Childfinders Inc - Hero For Hire Part 15

"Thanks." Chad studied his brother's back thoughtfully. Younger by six years, Rusty was about five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. And right now, as tense as h.e.l.l. "So what's the big mystery? What did you want to see me about that you couldn't tell me on the phone?"

"I could have told you." Can in hand, Rusty sat down again. "But I didn't think you wanted to hear it that way."

Chad could feel the hairs rise on the back of his neck. "Hear what?"

"Dad's out." Rusty watched his brother's face for a reaction. There was a flash of anger in Chad's eyes.

Very methodically, Chad set down his can on the table. He didn't look up. "My, how time flies."

Torn between loyalty and responsibility, Rusty gave him the rest of it. "He wants to see you."

Chad looked up sharply. "No."

Rusty knew that was what Chad would say. He also knew that Chad had never completely walked out of his personal corner of h.e.l.l, because there were things left unresolved. "Maybe you should see him."

"No." The answer was firmer, louder.

Rusty leaned closer. There were times when he felt as if an entire generation separated them. Chad had always seemed so much older than him. "Chad, I'm saying this for your good, not his. See him."

"No." A shade of the anger he was trying to contain surfaced in the word.

''There's nothing to be said. Whatever needed saying was said at his trial when I testified against him."

"That was twenty years ago. Things change." Rusty hesitated again, not wanting Chad to do anything he would later regret. "He says he's sorry."

Chad rose to his feet. He didn't want to take his anger out on Rusty. His brother meant well. But Rusty didn't understand. "He's a liar, Rusty. He lied to Mom, to Megan. To me. He would have lied to you if you'd understood. It's what the man does. He lies. I don't think he'd know the truth if it came up and bit him."

Rusty got to his feet, too, digging in. "But you would."

It wasn't like Rusty to push. That was Megan's forte. Chad narrowed his eyes.

"What are you getting at?"

"The truth of it is, Chad, I think you need to forgive him. For your own sake, not his."

Chad shoved his hands into his pockets, fisting them. He laughed shortly. "I thought you studied criminology, not psychology."

"Can't have one without the other."

Chad's lips thinned. He'd only give Rusty so much slack. "Well, don't practice on me, Rusty. I'm not a case." He crossed to the door.

Rusty planted himself in front of him. "No, you're my brother and I can't stand to see you being eaten up like this because of what he did twenty-two years ago."

Very deliberately Chad moved him out of the way. "I'm not being eaten up. And I'm not about to absolve that man's conscience." He yanked open the door. "If he wants anything absolved, that's between him and his G.o.d."

"Yeah," Rusty called after him. "It is."

Chad just kept walking.

Chapter 7.

Chad got into his car and slammed the door a little too hard. Despite his best efforts to shut them out, Rusty's words had gotten to him.

His first instinct was to go home. He'd put in a long, full day, and though he could work around the clock when needed, he wasn't a robot. He needed at least a few hours of rest.

But he was too wound up right now. Sleep would be hours away. It was always difficult for him to sleep, anyway. It meant relaxing his guard, letting go. It wasn't something he'd been able to manage with ease ever since that fateful day he had agreed to secretly meet his father at the skating rink. He'd ended up paying with more than two years of his life.

Besides, he thought, turning on the ignition, there was nothing at home for him.

He wouldn't even have had a television set if Megan hadn't insisted on buying him one. He couldn't remember the last time he'd turned it on. The world was an intruder he preferred leaving at his front door.

So instead of turning his car toward his studio apartment located on the southernmost outskirts of Bedford, Chad headed back to ChildFinders. If he couldn't sleep, at least he could do something useful, do a little background research on the case. He wasn't adept at the computer the way Megan and Savannah were, but he could find his way around the Internet and its resources, given enough time.

The hall light barely ventured into the fifth-floor main office as he let himself in. Everyone else had gone home for the night hours ago. Unlike him, he mused, they had lives to lead.

Finding the switch on the wall, he flipped it on. Light blanketed the eerie shadows. He made his way into his own office, taking out the photograph of Casey that Veronica had given him. Rusty and Ben were going to need copies to circulate.

He was going to place all his eggs in one basket and check out only Newport Beach for the time being, ignoring the other three areas where the phone lines had temporarily gone down. Going with his gut, he figured that the kidnapper wouldn't have driven far out of his way to make the call. Which meant that Casey had been somewhere close by when they'd arrived at the public phone.

Hidden in plain sight, he thought in frustration. He wondered if Veronica was going to get any sleep tonight. Megan had told him that their mother had seemed never to sleep those first few weeks.

He turned on the copier. Lights came to life and crept out the sides, squeezing between the lid and the gla.s.s. The gears went through their ritualistic groaning exercises before they were ready to work. Chad wrote notes to himself as he waited.

And tried not to think of a pair of worried eyes looking up at him as if he held the power of life and death in the palm of his hand.

Casey looked like her, Chad thought, studying the photograph. The same narrow nose, the same green eyes. He wondered if her smile was as wide as Casey's was. He hadn't really seen her smile, just a ghost of something fluttering along her lips.

The width of her smile had no bearing on this case, he reminded himself, wondering why the thought had even occurred to him.

Chad placed the photograph facedown on the gla.s.s and closed the lid before he pressed the number of copies he judged they'd need tomorrow.

He knew it was going to be a long night.

It had been a long night for both of them, he decided, looking at Veronica the next morning. It was a little after eight in the morning. He'd spent most of the night at the office. He'd napped on the sofa around three, then finally headed home for a quick shower, shave and a change of clothes. Veronica stood in her doorway wearing the same clothes she'd had on the day before. Her hair was undone now, lying loose about her shoulders.

She looked younger that way, he thought. More vulnerable. She looked like someone who needed protecting.

Something nameless stirred deep within Chad, a little more insistently than the first time.

He frowned, ignoring the nascent feeling. Feelings were best left out of this case. They had no place where gut instincts were required.

Her eyes were swollen. She'd been crying again. Chad's frown deepened. "Get any sleep last night?"

She blinked, feeling suddenly gritty and self-conscious. She rubbed the back of her neck with her hand as she stepped back from the front doorway to admit him.

"A little."

Very little, she added silently. She'd lain down on her bed, fully dressed, ready to leap up and leave at a moment's notice. She'd waited for the phone to ring.

She'd waited for a miracle. She'd waited in vain.