Hero for Hire. Marie Ferrarella

noose. He and his wife both were.”

      Chad nodded as he took in the information. At least she wasn’t a snob. “The common touch.”

      “Very common.”

      It remained to be seen, Chad mused, if their kidnapper fell into that category.

      He took his time looking through Casey’s things, trying to get a sense of the boy. He talked to Veronica as he worked. For all intents and purposes, Casey seemed like a child with above-average intelligence, a happy-go-lucky kid with eclectic taste. The action figures, arranged in a scene of combat, looked as well used as the second game set did.

      What caught Chad’s attention was a framed photograph on the far end of the bookcase of Veronica on her knees, holding her son to her. He examined it, trying to envision the scene that had been taking place when the photograph was taken. They were both laughing. Veronica looked radiant.

      Someone had taken her child and extinguished that light.

      Veronica came up behind him. Despite the raft of photographs she had from professional sittings, the one Chad was holding was her favorite of the two of them.

      “That was taken the first day of kindergarten.” She could vividly remember every detail. Casey had been torn between wanting to run off to the new adventure and wanting to remain behind with her. She’d encouraged the former and loved him dearly for the latter. “This past September,” she added for clarity.

      There was a building in the background. Chad peered more closely at the photograph, trying to make out the name. It seemed vaguely familiar, and he assumed that he had passed it on one occasion or another. “What school does Casey attend?”

      “Los Naranjos.”

      The name clicked. Chad looked at her. “That’s a public school.”

      “Yes, I know. That’s part of keeping Casey grounded and not letting him get a swelled head about who he is.”

      Had that been a mistake? she wondered suddenly. Was it someone she’d encountered at the school who had planned this awful thing? Would Casey have been safer if she had sent him to a private school, where the screening process was exacting and the security was tight?

      “Do you know anyone who might want to take him? Have you seen someone hanging around lately? Have you received any threatening phone calls in the last month or so? Any strange calls at all, people hanging up, that sort of thing?” Chad asked.

      To each question Veronica shook her head, feeling more and more agitated. She looked at the tape recorder Chad had placed on Casey’s computer desk. The soft whirring noise was almost undetectable, especially compared to the racing of her heart. But she hated it. She’d assumed since he hadn’t instructed her to talk into it or near it that it could pick up sounds from all over the room. Like an invasive intruder. Like the intruder who had come into her world.

      In an effort to gather her nerves, she took a deep breath, then let it out. “As far as I can tell, I don’t have any enemies, Mr. Andreini. There’s nobody who would want to do this to me.” She felt a flash of temper. “Don’t you think if there had been I would have reported it to the police or gotten a bodyguard?”

      Hindsight, he thought. Veronica Lancaster was upbraiding herself for not having it.

      “It doesn’t necessarily have to be an enemy,” he said. He studied her face for a sign as he asked, “No disgruntled boyfriend trying to get even?”

      “No. I don’t have time for boyfriends, Mr. Andreini.”

      Chad resumed going through Casey’s things. “Chad,” he corrected without looking at her.

      He hated being called Mr. Andreini. It made him think of his father. There’d been a time when he had toyed with the idea of changing his last name, severing all ties with the man who had upended his life so brutally. But in the end, because Megan and Rusty had made no effort to change their surname, Chad had dropped the idea. The name tied him more to them than to his father.

      “How about your husband’s parents?” Turning, he looked at her again. “Are they still alive?”

      There’d been a card at Christmas. And a generous check in lieu of a gift, which would have required time and effort on their parts. But she bore the couple no malice. It was their loss. She’d deposited the check into the account she’d started for Casey with the money from Robert’s life insurance.

      “They live in Europe, Mr.—” she corrected herself “—Chad, and are frankly far more interested in their three poodles than in their only grandchild.”

      She was trying hard not to show it, but he’d caught a hint of bitterness in her voice. Undoubtedly on Casey’s behalf. “Your husband was an only child?”

      “He has a brother—” She stopped abruptly. She wasn’t some soft-brained person to be led from question to question without understanding the direction. “Where are you going with this?” she wanted to know. Surely he couldn’t be thinking of accusing Neil. Casey’s uncle wasn’t exactly an eager beaver when it came to doing anything meaningful with his life, but he adored the boy. “Neil dotes on him. Some monster did this.” She began to sound more like herself to her own ear. Confident. In control. “I don’t know any monsters, Chad. Can’t you get that through your head?”

      She was loyal, protective. All good qualities. But at times they tended to make a person blind. He’d learned not to instantly rule out anything on faith. He had to be convinced. Still, he wasn’t about to waste time arguing, either, other than to say, “Well, some monster apparently knows you, Veronica.”

      Veronica opened her mouth to respond but never got the chance.

      Chad was about to suggest that she take him to the site of the party—Anne Sullivan’s house. He wanted to find out what agencies the woman had employed to supply the food and the entertainment, as well as the names of any regular household help she had. From where he stood, he was looking at all the earmarks of an inside job. This had not been a random kidnapping, but one that had been planned. Someone knew something, and it was up to him to follow whatever trails there were until he came to a scrap of information he could use. It was a little like being a rat following different paths in a maze. One of the paths had to lead to something substantial.

      But before he could make the suggestion, a high-pitched, urgent ring came from the purse she was still holding.

      Veronica stared down at her purse dumbly for a moment, as if the sound rendered her incapable of thought. And then the words “The kidnapper!” burst from her lips. She had forgotten to cancel call-forwarding when they’d walked into the house.

      “Answer it,” Chad instructed quietly.

      The urging snapped her back to the world of the functioning. Wrapping her thoughts around a fragment of a prayer, she quickly took out the cell phone, snapping back the lid as she did so. Chad motioned for her to tilt it slightly so that he could hear.

      Her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe.

      “Hello?”

      A high-pitched whine preceded the first word. “Took your sweet time answering. I was beginning to think maybe you’d changed your mind about the boy and didn’t care if you got him back.”

      She wanted to scream at the person on the other end, to demand the reason he was doing this to her. To Casey. It was everything she could do to keep her voice level. The only thing she could ever remember her father saying to her was never negotiate from a position of fear. The other side could always smell fear.

      So she did her best to sound annoyed at the suggestion. “Yes, I want him back. I want him back very much.”

      The laugh, metallic, discordant, went right through her. “I’m counting on it.”

      Her eyes met Chad’s. She could feel her breathing begin to regulate. Having him here helped her cope. “What is it you want?”

      “What