Free Racing Against Time by Marie Ferrarella Page B

dragged a hand through his hair as he put space between them. Space because that vulnerability, that weakness that had made him want to kiss her was still there. Begging for companionship, for fulfillment. For all the earthly emotional comforts that seeking solace from someone in the most intimate fashion created.
    Feeling uncharacteristically unsteady, Callie finally looked away.
    “Do you mind if I take these?” She nodded at the stack of possible suspects they had compiled. “I want to go through them more thoroughly, see if anything further leaps out at me.”
    “Then you’re not going to investigate them?”
    She hadn’t meant to give him the wrong impression. “Oh, yes, every one of them. Even the ones in prison.” Just because a person was in prison didn’t mean he or she couldn’t reach out and arrange for a heinous crime to be committed in their name. It wasn’t just the arm of the law that was long, but the criminals, as well. She looked down at the files. “I just wanted some alone time with them. I’ll bring them back tomorrow.” As she spoke, she began making out a list of the files she was taking with her. Callie glanced up at him, a half smile on her lips. “I promise.”
    “No need to promise, I find you eminently trustworthy, Detective Cavanaugh.” The formal edge from his voice faded as he added, “And I’m glad you’re the one working on this case.”
    That caught her off guard. “Why?”
    “You’re not the only one who hears rumors.” He pulled the drapes closed. “You have a reputation of never giving up.” Brent crossed back to her. “Right now I need someone like that on my team.”
    “Rachel’s team,” she corrected. And because it was about a child, it galvanized all of them on a task force that much more firmly. “This is all about your little girl, and none of us are going to rest until we find her.” She could see what he was thinking. “Alive,” she added to chase away the look on his face.
    A small, grateful smile curved his lips as he nodded his head. “Thank you. You know, I didn’t realize how weak I was until this morning.”
    “Weak?” That was the last word she would have applied to him.
    But it was the way he thought of himself right now. He was vainly trying to suppress an all-pervasive, weak-in-the-knees feeling. “Part of me feels like everything inside is collapsing.”
    Figuratively, she’d held more than her share of hands. “The other part is filled with rage, right?”
    She’d picked the right word, Brent thought. Rage. Pure, white-hot rage. It undulated through him now. “How did you—?”
    “You’re not my first distraught parent,” Callie replied. “And the rage helps balance things out inside, putting everything on a more even keel. But you’re not weak.” The list finished, she handed it to him and picked up the files, tucking them against her chest. “You’re just human. I can tell you that if you didn’t feel this way, then you’d be right up there on the top of our suspect list.”
    “So you’ve cleared me?” It was a rhetorical question. He assumed she had. Crossing to the doorway, he held the door open for her. When she stepped through, he locked it behind her.
    The floor looked deserted. Only every other light was on, part of the energy conservation push that was going on in California.
    “No, you cleared you,” she corrected as they walked toward the elevator. “I just listened to the facts as you talked.”
    That was a relief, he supposed. He couldn’t imagine a worse situation than having the police think that he was involved in any other way than he actually was. He pressed for the elevator, then looked at the files she was holding. Was she also inadvertently holding Rachel’s fate in her hands, as well?
    “Do you really think he’s in there?”
    That was the sixty-four-million-dollar question. “If he is, we’ll find him.”
    “That’s not what I asked.”
    She wasn’t going to insult Brent by