A Hero in Her Eyes

Jason felt for Walker, he really did. He’d been there for him, as much as Walker would allow anyone to be there for him, and had seen what the kidnapping had done to him. And to Walker’s wife, Rachel. One tragedy had begat another. “Yeah, I know.”

“No, you don’t,” Walker said with finality. “You don’t know. You couldn’t possibly know until it’s happened to you what it feels like to lose your little girl. To finally have to admit to yourself that there’s no hope, that she’s never going to come back, never going to throw those little arms around you and hug you as if you’re the most important person in the world. Never feel those tiny little lips on your cheek when you’ve won her heart because you bought her a stupid pair of pink toe shoes—”

Abruptly, Walker stopped, knowing he’d said too much, had gotten too angry at a friend whose only sin was in wanting to help.

When he spoke again, his voice quavered. “I just don’t know if I can go through it all again, Jase. I don’t know if I could live with myself.”

“Could you live with yourself if you turned your back on this, knowing there might be some chance, however slim, that you could find Bonnie? And that you passed it up?”

Walker made no answer.

He didn’t have to.

There were no two ways about it. Savannah Walters was an absolute gem. Eliza wondered what the firm had done without her before Sam had found her daughter, married her and subsequently talked her into leaving her job and coming to work for ChildFinders. The woman was an absolute whiz at the computer. More to the point, she knew her way around what was, to Eliza, the mysterious world of the Internet. Savannah could uncover information in seconds where it would have taken her weeks, Eliza marveled as she went over the stacks of files, clippings and random bits of information Savannah had assembled for her.

Specifically, she’d asked Savannah to see if she could dig up any information regarding the Banacek kidnapping. Savannah had unearthed old news articles dealing with the kidnapping and any bodies that had subsequently turned up fitting Bonnie’s general physical description over a nine-state area. She’d also asked for the names and known whereabouts of any registered child molesters.

It was a humbling mound of information, but Eliza intended to do it all justice. Maybe reading the files would trigger something for her, she thought. She felt she owed it to Bonnie, no matter what the girl’s father thought of her.

“Hey, there’s the brand-new Daddy now.” Eliza heard Megan Andreini Wichita crow almost right outside her door. It sounded as if Megan was hugging Cade. “How does it feel?”

Cade had taken the day before off to be with his wife, after having spent the previous evening coaching her through labor and delivery.

“I’ll let you know when and if I get some sleep. Right now, I’m so tired I feel like I’m walking around in someone else’s dream.” He stopped to pop his head into Eliza’s office. “You were right. Mike had the baby at 3:32. A beautiful baby girl.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out the instamatic photo he’d taken and passed it around for the women to see. “Her face’s a little flattened right now, but—”

“Her face,” Eliza said, taking the photograph from him to get a better look, “is absolutely perfect. And so is she.” She handed the photograph over to Savannah. “You must be very, very proud.”

Normally a man of few words, he wasn’t given to bragging. “Just relieved it’s over.”

“Hey, it’s not over, Papa,” Savannah, the mother of two children herself, told him affectionately. “You should know that. It’s not over for eighteen years. And even then, I hear it doesn’t stop.”

Megan handed the photograph back to the man she had originally met when she’d come as an FBI agent to question him about his missing son. “Boy, you people really know how to sell motherhood.”

“Nothing better in this world,” Savannah swore solemnly.

Megan chewed on her lower lip, seeming uncustomarily uncertain. “That’s good.” She took a deep breath as the others looked at her questioningly. “Because I think I’m on my way.”

“My God, really?” Savannah asked.

Megan had only been back to the office for a couple of days. She and her husband, Garrett, had finally managed to coordinate their schedules to take a long overdue honeymoon.

“Wow, you certainly know how to end off a honeymoon right,” Cade commented.

Eliza threw her arms around Megan, then stepped back. Megan looked at her with an unspoken question in her eyes. Eliza nodded with a smile. “Yes, you are.”

Megan squealed and hugged her hard.

Chapter 3

The sleek, gray Jaguar slipped into a spot that availed itself of the shade from one of the older benjamina trees that framed the perimeter of the parking lot closest to the office building.

His palm resting on the hand brake, Walker paused to gather his thoughts as he looked out at the building through the tinted window.

He wasn’t certain exactly what he’d been expecting. He supposed that in his mind, he’d thought any place that numbered a clairvoyant among its active employees would look like something out of a second-rate, melodramatic movie, maybe even one of those simpleminded screamers that dealt with the supernatural. The entrance to the building would come with a fog machine billowing out dry ice to create the proper surreal atmosphere.

That ChildFinders, Inc. had an address that put it squarely in the heart of one of Bedford’s most upscale business plazas was almost as encouraging as the verbal voucher Jason had given him over the phone regarding the agency’s sterling reputation.

A place that dedicated itself to finding missing children—and continually succeeding at it, if he was to believe the publicity—couldn’t be all bad, he told himself.

Braced for anything, Walker got out of his car and entered the building.

ChildFinders’s offices took up the entire top floor of the five-story building. The rent on that had to be a pretty penny, Walker mused, getting into the elevator whose outer wall was made of Plexiglas. It allowed him a view of the parking lot he’d just left as he got in.

If the rent was high, that meant that altruistic publicity notwithstanding, ChildFinders had to charge astronomical rates to stay ahead of the game, he decided, pressing for the fifth floor.

Not that money was a problem for him. It hadn’t been for almost ten years now. It was everything else that had become a problem, Walker thought darkly, watching the cars below become progressively smaller as he drew closer to the fifth floor.

When the elevator came to a smooth halt, Walker found himself stepping out into a tastefully decorated reception area. Looking around, he half expected the walls to be decorated with prominent citizens and celebrities the agency had helped, a visual testimonial to its incredible success rate.

Again, he was wrong.

Instead of photographs of grateful parents, there was a gallery of children’s photographs. Children, he assumed, that the different operatives had recovered and reunited with their families. Beyond that were several large, colorful pastels scattered about in understated frames. The two blended in to create an atmosphere that was at once soothing and brightly encouraging.

It was a place meant to put a person at their ease, not impress them.

Good business sense, he noted absently. Whoever had done this knew what they were doing.

He looked around for someone to talk to.

The young woman behind the reception desk at the entrance to the offices hardly looked old enough to be out of high school without a written excuse note from her mother. He vaguely wondered if she was one of the agency’s success stories.

Approaching the desk, Walker cleared his throat. He was nervous, he realized. Was he was making some sort of ridiculous mistake in coming here?

Maybe yes, but Jason was right. If he didn’t come here, if he didn’t follow up this absurd—for lack of a better word—lead, he would always wonder if he’d turned his back on the only and last chance he would ever have of finding Bonnie. As far-fetched as this seemed, he couldn’t ignore it.

Walker stopped short of the desk. Somewhere during the ride here from his corporate offices at the other end of Bedford, he realized, he had given himself permission to think of his daughter as being among the living again.

The thought startled him.

He feared that he would live to regret this. But his heart wanted so badly to believe that it was really true—that Bonnie was alive somewhere and that he would find her if only he tried hard enough.

As if he hadn’t tried hard before, doing everything in his power, hiring everyone he could…

And it had all come to nothing.

The girl at the reception desk flashed a thousand-watt smile. “May I help you?”

“Is Ms.—” His mind suddenly blank, Walker had to pause and look at the card he’d shoved into his jacket pocket just before he’d gotten out of the Jaguar. Funny, he was usually so good with names. Why did hers keep eluding him? Probably had to do with the fact that he was so skeptical. “Is Ms. Eldridge in?”