âAre you sleeping?â Linda asked.
âHardly! I was trying to decide if I should let you sleep in your car, or if I should play the gentleman and offer you my bedâwithout me in it, of course,â Mac replied.
âYouâll play the gentleman,â she said, her smile disturbingly sweet. âOf course.â
âWhat makes you so sure?â
âIâve got you figured out.â
âDonât try to second-guess me, cookie. Iâm not that easy to read.â He ran his fingertips over his jaw. âIâve been going over a few things in my mind.â
She sat motionless, her clear blue eyes huge in her face.
âIâll help you find your missing niece,â he said.
She sagged against the cushions, her relief manifest. âIf you do that, thereâs nothing I wonât do for you in return.â
âBe careful what you promise.â
THE day they shipped her sister off by ambulance to the psychiatric wing of Lionâs Gate Hospital was the day Linda Carr decided to take matters into her own hands. The police had had their chance and, as far as she could tell, were getting precisely nowhere. Bad enough that the baby had been missing for seven weeks now; to stand idly by while June retired farther into the fuzzy world of tranquilizers was not to be countenanced.
Not that Linda blamed her sister. Sheâd known her own share of sleepless nights since the infant girl had disappeared, and she could only imagine how much worse it had been for the new mother to be told that her firstborn had been smuggled out of the hospital nurseryâby the father, no less!
It shouldnât have come as a surprise that Kirk Thayer would resort to extreme measures. From all accounts, heâd shown an astonishing lack of moderation in most things to do with June, practically from the day heâd learned she was expecting his child. It was the main reason sheâd refused to marry him. But that heâd go so far as to kidnap the baby and disappear without traceâ¦!
âIâll bring your little daughter home,â Linda promised, when she visited June the morning after sheâd been hospitalized. âYou just concentrate on getting well so that youâre ready to be a mommy, and leave the rest to me.â
âAnd how do you propose to do that?â Lindaâs friend Melissa asked that night, as the two of them dined on pasta primavera at their favorite West Vancouver restaurant. âBeing a bona fide European-trained chef doesnât exactly qualify you as a private investigator. Itâs already been established that Thayer left town the same day he stole the baby and probably returned to the States. He could be anywhere by now, and given his unpredictable state of mind, I think youâre going to need an expert to track him down.â
âUh-uh!â Linda shook her head decisively. âNot an expert, the expertâand Iâve got you to thank for finding him for me. Remember that magazine article you sent to me when I was living in Romeâthe one you wrote about the maverick police officer who quit the force because he refused to be bound by all the red tape surrounding it?â
Melissa eyed her incredulously. âPlease tell me youâre not referring to the reclusive Mac Sullivan, former ace detective now living in exclusive solitude on the Oregon coast.â
âThe very same. Going through the conventional channels isnât working. Itâs time for a more radical approach.â
âQuite possibly it is, but Mac Sullivanâs not your man. He wonât even return your phone calls, much less agree to help you. Iâd even go so far as to say that heâs the most bullheaded creature on earth, and I know whereof I speak. Researching that article was worse than pulling henâs teeth. Setting up a private tell-all interview with the Queen of England would have been easier.â
âI donât care. Heâs the acknowledged expert when it comes to tracking down missing personsâpractically clairvoyant, according to your articleâand Iâm prepared to camp on his doorstep so that he trips over me every time he sets foot outside his house, if necessary. It beats sitting on my hands and watching June turn into a wraith of the woman she used to be.â
âI canât say I blame you. I barely recognized her the last time I saw her. Sheâs nothing but skin and bone. And those haunted eyesâ¦!â Melissa inspected her glass of wine and let out an exaggerated sigh. âSo what can I do to helpâsince I assume thatâs why youâre bribing me with this very fine merlot?â