The Hunt For Hawke's Daughter

As usual, her face must have told him what she was thinking because he added an emphatic, “We’re not going to talk about this either, Karen.”

She had no intention of arguing with him. She didn’t want to risk losing him. Whatever his terms, she would accept them.

“There’s one more condition,” he said.

“Yes?”

“It’ll be necessary for us to work together, but as much as it’s possible, I want this to remain a business arrangement. A friendly, but impersonal, business arrangement.”

What was he afraid of? she wondered. A closeness that might jeopardize some promise he’d made to himself?

“When all this is over,” he went on, “we go our separate ways, you here in the Twin Cities and me back in Denver. Understood?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Good.” Wearing a scowl, he glanced around the kitchen while mopping at his brow with the back of his hand. “And if I’m going to spend any time at all in this house, I have another request.”

“What is it?”

“Get your damn air-conditioning fixed. And in the meantime, let’s get out of here and find someplace reasonably cool while you fill me in on the essentials.”

THE SPOT Devlin chose for their conversation was one of the most pleasant in the Twin Cities. Standing side by side at the railing of a paddle wheel boat that cruised up and down a brief stretch of the Mississippi, with Minneapolis on one shore and St. Paul on the other, they watched the scene slide by.

Twilight was stealing over the river, bringing with it a cool breeze. Lights began to wink in the high-rises massed against the pearly sky. The riverbanks were popular in summer, teeming with couples strolling arm in arm, teenagers in-line skating, families dining at outdoor cafes.

It was a serene setting, almost magical in its mood. And Karen found it deeply frustrating, even painful. There were young children among the crowds, safe in the company of their parents. Watching them, she could think of nothing but Livie who might be anything but secure at this moment.

Why were they here on this silly boat? Why weren’t they searching for Livie? Karen felt a desperate need for action, and Devlin sensed it.

“Easy,” he said in a soothing voice.

And that was another thing. His closeness was disturbing. She was too aware of his warm, intimidating bulk as his shoulder grazed hers. She preferred him as he’d been back at the house, brusque and remote, not trying to comfort her like this.

“I can guess what you’re feeling,” he said, “but we have to talk. I have to have some answers before I can decide where to begin.”

Conceding the necessity for that, Karen relaxed. “What do you need to know?”

“As much as you can tell me about Michael Ramey. Start with how you met him.”

“It was nothing out of the ordinary. We were both taking this evening course on financial investments. He asked me out for coffee one night after class.”

“And you went.”

“Why not? He was very pleasant, attractive. And, like me, he was unattached. He had no family at all, so we had that in common. He said he was just out of a long relationship, but he didn’t like to talk about it.”

“So you started to date.”

“That’s right. Sometimes Livie would go with us. He was very good with her, and that was important to me. It was all very conventional.”

“Including the marriage that followed, huh?”

“I suppose so.”

“What else? What about his hobbies, his interests?”

“His business seemed to take up a lot of his time. He did play golf sometimes.”

“How about friends?”

“There’s no one special.”

“Connections from his past?”

She shook her head.

Devlin pushed away from the rail and turned to gaze at her, his expression accusing. “You don’t know a whole lot about this guy you married and lived with, do you?”

“I knew what counted,” she said defensively. “That he loved Livie and me and that he offered us security.”

She turned away from the look in his eyes and stared out at the lighted shore, listening to the sound of the paddle wheel churning the waters, smelling the aromas of the river. After a moment she stirred restlessly.

“All right,” she admitted, “I was vulnerable, and I suppose that made me blind. Michael was so pleased about the marriage, about getting a wife and a daughter at the same time. I wanted to believe he was everything he seemed to be, because I needed to be—”

“What?”

“Safe,” she whispered.

Which, Karen thought unhappily, is exactly what I went and convinced myself Michael was. Safe, dependable. And because I trusted him, I very foolishly didn’t ask questions. What have you been hiding from me, Michael? What awful secret are you protecting?

Devlin, recognizing her fear, offered a comforting, “Being a bigamist doesn’t necessarily make him dangerous, Karen. Although…”

“What?”

“Why commit bigamy at all? Doesn’t make sense in this situation. I mean, if a guy risks having two wives at once, it’s because he manages somehow to shuttle back and forth between them. But in Ramey’s case he walks away completely from the first wife before he goes on to acquire the second one. Why didn’t he just divorce the first wife and save himself the threat of jail? And if he is going on to a third identity…”

“Why take Livie along? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, Devlin? Why have Livie with him when she’d only complicate his new life?”

“Yeah, it always comes back to that, doesn’t it? Which means we have to try to figure out that why, because without it we may never learn the where.” It was Devlin’s turn then to express a sudden restlessness. “Let’s get off this boat. I need to stretch my legs.”

The vessel made regular stops along the river, discharging passengers and picking up new ones. Several moments later, its whistle tooting, it pulled into another landing. Karen and Devlin went ashore and began to stroll along the broad, tree-lined river walk with its busy bars and boutiques.

Devlin was silent as they walked. She assumed he was busy sifting through what little information she had been able to provide, putting it all in some kind of order. Karen knew he was very good at what he did. He had described some of his cases to her back in Colorado. Like everyone else in the family firm, he had a specialty. The other members of the Hawke Detective Agency consulted him in that area whenever necessary, just as he drew on their particular skills. Devlin excelled in finding missing persons. Karen was counting on that talent.

“There’s something here that’s giving me a lot of trouble,” he finally said. “Assuming Ramey is neither a fool nor a lunatic, he must realize that you’ll move heaven and earth to find your kid.”

“Which makes it even harder to understand why he’d go off with her.”

“Unless we look at it from another angle, one that isn’t so straightforward.”

“What does that mean?”

“Suppose he has no intention of keeping Livie with him permanently. Suppose he’s just—for want of a better word—borrowed her for a time. Didn’t you tell me he left most of her clothes behind? That could indicate he was planning to return her. Maybe he meant to have her back before you even knew she was gone, before you had any reason to be alarmed.”

“But I have learned she’s missing, and I am alarmed.”

“Yeah, because you came home ahead of schedule. Just when were you supposed to return from Atlanta?”

“The trade show ends late tomorrow. I was to fly out the next morning, Friday, which was a change from my original plan around Sissy Baldwin and her latest house, but that has no bearing here since—”

“Whoa!” Stopping her, Devlin drew her out of the stream of pedestrian traffic and off to one side of the walk. “Now run that by me again. What original plan?”

She explained it to him. “Dream Makers has this client, Sissy Baldwin. She’s a tiresome woman, but she’s good for business.”

“Rich?”

“So rich that she can afford to indulge her hobby. Sissy collects houses, and she hires us to redesign them. Her newest toy is this historic row house in Savannah. When she learned I was going to be in Atlanta for the trade show this week, she invited me to come down to Savannah on Friday. I was supposed to spend the holiday weekend as her guest discussing possibilities for the house.”

“Through the Fourth on Monday?”

“Yes, and then we’d fly back here on Tuesday. But, Devlin, there’s no point in my telling you all this, because I canceled that visit my first morning in Atlanta. With what I was going through about ending my marriage, there was no way I could spend a weekend with Sissy Baldwin.”

“And what about your husband? Did you inform him that you wouldn’t be staying on through Monday?”

“Yes, certainly. I phoned him at his office right after I called Maud at Dream Makers. Well, I didn’t speak to him directly. He was tied up with a client or something. I told his assistant, Bonnie, and she promised to give him the message.”

“What if he somehow didn’t get that message? What if he still thinks you’ll be in Georgia through the Fourth, and he has all that time to use Livie without you being aware that he’s taken her?”

“Use her? Dear God, for what?”

“I don’t know. It’s only a possibility, maybe a wild one. But in my work you examine all the possibilities, because more often than not, one of them turns out to be right.”

Karen felt her insides tighten all over again with fear. “I don’t know how I’m going to stand this,” she said in a small voice. “It just seems to get worse.”

“I can’t promise you it won’t be rough. Just keep hanging on to the thought that she’s going to be safe and that we are going to get her back.”

Did he earnestly believe that? she wondered. Or was it just his professional way of calming a client?

“Come on,” he urged, “let’s keep moving. Even a useless action is better than none.”

She fell in step beside him again. They continued along the river walk, moving in the direction of the lot where they had left his car. As they walked, he reviewed in a speculative murmur what she had told him on the paddle wheel boat about Michael and her.

“Conventional. That’s the word you used about how the two of you got together, isn’t it? Including the way you dated, even your marriage. All very conventional.”

“You make it sound like it was something deliberate.”

“Maybe it was.”

“To what purpose?”

“Conventional lifestyles draw no attention. I mean, the guy even looks bland in that picture I showed you. Good-looking maybe, but bland all the same. Speaking of which, do you have any current photos of him back at the house?”

Karen shook her head, explaining how the few that existed were destroyed. “Yes, I know,” she said. “It was no accident, was it?”

“Probably not. But you are carrying that picture of Livie in your wallet. Let me have it, please.”

She produced the photograph from her purse and handed it to him. He took it without glancing at it. His gaze was busy in another direction, searching the shops they passed. At this season along the popular river walk nearly all of them were open late.

“What are you looking for, Devlin?”

He didn’t answer her until a moment later. “That,” he said, pointing to a convenience store featuring a small office service open twenty-four hours a day.

Standing beside him at the counter inside, after supplying him with a description of Michael’s car, she watched him as he addressed a fax message to his mother at the home office in Chicago.

“Ma will post the particulars, along with Livie’s photo, on the Internet,” he explained. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Though out of necessity he’d been referring to Livie by name since the boat, she noticed that nowhere in his message to his mother did he make any mention of his paternal connection with her. And when the material had been faxed, he returned the photograph to Karen without further comment. And, again, without looking at his daughter’s likeness. Well, he’d warned her, hadn’t he?

Twilight had faded into a balmy summer evening by the time Devlin delivered her to her front door. He had been silent again on the drive back to Summit Avenue. Deciding their next course of action, she hoped. She meant to know just what that was before they parted for the night.

He didn’t reveal it, however, until she faced him on the stoop, asking an anxious, “What now?”

“You get a good night’s sleep.”

“You don’t really suppose that I can possibly—”

“Try,” he urged, “because there’s nothing more we can do until tomorrow.”

“Then what?”

“We go to your bank when it opens in the morning. Providing, that is, you and your husband have any joint accounts that we can examine.”

“We share a checking account.” She understood Devlin’s intention. If Michael had cleaned out that account, it would be a strong indicator that he wasn’t coming back. “There’s also a safe deposit box. It doesn’t contain any valuables like jewelry, just the usual essential documents.”

“Good. What’s inside a deposit box can sometimes tell you more than any account.”

Or what’s not in it, he might have added. But Karen didn’t want to think about that.

“I’ll say good night then,” he said. But he lingered for another moment on the stoop. There was something obviously nagging at him. He finally made up his mind to address it. “Got something to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“Were you in love with him?” he blurted.

The question startled her. Why in the world had he asked it? “I thought so,” she said.

“And what about now?”

“No, but does it matter?”

“I guess not.” He started to leave and then turned back with a husky, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to offer you that safety you were looking for when you turned to Ramey. I’m just not a safe kind of guy.”

Was he warning her about himself? “I’ll remember that,” she called after him as he started down the walk to his car.

“There’s something else I want to ask you to do,” he said over his shoulder. “Try again to reach what’s-her-name, this assistant of Ramey’s. Could be she has the answers.”

“Bonnie Wodeski, and I will.”

She watched him drive off to his hotel, and then she went into the house and rang Bonnie’s apartment. As before, she got nothing but the answering machine. Leaving another message, she went up to her bed.

As she had predicted, sleep was impossible. And not just because she was sick with worry about Livie. The image of Devlin Hawke, with his black hair, blue eyes and killer smile, troubled her thoughts. He was a necessity. She couldn’t find Livie without him. But their essential alliance was as uneasy as the atmosphere before a summer storm, charged with issues and past conflicts as volatile as chain lighting. Karen didn’t know how she was going to survive him.

HER FIRST CHALLENGE in that area occurred early the next morning. Exhaustion had finally permitted her to drift off, but she couldn’t have been asleep more than a few hours when she was roused by the insistent ringing of her doorbell.

Disoriented, it took her several moments to struggle out of bed and into her robe. By the time she groped her way down the stairs, the ringing sounded so urgent that her heart was in her throat. All she could think of was that the police were here to report the worst.

She didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry when she arrived in the kitchen and saw Devlin at the door, signaling through the glass to be let in. Still groggy, she fumbled with the lock and opened the door.

“What is it?” she demanded. “Is something wrong?”

“Not unless the coffee gets cold.” He held up a bulging paper bag. “I brought breakfast.”

“You scared me to death!”

“Sorry.” He pushed past her into the kitchen.

When she closed the door and turned to confront him again, he was already busy at the counter unpacking the bag, lifting out juice, two containers of coffee and a selection of Danish. The sight of him fully awake, with a brisk, take-charge attitude and wearing a pair of crisp tan slacks and a fresh oxford shirt that managed to emphasize his rugged good looks, irritated her. She was conscious of looking less than human herself in her wrinkled robe and with her auburn hair uncombed.

“What are you doing here at this ungodly hour?” she accused him. “The bank doesn’t open until nine.”

“We’ve got other errands before then. I want to get inside Ramey’s office and look at his records. That is, if you know where to lay your hands on a key.”

“There’s a spare one in his desk here, providing he didn’t take it with him.”

“Good. And along the way, I’d like to stop off and turn in my car. No point in paying rent on it when we’ve got yours.”

“I see,” she said dryly. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, how do you like your Danish? Warm or cold?”

“Neither until I’ve showered and dressed. And while I’m doing that, you can make yourself useful.” She slapped a phone book in front of him. “You’ll find the air-conditioning service listed at the back. See what you can do about arranging for a repair. Bonnie Wodeski’s number is there, too. Maybe you’ll have better luck reaching her. All I get is her answering machine.”

Devlin had made himself at home and was removing the Danish from the microwave when she returned to the kitchen fifteen minutes later in a summer top and matching cotton pants.

“Looks like we won’t have to break in,” he said, eyeing the key to Michael’s office that dangled from her hand. “Air-conditioning people will be out this afternoon, and the machine is still answering at Bonnie Wodeski’s apartment. Sit down to your breakfast and tell me what she looks like.”

Karen seated herself and reached for the juice that was waiting for her. “Bonnie is a bottle-blonde and a bit on the flashy side. Why are you asking?”

“Because that juice you’re drinking, along with the coffee and Danish here, came from a cafe near Michael Ramey’s office.”

“You have been out and busy, haven’t you?”

“That’s right. I was checking the neighborhood there, asking a few questions. The man behind the counter in this little cafe is the talkative type. He said Ramey came in there all the time for lunch. And guess what? On more than one occasion he was accompanied by a blond woman. The guy said the two of them were very cozy.”

Karen stared at him. “If you’re saying Michael was having an affair with Bonnie and the two of them have run off together, I don’t believe it. She simply isn’t his type.”

“Look, I’m not saying it’s true, but it is another possibility we have to consider.”

Devlin offered no further argument, but Karen knew what he must be thinking. Bonnie wasn’t answering her phone. Could that mean she, too, was missing? Maybe their visit to Michael’s office would provide an explanation.

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