more accurately put, what I need is a hero.” She turned on all of her considerable charm. “Will you be my hero, Andreini?”

Heart of a Hero
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA

earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA Award-winning author has one goal: to entertain, to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over a hundred books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

1/1/2001

To my family,

May this be the beginning of something wonderful.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

The scream filled the area around him.

Eyes he hadn’t realized he’d shut flew open as the sound registered in his brain. Restoring the recliner he’d just dropped into less than ten minutes ago to its original upright position, Russell Andreini cocked his head and listened intently to make sure he hadn’t just dreamed the jarring sound. But even as he strained to hear, Rusty was getting to his feet.

The scream, he was almost certain, had come from the garden apartment just below his own. It hadn’t originated from a television set in the vicinity turned up too loud, or from some ridiculous radio commercial meant to catch your attention. It had come from a woman.

A very terrified woman.

Rusty was beyond bone-weary. He had come home after putting in eighteen hours of surveillance that had led to a gratifying payoff just two hours ago and was more than entitled to feel the way he did. But, like the professional he was, Rusty forgot his exhaustion as adrenaline began to surge through his body.

He was willing to bet a month of his sister Megan’s Sunday steaks that the scream had come from the blonde directly below him.

Not stopping for the shoes he’d carelessly discarded when he’d walked into his apartment, Rusty yanked open his front door.

The echoes of the first scream were just fading from his head when he heard a second one.

Hands braced on the balustrades on either side of him, he sailed down the narrow stone steps that led to the ground level.

He was right, the scream had come from the apartment directly below his. Most likely from the woman who’d never returned his smile the few times their paths had crossed. He had to pass her door each time he either came down or went up the stairs that led to his own apartment.

As near as he remembered, the woman had moved in about a month ago and spoke to no one. He’d once seen her in the laundry room and tried to start up a conversation. After a lengthy pause she’d responded with a monosyllabic sentence, dumped her soiled laundry back into her basket and, taking the hand of the little boy who seemed never to be far out of her reach, made a hasty exit.

Rusty recalled glancing at his watch, noting that the woman had hurried away less than three minutes after he’d entered the laundry room. She’d made him wonder.

She seemed far too young and attractive to appear so solemn-eyed and distant. And though the green eyes she’d turned up to him had been hard, he thought he’d detected fear beneath the wariness. That had made him wonder, too. He never liked seeing anyone in pain.

“Hey, everything all right in there?” Rusty called as he knocked loudly on the woman’s door. The only response was another scream. “Dumb question,” Rusty mumbled under his breath as he tried the doorknob.

The door was locked. He glanced around to see if anyone else had heard the screams and was coming to help, but apparently everyone else in the complex had a life they were attending to. There were very few lights on within the surrounding apartments. It was Friday night and the residents in the complex were predominantly single. In all likelihood, they were all out enjoying themselves.

“Open up. It’s Rusty.” He added as a clarifying afterthought, “From upstairs.”

He’d introduced himself to her during their run-in in the laundry room. Etiquette notwithstanding, she hadn’t felt the need to tell him her name in return. When he’d tried to talk to her son, a boy he judged to be around two, she’d scooped the boy up and quickly retreated from the area. The brunette who’d been quick to take up her space had also tried to fill her place in the conversation, being far more communicative than her predecessor.

Rusty had fallen into the conversation easily, even though he’d been distracted by the woman who’d walked out so quickly with her son. People usually found him incredibly easy to talk to and he had wonderful rapport with kids. The whole incident had taken him somewhat aback.

But he figured his silent neighbor had her reasons and he wasn’t the kind to pry, at least, not in his private life. He did enough of that professionally.

When there was no response to his pounding, Rusty called out again. “Ma’am?”

This time there was no scream, no answer. At least, no answer that fell under the heading of human. It was just a keening sound that sliced through him, going clear down to the bone. Cutting into him far more than even the scream had.

He’d only heard such pain once before. When his mother had realized that someone had kidnapped Chad.

Without pausing to think, Rusty backed up, then rammed his shoulder into the door as hard as he could. The door groaned and then finally gave, slamming against the opposite wall.

In a delayed reaction, pain shot through his shoulder like an exploding grenade.

Somewhere in the back of his mind it occurred to Rusty that breaking down a door, or at least forcing it open always looked a great deal easier when the hero did it in the movies or on TV.

Real life was a whole lot harder. But then, he already knew that.

Rusty scanned the area. The apartment layout was a carbon copy of his own. There was a tiny kitchen with a square table immediately to his left and a small living room directly in front of him. Neither was occupied. He raced to the back of the apartment. There was a room on either end of the abbreviated hall.

He found her in the smaller of the two.

Rusty saw why the screams had momentarily halted. Barefoot, wearing a thigh-length, cotton-candy-pink nightgown, the woman was covering her mouth with both hands. Her eyes were opened so wide with shock and terror that for a second he said nothing, afraid of setting her off.

The empty wooden crib in the corner registered belatedly.

The next moment, as if suddenly becoming aware of the fact that she was no longer alone, the woman grabbed up the small, free-standing lamp and grasped it in both hands, prepared to wield it like some sort of martial arts weapon.

“What did you do with him?” she demanded. The terror he’d seen in her eyes a heartbeat ago was replaced with anger. “Damn it, answer me! Where is he? Where’s Vinny?”

Rusty stood a healthy distance from the woman, wondering how best to disarm her without risking hurting her. He’d seen that look before, more times in the last couple of years than he would have liked to think about. It was the look of a mother forcibly separated from her child.

“Your son?” he asked needlessly, his voice low, soothing. It was the kind of tone used by an animal tamer trying to gentle a crazed animal that had been abused.

Except it wasn’t working. If anything, she looked even more incensed. She took a step back, her eyes never leaving his.

“You know damn well who I’m talking about,” she snapped, her hands tightening around the shank of the lamp, her manner growing more desperate. “Yes, my son. Now what have you done with him?” She’d just barely managed to keep from screaming into his face.

Who the hell was this man and what was he doing here? How had he managed to “conveniently” come along just at this moment?

Was he part of it?

Her heart pounding madly, afraid to turn her back on him, she eyed him the way someone would a pit bull that had suddenly appeared in their path.

Spreading his hands wide on either side of his six-foot-three lanky body, Rusty took only a half step forward. He kept his eye on the lamp, afraid she might wind up hurting herself more than him.

“I haven’t done anything with him. Lady, I was just nodding off when I heard you scream.” His expression still open, affable, his tone sharpened just a shade, instantly becoming authoritative. “What happened?”

She looked as if she wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, or if she should trust him. It was apparent to Rusty that if she was going to let her guard down, it wouldn’t be too far.

Her eyes wary as she watched him, she finally inclined her head toward the empty crib. “I came in to check on Vinny before I went to bed and…and…”

“He wasn’t there?” Rusty supplied gently, moved by the anguish he heard beneath the bravado. Empathy had always been his gift. It had sharpened considerably since he’d found his vocation in life.

Exercising supreme effort, Dakota Armstrong struggled to pull herself together. She wasn’t going to do her son any good if she fell apart the way she so dearly wanted to. But, God, she was tired, so tired. Tired of running and hiding. Tired of always looking over her shoulder, of being suspicious and weighing every word, every look, that came her way.

She couldn’t fall apart, she told herself again. She was all Vinny had and he needed her. Now more than ever. Needed her to save him before he was forever lost. Lost to her and to himself.

Tossing the sea of blond hair over her shoulder with a quick movement of her head, she echoed Rusty’s words. “He wasn’t there.”

There were questions, a whole host of questions that sprang up instantly, crowding his brain. But rather than ask them, Rusty hurried past the woman to look out the open window. At first glance, there was nothing.

Bracing his hand on the windowsill, he lowered himself out. The questions would keep until later. Right now, every second that went by might be precious. It was the first thing he’d been taught.

Wood creaked beneath his foot. Outside each ground-floor apartment that faced the inside of the complex there was a small wooden structure that served as a pseudo-bridge. The bridge, which stretched picturesquely over a minuscule pond, took the place of the patio awarded to the second-floor occupants.

Rusty held his breath as he looked around. Visibility was limited. There were no stars out, no moonlight. Illumination came from the tall street lamps scattered equidistantly throughout the 110-unit complex. He saw no one out walking, much less running from the apartment or in the general vicinity.

Except for the artificially induced gurgling of the water within each pond, the entire area was quieter than a tomb.

Turning back toward the window, he felt his sock catch on a sliver of wood. He stooped to work it free and glanced down. Right next to the wooden bridge, just beyond the window, was a footprint in the mud. A sneaker, as best he could tell. Squinting, he tried to examine the print and decided that he would need a flashlight.

Without a flashlight, all he could tell was that the print was elongated, as if someone had slipped before regaining his or her footing. And it appeared to be fresh.

Rusty lowered himself back into the missing boy’s bedroom. He would have expected to find the woman on the telephone, calling the police. Instead she was standing in the center of the room, just as he had left her, looking not unlike a lost waif herself. She had her arms wrapped around herself, as if she was mutely trying to offer herself comfort.

Backlit by the lamp she’d returned to its original position on the floor, the nightgown she was wearing was translucent. Every inch of her long, supple body was highlighted.

Rusty felt his mouth suddenly grow drier than dust. It took him a beat before he found his thoughts and put them into some kind of coherent order. “There’s no one out there.”

She moved past him to the window and looked out. The same window she’d looked out before without any success. This man in her apartment wasn’t saying anything to her she didn’t already know.

Still, she clung to denial.

“There has to be,” she cried. “Vinny couldn’t have climbed through the window himself.” She swung around from the window to glare accusingly. “They took him.”

She said it as if she had someone in mind, Rusty thought. Did she? “‘They’?”

Maybe it was his imagination, but her shoulders seemed to stiffen at his question.

“The kidnappers,” she amended. “Whoever took my baby.”

Maybe now was the time to start questioning her in earnest. “When did you last see your son?”

He saw her struggle to try to think, to push aside the confusion and shock that he knew had taken hold of her. She put her hand to her head as if that could help sort out the answer.

“An hour and a half ago.”

There were tears shining in her eyes. And then they began to wet her lashes, about to spill out.

Angry with herself, she wiped them away with the heel of her hand. More came.

What Rusty did next was second nature to him. He took her into his arms and gently held her against him, comforting her. She was someone in need, suffering from shock, and he wanted to help.

For a moment she seemed to soften against him, all but dissolving as she accepted the silent offering. The next moment she jerked back as if she’d suddenly realized what she was doing. Her back stiffened like soldiers’ facing down the enemy.

Taken by surprise at the sudden change, Rusty managed to act as if her behavior were perfectly normal. In some ways, he supposed that it was. Disorientation and denial took on many forms. This kind of thing never failed to leave a parent in emotional shambles, strong one minute, crumbling the next. Needing sedation was a common enough occurrence, but he had a feeling that the woman in front of him would not be one of those who found solace that way.

He looked around. “Where’s your phone?”

“In the kitchen.” Her response was automatic. “Why?”

That should have been evident to her, but then that wasn’t factoring in disorientation. “You need to call the police.”

Dakota’s mouth dropped open. Calling the police was the last thing she wanted to do. There was no doubt in her mind that if she so much as dialed 9-1-1, she’d never see Vinny again.

She rushed after him, trying to get in front of him, to reach the telephone on the wall before he did.

She just made it. “No!”

Dakota quickly covered the receiver with her hand in case the word hadn’t sunk in.

Rusty looked at the fingers splayed over the receiver. As if her small hand could possibly pose a physical deterrent. A tinge of amusement wafted through him. He banked it down.

What was traveling through him in far larger waves was curiosity. Why was she so adamant about not calling in the police? Was she a fugitive of some sort? On the run from someone?

Maybe she was someone’s estranged wife who’d suddenly taken off with her child, snatching him away from her husband. Either explanation would go a long way toward accounting for the wariness he’d perceived each time their paths had crossed.

He let his hand drop from the air as he studied her. “Why don’t you want to call the police?”

Her eyes narrowed. She saw no reason to have to explain herself to this man. Not that she would have, anyway. Trusting people was a waste of time and she’d learned a long time ago that depending on anyone just left her open to betrayal and despair.

“Because I just don’t, all right?” Suddenly aware that she was standing there in nothing but her nightgown, she grabbed a sweater that was draped over the back of a kitchen chair and dragged it on. “What are you, my mother?” She punched her arms through the sleeves. “Who are you, anyway?”

Rusty shrugged off the hostility directed at him as part of her emotional roller coaster ride she was obviously on.

“I’m the guy who lives upstairs.” He jerked a thumb up toward the ceiling, his manner matter-of-fact. “The one you woke up with your screaming.”

She appeared to be more in control of herself now than she had even a minute ago. And with that control Rusty saw the hard shell slip back into place, the one he encountered each time he saw her.

“Sorry.” She shrugged carelessly. “You can get back to your beauty sleep.”

He had no intention of leaving her. Whether or not she admitted it, the woman needed someone to stay with her until a search for her missing son could get properly under way. In his experience, bluster and bravado were common smokescreens for fear.

“Look,” he began gently, placing a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off as if his touch had burned her very skin. “What are you afraid of?”

“My baby’s just been kidnapped, what do you think I’m afraid of?”

He looked at her for a long moment and watched as her body language grew more defensive. Though it wasn’t completely uncommon to have someone slip into a house and steal a child from their bed, the method spoke of some degree of familiarity with the victimized family. Which brought him back to the feeling that the kidnapping was the work of someone who knew her, someone who specifically wanted her son. He’d seen the boy and although Vinny was cute, the child was no more or less eye-catching than most other children his age.

No, there had to be more at work here than she was admitting.

He nodded at the telephone, giving every indication of remaining just where he was for the time being. “If you don’t want to call the police, maybe you should call your husband.”

What did it take to get rid of this man? She needed to be alone. She had to think. She felt as if everything was closing in on her. First Vincent, now Vinny. She’d die before she’d let anyone keep her from her son. And now she had some misguided Good Samaritan—or worse—to deal with. “I don’t have a husband.”

Rusty glanced at her hand and saw that it was bare of jewelry. There wasn’t even a tan line where a wedding ring might once have been.

“Ex-husband, then.”

What did it take to get this man to leave her alone? “I don’t have one of those, either.”

She hadn’t conceived her son on her own. “Boyfriend?” He was hazarding guesses now.

Her brows drew together. Of all the cheap tricks. Was this his way of finding out whether there was anyone else living with her? Her son had just been kidnapped, didn’t this man have any shame?

“Are you trying to hit on me?” Dakota demanded angrily.

Rusty was calm in the face of her fury. It was in his nature to remain that way. He’d found out a long time ago that losing your head when those around you were losing theirs never accomplished anything.

“No,” he told her genially, “just trying to rule out parental kidnapping.” To his surprise, he saw her pale slightly.

And then she regrouped as she lifted her chin in a gesture that would have been called defiant by the mildest of observers. Striding over to the door, she threw it open.

“Why don’t you just rule yourself out the door if you want to rule out anything?”

The angrier she became, the calmer he remained. “Look, you need help.”

She started pacing. He was making her crazy. For all she knew, he was in on it. Just because he had this lean, trustworthy face and soulful blue eyes was no reason to believe a thing he was saying or to buy into his good-neighbor act. She’d been conned by the best.

“No kidding, Sherlock.”

Feeling at a loss, fervently wishing that this was all a bad dream, she nervously dragged her hand through her hair.

She’d been so careful to hide her tracks. How had this happened? How had they been found?

When she turned around, she saw the open door and noted the fact that the man hadn’t yet taken the blatant hint and left.

“You want to help? Okay, help.” She was new in town, without a single friend to turn to. Not that she would have expected any friend to stand by her. Not when faced with the consequences that friendship entailed. “Tell me where I can find myself a good private detective.”

This wasn’t making any sense. Most people in her position would have immediately wanted the police to take up the search. Why was she so adamant about not calling them in?

Maybe it was shock, he thought. People in shock did strange things. His sister had handled a case six months ago where the mother insisted on talking to the kidnapped child as if he was right there beside her. There was no question in his mind that if the case hadn’t been resolved positively, the woman might have wound up spending the next few years of her life in an institution.

He tried again. “The police—”

How many ways did she have to spell it out? “I said I don’t want the police.”

“It’s a kidnapping,” he told her gently, “the police and the FBI have the manpower to blanket the area.”

Oh, God, calling in the FBI would be even worse. Vinny would disappear forever. She couldn’t do any of that. And this guy, whoever he thought he was, certainly couldn’t be allowed to do that, Dakota thought frantically.

“Stop talking to me as if I were an idiot. I know exactly what’ll happen if I call in the police, you don’t. No police. No FBI. Nobody on public payroll,” she insisted adamantly. “I need someone I can buy, someone who’ll work just for me. If you don’t know anyone like that—”

Dakota moved to the open front door again, her meaning clear.

He hadn’t said anything to her earlier because it would have sounded too opportunistic, as if he were trying to take advantage of the situation and her pain. But since she was insisting on this path, so be it.

Rusty placed his hand on the side of the door and to her annoyed surprise, pushed it closed. “I think it’s time I explained to you what I do for a living.”

Chapter 2

Her heart stopped beating in her chest.

She stared at the man who had pushed his way into her apartment, into her dilemma. Any second now Dakota was sure her head would spin off if she relinquished the slightest iota of control she was exercising over it. Even now, the room felt as if it had tilted beneath her feet.

What he did for a living?

Dakota’s mouth was desert-dry as she whispered, “You’re not a cop, are you?”

Until this moment the thought hadn’t occurred to her. It should have. The times Andreini had tried to start up a conversation, he’d struck her as being too exuberant, too innocent-looking to be a policeman. But why not? Nothing came in stereotype these days. She of all people should know that by now.

Look at Vincent. She would never have taken him to be who he ultimately turned out to be. Not with that blond hair and that Nordic complexion.

For that matter, look at her. She wasn’t what she tried to pretend to be, either. But that was different. That was for survival purposes.

Rusty looked at her more closely. Was it his imagination, or did she look afraid there for a second? “Not exactly—”

“Then what, exactly?” she cut in before he had a chance to explain anything further.

“I’m a private investigator—”

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him with contempt. A private investigator. She’d just said she needed one. How convenient.

“Yeah, right.”

He couldn’t decide whether her contempt was aimed at him or his profession.

“No, I am.” To prove it, Rusty dug into his back pocket for his wallet.

Did he have some kind of fake I.D. on him? Something he used to pick up women who thought that kind of a career was cool? Dakota laughed shortly, wondering just how far this man would go with this charade and what kind of a ghoul hit on a woman whose baby had just been stolen.

Her contempt was barely contained. “Pretty big coincidence, don’t you think?”

Undeterred, Rusty pulled out his wallet. “Maybe you can think of it as luck.”

Enough was enough. She wanted him out of here so she could think. The fear that she was never going to see her son again kept washing over her.

“And maybe I can think of it as a scam.” Her eyes narrowed to condemning slits. “Like someone trying to take advantage of a rotten situation.”

He’d been taken with her the second he’d first seen her walking across the parking lot, her fingers firmly wrapped around her son’s hand. The sway of her hips, the long, slender legs that seemed to go on forever, urging a man to follow, and the long mane of blond hair that begged to be touched, all of it coming together to form the quintessential fantasy. Rusty couldn’t remember ever being mesmerized like that. There was no disputing the fact that the woman was not merely attractive, but stunningly gorgeous by anyone’s standards.

And he had a feeling that her looks had not come without some heavy price tag. The woman had a chip on her shoulder a mile wide and obviously didn’t trust people easily.

But then, he’d always been the patient one in his family.

Without saying another word in his defense, Rusty opened his wallet, flipping past the photographs he had of his older brother and sister, of his mother and the father they all rarely spoke of—the one who had inadvertently been instrumental in getting all three of them involved in the agency that tried to undo horrible wrongs done to children and their families. As far as Rusty knew, he was the only member of the family who actually had a picture of their late father, although he knew that Chad had eventually made his peace with the man who had all but ruined his life.

He held the wallet open to show the woman the private investigator’s license that had been issued to him a week after he’d graduated from the University of Bedford with his degree in criminology.

As he watched, a layer of the disbelief on her face melted away.

Score one for the home team, he thought.

Taking one of the business cards that Cade Townsend, the founder of the agency, had presented to him as a graduation gift, Rusty handed it to the woman. “This is where I work.”

“‘ChildFinders Inc.,’” she read out loud. “‘Russell Andreini.’” Looking up, she held the card out to him. “You don’t look like a Russell.”

Rusty smiled. “Everyone says that.”

For a while, when he’d been younger and taken himself more seriously, he’d tried to convince people to address him by his given name, but it just never took. Everyone kept forgetting. Eventually he stopped reminding them that his name was now Russell and resigned himself to being Rusty, the person people always opened up to. As time went on, he’d come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He moved to close her hand over it, but she jerked it away. “Keep it.”

She pursed her lips as she looked at the card again. The address was a street she wasn’t familiar with, but then, she was new to the area. As she had been to the seven other areas she’d lived in these past two years.

Everyone, she thought, was always looking out for number one. “You’re looking for a job.”

What had happened to make her this cynical? he wondered. His sister Megan had always had a tart tongue, but there had never been this edge to it, this me-against-the-world attitude that he sensed within the woman he was talking to.

“I’m looking to help,” he told her quietly.

Dakota looked down at the fancy writing on the card and ran her thumb over the raised letters. Expensive. She blew out a breath.

“Well, if this is on the level, I probably can’t afford you,” she said cynically.

Money was the last thing he was thinking of. “We’re flexible. Something can be worked out.”

She’d had men trying to find a way into her life and her bed since she was fourteen years old. That was when she’d reached her full height and had ripened. Her beauty had been more curse than blessing, until she had learned to make it work for her.

Her eyes hardened. “I’ll bet.”

He wasn’t going to waste time arguing with her about his own motives. Instead, he gave her a little background information.

“Cade Townsend founded the agency when his own son was kidnapped. My sister was the FBI agent who worked the case. She joined him a couple of months after he opened his doors.”

Dakota had a tendency to not believe what was told to her, or to at least take it with a huge grain of salt. But there was something in Rusty’s eyes…something that seemed sincere.

She hesitated. “Did they ever find his son?”

“Yeah, they did.” The smile on his face fairly lit it up. “And a whole lot of other kids along the way. They’re still finding them.” He saw doubt war with something else in her eyes. This one wasn’t easily convinced of anything. “You can look up anything you want about the agency on the Internet.”

“I don’t own a computer.”

Her statement took him by surprise. His whole life revolved around technology and the answers it could yield. He’d gotten into it because of Megan, whose wizardry at the computer was outdone only and just marginally by that of Savannah King Walters, Sam’s wife, who worked for them part-time. It had gotten so that Rusty assumed everyone had at least one computer in their lives, if not several. There was one in each room in his apartment.

“That makes you rather unique.”

Dakota, decades weary beyond her twenty-four years, laughed dryly. “Right, unique.”

She fingered the card Rusty had refused to take back, her mind working at a frantic pace. Nothing mattered but getting Vinny back. She thought she knew who had taken him, was pretty sure on that score, but she had no idea where he had been taken. There were at least several possibilities, if not more.

Even if she did know where, she knew she couldn’t just waltz in and get Vinny. Not without help. Without backup. She looked at the man in front of her. Maybe she needed this overgrown Boy Scout at that.

But she wanted him to convince her, to make her feel that she wasn’t going to regret this decision. “How good is your track record? Fifty percent? Sixty?” she added hopefully.

Rusty shook his head and her heart plummeted.

“Well, then, I guess I don’t—”

“One hundred.” He saw her eyes widen at the number. “Our track record is one hundred percent,” he told her.

She knew it. It was a scam. All of it. She thrust the card at him, jabbing at a chest that was harder than she’d expected.

“You’re lying,” she accused angrily. Did he think she was some kind of mental midget? Nobody had that kind of success.

He merely looked down at the card she was pushing against him, but didn’t take it from her.

“It’s a matter of record. No case we take on is ever closed until we find the missing child. Sometimes we get lucky and it’s fast, sometimes not, but we never give up.” It was a promise he was making her. “It took three years to find Darin, Cade’s son,” he added when she looked at him blankly as he said the name.

Oh, God, she wanted to believe him so badly. But she’d stopped believing in Santa Claus the year she’d turned six. “How much does all this cost?” There was still some jewelry she could sell, she thought. Pieces Vincent had given her to convince her of the seriousness of his intentions. She’d been saving them for an emergency and this more than qualified.

“Like I said, things can be arranged. We’re not in it for the money.”

Next he was going to tell her that he was a monk in disguise. “But you’ve got to eat,” she pointed out cynically. “And your apartment upstairs doesn’t come free.”

“We can take your case pro bono.” He knew Cade would have no problem with that. Cade had been the one who had said that money was secondary to their work. His superior was completely dedicated to the belief that no one should be made to go through what he had.

“I don’t need charity.” Her indignation heated and then she looked past him toward the framed photograph on the coffee table. The photograph of her and Vinny taken on his last birthday. They’d been in Salinas then. Two locations ago. “What I need is my son back.”

“I know you do. And we’re going to do whatever’s necessary to find him and get him back.”

He hadn’t used the word “try,” she noted. It was almost as if he was making her a promise. God, she wished she could believe that he was on the level, wished that she wasn’t so damn suspicious of everything and everyone.

But there was good reason to be.

The phone rang just then.

Dakota jumped. Her nerves all close to the surface, she bit her lower lip to stifle the scream that had risen instantly.

But as she swung around and reached for the receiver, Rusty caught her wrist. She looked at him accusingly. Was he crazy?

“Tilt the receiver so I can listen in,” he instructed.

She hated the fact that he seemed so matter-of-fact, so calm, while she felt as if she were on a giant roller coaster barreling down an incline. Dakota jerked her hand free just as he released his hold. Grabbing the phone with both hands, she cried, “Hello?” breathlessly.

There was a slight delay before a metallic voice asked, “Is this Della Armstrong?”

“Dakota,” she corrected heatedly. Something was wrong. They knew her name. She didn’t doubt that they knew everything about her. Was this supposed to be some kind of cryptic put-down?

“Sorry,” the voice on the other end of the line said cheerfully. “Ms. Armstrong, this is Phil Henderson from Dayton Telemarketing. We’re calling people in your neighborhood tonight to—”

She slammed down the receiver, swallowing a curse as angry tears filled her eyes. “Of all the stupid times to call…”

He heard the barely suppressed hysteria in her voice, knew where it could lead if unleashed. “Easy,” Rusty cautioned.

Her temper exploded. “Easy, right. You can take it easy,” she lashed out. “It’s not your son who was stolen out of his crib.”

She had every right to think that he didn’t understand, but he did. More than she could ever know. He understood anguish. And hated it. “We’ll find him.”

“How do I know that?” she demanded hotly. “How do I know that Vinny won’t be the blot on your sterling record? The one who you couldn’t get back.” She bit back a sob. “You have no right, no right to make promises you can’t keep.”

He took hold of her shoulders. She struggled to pull away but this time he wouldn’t let her. This time, he held her fast. “Look at me.”

Defiant, she refused to obey. She’d always resented being told what to do.

“Why?”

“Look at me,” he repeated, measuring out each word. His tone surprised her. When she reluctantly did what he wanted, Rusty said in a firm voice, “Your son isn’t going to be an exception. We are going to find him. You have to believe that.”

She wanted to. He had no idea how much she wanted to. But she knew the odds, knew what he was up against even if he didn’t. How could he?

Desperation made her cynical. “You and this boss of yours and your sister, the ex-FBI agent.”

He refused to let her bait him, even though he sensed that she was after an argument, that a verbal fight might somehow alleviate the tension holding her prisoner. It wasn’t in his nature to argue.

“There are more people working at the agency now,” he assured her. “My brother—”

She didn’t let him finish. Disgust came into her eyes. “What is this, a family affair?”

“In a way.” In some ways, they were closer than some families. They agonized over each other’s cases, shared each other’s successes. “My brother was kidnapped as a boy, so I kind of know what you’re going through. The others at the agency all have had close experiences with kidnap victims and their families. Nobody thinks of this as just another job, or any of the kids we look for as just statistics.” This wasn’t the time to go into any of that. He’d just wanted to reassure her a little. “Now, are you up to giving me some information, or do you want me to call someone to stay with you tonight and we’ll talk in the morning at the agency?”

Morning. A million light-years from now. Where would Vinny be in the morning? Would he be calling for her? Would he be afraid? Or would they begin brainwashing him, making him forget her? How long did a two-year-old’s memory last?

She was becoming aware of a numbness settling in. One that separated her from her body and her anguish, making things seem surreal. It crept slowly up her limbs. Maybe it was all a nightmare, a horrible, horrible nightmare. That was it, a nightmare. She’d lived in fear of this happening for two years, maybe it had just surfaced in a dream to haunt her.

“There’s no one to call,” she told him dully. There would have been if this had been her old life. There were people she could turn to. But not here. There was no one here.

Rusty thought of calling his sister, or Savannah, who’d come to work for the agency after Sam had recovered her daughter.

Elizabeth, another detective at the agency, might even be more suited to dealing with this woman, he realized, because of her pronounced sensitivity, but then he remembered that she was away on a case. Still, the woman needed someone to remain with her.

“If you want, I can—”

The dullness abated for a moment as alarms went off within her. She knew it. He was going to say he’d make the sacrifice and stay the night with her. He might be sweet-sounding, but in the end, all men were the same. They all had only one goal.

“No,” she snapped. “You can’t.”

She was a grown woman. Granted, she was a woman in need, but he wasn’t going to argue with her about staying with her. Maybe she would do better on her own. Everybody needed space at times.

“All right.” He started for the door. “You know where to find me if you need me. I’ll be upstairs after I look around.”

She didn’t understand. Her brain was becoming dull again, giving in to the numbness that was overtaking her. “You already looked around.”

“That was just a fast scan, to see if there was anyone around. This time it’ll be slower.” Clues could be left in the oddest places and people always slipped up somewhere. “You never know what you can find.”

The people she was up against were professionals. They made it their life’s work to not make mistakes. If the Boy Scout thought otherwise, he was wrong. Dakota began to say something, but the words somehow vanished from her lips.

As did the rest of the room less than a second after that.

Rusty caught her just in time to keep her from hitting the floor.

“Maybe you’re not as tough as you think you are,” he commented under his breath as he scooped her into his arms. Relaxed, the young woman’s features lost their edginess. They were soft and she looked a lot younger. A lot more innocent.

As he looked at her, Rusty felt something within him stir and banked it down without examination. This wasn’t the time or the place. She was a client even though she hadn’t actually asked to retain his services. In any event, he couldn’t think of her in any different terms until her situation was resolved.

Looking around, he decided to put her in her own bed rather than on the sofa. Entering the room, he made his way over to the bed and placed her on top of the comforter. He took one end of it and placed it over her. There was a chill in the air and he didn’t want it bringing her around. She could do with a little rest. With any luck, she’d sleep until morning.

In the meantime, he had some work to do.

There was something heavy on her chest, pressing down hard, making it difficult for her to breathe.

As she struggled to rise above the haze encasing her, Dakota slowly realized that the heavy weight wasn’t on her chest, it was in her chest.

It was her heart.

It felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds. A thousand pounds and yet it was empty.

Vinny.

Oh, God, they’d taken Vinny. Her precious, sweet, innocent little boy. They’d taken him from her just the way she’d been afraid they would. Afraid for these past two years.

She’d been right to be afraid.

Her eyes were still shut tight even though she thought she’d already opened them. Twice.

With effort, Dakota forced her eyelids up. The haze seemed to cling to everything around her. She blinked twice, then focused on her surroundings.

She was in her bedroom. The edge of her comforter was partially thrown over her, as if she’d been tucked into bed.

When had she gone to bed?

She hadn’t, she remembered. She’d been in the kitchen, trying to get rid of that man with the dimple in his cheek when everything had gone black.

The man with the dimple. The private investigator or baby finder or whatever he called himself.

What if he—

Dakota struggled to sit upright, propping herself up on weakened elbows. The world was still not as steady as she wanted it to be, swimming around a little as she lifted her head. She blinked again, trying to bring everything back into focus.

Daylight was trying to squeeze itself in through the blinds. What time was it? How long had she been lying here?

She turned her head to look at the digital clock on her nightstand when she saw him. Andreini, sitting in her rocking chair, the only piece of furniture in the furnished apartment that she’d bought herself, besides the crib.

His head drooped against his chest.

Had he been here all night?

She looked down at her nightgown to see if it was in place. Had he tried anything?

“I thought you’d be more comfortable in your own bed than on the sofa.”

She jumped at the sound of his voice and upbraided herself for it. She was behaving like a spooked rabbit. “You’re awake.”

“Yes, I’m awake.” He’d only shut his eyes a few minutes ago, giving in to fatigue. “I don’t usually sound too coherent when I’m talking in my sleep. At least, so I’ve been told.”

Dakota swung her legs over the side of the bed, tugging down the edge of her nightgown before it crept up too high. He surprised her by keeping his eyes on her face. But maybe that was a cover.

“What happened?”

“You fainted,” he said simply.

“And what did you do?”

“I caught you.”

He was playing innocent with her. It didn’t wash. “And?”

“I put you to bed. Alone. I’ve got a fingerprint kit upstairs if you’d like to dust yourself to look for any telltale prints,” he offered mildly. “State of the art. Megan won’t let us use anything less. That’s my sister,” he added.

The ex-FBI agent, she remembered. Feeling slightly woozy, Dakota forced herself to get up from the bed. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Good.” He was on his feet, watching her. Ready to catch her again if need be. “Does that mean you’re starting to trust me?”

Pulling herself up, Dakota looked at him pointedly. “No.”

Chapter 3

Rusty scrutinized her for a long moment. “Well, at least you’re honest.”

She liked the fact that he didn’t look away when he spoke, that he looked her square in the eye.

If a man can look you straight in the eye, Dee, he’s got nothing to hide, her father had told her a long time ago. Either that, her mother had added, or he’s a cold-blooded liar. Andreini didn’t look like a cold-blooded liar. But she’d hold off making any final judgments about him until there were more facts in. She knew the danger of jumping to conclusions too soon.

“Don’t feel bad,” she told him, “I don’t trust many people. I find it’s a lot less disappointing that way.” She looked at him and noted the rumpled clothing. “Did you stay here all night?”

He’d thought about going upstairs to his apartment several times after he finished looking around outside, but somehow he just hadn’t felt right about leaving her alone. He’d only stopped upstairs long enough to get his shoes.

“Yes.”

She continued looking at him. People usually squirmed under scrutiny. He didn’t. Which meant that he had nothing to hide. Or everything to hide. Which was it? “Why?” She wanted to know.

He ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it down a little. His neck felt stiff, as did his shoulders. He’d never managed to develop his brother-in-law’s trick of being able to catnap comfortably any place that came in handy. But he figured that was all part of Garret’s Justice Department agent training.

“I wanted to be sure you were all right,” he told her simply. “And I wanted to be here in case the kidnapper called.” He saw her raise a brow, silently asking. “He didn’t.”

Had that been a slip? Was Andreini connected to the kidnapping after all? She wished she could stop vacillating and know one way or another. “How do you know it was a he?”

She’d asked the question rather heatedly, he noted, wondering why. “Print outside your window’s too big for a woman.”

“Print?” she echoed. “Just one?”

He nodded. The print would probably harden by mid-afternoon. Even though it was December, the Southern California sun could get pretty intense in the middle of the day. He’d have someone make a mold of it, or do it himself if there was no one available.

“It was a misstep. Whoever it was who took your son must have slid off the bridge and stepped into the dirt as he was leaving. Odds are that your son was probably taken not long after the sprinkler system went through its cycle.” The sprinklers were timed and for some reason, management thought it best to have them go off at night rather than early morning. “The ground was still wet and he left a print.” Because for once she seemed to be taking in what he was saying, Rusty told her the rest of what he’d discovered. “The sneaker’s old. The heel is worn down on the side.”

She pressed her lips together. “I guess maybe you really are a detective.”

He grinned at her remark. “That’s what I’d like to think.”

The grin gave him an innocent, boyish quality. She wondered if he’d practiced it to make people let their guard down, or if it came naturally.

“Is there a trail?” Dakota knew it was foolish to hope that there was. The people she was dealing with didn’t make mistakes. But even so, they were human. Maybe…

The next moment her heart sank as Andreini shook his head. She told herself it wasn’t anything she hadn’t expected.

“Just to the parking lot. Small flecks of mud on the asphalt,” he explained. They had led to an empty carport. The kidnapper had probably parked there, taking a chance that the person the spot belonged to wouldn’t come home to create a commotion about having someone in his or her space. “Even after I have it analyzed, I probably won’t be sure if it came from the same sole, just from the same source, which is only logical.”

Dakota frowned impatiently. She didn’t want logic, she wanted her son.

“So where does that put us?” Back to square one, she thought before he could reply.

The key was to keep moving forward. Things had a way of happening when you kept them in motion. “In my office, asking questions.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “What kind of questions?”

There was that wary tone again. What was she afraid he’d find out? What was she hiding? “Hopefully helpful ones. The more I know about your son, his routine—”

She felt her patience fraying again, just as it had last night. “He’s two years old, he doesn’t have a routine.”

“Everyone has a routine,” he corrected. “Even if it’s only one that’s imposed on a child by his mother. The more I know,” Rusty repeated, “the better equipped I am to find him quickly.”

There was that assurance again. No hesitation, just a tacitly understood guarantee. She’d lived long enough in Las Vegas to know that there was no such thing as a guarantee or a sure thing. Only fools who believed in them. Andreini sounded confident, as confident as a greenhorn watching his first spin of the roulette wheel.

Yet he didn’t really strike her as being a fool, or gullible.

Dakota bit her lip. She knew that she was hoping for the impossible—that somehow this man who’d pushed his way into her life was right. That he would get Vinny back for her. Quickly, before the man who had him taken could make her son forget her.

God, but she hated being this vulnerable, this easy a target emotionally. Self-conscious, she glanced down and realized that she’d slept in the sweater she’d dragged on last night to cover up.

She had to look as bad as she felt. “I need a shower and to put on some clothes.”

The latter was a matter of opinion, Rusty thought, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. As far as he was concerned, the woman in front of him looked great just the way she was, with the mark of sleep still in her eyes and her hair all mussed and tangled, fresh from her bed.

Maybe he could do with a shower himself, Rusty thought. A cold one. The hot one he’d been planning on to get the stiffness out of his shoulders would have to be temporarily put on hold.

“Me, too,” he agreed. “I’ll be back within an hour.” That should give her enough time, he judged. “We can do the interview here if you want. That way, if a ransom call does come, you’ll be here to get it.”

But she shook her head at his offer. Though she’d jumped when the telephone had rung last night, she wasn’t expecting to receive any calls. Not if Vinny had been taken by the person she suspected. The man didn’t want to contact her. There was nothing she could offer in exchange for her son, nothing he wanted but her son.

“I don’t have to be here,” she told him. “I can have the calls forwarded to my cell phone,” she added as an afterthought.

Dakota led the way out of her room. “Besides, I’d rather go down to your office.”

He was coming to understand the way her mind worked. She took nothing at face value. “To see if it’s on the level?”

The barest hint of a smile curved her mouth. “Something like that.”

Rusty nodded. He preferred it that way, actually. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have her see the framed photographs of the children they’d recovered. The extensive gallery covered the length of one complete wall and was designed to inspire hope in every despairing parent who crossed their threshold. He figured it would do the same for her.

“Want me to pick you up?” He knew the answer to that even before the words were out of his mouth.

She crossed to her front door and opened it. “No, I can find my own way.”

He merely nodded, accepting her need for independence. Everyone found their own way to deal with a tragedy. She was a hell of a lot stronger than most of the women he’d encountered who had been in her place.

Walking out of the apartment, he turned around abruptly. “One more thing.”

About to close the door, she looked up impatiently. “What?”

“Your name.” She’d never once introduced herself. “Did I hear you correctly last night?”

That’s right, she realized, she’d avoided telling him her name, but he’d heard her correcting the telemarketing person who’d called last night. That had been a slip. Maybe her mistake was in not having changed it, but that had been because she’d believed that the man who had taken her son only knew her by her stage name. It had given her a sense of security, of comfort, to revert to her own name.

Showed what she knew, she thought contemptuously.

Dakota left her hand on the door. “Depends on what you think you heard.”

Cagey, always cagey. It was beginning to fascinate him. “Dakota Armstrong.”

She gave a slight nod. “That’s me.”

Somehow, although he had no idea what a Dakota Armstrong would look like, the name suited her. It was different, unique. As was she.

Rusty put out his hand. “Glad to know you, Dakota Armstrong.”

She didn’t take his hand. She didn’t want a friend, she wanted someone who could do something for her. So instead, she merely closed the door on him.

Her voice came through the barrier. “I’ll see you in about an hour.”

Shaking his head, Rusty hurried up the stairs to his apartment.

He made it to his office in almost half that time. A five-minute shower was all he’d needed before he’d hurried into a fresh pair of jeans and a new shirt. He let the wind dry his hair as he drove to the office, leaving the top down on the vintage blue-and-white Mustang convertible that Megan and Chad had given him for graduation. It was the car he’d spent the better part of two years fantasizing about when he hadn’t been immersed in the minutia of forensics.

He’d expected to be the first one in the office. He’d expected wrong.

There was no need to insert the key into the lock. The door wasn’t locked. As he turned the knob and walked in, he saw Megan coming out of the coffee room, a mug of coffee in one hand, a plate containing two-thirds of a Danish pastry in the other.

Her expression immediately brightened when she saw him. “Hello, little brother, what brings you in so early?” She temporarily set down both mug and plate on the desk in the middle of the foyer. Carrie, their secretary, wasn’t due for another hour. “I thought you’d be basking in your success and sleeping in today.” Before he could respond, she added, “Mrs. Quinn left a message on the machine this morning, saying that she just wanted you to know that there’ll always be a place set for you at their table.”

He’d almost forgotten about yesterday. He’d found the Quinns’s eight-year-old daughter earlier that morning. One of the informants Ben—another partner at the agency who’d come to them via the police department—had cultivated during his career had tipped them off about a little girl who fit Julie Quinn’s description being held in a nearby vacant warehouse. Rescue and reunion had taken place in a matter of hours.

Rusty shrugged. Gratitude always made him feel awkward, like someone who’d suddenly become too big for his clothes. “Place setting belongs to Ben as much as to me.”

“That’s my little brother, modest to a fault.” Affection entered her eyes as Megan reached up and patted his face. She left her hand where it was as she studied him. Had he been up all night?

“You look tired, Rusty. Why didn’t you sleep in?”

He grinned as he took her hand in his and removed it. “You’re being a mother again.”

“Sorry, habit.”

He knew she wasn’t alluding to the fact that she had a child of her own these days. The habit had been ingrained in her long before then. Megan had been more like a mother than a sister to him while he was growing up. Their own mother had slowly shrunk away from reality, retreating into a world of her own making after Chad had been kidnapped, until she all but disappeared. Discovering two years later that her ex-husband had been the one to kidnap their son had done nothing to stabilize her world. So, Megan, still a child herself, had taken over being both parents as well as sibling to him. He’d never felt himself short-changed, not even once. There wasn’t anything he wasn’t willing to do for Megan. Where it might have divided some, the crisis had only succeeded in bringing them closer.

Megan held herself in check, squelching the desire to tell him to turn around and go home. “But you’re still not answering my question.”

He knew she’d keep after him until he told her. Megan hated not knowing anything. “Client coming in this morning.”

News to her. Cade hadn’t said anything about a new client coming to the office. Which meant that he didn’t know. “You’re drumming up business in the street these days?” she asked Rusty.

“It’s my neighbor,” he told her. “Two-year-old was kidnapped last night sometime between eight and eleven. Stolen right out of his bedroom.”

Though she was juggling two cases at the moment, Megan’s interest was instantly aroused. “Do the police have any leads?”

“They weren’t called in.” He saw surprise register on his sister’s face. “Client didn’t want them.” And, whenever possible, they tried to adhere to the client’s wishes.

“Why not?”

He shrugged. She wasn’t asking anything that he hadn’t asked himself. “My guess is that the client’s running away from something.”

“Sounds like something caught up.” Megan picked up her mug and plate again. There were files waiting to be reviewed on her computer. “You going to need help?”

The offer wasn’t unexpected. They all shared time on each other’s cases. But somehow, when it came from his sister, he found himself chafing just the slightest bit. “I’ll know where to find you if I do.” He paused, then added, “I know how to ride a two-wheeler by myself now, Megan.”

He was referring to the time she’d taught him how to ride a bicycle. His coordination had been less than stellar in those days and he’d crashed a dozen times or so before finally getting the hang of it. She knew he was telling her to back off in polite terms. But she hadn’t made the offer because she didn’t think he could handle the job, she’d made it because she liked helping.

“Right.” Standing on her toes, Megan managed to reach his cheek and brushed a kiss on it. “I’m never going to get used to the idea that somebody whose bottom I diapered is now taller than I am.”

“A foot taller,” he emphasized. “And I’d just as soon you deep-sixed the diaper story if you don’t mind.”

It was all the heads-up Megan needed. She laughed. “Widowed or divorced?”

Rusty looked at his sister with complete innocence. “Who?”

He wasn’t fooling her for a second. “The woman who’s coming in.”

“What makes you think it’s a woman?” He’d deliberately used the word client.

Megan grinned, forgetting her queasy stomach for the moment. “The FBI isn’t in the habit of hiring dummies.”

“Just nosy women,” he teased. He eyed the partially consumed pastry on her plate. It reminded him that he’d completely forgotten about breakfast this morning. Until now. “You going to eat that?”

She pushed the paper plate toward him. “Be my guest. My stomach isn’t feeling quite up to par this morning. I don’t know why I even bothered buying that.”

Now that he thought of it, whenever he’d seen her this past week, Megan had looked rather pale. Rusty raised a brow just as he heard the door open behind him. “You’re not…?”

Megan knew exactly what he was thinking. Because it had been in the back of her mind for the past seven days. Ever since she’d thrown up.

“Not that I know of.” She gave him a warning look as she cut him off. The last thing she wanted was to have rumors flying around the office before she was sure there was a reason for them.

But it was too late. Sam Walters had come into the office with his wife, Savannah. Overhearing enough to piece together the rest, he came over and draped an arm over Megan’s shoulder. He and Megan went way back, to the days when he’d been on the police force and she’d been a rookie special agent.

“Another little Wichita on the way, huh? Maybe we should seriously think about opening up a nursery on the side. Certainly make a nice statement about the place.” He looked at Megan. “So, what do you want this time, a boy or a girl?”

“What I want,” Megan said, retreating into her own office, “is some peace and quiet so I can finally wrap up the paperwork on my last case.”

“Holler if you need anything,” Rusty called after her. He grinned, taking a bite of the Danish she’d surrendered as she pretended to give him a reproachful look.

“Likewise,” she echoed, closing her door.

He finished the pastry before he ever reached his office. The sound of the front door opening again caught his attention a second before he crossed the threshold. Turning, he saw Dakota walk into the main office.

Because Carrie hadn’t yet arrived, Savannah greeted the statuesque blonde, silently wishing she had the other woman’s figure. She was trim and athletic, but curves like those of the woman in the powder-blue suit were to be envied.

“May I help you?”

Dakota looked around before answering and saw Rusty. She pointed toward him. “I’m here to see him.”

Standing next to his wife, Sam said, “Lucky him,” in a voice audible only to Savannah. She gave him a jab in the ribs with her elbow and he laughed. “I’ll behave,” he promised, giving her an affectionate nuzzle. “God knows you’re woman enough for me.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Savannah told him, managing to keep a straight face until after he’d entered his own office.

Dakota caught the tail end of the exchange and felt a fleeting tinge of envy. She’d never enjoyed that sort of relationship with a man, the kind that came with lighthearted teasing and heavy doses of love. Not even with Vincent.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t change your mind,” Rusty told her as he waited for her to enter his office.

“Why?”

“Because I want to help.”

She could almost believe him. He sounded sincere. But she knew the only reason he wanted to help, no matter what he said, was because of the money. What she had in her purse would more than cover any fee he wanted to charge.

“Have a seat.” Rusty gestured to the chair in front of his desk. He closed the door behind her before crossing to his own chair, then waited until she sat before beginning. She looked not unlike a bird on a wire, trying her best to not lose her balance. “Change your mind about going to the police?”

“No.” The retort was immediate and sharp. Her voice softened a shade. “I haven’t. I told you before, I don’t want the police brought in on this.”

She’d seemed genuinely concerned about her son. Why was she so wary of the police? Had the kidnapper contacted her and issued the standard threat about killing the hostage if the police were summoned? She had to know the police were still her first, best bet. “Do you mind telling me why?”

She never flinched as she returned his gaze. “Yes, I do mind.”

Kidnappings were hard enough without facing obstacles provided by the parent. “I can’t help you if you keep things back.”

There was no way to read the look in her eyes. “What about that track record you were bragging about?”

If they were going to get anywhere, she was going to have to get rid of that chip on her shoulder. He tried diplomacy. “Most parents are completely open with us, telling us everything they can in order to help us find their missing children.”

She looked down at her perfectly lacquered nails, torn. Consumed with worry. She wasn’t afraid for Vinny’s safety, she was just afraid of never seeing him again. “What is it you want to know?”

He began with the logical question, taking out the tape recorder he kept in his desk. Cade had few rules, but one of them was that the first interview had to be taped. “Would Vinny’s father kidnap his son? Or have him kidnapped?”

The question passed by her, unheard. She was staring at the tape recorder. “What are you doing?”

She was acting as if he’d put a snake on the table instead of a machine, Rusty thought. “Taping the conversation.”

“Why?” It was a demand, not a question.

“Agency rules. Just a way to keep the facts fresh and on record.”

She wanted to tell him to put it away. She wanted to bolt. But most of all, she wanted Vinny. So she didn’t tell him to get rid of the machine and she didn’t leave. Folding her hands in front of her, exercising extreme control over her worn nerve endings, she looked at him.

“What did you ask me?”

Rusty repeated the question. “Would Vinny’s father kidnap his son? Or have him kidnapped?”

“No.”

In his estimation, she’d answered too emphatically. “No disrespect, but maybe you don’t know the man as well as you think you do—”

Dakota laughed shortly. He had that right. “Truer words were never said, Andreini, but even so, I know he wasn’t the one to take the boy.”

He had to push it to the limit. There was more than one case of a child taken by an estranged spouse in their files. “What makes you so sure?”

She set her mouth grimly. “Because Vinny’s father is dead.” And that was when the trouble had all started, she remembered.

“Oh.” He couldn’t gauge by her tone whether the man’s death had left her bereft or relieved. “I’m sorry.”

She lifted her shoulders carelessly, not about to display any more emotion in front of this stranger than she already had. “Yeah, so am I. He had a lot of faults, but he was a good guy. Or tried to be,” she amended, saying it more to herself than to Rusty.

There was a hell of a lot more to this than she was telling him, Rusty thought. He had to get her to talk to him. And for that, he was going to have to get her to trust him.

He figured he had his work cut out for him.

Chapter 4

Making himself comfortable, Rusty took out the worn notepad he kept in his pocket, the one that seemed to have an endless supply of paper and had been with him since he’d started. If he had one superstition, he would have had to say it revolved around the notepad. Every case he’d entered there had been solved.

“Let’s start with where you work.”

“Why?”

It certainly hadn’t taken long for her defensiveness to kick in again. He’d hoped that maybe she would have put it aside once they’d actually gotten started.

“Because I intend to go there and scout around, maybe talk to a few people.”

She didn’t want him talking to the people she worked with, didn’t want any suspicions being raised. It was her business that this was happening, not anyone else’s.

“There’s no reason for that,” she protested. “Vinny was stolen out of his crib in the apartment, not out of a dressing room.”

He wasn’t sure just what she was alluding to. Maybe she worked at a clothing shop. The one thing he did know was that he had to get her to be more cooperative or this investigation wasn’t going to go anywhere. The woman had to be convinced of the validity of every step he took and to stop challenging each one as it occurred, otherwise this wasn’t going to go anywhere.

Maybe a little personal insight would help. He knew Sam and Savannah wouldn’t mind.

“The woman you passed earlier is Savannah Walters. Her little girl was kidnapped by the wife of someone she worked with at the time of the abduction. Someone she trusted,” he emphasized. He leaned forward, making his point as sincerely as he could. “I need to talk to anyone you’ve had contact with to rule out that possibility.”

Resistance came naturally to her. She’d been resisting for so long that it was second nature to her. “I can rule it out for you right now. I’m not that friendly with anyone at work.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” he said under his breath as he jotted something down on his pad.

She raised a brow, immediately on the defensive. “What?”

That had been a slip. It wasn’t like him. Rusty admonished himself as he looked up. “You seem like the private type.”

Dakota frowned slightly. That wasn’t what he’d said originally. “I believe in minding my own business.”

“I still need your place of business.” He indicated an empty line on the form. “For the record. Humor me,” he told her when she didn’t respond.

With a sigh, she gave him the address of the store where she worked in Newport Beach. It didn’t matter really. As soon as she got Vinny back, Dakota already knew she’d be clearing out. Maybe even leaving the country this time, although she hated the thought of doing something that drastic. But to keep her son safe, she was willing to do anything, to go to any lengths. Nothing meant anything to her without Vinny.

Rusty looked down at the name and address he’d just jotted down.

“Neiman-Marcus department store.” It was a store he considered too expensive for even window-shopping. The one in Newport Beach had three stories. “That’s a lot of people to not talk to.” His expression was affable as he asked, “What do you do there?”

“I’m in sales.” It wasn’t what she’d wanted to do with her life, but it was the best she could get under the circumstances. Thinking that he probably thought the job beneath him, she added, “The position of Philosopher King was taken.”

Rusty was surprised at the Aristotelian reference. He didn’t take Dakota for someone who read such dry material. It had put him to sleep that one semester in college. “Don’t you mean Philosopher Queen?”

“No,” she contradicted. “King. A king’s higher.” Her mouth curved just the slightest bit. “I always aim for the best.”

He didn’t doubt it for a moment. She’d struck him as a class act the moment he’d seen her, someone who was accustomed to, and who got, the best. Which had made him wonder what she’d been doing living in his complex. It was a pleasant enough place in which to live and the surrounding area was nice, but there was nothing upper echelon about it. And neither was there about the job she had. Yet she read or at least was familiar with Aristotle. The woman was an enigma.

Rusty moved on to the next item. “I’ll also need a list of friends.”

Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. “Don’t you have any of your own?”

She was sharper-tongued and less frantic than she had been last night or even this morning. Had the kidnapper contacted her? And if so, why wasn’t she saying anything?

“Mine won’t help, yours might,” he said dryly.

There weren’t any friends, not here. She couldn’t allow herself to get close to anyone anymore. The woman at the day-care center where she left Vinny had tried more than once to get her to open up, or at least to get together with some of the other mothers, but she had steadfastly remained distant. It was safer that way.

“I told you, I’m a private person.”

His expression was innocent as he studied her. “No friends?”

“No need.”

It was a lie. She had a very real need to share, to lean, and there were friends, but they were all back in Las Vegas and she couldn’t risk contacting any of them. It was like being in the witness protection program without the comfort of safety.

Rusty didn’t buy that answer, either. No one was an island, even if they thought they were. Because of what he’d gone through, his brother Chad had been distant, like Dakota, but even Chad had eventually recognized his own need for contact, for warmth. Rusty reasoned that it would be the same for Dakota.

“Has there been anyone you noticed hanging around in the area lately? Anyone unusual?”

One side of her mouth raised a fraction of an inch as she looked at him. “You mean, other than you?”

She was referring to the times he had tried to get a conversation going with her. “I live there, remember?”

The hint of a smile faded and she shook her head. “No, no one unusual.”

He looked at her steadily. “And no one’s contacted you?”

Her impatience surfaced again. “I already told you they hadn’t.”

Rusty sighed inwardly. He felt like a lawyer with a hostile witness on the stand. It wasn’t usually like this. Most of the time the parent was only too eager to keep talking, hoping that something would lead to their child’s recovery. Doggedly, he pressed on.

As he continued asking questions, he noted that Dakota vacillated between being wary, snappish and wry. Writing down her answers in his own brand of shorthand, Rusty continued to wonder why she would behave in such a fashion, considering the circumstances.

He had no way of knowing that the woman sitting so rigidly in front of him was wrestling with her thoughts and her conscience. Throughout the questioning, she kept trying to decide whether or not to be completely honest and tell Rusty who she believed had abducted her son. But each qualm of conscience brought fear with it. Fear that if Rusty knew who he might be facing, he would back away. And she did need him.

But not telling him might delay finding Vinny. In addition, keeping Andreini in the dark might also prove dangerous to him, if not fatal.

The man had a right to know who he was up against.

But, she insisted silently, she had a right to get back her son.

Dakota played with the tips of her nails and decided, for the time being, to keep silent about the identity of the man who’d cast such a dark shadow over her life for the past two years.

Half an hour later, she saw Rusty close his notepad and hit the stop button on the tape recorder. For now, the questions stopped.

She had a question of her own.

“You haven’t talked about payment.”

He’d never been good when it came to talking about money. As a teenager, because he had always been naturally handy, he had worked on neighbors’ cars to earn spending money. But he had always had trouble asking for what was due him. Exasperated when she thought people were taking advantage of him, Megan had taken over the financial end of his business.

“You can stop at Carrie’s desk on your way out, she’ll be happy to go over everything with you. If there’s any problem,” he said, anticipating that there would be strictly because of what she’d said in her apartment last night, “it can be worked out. The main thing is to find your son.”

She was starting to believe that he believed that. “Yes, it is, but I don’t intend to do that on credit.”

Dakota dug into her purse, searching for what she’d slipped inside just before she’d left. Her fingers curved around the multifaceted surfaces.

She tossed the item on his desk with a carelessness that surprised him. He’d thought that every woman revered jewelry. The diamond necklace sitting on top of his papers would have inspired reverence in a Spartan.

The sparkle emanating from it was almost blinding. “Is it real?”

“As real as you are.” She tried to not think about when she had received it from Vincent. He’d made her close her eyes before he’d slipped it around her neck. She’d felt like a queen. She’d felt loved. What she’d been, she knew, was blinded. She smiled at Rusty. “I never accept imitations.”

The smile struck him as incredibly sad. Rusty picked up the long, gleaming string of near-perfect diamonds. When the sunlight hit it, it was like holding blue fire with his fingertips. He couldn’t begin to estimate its worth.

“I don’t think the bill’s going to be quite this high.”

She shrugged carelessly. The necklace had been in its box since Vincent had died. Because she’d accidentally discovered the necklace’s true origin, the gift no longer meant anything to her. He’d bought it for someone else, but had taken it back after the breakup.

“Make change,” she told him, rising.

“Two bracelets and a pair of earrings?” he offered, raising a brow.

“Whatever.” She didn’t care about the necklace. She cared about getting Vinny back. Quickly. Dakota paused in the doorway. “You’ll call me if there’s anything?”

He crossed to the doorway to stand beside her. Who had been the man in her life? Did she miss him? Had she hardened her heart to everyone because losing him had been so devastating? Questions occurred to him that weren’t restricted to the immediate case at hand. He wanted them answered.

“I’ll call you regularly one way or another.”

She only wanted to hear from him if he had something positive to tell her. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take without breaking. “Make it one way,” she instructed.

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