A Hero in Her Eyes

But each time, it wasn’t.

Instead, there’d been a bevy of reporters, a squadron of ghouls calling with “sightings” of his daughter, all feeding off the situation. He’d gone on countless emotional roller-coaster rides, only to be disappointed over and over again. Until he’d shut himself off completely, knowing that the call, the knock he was waiting for, would never come.

Expecting no one, angry at being invaded, Walker crossed to the front door. He yanked it open and fairly growled out the single word.

“Yes?”

Startled, Eliza almost took a step back from the man in the doorway. It wasn’t his expression that had her temporarily thinking of retreat, or even the way he’d snapped out the word in something far less than an actual greeting. Rather, it was the aura of pain she felt hovering around him that had unsettled her. Pain so vividly present, she felt she could literally reach out and touch it with her hand.

He was a man who had suffered a great deal, and her heart went out to him. He had Bonnie’s eyes, she thought, looking at him.

“Mr. Banacek?”

“Yes?” This time, the word came out a little more civilized sounding, though it was by no means intended to be friendly.

He wanted to be left alone. Alone to repackage the box and find some way to store it away again. It was hard enough to find a place for himself tonight without having to deal with some wispy dark-blond stranger who looked as if the wind had literally blown her to his doorstep.

“My name is Eliza Eldridge. I’d like to speak to you about Bonnie.”

His jaw tightened so rigidly, had it been made out of glass, Eliza was certain it would have shattered.

“What about her?”

“I believe she’s still alive.” In her entire experience, she’d never found an easy way to say this. “I’ve had this dream about her—”

His eyes darkened to the color of a storm. The next moment, he’d slammed the door shut in her face.

Chapter 2

The ringing began again, more insistent than the last time.

Walker felt himself beginning a not-so-slow burn. Didn’t these people have lives? Didn’t they have anything better to do than torment people touched by tragedy?

He strode back to the door, growing angrier with the woman leaning on his bell with every step he took.

“Go away, Ms. Eldridge,” he shouted through the door. He made no attempt to sound civil. At this point, he just wanted her to get out of his life. “I’m not about to talk to you.”

Eliza placed her outstretched hand on the door, wishing there was some way to touch the man behind it. Wishing she could make Walker Banacek understand and accept what it was that she wanted to do for him. But this part had never come about easily. It wasn’t quite like tilting at windmills, but it came close. People regarded clairvoyants as something between certified lunatics and fairy folk.

“Just give me a few minutes of your time to explain, please.”

The door didn’t open.

“If you don’t leave now,” he called to her, “I’ll call the police.”

If he thought that was a threat, he was going to be disappointed, she thought. She’d been subjected to far worse. “Ask for Lieutenant Trent Lanihan. He’ll vouch for me.”

For a moment there was nothing but silence, and she thought that perhaps he had walked away, after all. And then, to her surprise, the door opened, but not enough to allow her to come in.

“Look, trust me, I’ve heard it all,” Walker snapped coldly as he stood in the doorway. “So you can take your crystal ball, your tarot cards, your channeling persona, or whatever the hell you claim to use to bilk people out of their money and prey on their paltry hopes, and get the hell off my doorstep because I promise you, I am not in the mood for whatever bill of goods it is you’re trying to sell me.”

But before Walker could close the door on her again, Eliza wedged her body into the doorway, deterring his attempts to throw her out. He would have to do it bodily, or be forced to listen to her.

When he glared at her incredulously, she met his gaze not defiantly, but with such understanding that it took his breath away. Stunned, he stopped holding the door firmly in place and listened.

“I don’t use a crystal ball, tarot cards or a channeling persona,” she told him in a soft voice meant to inspire confidence and soothe an impassioned beast. Her mouth curved slightly; she knew exactly what he was thinking. “I’m not a quack, Mr. Banacek. I have no explanation for my abilities, I only know that there are times when I’m made aware of things that other people aren’t, and at times I can see things that other people don’t.”

He sincerely doubted that. She didn’t “see” things; what she accomplished she did with hypnosis. In his opinion, there was no other explanation for why he’d momentarily ceased pushing her out. No other explanation why he wasn’t pushing her out this second. It had to be hypnosis. One look into her eyes would convince anyone of that. They were a light shade of blue, so light that it made him think of the nylon used in making translucent nightgowns. Even now they seemed to be invading his very mind.

He blinked, rousing himself. Whatever tricks she was attempting to pull, they weren’t going to work on him. He’d been through too much already. “Go away,” he ordered sternly.

Eliza hated being put in the position of forcing herself on someone, but this was too important for her to turn away. A child’s life could be hanging in the balance.

“Not yet, Mr. Banacek, not until you hear me out. When I’m finished, if you still want me to leave, I will. No calls to the police will be necessary.”

Walker was torn. He didn’t like being played for a fool, but he had to admit that no matter how hard he tried to smother it, to bury it, there was still a small part of him that clung to irrational hope, hope that flew in the face of all the statistics to the contrary. Hope of finding Bonnie.

His eyes held hers. Then, after a beat, he opened the door a little wider. But his body remained in the way, blocking access to his house. He wasn’t about to let her mistake this for an invitation.

“What is this to you?”

He had a right to question. “A lost child, Mr. Banacek,” she replied softly. “What is it to you?”

How dare she? His eyes dissolved into angry slits as he glared at her. “A trick, a ploy. I don’t know whether you’re a reporter, a tragedy groupie or just a crackpot—”

And he had been besieged by all of them, Eliza thought. In large numbers. There was nothing she could do about that. But to have his help, she needed to change his mind. “There is a fourth choice.”

“Which is?” His tone was guarded. Hypnotically beautiful eyes not withstanding, he wasn’t about to be suckered into anything. Those days were gone.

Her eyes looked straight into him. “That I’m on the level.”

Looking away, Walker laughed shortly. Even if he might once have been inclined to believe the kind of nonsense she was spouting, he’d learned his lesson the hard way. His wife had paid clairvoyants to help. All they had done was help separate Rachel from her money. Bonnie was dead and he had to accept that. Had accepted it. He wasn’t about to retrace his steps or retract his decision, the decision it had taken him months of soul-wrenching searching to reach.

He placed his hand on the door, ready to push it closed again. “Sorry, I don’t believe in things that go bump in the night.”

Her hand touched his as she moved to stop him. A volley of lights blazed before her eyes. House lights. Bedroom lights. “Is that why you keep the lights on at night?”

Because he couldn’t summon a single word to answer her with, Walker stared at her in stunned silence.

“When you go to sleep at night,” she continued in a gentle voice, knowing that he desperately needed comfort, needed hope, not someone who raised her voice to match his in a dual of words, “is that why you don’t turn off the lights?”

“How did you know…?” For the briefest of moments, Walker actually entertained the thought that she was on the level. And then he came to his senses. There was a logical explanation, there always was. He just had to look for it. “You read that somewhere, didn’t you?”

Although, in all honesty, he didn’t remember ever telling anyone that, not even his sister. It was just something between him and the memory of the child he still carried in his heart. The child who was no more.

“No.” The single word was devoid of guile. “Until this morning, I didn’t even know who you were.” She’d missed the news media’s coverage of the tragedy, missed the stories on page one and then page three until they had worked their way to the back of the newspaper. “I wasn’t in the city the month your daughter was kidnapped. I was in Georgia.” Holding the hand of a man who had never accepted her. Holding his hand as he lay dying.

Eliza pushed the memory away. She was here to offer her help because Bonnie Banacek was missing, not to remember things that caused her pain. Pain only interfered with her ability to see things clearly.