The Reluctant Hero

“Several times,” Stephanie replied. “For some reason, the arresting officer is staying mum on the subject of Mr. Kane—which makes me even more suspicious. Of course, if we have to testify as witnesses, I’ll see Kane at the hearing, I’m sure. But I don’t want to wait that long. This story is fresh and I want to interview him now. But the police haven’t really been any help.” She grinned then. “Although I do have a copy of the police report, of course. The teenagers are being held as juveniles, so they’ll be arraigned in a couple of days. I don’t want to wait until then, because I have a feeling our Mr. Kane might not even show up for the hearing.”

“So we have to dig through all these names again?”

“Yes, we do. And call them.”

“Now?”

Stephanie glanced at the clock. “It is late. Okay, we’ll go back over the list and eliminate the ones we know are definitely not our man.”

“Like the seventy-year-old Derek Cain who proposed to you over the phone?”

“Yes. Nice, sweet man, but not my type.”

“Well, out of the twenty-two we’ve called, seven have asked for your hand in marriage, and about three wanted to know if you’d live in sin with them.”

“None of them would be our man,” Stephanie replied, ignoring the sometimes flattering, sometimes disturbing adulation she received from a lot of her male viewers. “This particular Derek Kane acted as if he loathed the ground I walked upon.”

“So naturally he’s the one you’re going after, right?”

Stephanie grinned again as Alonzo fell back into his assigned task with no more complaints. He was a good kid, and a hard worker. He’d make a good reporter one day. Right now, Alonzo and the other interns got stuck with the grunt work, but then, reporting was ninety percent grunt work, anyway.

And she should know. She’d taken some pretty big risks just to get to a story. So going after a man who didn’t want to be found was nothing new for her. Only, this man was different.

She was attracted to this man. Which was silly. She didn’t know him, had barely seen his face. Yet…it was there, staring her in the face, keeping her edgy and impatient. She wanted to know more about Derek Kane, because she was interested in him.

Putting that thought out of her mind, Stephanie helped Alonzo reorganize the list, then sent him home.

Sitting there in the almost empty press room, Stephanie once again went down the list. They’d called all the Kanes in the metro Atlanta area, and several in the outlying areas. He had to be out there, somewhere.

Thinking back over that night, she tried to remember everything Derek Kane had said or done. The clues were there. She had to put them together.

“Where are you?” she asked now, her gaze moving down the list. “Maybe that’s not even your real name.”

She was about to call it a night when her gaze hit on one address in particular. They’d called that number earlier, but no one had answered, and there hadn’t been an answering machine either, so she hadn’t been able to listen to the voice. Call it a hunch, call it woman’s intuition, but this address stood out in Stephanie’s mind for some reason.

“Flowery Branch, GA.”

Flowers? Flowers. Then she remembered—he’d said something about landscaping. Was he a landscaper?

“Think, Stephanie.” Then it hit her. She’d been eavesdropping when Derek had given personal information to the officer. Now two details of that conversation stood out in her mind. Landscaper…and lake.

“Would a reclusive man who claims he’s a landscaper live at a place called Flowery Branch?”

He possibly could, if that place happened to be near a lake.

Flowery Branch was a little town near Lake Lanier, about forty miles northeast of Atlanta.

“The landscaper who lives on the lake.”

As she sat there, her heart picked up its tempo. One of the DMV printouts matched this address. And the physical description matched perfectly, too. “This could be him.”

But she needed to be sure.

Picking up the phone, Stephanie called the Atlanta Police Department and waited as the operator connected her to one of her most reliable sources on the night shift. If the arresting officer didn’t want to divulge anything about Derek Kane, she’d just have to resort to other tactics.

“I need a favor,” she explained, then after giving her friend the details, she said, “just verify this for me. Just verify that his occupation is landscaper and that his address is Flowery Branch, Georgia. That’s all I need.”

Stephanie hung up, then waited. If this hunch panned out, she’d save herself and Alonzo a whole lot of trouble in the morning.

The phone rang five minutes later, jarring Stephanie out of her erratic musings.

“Derek Kane—that’s K-a-n-e. Thirty-two years old, owns his own landscaping business in Flowery Branch. Gave a complete statement at scene and then again at headquarters, and has requested to remain anonymous.” There was a pause, then the voice said, “So you never heard this from me.”

“Of course,” Stephanie replied. “Thanks.”

She ignored the little twinge of guilt she felt at having forced her friend to delve into police files.

“I only asked for verification,” she reminded herself as she grabbed her suit jacket and headed to the elevator.

“And now I have it.”

And now, why bother calling ahead? The element of surprise always worked best in these situations.

First thing in the morning, Stephanie intended to take a little road trip up to Lake Lanier.

To a place called Flowery Branch.

Where she hoped she’d come face-to-face with a man named Derek Kane.

Chapter Four

Derek couldn’t believe it. She’d gone and told the entire story on the evening news, complete with an interview of Walter Griffin from his hospital bed. Thankfully, Walter didn’t know that Derek had sat outside his room most of the night. Thankfully, the hospital staff had not divulged that someone had taken care of the man’s medical bills.

So all she had was her own eyewitness account and Walter Griffin’s undying gratitude for her and “the other angel” who’d saved his life, according to him.

Great. Now Derek was being billed as an angel, too.

This morning, as he stood on the deck watching the sun come up, Derek couldn’t seem to find that sense of peace waking up here had always brought him. Maybe because last night he hadn’t been able to find a peaceful sleep. He’d tossed and turned, reliving Stephanie Maguire’s vivid account of the mugging she’d witnessed in downtown Atlanta.

Her words, spoken from a voice that was half innocent, half calculating, still remained as fresh in Derek’s overworked mind as the strong brew at the bottom of his cup.

“And so, a happy ending to what could have been a tragedy. All because one man dared to step out of the shadows and help a fellow human being. Wherever that stranger, that Good Samaritan, is tonight, we thank him.”

She hadn’t told the world his name, at least.

Derek didn’t know if that omission made him glad or mad. Women like Stephanie Maguire always had good reasons for doing the things they did. Now Derek was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe it was the way she’d said it, as if she were sending out a challenge, or maybe it was the way she’d stared straight into the camera, as if she were staring straight at him, straight into his wounded heart.

“You’re getting downright morose,” he mumbled to himself.