Marie Ferrarella - A Hero In Her Eyes

Struggling with his thoughts, Walker raised his eyes to hers again. He could feel her empathy, feel her excitement. It was as if she were telegraphing it to him somehow.

His breath caught in his throat.

Was it the emotion-packed moment that had him hallucinating this way, or was there something about this woman that spoke to him? Something that delved into his innermost being and somehow connected with what he kept hidden there?

He made no movement to withdraw his hand, enjoying, instead, the warmth. “Thank you.”

His thanks embarrassed her. She hadn’t accomplished what she’d set out to do yet. “Save that for when we find her.”

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Jessi,

The heart is an incredible muscle. It bounces back,

and to remain healthy it needs to be exercised.

If at first…

Love,

Mom

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

She was running, running because someone was after her.

She ran blindly through grass that came up to her hips, threatening to trip her as she made her way to where the oak tree stood. Her heart was pounding so hard, it blotted out the sounds of the meadow.

Reaching the oak, she stopped, panting and pressing her cheek against the coarse bark as if it were an old friend. Her only friend.

She had no friends.

She wasn’t allowed to have any. He wouldn’t let her. She wasn’t allowed to talk with anyone, couldn’t play with anyone.

She was afraid of him.

The lady tried to be nice, but she was afraid of her, too. Afraid of the wild look in the lady’s eyes. Afraid of those big hands that stroked her too hard, hugged her too close. Afraid of the lady who called her a name that wasn’t hers.

He was coming. She could feel it. Deep down in her chest, she could feel it.

Daddy, where are you? Come find me. Please!

And then she heard him.

Heard him calling her. Calling that name he told her to answer to.

“Miranda, where the hell are you?”

Hiding by the tree, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut and wished she could disappear.

But she didn’t disappear.

And he found her.

She whimpered as hands reached out and roughly snatched her from the ground.

Dragging her away.

Back to the ugly house.

Eliza bolted upright, drenched in perspiration despite the chill in the air.

Slowly, the things around her came into focus. She was in bed, in her own room.

Safe.

Gasping for air to steady her erratic pulse, she leaned forward and dragged her hand through her hair. That was the fifth time she’d had that dream in as many nights. Wasn’t it ever going to stop?

She sighed and leaned her forehead against her knees, hugging her legs to her. She knew the answer to that question. It wasn’t going to stop.

Not until she figured out who the little girl was.

“No offense, Eliza, but you look like hell.”

As the words penetrated her brain, Eliza glanced up from the computer screen. Her eyes felt dry from staring at Internet photographs for the last two-and-a-half hours. Ever since six this morning.

Unable to sleep, she’d come in early and planted herself in front of her computer, determined to put a name to the face in her dreams. She’d looked up the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Web site, the first resource everyone at the agency turned to.

Right now, the faces she was looking at were all beginning to run together in her mind.

Holding back the sigh that had taken possession of her, Eliza massaged her temples where a serious headache was starting to take hold.

Nevertheless, the smile she offered Cade Townsend, the founder of ChildFinders, Inc., was genuine. “No offense taken.”

“When did you last get a good night’s sleep?” Cade crossed his arms before him as he regarded her face more closely. “And if you don’t mind my asking, just what are you doing here so early? Don’t clairvoyants sleep?”

“On occasion.” Eliza deflected his question neatly. “And I could ask the same of you,” she added, flipping to the next file.

“You could,” he allowed affably. “And my answer would be that sometimes I like coming in while the office is still quiet, before the day and chaos catch up to it. It gives me the illusion that I’m actually on top of things.” And then he smiled. “And I’m here because my wife said I was driving her crazy.”

Amusement highlighted Eliza’s fine-boned face as she welcomed a respite from the darker things that occupied her thoughts. “Oh?”

“McKayla says I was hovering around her and her swollen belly like a starving man watching the timer on a stove, waiting for the roast to be ready.” Cade paused, then asked, “You don’t, by any chance, have any clue as to when Mike might give—”

She’d wondered what had taken Cade so long to ask. There were those who regarded her and her gift to be in the same realm as carnival performers, as turbaned pretenders who could tell a fortune or suddenly “see” the future at the turn of a coin. She’d grown up with people like that coming in and out of her life.

But Cade Townsend, as well as the others here at ChildFinders, had given her nothing but the utmost respect, treating her not like an oddity, an anomaly of nature, but a woman with something very real, very tangible to offer the organization. Cade was the first to cite her hard work and dedicated professionalism. That she was one of the few true clairvoyants, he’d once said, was only a plus, but not her greatest asset.

She liked Cade. He made her feel as if she actually belonged.

Eliza laughed. “I’m not sure that McKayla would welcome my touching her belly, trying to divine an answer for you.”

She knew he’d seen her do it before, touch things that belonged to a kidnapped victim, trying to commune with an essence the rest of them could not fathom. Though McKayla liked Eliza, Eliza could just hear his wife’s very vocal reaction to that.

Cade waved away his unfinished request. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve never seen a woman get so testy before. Not that she was the most easygoing woman to begin with, but she was at least reasonable,” he confided in an uncustomary moment of intimacy.

She understood exactly what he was saying. Eliza stretched, leaning back in the chair. Her back ached. “They’re called hormones, Cade. We’re all blessed—or cursed—with them to some extent. Hers are just a little out of sync right now.”

He seemed to appreciate the charitable explanation, and laughed softly. “Now there’s an understatement.”

About to leave, Cade paused, curious. He looked over Eliza’s shoulder at the monitor. They were all acutely familiar at the agency with the Web site she was looking at. Ever changing, ever growing, the Web site was filled with a preponderance of photographs of smiling children of all ages. Children who had vanished out of lives that had been carefully or carelessly laid out, breaking the hearts of those who cared about them.

From the looks of it, Eliza had gone through at least two-thirds of the listings. He vaguely recognized the face she was looking at. The girl had been on the site ever since he’d founded ChildFinders, when his own son had been kidnapped. Darin had eventually been found. This girl had not.