“‘ChildFinders Inc.,’” she read out loud. “‘Russell Andreini.’” Looking up, she held the card out to him. “You don’t look like a Russell.”
Rusty smiled. “Everyone says that.”
For a while, when he’d been younger and taken himself more seriously, he’d tried to convince people to address him by his given name, but it just never took. Everyone kept forgetting. Eventually he stopped reminding them that his name was now Russell and resigned himself to being Rusty, the person people always opened up to. As time went on, he’d come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t have it any other way.
He moved to close her hand over it, but she jerked it away. “Keep it.”
She pursed her lips as she looked at the card again. The address was a street she wasn’t familiar with, but then, she was new to the area. As she had been to the seven other areas she’d lived in these past two years.
Everyone, she thought, was always looking out for number one. “You’re looking for a job.”
What had happened to make her this cynical? he wondered. His sister Megan had always had a tart tongue, but there had never been this edge to it, this me-against-the-world attitude that he sensed within the woman he was talking to.
“I’m looking to help,” he told her quietly.
Dakota looked down at the fancy writing on the card and ran her thumb over the raised letters. Expensive. She blew out a breath.
“Well, if this is on the level, I probably can’t afford you,” she said cynically.
Money was the last thing he was thinking of. “We’re flexible. Something can be worked out.”
She’d had men trying to find a way into her life and her bed since she was fourteen years old. That was when she’d reached her full height and had ripened. Her beauty had been more curse than blessing, until she had learned to make it work for her.
Her eyes hardened. “I’ll bet.”
He wasn’t going to waste time arguing with her about his own motives. Instead, he gave her a little background information.
“Cade Townsend founded the agency when his own son was kidnapped. My sister was the FBI agent who worked the case. She joined him a couple of months after he opened his doors.”
Dakota had a tendency to not believe what was told to her, or to at least take it with a huge grain of salt. But there was something in Rusty’s eyes…something that seemed sincere.
She hesitated. “Did they ever find his son?”
“Yeah, they did.” The smile on his face fairly lit it up. “And a whole lot of other kids along the way. They’re still finding them.” He saw doubt war with something else in her eyes. This one wasn’t easily convinced of anything. “You can look up anything you want about the agency on the Internet.”
“I don’t own a computer.”
Her statement took him by surprise. His whole life revolved around technology and the answers it could yield. He’d gotten into it because of Megan, whose wizardry at the computer was outdone only and just marginally by that of Savannah King Walters, Sam’s wife, who worked for them part-time. It had gotten so that Rusty assumed everyone had at least one computer in their lives, if not several. There was one in each room in his apartment.
“That makes you rather unique.”
Dakota, decades weary beyond her twenty-four years, laughed dryly. “Right, unique.”
She fingered the card Rusty had refused to take back, her mind working at a frantic pace. Nothing mattered but getting Vinny back. She thought she knew who had taken him, was pretty sure on that score, but she had no idea where he had been taken. There were at least several possibilities, if not more.
Even if she did know where, she knew she couldn’t just waltz in and get Vinny. Not without help. Without backup. She looked at the man in front of her. Maybe she needed this overgrown Boy Scout at that.
But she wanted him to convince her, to make her feel that she wasn’t going to regret this decision. “How good is your track record? Fifty percent? Sixty?” she added hopefully.
Rusty shook his head and her heart plummeted.
“Well, then, I guess I don’t—”
“One hundred.” He saw her eyes widen at the number. “Our track record is one hundred percent,” he told her.
She knew it. It was a scam. All of it. She thrust the card at him, jabbing at a chest that was harder than she’d expected.
“You’re lying,” she accused angrily. Did he think she was some kind of mental midget? Nobody had that kind of success.
He merely looked down at the card she was pushing against him, but didn’t take it from her.
“It’s a matter of record. No case we take on is ever closed until we find the missing child. Sometimes we get lucky and it’s fast, sometimes not, but we never give up.” It was a promise he was making her. “It took three years to find Darin, Cade’s son,” he added when she looked at him blankly as he said the name.
Oh, God, she wanted to believe him so badly. But she’d stopped believing in Santa Claus the year she’d turned six. “How much does all this cost?” There was still some jewelry she could sell, she thought. Pieces Vincent had given her to convince her of the seriousness of his intentions. She’d been saving them for an emergency and this more than qualified.
“Like I said, things can be arranged. We’re not in it for the money.”
Next he was going to tell her that he was a monk in disguise. “But you’ve got to eat,” she pointed out cynically. “And your apartment upstairs doesn’t come free.”
“We can take your case pro bono.” He knew Cade would have no problem with that. Cade had been the one who had said that money was secondary to their work. His superior was completely dedicated to the belief that no one should be made to go through what he had.
“I don’t need charity.” Her indignation heated and then she looked past him toward the framed photograph on the coffee table. The photograph of her and Vinny taken on his last birthday. They’d been in Salinas then. Two locations ago. “What I need is my son back.”
“I know you do. And we’re going to do whatever’s necessary to find him and get him back.”
He hadn’t used the word “try,” she noted. It was almost as if he was making her a promise. God, she wished she could believe that he was on the level, wished that she wasn’t so damn suspicious of everything and everyone.
But there was good reason to be.
The phone rang just then.
Dakota jumped. Her nerves all close to the surface, she bit her lower lip to stifle the scream that had risen instantly.
But as she swung around and reached for the receiver, Rusty caught her wrist. She looked at him accusingly. Was he crazy?
