LITMIR.BIZ

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emotions under control now, struggled to keep a steady voice. Emotions only impeded progress on the cases she worked. She more than anyone else knew that.

      She glanced toward the back of the framed photograph on Brent’s desk. “I’m going to need a recent photograph of your daughter, Judge. The sooner we have police officers looking for her, the sooner we’ll find her.”

      He nodded numbly, feeling like a man who was underwater and drowning. His brain seemed to be processing everything in slow motion. But he knew the credo. “Every minute counts.”

      “Yes, it does.” She took out her pad, ready to jot down any shred of information that could be used. “How much does she weigh?”

      At first his mind was blank, then he remembered. Delia had told him the information after Rachel’s last pediatric checkup. “Forty-eight, no, forty-nine pounds.”

      “Height?”

      “Three foot three.” He looked at her. “She’s small for her age.”

      She offered him a smile she knew wasn’t going to help, but she felt bound to try, anyway. “Do you remember what she was wearing this morning?”

      He opened his mouth to tell her, but this time when no words came out, there was no belated memory to struggle to the foreground. “Something blue. I think.” Damn it, why hadn’t he looked at Rachel? “I didn’t notice,” he confessed.

      Didn’t notice because he was late. Because today was his day to preside over his court a half hour earlier because his docket was so overcrowded. So he hadn’t looked at his daughter because he had to listen to some jaded lawyer plead the case of an equally jaded two-bit drug dealer. And because of these two people who mattered less than nothing to him, he hadn’t sat down to breakfast with his daughter, hadn’t noticed what she was wearing.

      Hadn’t kissed her goodbye.

      The knot inside of him twisted a little more. He looked toward Callie as he upbraided himself. “I didn’t kiss her goodbye.”

      Callie looked up from the note she’d just made. “Excuse me?”

      Damn it, what was wrong with him? Rachel was the most important person in his world, how could he have just ignored her like that? What kind of father was he?

      Callie saw Brent square his shoulders like a man prepared to face a firing squad for his transgressions. “This morning when I left the house I was in a hurry. I didn’t kiss Rachel goodbye. It was the first time I didn’t kiss her goodbye.”

      As far as she was concerned, that placed him head and shoulders above a great many fathers she knew. “You’ll kiss her twice to make up for it when we bring her back.”

      “When,” he echoed. He wasn’t the kind of man who deluded himself. He wasn’t an optimist by nature. Yet he wanted to cling to the single word.

      “When,” Callie repeated firmly. As far as she was concerned, it was a promise. She couldn’t operate any other way. Every crime was to be solved, every missing person to be found. The thought of failure was impossible at this juncture. “We’re going to find your daughter, Judge. The success record for recovering children is getting better all the time.”

      “Better” meant that there were failures. But he already knew that.

      No, he couldn’t go there, couldn’t allow himself to think that he might never see Rachel again, never sit at a table again, cheating at Old Maid for the pleasure of seeing her laugh with glee because she’d won again. She was the only bright light in his life, and he would have gladly given up his own life to ensure that she would be returned, unharmed.

      “Judge, the photograph,” Callie prodded gently, nodding toward the frame.

      He took it from his desk and handed it to her. Callie quickly removed the photograph from its frame. She placed the empty frame on the desk, then looked at the photograph. It was a professional portrait, taken at a studio. Happiness radiated from the small face and intelligent eyes. She could almost hear the little girl giggling.

      “I’ll get this back to you as soon as possible,” Callie promised.

      She had nearly reached the door before the fact that she was leaving registered with Brent. He felt as if a vacuum had suddenly been created around him. He knew he couldn’t just stay here.

      “Wait.” He threw off his robes, tossing the black garment in the general direction of his chair. “I’m coming with you.”

      She stopped dead. The sympathy she felt for him did not interfere with her duty. “You know the rules, Judge. You can’t do that.”

      Yes he knew the rules, but he was in no-man’s-land now and rules didn’t work here, didn’t mean anything. “I’m not the judge right now.” Crossing to her, he looked down into her eyes. “I’m Rachel’s father. I’m Brent.”

      She’d called him that once, he recalled. Long ago when they had danced. When Rachel had been safe.

      He was making this hard for her, Callie thought. And though he’d just thrown the title aside, his being a judge might very well be the reason all this was happening. But it was still early and she didn’t want to heap theories on the man until she had a few more facts to work with.

      “I need you to go home,” she told him as gently as possible. “There might be a ransom call.”

      Ransom. Money.

      Bitterness rose up in his throat as he turned the words over in his head. Ever since he could remember, his wealth had always been more a burden than a joy. It had made him doubt who his friends were. Then he’d discovered that Jennifer had been far more attracted to his wealth and his potential prestige than she had been to him.

      And now was money the reason his daughter had been snatched?

      What other conclusion could there be? “Then you do think she’s been kidnapped.” It wasn’t a question, it was a resigned statement.

      Callie surprised him by shaking her head. “It’s far too early in the game to make a call, Jud—Brent,” she said. “But it’s always wise to keep all the options open. I’m still hoping your daughter just ran off. She witnessed a traumatic scene this morning. Anyone would have run off.”

      Another shaft went through his heart. That Rachel had gone through something like that by herself, without having him there to shield her, broke his heart. Rachel was just a baby. Babies were supposed to feel secure, to know nothing but simple, happy times, not see someone they loved killed right before their eyes.

      “She shouldn’t have seen that.”

      Callie heard the accusation in his voice and instinctively knew he was blaming himself. That wasn’t going to help either him or his daughter. “It’s a very hard world, Brent. We can’t protect our children forever.”

      He looked at her. “You have children?”

      “No. I was speaking figuratively.” She had to get going. Callie opened the door behind her. “Go home, Brent. Someone will be there to talk with you shortly—”

      “You,” Brent said firmly. He’d heard via the grapevine that she was an outstanding detective, very much a credit to her father and her family name. All the Cavanaughs were. He wanted, needed, the best right now. “I want you to be the one to come to the house and tell me what’s happening.”

      She was about to protest that she was going to be out in the field, but then stopped herself. She could stretch a minute here, borrow a quarter of an hour there and somehow find the time. He deserved that kind of consideration. Everyone going through what he was going through did.

      Besides, the most odious part of this investigation was still ahead of them. Like it or not, she was going to have to question Brent to make sure that he hadn’t choreographed his own daughter’s abduction for some macabre reason of his own. Of all the things she had to do while working a missing child case, she hated this

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