Marie Ferrarella - Racing Against Time

The intersection outside of the upscale development was a busy one. While Bristol itself wasn’t Aurora’s main thoroughfare, each end of it led onto a freeway. Someone had to have seen something, Callie argued with herself. They just had to get the word out as quickly as possible and hope that one of Aurora’s good citizens stepped up. Fast.

This was definitely not a tract house, Callie thought as she pulled up the circular driveway. With its stone facade, the house where Brent and his daughter lived reminded her of a medieval castle. The place where she had grown up could have easily fit into the building twice.

Maybe two and a half times, she mused, getting out of her car. She couldn’t begin to imagine what someone with just one child could do with all that space. It seemed cold and removed to her. Perfect for a museum. In her father’s house, they were always tripping over each other, but somehow that seemed cozier.

Her heels clicked on the gray-and-white cobblestones as she hurried up the walk to the door.

The doorbell had hardly peeled once before the massive door was being opened. Brent was in the doorway, the tiny spark of hope in his eyes extinguishing the moment he looked at her face.

The structure should have dwarfed him, but it didn’t. He seemed to be a perfect match for his surroundings. Powerful, commanding a feeling of awe and respect.

And massive sympathy, she thought, looking into his eyes. Dark blue, they seemed endlessly deep with pain. And she had nothing to tell him that would change that. Yet.

“The technicians will be coming soon,” she told him as she entered.

“Technicians?”

“To wire the phones.” A place like this had to have a battalion of telephones. She turned to look at him. “In case there is a ransom call.” She could see what he was thinking, that the kidnapper would know to hang up before the call could be traced. “Not every criminal has a genius IQ. That only happens in the movies. Most kidnappers are greedy, and their greed causes them to slip up. When they do, we’ll be right there.” He closed the door behind her. For a moment the silence embraced her, bringing with it a huge sadness. She struggled against the urge to offer empty platitudes. “How are you holding up?”

He’d been raised to keep a stiff upper lip when it came to the public. There was to be no hint of scandal, no implication that everything wasn’t perfect. He was a Montgomery, and perforce, everything was perfect. Or so the facade went. Inbred instincts brought the immediate response of “fine” to his lips, and then he paused. He took his responsibility as judge solemnly to heart. That meant he couldn’t lie.

“I’m not.”

She was surprised by his honesty. Most men pretended they could handle any situation that came their way, whether they could or not. That put in him a very small, rare class.

“This will all be in the past soon enough, Judge—Brent.” She corrected herself again when she saw him look at her sharply. Belatedly she realized what he would read into her words.

“Did you find out anything?”

“Not yet.” Guilt washed over Callie. She hadn’t meant to mislead him, only to offer hope. “The CSI team on the scene is working on identifying the kind of car the man who killed your housekeeper was driving.”

Most of the vehicles that frequented the road fell into four or five categories, popular models of economical foreign cars. “How’s that going to help find my daughter?”

She knew how frustrating this had to be for him. They were crawling when he wanted to be running. “Every piece of the puzzle is necessary in order to create the total picture.” She gave him something positive to work with. “In the meantime, we have beat cops going door to door with your daughter’s photograph. If she’s in the area, willingly or unwillingly,” Callie emphasized, “we will find her.”

She believed what she was saying, he thought. But he knew the odds. He couldn’t have been a judge in the criminal system if he didn’t. “And if she’s not in the area?”

“We will still find her.”

She looked around the immediate area. The foyer led into a spacious living room that seemed much larger for its restraint in furnishings. There were no antiques, no museum pieces gracing walls or tables. This was a house that belonged to a man who felt no need to prove anything to anyone. A man who was confident in his own skin. It would take a lot to rattle him. And he had been rattled. Badly. It was time to share her theories with him.

“You know, there is a chance that someone might have been stalking your housekeeper and that this was strictly about her. Did Ms. Culhane have any boyfriends, odd friends…?” Her voice trailed off, letting him fill in the blanks.

Brent took no time to think. He didn’t have to. “Not that I know of.”

The housekeeper wouldn’t have been the first one to have a secret life her employer didn’t know about. “What did she do on her days off?”

It was hard not to pace about the room. Brent could feel the pressure building up inside of him, searching for release.

“Stayed here most of the time. She really cared about Rachel.” He wasn’t giving the woman her due, he thought. In his concern about his daughter’s safety, Delia had become a footnote. “Delia was a great help when Rachel’s mother left. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been here.”

She noticed the way he structured the sentence, referring to the woman as Rachel’s mother rather than his wife or ex-wife. Jennifer Montgomery must have hurt him a great deal, Callie thought, for Brent to have iced over his heart this way.

“Were you and Ms. Culhane—close?”

“She didn’t like being called Ms.” His mouth curved slightly as he remembered the speech Delia had given him. “Thought that sounded too vague. She was unmarried by choice and she had no problem with the world knowing it.” He could see the detective was still waiting for an answer to her question. “If by ‘close’ you mean did we sometimes have lengthy talks about what we thought was best for Rachel, yes.” His eyes darkened slightly at what he knew was the implication. “If you mean anything else, no.”

Callie pressed on. “You didn’t take her out to dinner or—”

Brent cut her short. “Once each year for her birthday. With Rachel,” he added, his voice stony, cold. “And there is no ‘or,’ Detective. Delia Culhane was my housekeeper and Rachel’s nanny. And a very, very good woman.” He took offense for the woman who could no longer speak for herself. “She doesn’t deserve the kind of thoughts you’re having.”

“I’m not having any thoughts, Judge.” Callie used his title deliberately, to drive home the point that she was being professional, nothing more, nothing less. “I’m doing my job. The more information I have, the better I can do it.”

“Well, unless there’s some deep, dark secret I didn’t know about, my daughter’s kidnapping,” the term stung his tongue but he couldn’t continue to pretend that it was anything else, “doesn’t have anything to do with Delia beyond the obvious. That she died trying to protect my daughter.”

Callie knew that was what he wanted to think, but she didn’t have the luxury of allowing him to believe that without questioning the woman’s integrity further. “Miss Culhane wouldn’t have tried to take Rachel on her own, would she?”

He glared at her. “The woman is dead, Callie.”

This was the first time he’d used her name, and she paused for a long moment to gather her thoughts.

Callie took a breath. “Yes, but maybe she orchestrated the kidnapping in order to get money—or revenge—” She still couldn’t rule that out. Perhaps the woman felt she had received some slight or had some grievance against him. Even if it was imaginary, it still needed to be checked out. “And it backfired.” There was no honor among thieves, there were only thieves. “Her partner decided that he couldn’t share the money with her.”