Childfinders Inc - Hero For Hire Part 22

Veronica had mentioned lending Neil money. Maybe this deserved closer scrutiny.

"What kind of difficulties?" Chad asked.

"The kind that has you looking over your shoulder every time you hear footsteps.

Seems he can't pa.s.s up getting the royal treatment in Vegas. He's gone through the

money he inherited."

"What about his trust fund? Veronica said something about his father having set one up for him."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. When she spoke, there was just the slightest bit of amus.e.m.e.nt in Savannah's voice. "Don't you usually refer to clients by their last name?"

"Lancaster, Veronica, same number of letters," he said. "What's the difference?"

"Strictly speaking, Veronica's got one less."

He knew she was ragging on him, that ever since she'd met him, she'd been trying to set him up with one of her friends. Savannah King Walters was one of those women who thought people should come in sets, like salt and pepper shakers. Chad blew out a breath. "Tell me about the trust fund."

Savannah got down to business. "Still intact and ironclad. He's gotten as much as he can from that at the moment. The terms are pretty clear and pretty strict. Looks as if his daddy knew just what kind of kid he'd raised."

"Yeah, maybe the desperate kind."

Chad frowned, turning the idea over in his mind again. He couldn't shake the feeling that, despite plausible reb.u.t.tals to the contrary, Casey knew his kidnapper. And if he did, that made Neil their most likely suspect at the moment.

He knew Veronica wasn't going to be willing to believe that the boy's uncle was capable of kidnapping him. But blood did not exclude wrongdoings. Neil apparently had motive; he certainly might have had opportunity and would have been able to take the boy without Casey raising a fuss.

"See if Ben can tail him for me."

"Starting now?"

"Starting now," Chad said firmly.

"You got it. I'll page Ben for you."

Hanging up, Chad paused for a moment, looking around the den. Two walls were completely lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with books. If they were Veronica's, she had eclectic tastes, he thought, reading some of the spines. They covered a broad spectrum of subjects. He barely had time to go through the newspaper in the morning.

Different worlds, he reminded himself as he walked out of the room. Completely different worlds. He and Veronica had nothing in common beyond their involvement in the case. If he felt attracted to her, it was just something he needed to deal with on his own. He couldn't allow it to go any further than it already had.

Veronica was still in the living room, curled up on the sofa and nursing a large cup of tea. Her eyes brightened when she saw him.

"See?" She raised the cup. "I'm almost finished." And then she saw the look on his face and her smile faded. She was on her feet instantly, fearing the worst.

"What's wrong?"

"Just how well do you know your brother-in-law?"

"Neil?" Relief that this wasn't some dire news came swiftly. On its heels came a new wave of defensiveness. "No." She shook her head, adamant. "We've been this route before, Chad. Neil wouldn't harm Casey," she insisted.

"No one's talking about harming." Who knew? To someone as apparently irresponsible as her brother-in-law, the repercussions of a kidnapping probably never even dawned on the man. ''Would he be capable of arranging something like this?"

She didn't even have to consider the answer. "All Neil likes to arrange are dates on his social calendar." She saw that Chad was unconvinced. "I'll admit he likes to go to Vegas and gamble. Maybe he even has a gambling problem," She hesitated, her loyalty torn, before confiding, "For some reason, winning makes Neil feel as if he's earning money on his own, instead of just living off his inheritance or trust fund. But he always manages to get back on his feet again. The periodic payments from the trust fund always come in the nick of time."

"Apparently not this time."

She didn't like the way he said that. "What do you mean?"

"He's in debt to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars."

"The kidnapper's asking for three quarters," she reminded him.

"Maybe he's saving up for a rainy day."

Veronica remained firm as she began to pace the room. "No, not Neil. It can't be Neil. He wouldn't do this." She swung around to face Chad trying to make him agree with her. "I'd bet my life on it."

He tried not to be swayed by the look in her eyes. If it was Neil and he had betrayed the kind of trust he saw in Veronica's eyes, Chad figured he was going to grant Angela those five minutes alone with the kidnapper she'd asked for. "Would you bet Casey's?"

The color drained from her face. "I thought you just said he wouldn't hurt Casey."

"Maybe he wouldn't," Chad allowed, hating having to be brutal with her. But kidnapping was a brutal crime. "But what if he's not alone?"

Despite her resolve, she was beginning to entertain the idea. And hated it.

"You're asking me to believe someone I've known for ten years, someone I've watched go from acne to aftershave, is a monster."

"No, what I'm asking you to do is consider the possibility and really give it some thought. Are you that sure of him?"

Her head was beginning to ache again, and she felt as if everything was closing in on her. It took effort just to breathe.

"Right now, I'm not that sure of anything." She raised her eyes to his face. "Not even you."

For a second they stood looking at each other, two strangers made into allies by a heinous crime, standing on opposite sides of a crumbling fence.

"That's the one thing you can be sure of," he told her mildly.

Yes, she thought, she could be. And she was pinning all her hopes on that.

Chapter 10.

There was a pint-size baseball game going on in the distance when Veronica and Chad arrived at the park. Fathers and mothers could be heard coaching a collection of children hardly big enough to swing the lightweight bats placed in their eager hands. Cries of "Swing!" "Run!" and "Slide!" littered the air.

On the surface, Westwood Park looked not unlike the dozen or so other play areas that had been carefully carved out by the city council in the midst of developments within the growing city. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary or sinister about the park.

But there was, Veronica thought. A kidnapper had traversed the grounds, placing a photograph in the women's rest room. Her son's photograph. Adrenaline pumping through her veins, she scanned the area, desperately trying to pick out the man who had turned her entire world inside out.

"There."

Chad's voice made her jump. She automatically clutched his arm before realizing that he was pointing to a small brick building toward the left side of the park.

The rest-room area. For a moment she had thought...

Dropping her hand self-consciously, she walked quickly to the structure just ahead of Chad. With each step she took, her heart hammered harder. What if there was no photograph?