Make Mine a Marine (52 page)

Chapter One

The Present

Drew Gallagher shifted on the cold stone bench, stretching his long legs into a more comfortable position. After five hours on stakeout, he felt about as comfortable as the men who had worn the suits of armor on display in front of him must have.

He'd already studied them in detail. He'd memorized every hinge, every clamp, every bit of protective shielding on those figures hours ago. Just as he'd analyzed and catalogued every visitor, volunteer, and employee who strolled along the black marble halls of the Nelson-Atkins Art Gallery in Kansas City, Missouri.

He sighed. This sorry case he was working on didn't fall into his usual area of expertise. Anybody could do a simple stakeout. He preferred the challenge of going undercover, assuming a new identity, becoming whoever he needed to be. At that, he was an expert. The charge of danger electrified him, gave him a focus, made him feel alive.

Lying in wait for a suspect who might not even show up was a tedious assignment by comparison. It gave him too much time to think, too much time to ask questions. And too much time to realize how few answers he had.

The D.A.'s office must be falling behind to hire a freelancer like himself. And since his own private investigation business had slowed during the post-holiday season, he'd taken them up on their offer. He didn't need the money. He needed the favor in his portfolio. He'd made a couple of questionable moves on his last case, and a little brown-nosing with the county courts might ease their scrutiny of his work.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be here. All Drew had to do was wait for Stan Begosian to show his face, then record the man's activities for the alleged child pornography case they were putting together against him.

"Here we have examples of medieval suits of armor." The tour guide's voice broke into his thoughts, the over-rehearsed monologue a slight distraction in his continuing surveillance of the room. It was the third group of students to come through in the last hour. First- or second-graders, judging by the size of them. About the same age as Begosian's usual victims.

"Are these ch-children's sizes?" A dark-haired girl, front and center of the group, whispered the question.

"No." The guide laughed. "This armor was built for full-grown men, the warriors of their time. The average size of humans has increased over the years."

"Are they from the eleven hundreds?" one boy asked.

"I believe so. You know, around the time of King Arthur."

The dark-haired girl tipped her head back. "The real K-King Arthur lived in the s-s-sixth cent-tury. My Aunt Jasmine saw where he and G-Guinevere are buried in G-Glastonbury, England."

"Yes, of course, dear."

Drew felt himself sitting up a little straighter, worrying for the little girl stuttering through her explanation. He silently applauded her for sticking to her guns in the face of the guide's sugary condescension. She might have stumbled over some of the big words, but she knew her stuff. Smart kid.

"Kerry." A woman's voice, soft and throaty, sounded beside him, and a figure in a navy blue suit walked past to join the students. "You can ask more questions later. We need to move along before the next class comes through."

"O-k-kay, Mom."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ramsey."

Drew hunkered back down on his bench, watching the cool way Mrs. Ramsey ignored the tour guide's fawning. Drew listened as she talked to her daughter, and he found himself drawn to her voice. It was seductive. Not that it was lewdly overdone like a woman making a come-on. She still sounded like a mother, all right. He just liked the sound of it. A lot.

The woman joined three other parents to herd the thirty or so students through the doors at the opposite end of the room. Drew enjoyed the view. Now she was something that could truly distract him. He adjusted his glasses, peering through the narrow-framed lenses to get the best view possible. The woman had
legs
.

Great legs that ran all the way up to her tight little bottom. A picture made even more appealing by the fact she tried to camouflage her sleek curves beneath the sensible cut of a navy pinstripe business suit.

Everything about her spoke of sensibility. She was taller than most women, almost his height, in fact, though she wore low-heeled pumps to try to play it down. Dark, rich waves of hair that must feel like soft silk to the touch were pulled back by a clip at her nape.

She had money. He could tell by the expensive leather purse she carried. But she didn't advertise it in any other way. No artful fingernails. No fancy jewelry. Just a plain gold wedding band with a diamond solitaire on her left hand.

Moving nearer, Drew leaned back against a stone pillar and watched unobtrusively until she vanished into the next room. She was nice. Very nice. But not his type. Definitely not his type. The whole air of the woman, in addition to the Grace Kelly figure, said wholesome suburbia. Class. Culture. Respectability.

Pure trouble for a guy like him. Not that he didn't enjoy playing out of his league every once in a while. There was a perverse satisfaction in knocking one of those class-acts out of her Ferragamos. He felt occasionally obligated to wake them up to reality, proving that he wasn't so far beneath them on the social register as they might think. Or as close to the seedy world of the streets as he might feel.

But he drew the line at married women.

Look, but don't touch.

The sign near the room's entrance mocked him. "As if you need the reminder, Gallagher."

Drew sighed and rolled his neck to loosen the muscles cramping there. He'd enjoyed the show while it lasted. Mother Pinstripe would never know how closely he'd scrutinized her. It was time to get back to work.

"That place on his boot is shiny because all the boys and girls rub it for good luck."

Drew turned at the high-pitched tenor of a man's voice. He'd slipped. A man in a brown tweed overcoat with its collar turned up to his ears had moved into the room without being spotted. The man's face remained hidden, but Drew's hackles shot up, and a time-tested sixth sense that alerted him to danger pushed him to his feet.

Kerry. The name stuck in his head as something familiar. Mother Pinstripe had used it. Kerry, the intelligent little girl with the stutter, had slipped away from her class to study the armor more closely. Mr. Tweed Coat sauntered in her direction, speaking calmly, knowledgeably.

"Upstairs, the museum has tapestries that were made in the Middle Ages. One of them portrays the legend of Arthur and the Round Table. Would you like to see them?"

Though she sidled a few steps away, Drew crept up close enough to see Kerry turn her big blue eyes on the man. "My Mom says I shouldn't t-talk to s-strangers."

* * *

"Kerry?"

Of all the dark heads scattered throughout the miniatures room, none belonged to her daughter. Emma choked down the swell of panic. A second survey of the room confirmed her worry. No Kerry.

Emma quickly retraced her steps toward the main concourse. Her daughter had led the way in, while she'd brought up the rear. But then she'd gotten to talking with Mrs. Simmons about arrangements for the class's Valentine's Day party, and she'd lost track of her daughter.

Calm in a crisis. Emma Ramsey had earned that reputation running the administrative side of LadyTech, a software communications corporation she owned with her two closest friends.

She'd be damned if she'd lose her composure now just because her little girl had wandered off. Kerry was bright. Curious. And Emma worried about her only child way too much. She trusted the girl to be sensible. To stay safe.

It was all the other bozos and maniacs in the world she didn't trust.

The armor room had several patrons milling about inside. But it was empty of the one person who counted.

And that man.

She'd felt his presence when she'd entered the hall earlier, felt the cool weight of his eyes on her.

Blond, she remembered. Longish hair, with a lock that fell beside his temple. Glasses. An artist, perhaps. No? Too much danger, too much mystery. Despite his golden good looks, darkness hung around him like a cloak.

A chill raced along her spine, knowing he’d watched her. A chill matched only by the heart-numbing fear of knowing he'd now disappeared, along with her daughter.

She alerted the security guard at the entrance, giving him a succinct description of Kerry. While he radioed his staff, Emma walked back to the main concourse in Kirkwood Hall, turned in a slow 360-degree arc, then waited for some instinct to tell her where to look.

She imagined a tap on her shoulder, nudging her feet into motion. She started walking, searching for either the blond man or her daughter. The museum had two large wings, three floors and a basement. A lot of square feet for a little girl to get lost in—or for a dangerous man to lurk in.

The sculpture garden would be closed because of the snow, so she didn't bother to look there. Something urged her up the stairs to the west.

Fear hastened her steps. Her world had shattered five years ago when her husband, Jonathan, disappeared. Lost on a mission, she'd been told. MIA. The authorities had given her no body to bury. No culprit to blame. He was just gone.

She'd rebuilt her life and heart around her only tangible link to Jonathan—their daughter.

She couldn't survive losing Kerry, too.

* * *

"Th-th-this isn't the way to the t-tapest-try room."

Drew hurried down the deserted marble hallway, following the little girl's halting voice. He coached her beneath his breath. "That's it, kid. Tell him off. Make a scene."

It was his duty to save the girl. Despite the D.A.'s instructions to simply observe, he intended to take Begosian downtown. But if Drew showed himself too soon, the dirt bag would bolt—maybe escape. And the knowledge that he'd be free to molest some other child, especially if they were all as gullible as this one, burned in every chivalric bone in Drew's body.

Where were the damned security guards who swarmed all over the first floor? He unzipped his jacket and unfastened the catch on his holster before stepping into the Modern Art wing. Large paintings of stripes and geometric figures and cans of soup lined the walls, and unfortunately placed partitions blocked his view through the center of the room.

"Are y-you real?"

The girl had stopped in front of a strikingly lifelike figure of a patron staring at one of the murals. Drew had read of this famous sculpture, and how startled visitors often apologized for getting in its way before realizing it was one of the artworks on display.

Drew rounded a partition and walked straight over to the girl. Begosian jumped in his shoes, alarmed as if Drew himself was a statue come to life.

"Put your hands where I can see 'em, Stan." He pulled out his wallet and flashed his ID at the little girl without taking his eyes off his prey. "I'm here to help you. Get over here behind me."

Instead of obeying, the little girl stopped beside Drew and reached for his hand. Startled by the unexpected touch, he glanced down. The brief distraction was enough to send her stocky abductor running toward the far exit. Drew's instinct to pursue jolted through his legs, but the girl's trusting grip around his fingers anchored him in place.

He bent his knees and hunched down to the girl's level. "You need to find a security guard," he said softly. "Tell him you're lost and you have to find your mother. He can call her name over the intercom."

Drew straightened, took a step. But Kerry tugged at his hand. He glanced over his shoulder, saw Begosian near the archway. He turned back.

"Are you a g-good guy?" The little girl batted her eyelashes, her curious blue eyes watching him.

He shifted impatiently on his feet. "I try to be, kid."

"Faith t-told me I'd meet a g-good guy today."

Drew squatted down, took the girl gently by the shoulders, and fought to comprehend how a child's mind worked. "Is Faith your mom?"

Her sable curls bobbed around her cheeks as she shook her head. "She's my friend. Mom can't t-talk to her because she d-doesn't b-believe she's real."

Drew frowned and looked at the exit. Begosian had vanished. Recalling the presence of his pint-sized companion, Drew swallowed his curse. An invisible friend? What the hell would his psychologist tell him about such childish fantasies? Well, this girl had been kidnapped and rescued—both by strangers. That should be enough stress to trigger a busload of imaginary friends. Drew lifted his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was way out of his league with children.

"Are you oh-k-kay, mister?"

Drew nodded. He even dredged up a rusty smile for the girl. "Let's go find your mom."

"Oh-k-kay."

"Let go of her!" A Louis Vuitton purse loaded with bricks slammed into Drew's arm, knocking him off balance.  "You stay away from her!"

Falling to one knee, he felt the girl snatched from his grasp. He reached for his gun, but the brick bag struck him in the face, sending his glasses flying.