Heart of a Hero

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.”