Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) (34 page)

Hands steadied her. “Are you all right, ma’am?” someone asked.

Her helper touched her shoulder and said, “Maybe you’d better sit down. Sometimes the holiday crowds get to people.”

A cold sweat covered her skin as it always did when she was hit by a vision. But this was different. Why was it coming at her without her being involved in the child’s story?

She reached out for his arm. “Tad, get me out of here. I have to get to the toy store!”

The sign over the door had read, “Toyland Emergency Exit. Alarm will sound if door is opened.” The images were always so rapid, all she got were erratic flashes.

“Should I call someone?” he asked.

Her legs were rubbery, but she’d have to manage. “Just point us to the door.”

The outside air chilled the perspiration on her skin. She rushed Stasia toward Toyland, where the upbeat “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” was at odds with the residual panic flowing through her. The electronic doors slid open, letting out a wave of warm air and people carrying crinkling bags. Olivia pushed her way inside.

“Somebody help me! Is there a security guard here?” her shrill voice called out.

She felt a strong hand on her arm as a man said, “I’m security. What’s the problem?”

“The missing girl, she’s in a back room, maybe a storage room. There’s an exit door. Please, find her before he gets her out of the store!”

The second of silence unnerved her as much as her own panic, and then he said, “What missing girl?”

“There isn’t a girl missing?”

“We had a boy get lost yesterday, but no one today.”

No missing girl? She couldn’t be wrong, not when the feeling was this strong. Especially when it was so out of the blue. She clutched his arm. “Maybe the girl hasn’t been reported missing yet. Go to your storage room! Please, you have to believe me. He’s taking her right now!”

Another pair of hands took hold of her shoulders. “Ma’am, calm down. We don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about a girl who’s being kidnapped right now! You’ve got to get to the back of the store!”

Instead, the two men led her out the front door. “Is there someone we can call for you? A caretaker? Doctor?”

“I’m not crazy! I…see things. I’m psychic. I saw somebody grabbing the girl, putting a rag over her mouth. Chloroform,” she realized with dread. She could still taste it, even after all these years. “Go around to the back of the building, check out your storage rooms. If she’s not there, you can call me crazy.”

“Look, lady, we don’t have time for this. We got two hundred people in that store, and half of ‘em want to take something that don’t belong to them. If you don’t leave the premises immediately, we’ll have to call the police.”

“Yes, call the police!” She didn’t need to be there when they came. She didn’t want to deal with cops. They’d ask questions and think she was even crazier. “Tell them to come right away!”

“Lady, go home and sleep it off.”

She broke down into tears as she backed away from the store. “Somebody please…anybody, look behind the store. Don’t let him take her.”

People’s voices faded as they moved farther away from her. No one would believe her, no one would look.

Could she have the wrong store? “Forward, Stasia,” she said. Maybe it was a Toyland in another city. She had to get home and listen to the news, see if she could pick up anything else.

It’s already too late to save the girl from being taken. But not too late to help her get rescued.

Olivia hurried home.

Detective Max Callahan eyed the empty coffee pot. He was always the lucky stiff who got to make it. He maneuvered around in a break room so small, it had obviously once been a closet. While the coffee percolated, he grabbed a stale donut from the box and took a bite.

“Ah, you’re back,” he said as Detective Sam O’Reilly walked in. He dumped the remainder in the trash

Sam pulled out the pot and poured himself a cup. The coffee kept brewing, jumping and sizzling on the burner. He seemed oblivious, topping off Max’s mug before returning it to the maker.

“You all right?” Max asked, wiping the dripping mess with a paper towel.

Sam dumped way too much sugar into his mug and drank it without stirring it. He came back from whatever faraway place he’d been in when he saw Max staring at him. “What?” Sam had been lost in his thoughts a lot lately.

“You all right?”

Sam blinked. “Yeah, sure. You forget to comb your hair again or something?”

Sam knew Max’s brown hair was genetically predisposed to the mussed look, so Max figured he didn’t want to talk about whatever had his attention. Max said, “Don’t forget poker game’s at my place tonight.”

“I’ll be there.”

Max, Sam, Mathers, and Graham tried to get together for a game once a week. Betting currency consisted of Budweiser, Miller Genuine Draft, and whatever exotic beer Nick Mathers had recently added to his collection. Max was the youngest of the group by over twenty years. Tom Graham was the most recent addition to the group, a bit of a hothead who hated to lose and accused someone of cheating at least once a night. The original three had a side pot going on when the guy would crack a smile. He didn’t even groan at John Holland’s bad jokes.

Sam said, “Ran into the director at Big Brothers/Big Sisters yesterday. She said they really miss you playing Santa Claus, that you were the best Santa they’ve ever had. Mathers didn’t cut it last year. They got somebody else to do it this year.”

“I didn’t have time.” Max had told himself that his mind was made up, that he’d never wear the costume again. But after the director had called him three weeks ago he’d found himself in the station’s storage room looking for the suit. The empty box made it easy for Max to walk away. “You should have done it. You’re the all-American guy here.”

Sam should have been a screen star, with his silvery-blond good looks, bright blue eyes, and just the right amount of unshaven shadow. Sam had been a confirmed bachelor in his forties until meeting and marrying Annie, a woman fifteen years his junior. A year later, Annie had gotten pregnant.

“That’d make it too easy for you, me doing it. All right, forget Santa. Petey’s party is this weekend. You’re going to come this year, aren’t you? You used to be like an uncle to him, you know.”

Max tipped his head toward the door. “I’ve got something for him.”

“Ah, hell.”

Sam followed him into the large room crammed with desks, people, and noise. Max had learned long ago to tune it all out. Someone’s radio was playing Christmas music. Red and silver tinsel decorated the walls in crooked waves, and the faded tree in the corner drooped under the weight of plastic ornaments. For a few years, while his daughter had been alive, he’d been able to enjoy Christmases again.

The box wrapped in silver paper blocked the walkway that separated his desk from the far wall. Max could hardly get his arms around it as he handed it to Sam, who stood holding his cup and not twitching a finger to take it. After an awkward minute, Max set it on the floor again. “It’s one of those motorcycles for kids. You know, with a motor, battery, and all.”

Sam eyed the box with contempt. “This don’t mean squat if you’re skipping out on his party again. I made excuses for you the last two years, man. I’m not doing it again. You tell him why you can’t drag your sorry ass to his party this time.”

Max settled against the edge of his desk. He wanted to tell Sam to shove the box and his words into a really tight space. “Look, my days as Superman are over.”

“No one said you have to be a damned superhero. He’s too old for costumes anyway. Just come as yourself.”

“Myself,” he said in a low voice. He pushed the box closer to Sam with the toe of his shoe and muttered, “Whoever the hell that is.”

“You’re an ass, is what you are. You say you don’t want to do the superhero thing, yet you always buy him the biggest, most expensive present.”

“He’s a good kid. I want him to have something special.”

“Then how about you show up? That’d be real special.”

“How about you shut up? That’d be real special, too.”

Max imagined the party, the kids playing in the small yard, balloons tied to the chair at the end of a long table covered with bright paper. He could see Petey with his curly brown hair and blue eyes, a mirror image of his mother. Max’s daughter Ashley was there, too, teasing Petey like she always did. The flirting kind of cat-and-mouse games kids play when they’re too young to know what it really means. Hell, even in his early twenties Max had been too young to know what it meant.

He bowed his head and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ignore the burning pain in his chest at the memory of his daughter. “Maybe I’ll come by.”

“Maybe, hell. Commit, yes or no.”

Max started to say yes, but the thought of that party without Ashley tore at his gut. “No.”

“I know you loved them, but it’s been two years now and—”

Max shoved himself to his feet. Between gritted teeth, he said, “I didn’t love them enough.”

“You’re a coward, Callahan,” Sam muttered. “You might as well climb in the grave with them and get it over with.” When Sam looked at Huntington striding to his office, he gave Max a disappointed shake of his head and walked over.

Max had an insatiable urge to pound Sam for calling him a coward.

Do it! a harsh voice shouted. Do it, you little coward!

With a shudder, he closed the box those memories were packed in and cursed the man who, even in death, wouldn’t let him go. He rubbed his hand down his face and then glanced around to see if anyone had been listening to their conversation. Everyone was busy with their own business, their own causes.

Every case had been a cause for him once. He’d been reprimanded many a time for what his superiors had called his pit bull tactics. But he’d had the highest case closure rate back then, and they sure hadn’t complained about that. Maybe he was no longer that brave cop who had once traded himself for a hostage and put himself in the hands of a cop killer. But he wasn’t a coward either. That left him somewhere in between, just short of nowhere, the way he figured it.

He dropped down into his squeaky chair and pulled the file for one of his current cases. Mundane crap was all they gave him now. Prostitute, transient and drug-related murders. Nothing too heavy. That was okay with him. After the Stevens kidnapping case, that was all he was up to anymore. He didn’t want another case that would suck him in, chew him up, and spit him out in pieces. The Stevens case had done more than that—it had destroyed his life.

Max settled in with the murder conspiracy case he’d been trying to crack. Two business partners, a butt-load of money, and just enough temptation to push one of them over the edge of murder.

A few minutes later, Huntington’s voice boomed through the cacophony. “Callahan, in here!”

When the lieutenant called, there wasn’t an officer in the place who’d linger a second before responding. It wasn’t because Basil Huntington was tall or imposing. With his receding hairline and a nose so large, it dominated his face, he looked like he belonged behind the desk at a bank. He had a gap between his front teeth, and those rare times when he did smile, his cheeks nearly compressed his eyes shut. His iron command transmitted through his body language, his steely blue eyes, and his expectation that his men would jump. Though the man could be hard as hell, Max appreciated the slack he’d cut him since his life had crashed and burned.

Huntington had transferred to Palomera five years earlier when their lieutenant had retired. Mostly he kept to himself, rarely trading jibes or jokes with his men. That he had never spoken of family and had no pictures on his desk made some of the men wonder if some tragedy had befallen him. No one felt comfortable enough to ask.

Sam was standing in front of the desk, and Max took his place next to him and faced the lieutenant. “Yes, sir.”

Huntington pulled a chewed-up pencil out of his mouth. “Seven-year-old girl went missing at Toyland. The store went into lockdown mode, but they haven’t found her yet. I want you and O’Reilly over there.”

For a moment, Max couldn’t speak at all, and then, “Shouldn’t Kilpatrick be working this case?” He’d had taken Max’s place as the station’s hotshot.

“He’s eye-deep in the Hayward murders. This one’s yours.”

“Lieutenant, I don’t think—”

The lieutenant eyed him. “Can’t you handle it?”

Do it! his father’s harsh voice shouted. Do it, you little coward!

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear.” He went back to his paperwork, dismissing Max and any further protest he might have by humming a lethargic version of the usually cheery “Jingle Bells.”

This wasn’t going to be like the other case. The girl was hiding somewhere, that was all. If she wasn’t…

“Let’s find her,” Max said to Sam as they headed out into the sunny, cool morning.

Two hours later, Toyland was in a state of what Max considered organized chaos--the same way his stomach felt. Uniformed policemen had cleared the store of customers and were now questioning employees. Other uniforms were scouting the area for witnesses. There was no getting around it: the girl had been abducted. The media was camped out front waiting for any nugget they could broadcast. They’d been given enough details to run a story in hopes that someone would recognize Phaedra.

Earlier, Sam had been in an upstairs office with Flora Burns, mother of the missing girl, and her husband, Pat. Her wails had scraped at the edges of Max’s nerves. He knew that depth of agony too well. After getting a statement, Sam had walked them out and then returned to the upstairs office to help ready the security videotapes. Max worked with the crime scene investigators as they went over every square inch of the storage room until a uniform had called him out to talk to the security guards posted at the front door.

“Like I was telling that other officer, the only person out of the ordinary was a woman who came to the front doors acting kind of crazy,” one of the guards said. He looked more like a bouncer at a bar with his buzz cut and brawny looks. “She was all upset, saying the missing girl was in the back room. Said she saw someone putting a chloroform rag over the girl’s mouth.”