In Broad Daylight

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

The honest admission undid him. Dax followed her inside.

The moment the door was closed and she turned to him, the tempo was set.

He framed her face with his hands and kissed her. Slowly at first, savoring the contact, while still leaving her an opening to back away at the last minute if she came to her senses. Because it was apparent to him that he wasn’t going to come to his. Not with this feeling she’d generated within him. This need to have her.

But instead of resisting, Brenda leaned into the kiss. Twining her arms around his neck, she silently surrendered herself to him.

It was all he needed.

In Broad Daylight

Marie Ferrarella

MARIE FERRARELLA

This RITA® Award-winning author has written over 120 books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

To

Patience, who has a great deal.

With thanks,

Marie

Contents

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

Epilogue

Chapter 1

There was nothing he hated worse than a kidnapping case.

The thought of someone who was part of your life suddenly vanishing without a trace—leaving you powerless to find them—had always seemed like the most heinous of crimes to Detective Dax Cavanaugh.

Maybe it was because he was acquainted firsthand with the situation. His Uncle Andrew and the family had gone through all sorts of personal hell when his Aunt Rose had vanished. It was fifteen years before they’d any answers.

The torture was in not knowing.

The torture was in the various awful, haunting scenarios that your mind could drag up despite your best efforts to block them.

In his personal opinion, Dax thought as he took a street that led him to a prestigious address, every kidnapper should be left for ten minutes with the families of the victims. That’s all, just ten minutes. And then justice would be served. But he was sworn to uphold a more traditional justice and that was what was bringing him and his partner to Harwood Academy.

A tangle of two fire engines and one ambulance, each belching personnel onto the front lawn of the very private Harwood Academy less than twenty minutes ago, made finding a place to park his navy Crown Victoria a feat comparable to finding a place to stand within ten minutes of the beginning of the annual Rose Bowl Parade.

“Looks like this is the place,” his partner, Nathan Brown, commented.

“Yeah, and it looks like everyone else has found it ahead of us.”

Muttering a frustrated expletive, Dax brought the vehicle to a forty-three degree angle against a late model Mercedes in the small parking lot, unfolded his large frame and got out, slamming the door behind him.

Gregarious and outgoing, the eldest son of Brian Cavanaugh, chief of detectives of the Aurora, California, police department, Dax was known for his easygoing humor. But not today. Nothing sobered him faster than a kidnapping. Especially the kidnapping of a child, as this was reported to be.

He glanced toward his right, to assure himself that Nathan had gotten out and was keeping up as he cut across the lot. Nathan was as short as he was tall and on unseasonably hot days like today, he liked to complain about his “freaky, stork-like legs.” To which Dax would respond by saying something about his partner’s stubby limbs.

But no such banter took place today. Because a six-year-old girl might be missing.

Dax held a good thought. It was in his nature, a special “Cavanaugh gene” that resided in about two-thirds of the family and shone like a beacon during the darkest of times.

Dax scanned the area, taking in the outer chaos quickly.

The lawn and lot were filled not with only cars and firefighters, but well-groomed, uniformed children. The last batch, coming in various shapes and heights, were being shepherded incredibly well by their teachers. There was noise and confusion everywhere. The firefighters appeared to be retreating. The emergency medical personnel, who had arrived on the tail of the second fire truck, were packing up. The opened rear doors showed Dax that they had no one to take back with them.

False alarm?

Dax sniffed the air. The smell of smoke was conspicuously absent.

“Looks like they’re all dressed up with nowhere to go,” he commented, looking at a team of firefighters who were retracting the hose that had ultimately not been necessary. It had been usurped, he later discovered, by a fire extinguisher.

Nathan squinted, looking toward the unharmed four-story building that housed the academy. “Kind of elaborate for a fire drill,” he quipped.

“This was no drill,” Dax commented.

The children, he’d noted, seemed more excited than frightened. He remembered the monotony of his own school days. An honest-to-gosh fire would have been more than welcomed to break up the tedium that marked his less than auspicious elementary career. He hadn’t figured out that he liked learning until somewhere midway through high school.

He wouldn’t have fit in here, Dax judged as he and Nathan picked their way through the pint-sized throng. These were the children of the wealthy.

Wealth came in all sorts of forms. In his family wealth was the amount of love available at any given moment of the day or night. Dollars, at times, had to be stretched, but love never was.

Even for him. And he had been a wild one, turning his late mother’s dark hair gray way before its time, he thought fondly.

One pint-sized student stood directly in his path, looking up at him as if he were a giant oak tree. Curiosity was imprinted on the boy’s face. Dax gave him an obligatory smile and stepped to one side.

“What do you think it costs to send your kid here?” Nathan asked, raising his voice to be heard above the commotion.

Nathan had three kids, all of whom were under the age of twelve. Remembering his own household with its rabble of four, Dax figured Nathan’s wife had sainthood pretty much under wraps.

He laughed dryly at his partner’s innocent question. “More than you and I make in a year, buddy.”

Nathan blew out a breath and nodded. The academy, established some fifty years ago by the grandfather of the present headmaster, had been the first place of learning for some of the present captains of industry, both within the world of business and in the entertainment world. If rumors he’d picked up were true, a couple of senators had emerged from these halls as well.

“Hey, the public school system’s not all that bad,” Dax pointed out. “You and I went through it and we turned out pretty good.”

Nathan spared him a long look. “Well, at least one of us did.” Suddenly, the shorter man was alert, spotting the person he figured they were both looking for. “Nine o’clock,” Nathan nodded in that general direction. “Looks like that might be the guy who runs the place.”

Dax was already changing direction. “He’s not a ‘guy,’ Brown, he’s the headmaster. See, that’s why your kid’ll never go here.”

“Yeah, that and the fact that I’m short a hundred-thousand dollars for the tab.” Nathan sighed. He tried to match Dax’s stride as the latter lengthened his. “Damn it,” he barked, lowering his voice again because of the children who appeared to be everywhere, “slow down, Icabod.”

Dax grinned at the jive. He bore about as much resemblance to the Washington Irving character as a sunset bore to a light bulb. Tall, broad-shouldered, with a small waist that came from more than a passing acquaintance with the department’s gym, Dax had his mother’s emerald-green eyes and his father’s black hair, quick smile and chiseled features.

Women, much to his partner’s wistful envy, threw themselves at Dax. He was good at catching them, then setting them down. Life was too unsettled for the kind of long-term commitment a relationship would have asked of him. Besides, he was enjoying himself and in no hurry to have that part of his life over. If he felt the need for family, hell, there were his siblings and his cousins to turn to. At last count, the younger Cavanaughs numbered eleven. There was always family to spare as far as he was concerned.

Nathan checked his pocket for his pad. “Think this was all a mistake, like the fire?”

Dax shook his head. “No.”

The expressions he observed on the teachers’ faces looked too worried, too concerned. It went beyond just trying to keep track of the children closest to them until they were herded back into the building and their classrooms.

Just before he reached the headmaster, a stately looking man whose iron-gray hair made him appear older than his chronological years, a young woman got into his line of vision.

The instant she did, his eyes were locked on her.

For a second Dax almost forgot to breathe; she was that startlingly beautiful. The kind of beautiful he would have fully expected to see on the cover of one of those magazines that populated the checkout area of his local supermarket. The kind of beautiful he wouldn’t have believed was real, or could be achieved without a great deal of powder and paint; both of which would have been visible in person.

Except it wasn’t. The young woman before him with the spun-gold hair appeared to be all fresh-faced and natural.

As air returned to his lungs, he felt his pulse quickening the way it did whenever he was confronted with a life or death situation. But this was neither. Gorgeous or not, she was just another person who was there, he reminded himself.

And he had a job to do. There was a little girl who was presently unaccounted for.

“Mr. Harwood?” Dax’s deep voice cut through the din as easily as a sword cut through butter.

Matthew Harwood looked away from the young woman he was talking to, proper concern etched with stately precision on his square face. He looked weary as well as wary.

“Yes?”

“I’m Detective Cavanaugh, this is Detective Brown,” Dax nodded behind him, doing his best to ignore the woman on Harwood’s left. “You reported a missing little girl.”

“I reported it,” the woman who had altered his breathing pattern responded before Harwood could say anything. “Her name is Annie Tyler and she’s in my class.”

Which placed her in the first round of questioning. He’d hit a jackpot at a time when he couldn’t afford to be distracted, Dax thought. And if ever there was a woman who was distracting, this was one.

Nodding at the information, he looked around. “Is there somewhere where we can go and talk? Somewhere a little less noisy?” he asked.

As if second-guessing him, Harwood was already waving over an aid. “Mrs. Miller, could you take over Mrs. York’s class?”

Mrs. York.

She was married.

Droplets of disappointment, materializing out of nowhere, rained over him. But maybe it was better this way. He was good at perpetually keeping several balls in the air at the same time, but the law of averages was against him. Someday, one of those balls was going to drop and he couldn’t allow for it to be one associated with his work. He loved being a cop, loved making a difference. Loved the rush when a crime was finally solved, or a perpetrator was brought to justice.

Or a child was recovered, he underscored. That meant focusing exclusively on the job.

Focused or not, glancing at the woman’s hand seemed only natural.

There was no ring on the appropriate finger.

Widowed?

Divorced?

Not his concern, the same harsh voice that had long ago been assigned the role of his personal devil’s advocate whispered within him.

Mrs. Miller was a pleasant-faced, full-figured woman who radiated enthusiasm and sunshine as she approached. She also radiated concern as her eyes shifted to the blonde. “Oh, I hope we find her.”

We. As if they’d somehow misplaced the child. Was the little girl given to pranks? To disappearing from sight, only to watch from a secret hiding place as pandemonium ensued? Was this a bid for attention? So many of these kids hardly cohabited with their parents at all and were desperate for attention.

“I’m sorry, you are…?” Nathan was asking the blonde before he could.

“Brenda York.” Brenda put out her hand. When Dax took it, he thought it felt icy. As if she was worried. Or afraid. “I teach first grade.

His own first grade teacher had been a Mrs. Flack, a short, squat woman with bottle-orange hair. She’d favored shapeless smocks, sensible dark brown shoes and smelled of peppermint because she always seemed to be sucking on the candy, something her students, unfairly he thought, weren’t allowed to do. Had Mrs. Flack looked remotely like Brenda York, he might have discovered the pleasure of learning a lot earlier than in high school.

“This way,” Harwood directed, pointing toward the front entrance.

Behind them, the last of the firefighters were getting onto a truck. The first truck had already pulled away. The din that had been humming since before their arrival was gradually fading into the warm May air. It amazed Dax how quickly order was restored. Each and every student seemed aware that it was time to go back to the world they had vacated for such a brief amount of time. The excitement of the fire, real or imagined, was over. The teachers had obviously done their level best to keep the news of the possible abduction from spreading and reaching any young ears.

Dax glanced over his shoulder, watching the students as they resumed a tight formation before they literally marched back into the building.

Hushed whispers hummed in the air like june bugs, all, he guessed, centering around his and Nathan’s recent arrival. He returned one child’s gaze and smiled before turning back around.

His eyes met Brenda’s completely by accident. Hers were a deep crystal blue. Intense, shining like two blue lights, they seemed to penetrate his very soul. He could have sworn there was some kind of electrical shock that had gone through him.

She lowered her eyes and turned back away.

Dax felt like a survivor of a train wreck who hadn’t been aware that the train had even gone off course until the impact had hit.

Behind him, Nathan stood up on his toes. “One step at a time, buddy, one step at a time.”

He gave Nathan a dirty look. Nathan gave him a knowing one.

They entered the building. The floors were polished to a high sheen, but were amazingly non-slippery. Lawsuits obviously were the scourge of even a place like Harwood. Well-cared for wooden doors lined both sides of the corridor like timeless, learned sentries. The headmaster brought them to the far end of the hall.

“We can talk in here,” Harwood was saying.

Opening a door, he led them into a somber room whose walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books. The only break in the decor were two windows that somehow managed to filter out the light and allowed only gloom into the medium-sized room, and the door which seemed to shyly claim a space amid massive bookshelves.

Once the door was closed behind them, all noise, soft or otherwise, from the outside world ceased to exist. For a moment, the only sounds evident were the individual breaths that they took.

It was a room designed for intimidation, Dax thought. Any kid who was called in here was already scared out of his or her mind. He exchanged looks with Nathan and could tell that the same thought had crossed his partner’s mind as well.

Rather than stand with them, the headmaster took his place behind the massive desk; whether to demarcate his position or to keep himself separated from the situation, Dax didn’t know, but it came across as a definite power play of some sort.

The teacher, he noted, remained with him and his partner. Joining ranks? Or infiltrating the enemy?

She smelled of jasmine, or maybe gardenias. He never could get things like flowers straight. To him, a flower was a flower. But the scent, well, that was pretty unnerving right now.

For the first time in his life, he wished he had a cold, or some kind of allergy that would have blocked his nasal capacity. He found the scent seductive.

Just like the woman.

Brenda York appeared agitated, he noted. Was that natural concern on her part? Or was there something else at play here? He had too little input to go on and his gut was otherwise occupied, giving him no clue.

The thing that sometimes bothered him about his chosen way of life was that he could never look at anything simply. Everything had two sides and, like as not, multi-layers that usually needed unraveling. It made simplicity a thing of the past and an unattainable dream these days.

Harwood cleared his throat. But right now, Dax was more interested in what Brenda York had to say. He turned toward her, the action blocking out the headmaster.

“Are you the one who first noticed she was missing?” Dax asked her.

She still couldn’t believe any of this was happening. It was like a nightmare, a horrible, horrible nightmare and she was waiting to wake up. Except that she was already awake.

Calm, you have to stay calm. You can’t help Annie if you’re not calm.

She realized she was clenching her hands at her sides, digging her nails into her palms. She forced herself to open them. “Yes.”

The single word sounded tortured to Dax. An act? The truth? For the time being, he gave her the benefit of the doubt as he began to ask his questions. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nathan take out his pad. Nathan believed in writing everything down. As for him, he kept all the notes in his head. He’d always had that ability, to go into the recesses of his mind and pluck out whatever tiny fact he needed whenever he needed it.

He watched her face, looking for any telltale sign that might give him a clue as to what she was thinking, what she was really feeling. “Are you sure she’s missing? Maybe she wandered in with another group of kids. I saw a lot of activity going on when we pulled up—”

This time, Harwood was the one who cut in. “Our children are taught discipline from the very first day they come to Harwood Academy,” he informed Dax with alacrity. “They do not wander.”

Dax couldn’t tell if the man was taking offense on behalf of his students, or if he felt that anything other than perfect behavior reflected badly on him.

In complete control of the situation, Dax lifted a shoulder and carelessly let it fall again. “Yeah, but kids are still kids. There’s all this noise and excitement going on, firefighters, trucks, ambulances—”

“Ambulance,” Harwood corrected automatically. “There was only one.”

Dax inclined his head. The man was a stickler, he thought. Possibly a little obsessive. He was grateful that his parents hadn’t had the money to send him to a private school.

“Ambulance,” he allowed. “With all this confusion, she might have taken the opportunity to duck out on you and get in with one of her friends.”

If only, Brenda thought. If only.

But she’d searched the area, asking all the children who might have seen her if they had. Each time, she’d gotten a shake of the head in response. The tiny mouse of a child, who reminded her so much of herself at that age, was nowhere to be found.

“That’s just it,” Brenda told him, her voice growing a little more firm with every word she uttered, “Annie doesn’t really have any friends.”

There was a glimmer of pain in her eyes as she told him that. Dax couldn’t help wondering if it was genuine, or if he’d been confronted with a very good actress. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time a kidnapper had tried to put something over on him.

And until proven otherwise, he had to think of her that way. As someone who might somehow be involved in the kidnapping, if that was what it actually was. After all, Annie Tyler was last seen in her care.

Glancing at Nathan before continuing, Dax crossed his arms before him. A full moment went by before he spoke again. Time, his father had told him early in his career, was both their friend and their enemy. The more time that went by, the less likely a missing child was to be found. But if you gave a guilty person who wasn’t a hardened criminal enough time, they tended to say or do something to incriminate themselves.

Dax studied the blond woman before him, trying not to notice that, even though she was wearing a lavender two-piece suit, the killer figure she possessed was more than evident. He motioned her toward a seat, but she shook her head, obviously preferring to stand.

Or refusing to be placed in the position of having someone stand over her.

He placed himself so that he could easily look at both her and the headmaster. “All right, Mrs. York, why don’t you tell us exactly what happened. And start at the beginning. Before the fire trucks.” He watched her chest rise as she take in a deep breath. Steeling himself off, he forced his eyes to her face. “Take your time,” he counseled quietly. “And don’t leave anything out.”

Chapter 2

Her mind felt as if it were completely jumbled up, with all the thoughts glued together in one giant ball. Brenda strove to peel apart the layers, arranging the events of the last hour in their proper sequence.

Because she didn’t begin immediately, Dax fired a question at her. Patience, when it came to cases, had never been his strong suit. The few times he had been assigned to a stakeout, he had all but climbed up one side of the wall and down the other.

“Let’s begin with the fire.” He pinned her with a look. “Was there an actual fire?” He hadn’t smelled any smoke entering the building, but something or someone had to have set off the alarm.

As if riding to her rescue, Harwood drew himself up behind his desk.

“Yes, there was,” he cut in. “A small one.” He glanced at Brenda before adding, “The fire chief told me that some papers in a wastepaper basket had caught fire. They used one of our fire extinguishers to put it out. It turned out simpler that way.”

Dax exchanged looks with Nathan. Wastepaper baskets didn’t just spontaneously combust. “That sounds as if it might have been deliberately set.” His gaze swept over Brenda before returning to the headmaster. “Are any of your kids budding pyromaniacs or overly fascinated with matches?”

Brenda’s eyes widened at the suggestion. “No!” she snapped. Some of her pupils were starved for attention and might on occasion act out, but they were five-and six-years-old and that kind of behavior was only normal.

Harwood was sputtering indignantly. “I assure you that my school—”

Dax waved his hand in a downward motion, as if banking down their protests.

“Just a question,” he told them mildly, although he had posed it to see both of their reactions. The woman was protective while the headmaster came off as concerned about his school’s reputation. “Would anyone else have set the fire?”

Nathan raised an eyebrow, looking up from the notes he was religiously scribbling down. “You’re thinking maybe it was a diversion?”

Dax nodded.

So had she, the moment she’d overheard the fire chief telling Matthew Harwood that the origin of the fire had been found in her wastepaper basket. A diversion to take attention away from the fact that Annie Tyler was being stolen.