Hatfield and McCoy (3 page)

Not some kind of a mystic quack!

Chief Pettigrew, a man with bright blue eyes, graying hair, a salt and pepper beard and the look of a department-store Santa, sighed softly and tried once again. “Robert, give the girl a chance, eh? She's been a tremendous help in other cases.”

Robert McCoy was startled when his fist landed against the desk. “Time, Petty,” he said. “Time! There's a little girl missing, Petty, an eight-year-old child. We just don't have time to bring in a soothsayer!”

Time had been important to him once before.

Pettigrew stood, then sank back in his chair. Robert McCoy wasn't a stranger called in to take charge of one of his cases. Robert was the son of one of Pettigrew's oldest and dearest friends.

He wasn't going to be intimidated by the son of a friend, he assured himself.

It was just that, well, McCoy was an intimidating man. Maybe he even had the right to be so furious about this call. And despite this dark display of temper, he was a damned good man, too, Petty knew, from past experience. McCoy was passionate about his work. And he was smart, smart as a whip. He'd studied criminal law in school and he had proven time and time again his ability to analyze the mind of a criminal. He could be a hard man, almost ruthless in the pursuit of his objectives.

Especially since California. No matter how hard a man he appeared to be. No matter how silent. He had changed. And he was capable of being ruthless.

But that was exactly why he had been called in on this case. A child's life was at stake.

Of course, it was exactly why Julie Hatfield had been called in on the case, too.

“Robert!” Pettigrew leaned toward his towering blond friend. “We have nothing on this case. Nothing at all. We know that the girl disappeared from her own street, and that's all we've got. That and the suspicion—” He broke off. They all knew what the suspicion was. There had been a similar case in a neighboring county not six months ago. A young woman had been abducted from her home. A ransom letter had come, and a ransom had been delivered. But the woman had not been returned.

Julie Hatfield had been called in on that case. And she had found the young woman, barely in time, buried, but alive, in an old refrigerator upon the mountaintop.

Six months before that, there had been another similar case. The young woman taken during that abduction had never been found.

The kidnapper, assuming it was one and the same man—or woman—had struck again and was moving between state lines. And that was why Robert had been called in.

“Robert,” Pettigrew said wearily. “We need Julie on this one. She can help. You just don't know her.”

McCoy ran his fingers through his hair and sank into an office chair beside Timothy Riker. Why was he so furious? Because working with this girl could take time? Yes, of course. He was also bone weary. He'd just returned from a sting in Florida, and he'd thought he'd have some time off. It was moving into late spring. The fish were jumping. His own little mountaintop was beckoning to him, and for the first time in a long time, he wanted some time off.

And he was scared, too. He was always scared, though he never let it show. Dear Lord, it was always scary to hold someone's life in your hands. And now, it was a child's life, and more. The lives of her parents, her family, her friends. If she was lost forever, they would be, too. No one ever forgot the loss of a loved one. Ever.

Ever.

And he was mad, of course, that anyone could claim the things that the charlatan in the front office was pretending she could do.

It could lead to nothing but false hope.

Maybe worse.

No one but God could see into the hearts and minds of other men. No one could see the pathetic remnants of a case gone bad except for those poor investigators sent out to retrieve the body.

“It came down to us straight from the top, Robert. They say that we must use her on this one,” Pettigrew said very softly.

Robert McCoy rubbed his temple with his thumb and forefinger.

“How many hours now since the little girl was taken?”

“Three,” Timothy Riker informed him quickly. “And we've had men and women out scouring the neighboring woods since the call came in.”

“Three hours,” Robert mused. He glanced quickly at the chief. “And there's no possibility that she just ran off with friends? That she saw something interesting—”

“No, none at all. Tracy Nicholson is a very conscientious little girl. She never strayed at all. She would have never worried her mother so.”

This had to be murder for old Petty, Robert thought, and he was sorry again for his outburst of temper. This was a small town, and Petty was friends with little Tracy's parents, and with Tracy herself.

“Signs of a struggle?” Robert said. He had to ask.

Riker nodded. “Scuffs in the dirt right off the road. She was definitely taken, sir.”

“We've had men combing the woods since.”

Good and bad. If the little girl was near, she'd be found. And if not, well, valuable clues might have been trampled into oblivion.

Riker cleared his throat again. “The child's parents are waiting at their home.”

Good Lord, he was wasting time here, McCoy realized unhappily. Damn.

Swallow that temper, he warned himself, and swallow the past. It had all been so long ago now. So long. Still, it was hard.

Hard when he knew his psychic was the soft and delicate blonde in the outer office. That dear, sweet young woman with the angelic face …

And whiplash tongue.

And wretched driving skills, to boot.

“McCoy, I swear to you,” Petty said, “the orders did come straight from the top—”

“Yes, yes, fine. Riker is right. Let's get moving. Take me out to meet Miss What's-her-name.”

Petty, who had started to lead the way out of his office, paused suddenly and swung back. And despite the circumstances, he was grinning.

“It's Hatfield.”

“Pardon?” McCoy said.

“Her name.” Petty's rheumy blue gaze surveyed him with a certain amusement. “Darned if I didn't just realize it all myself. Hatfield. Her name is Julie Hatfield. Hell, McCoy, this isn't your feud. The Hatfields and McCoys have been at it for decades, eh?”

Hatfield. Her name was Hatfield.

Hell, after everything else today, it just figured.

He crunched his jaw into the most affable grin he could manage. Only his eyes were steam.

“Excuse me, Petty.”

He brushed past the old chief, letting the glasspaned door slam behind him as he strode quickly through the outer office.

She saw him coming. She stood quickly.

She was something. Petite, blond … cute. No, actually, she was beautiful. Her features were so fine, so perfectly chiseled. She was elegant. Even in jeans and a light knit sweater. And sneakers. There was still something elegant about her.

And those eyes of hers. Almost golden. With such a wicked, wicked gleam.

Two could play … And two could feud.

She was smiling. A smile plastered into place, of course.

His own grin could have been rubber.

“Well, well, so we meet again,” he said softly.

Don't you dare think that you've won anything! he warned in silence, offering her his hand. She accepted it. His fingers curled over hers.

“Yes, so we meet again,” she told him politely.

And somehow, he sensed her silent reply.

I did win the first battle, McCoy!

His fingers tightened around hers. They were both still smiling.

And old Petty was beaming away, thinking that his team was together at last.

Subtly, McCoy pulled her a shade closer. His words were light. In jest. “So it's to be Hatfield versus McCoy, eh?” he murmured.

Her lashes, luxurious, long and honey dark, swept her cheeks. And her gaze was regal and sweet when her eyes met his again. All innocence.

“Oh, no, sir. It's to be Hatfield
and
McCoy, I believe.”

Hatfield and McCoy …

His grin was suddenly real.

It just wasn't meant to be.

Chapter 2

T
hey left the station together, and as soon as they were outside, he headed toward his car. She quickly stated that she didn't mind driving, but the force of his stride had her at the passenger door to his car before she could even complete the words. There was an incredibly firm touch to his hands as he—courteously?—helped her into the car, and an unshakable firmness to his quick, curt words. “I'll drive.”

If he wanted an obedient silence from her, he wasn't going to get it. He might think she was a quack, but she'd come up against the attitude before. He might be as aggressive as a tiger when he chose, but she knew how to fight back.

Politely.

“Do you know where the house is?” she asked.

“I have the address, yes, thank you.”

“But do you know where the house is? The streets around here curve.”

He glanced her way with his teeth nearly bared. “I know where I'm going!”

She simply wasn't going to be intimidated.

This was a matter of life and death. They had to get along. And he had to learn that he had to listen to her.

She leaned back. “Go straight down the road here, then make a left. It should be the third or fourth house in.”

He glanced her way again. There was a steel sizzle to his eyes. It was electric. She nearly jumped from the power of that gaze.

But she didn't. She'd never let him know that he managed to nonplus her.

Maybe his eyes shot silver bullets, but he didn't ignore her directions. He turned the black Lincoln just as she had directed.

There was no mistaking the house. As soon as they came around the corner, Julie saw the kidnapped little girl's parents waiting. There were other people around them. Family, friends, perhaps. The Nicholsons, she thought quickly, remembering everything she had been told. Martin and Louisa. And their little girl's name was Tracy. She would be eight next week.

The lawn, the neighborhood looked so normal, so peaceful. It was spring, and Louisa Nicholson had planted all kinds of flowers along the walkway. The house was freshly painted a bright white with green trim around the windows and doors. It was a moderately affluent neighborhood, a working neighborhood, a place where
Sesame Street
and Disney movies would play for the children, where hope blossomed for the best of lives, where the American dream could be played out.

But not today.

Robert McCoy pulled his Lincoln to the side of the road. The engine was still revving down when Julie opened her door and hurried out. She smiled reassuringly as she walked up the steps to the cement pathway leading to the broad porch and the house. She knew the girl's mother instantly—a small woman with dark curly hair and large brown eyes that kept filling with tears. She stood beside a lean man with thinning gray-black hair. “Mr. Nicholson?” She shook his hand, then turned quickly to his wife. “Mrs. Nicholson? I'm Julie Hatfield. Petty sent me from his office, and a Mr. McCoy, FBI, is right behind me. You mustn't worry, really. I don't know what Petty told you about me, but I am very good, and I'm certain that at this moment, Tracy is fine. Just fine.”

Something in her words must have reached Mrs. Nicholson because some of the cloud seemed to disappear from her eyes. She smiled at Julie, then looked over Julie's shoulder. McCoy was coming toward them.

“Mrs. Nicholson, I'm—” he began.

“Yes, yes, you're the FBI man,” Louisa Nicholson said. “Julie, please come in. My husband and I will help you in any way we can. Oh, Mr.—did you say McCoy, Miss Hatfield?”

They were going to go through a lot of this, Julie thought.

She smiled. “Yes, he's a McCoy. Isn't it just disgraceful?”

“Miss Hatfield—” McCoy began, that deep voice filled with all kinds of authority.

It didn't matter. Louisa Nicholson actually laughed, and her tall, balding husband at her side almost grinned.

“We're just so very worried,” Martin Nicholson said.

“Naturally,” Julie said softly. “Shall we go in?”

The Nicholsons excused themselves to the anxious friends and neighbors who had gathered around. Julie saw a few friends from church and waved, then hurriedly followed the Nicholsons into the parlor. Julie glanced around quickly. It was a warm house. A house, she thought, where a lot of love lived. There was a beautiful china cabinet to one side of the entry, filled with various collections of crystal and figurines. The two hutches that filled out the parlor were mahogany, rich and beautifully polished. But the sofa and chairs in the center of the room were overstuffed and very comfortable. A little girl could crawl all over them without worrying about being yelled at. She could curl into her father's lap there, rest her head against her mother's shoulder.

Robert McCoy had begun an intense round of questioning. Julie could tell that the Nicholsons had already been through it all; their answers were becoming mechanical.

The Nicholsons knew that Tracy hadn't run away. She was a good girl, she loved them both, she was an only child, and they were a very close family. She had been right out front, and then suddenly she had been gone. All the wonderful people out in the yard had searched the house, the lawn and the streets beyond, and they had even organized block searches. The police had come by, and now Mr. McCoy and Julie Hatfield were here.

Julie was surprised to find herself distracted momentarily as she watched McCoy. He had the ability to be kind, to be gentle. He spoke to the Nicholsons with a depth and understanding that startled Julie.

She had thought him all business, cut and dried. But there was a heart pumping in that broad chest.

He was a very handsome man. Those steel-gray eyes were direct and powerful in a handsome face that was strongly, ruggedly sculpted.

He probably chews nails for dinner, Julie thought.