Her Christmas Guardian. Shirlee McCoy

people. Good schools. Pretty little church. Everything clean and tidy.

      Only it wasn’t anymore, and maybe the house wasn’t going to be a place for forever. Maybe it was just a stopgap on the way to somewhere else.

      Eleanor pulled out her cell phone and made a call, her gaze still on the house. Scout wanted to get out of the SUV and talk to her, but the doors were still locked tight and Stella was still standing guard. There was nothing Scout could do but wait and wonder what was going on in the house and when someone was going to come out and tell her about it.

      * * *

      Boone had been hoping for a ransom note. There hadn’t been one. No prints on the furniture, doors, pieces of broken frame. He watched as the local police processed the scene, staying out of their way because he didn’t want to get kicked out. He needed information. The more the better. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to be had. Someone had torn the house apart.

      Maybe more than someone.

      Maybe several people.

      Going through a house as thoroughly as this one had been gone through would have taken one person a few hours. A couple of people working together could have accomplished the job much more quickly.

      He walked down the hall, bypassing a uniformed officer who was dusting the bathroom door for prints. Even that room had been torn apart, medicine cabinet emptied, a picture pulled off the wall and taken apart, the frame in pieces on the floor.

      Lamar was two doors down, taking pictures of Lucy’s room. Like the others, it was a wreck, the mattress on the toddler bed slashed, the stuffing strewn all over the floor. Stuffed animals had been dismembered, picture books thrown from shelves. It looked as if a hurricane had blown through.

      “Find anything interesting?” he asked, and Lamar frowned.

      “I should make you leave. This is a crime scene.”

      “I’ve been in more than a few of them. I’ll be careful not to contaminate anything. Did you find anything?”

      “Aside from a mess? No. Whoever did this was careful. No prints on the doorknobs or any other surface in the house. I pulled a couple of kid prints off the underside of the bed in here, but nothing else.”

      “Someone wiped things down?”

      “Thoroughly.” Lamar nearly spat the word out, the look on his face a mixture of disgust and frustration.

      “Awfully knowledgeable petty thieves,” Boone said, even though he didn’t think the ransacking had anything to do with thievery. It had everything to do with the fact that Lucy was missing. He was sure of that; he just wasn’t sure what the connection was.

      “Neither of us believes that thieves did this,” Lamar muttered.

      “You have any leads on the kidnappers?”

      “Nothing. I’m hoping I can get a description from Scout tonight. If she got a good look at our perp, we may finally have a lead.” He eyed Boone for a moment. “Speaking of Scout, I don’t suppose you want to explain why you brought her here.”

      “She wanted to come.”

      “Sometimes my son wants to come to work with me, but he’s six, so I have to tell him it’s not a good idea.”

      “Scout isn’t six. She’s a grown woman, and she was going to find a way here with or without my help. I figured it was better to give her my help and a little protection.”

      “Maybe next time, you can convince her to wait for the police instead.”

      “I’m hoping there won’t be a next time.”

      “I wouldn’t count on that, Anderson. Things aren’t making sense, and in my experience that means there’s a lot going on under the surface, a lot we don’t know about, a lot that could cause Scout serious trouble.”

      “She’s already in serious trouble.” Boone pointed out the obvious, and Lamar frowned.

      “Not your problem. I’ve been allowing your team to do some investigating, but that stops if you get in my way.”

      “Maybe you should explain what that entails so I can avoid it.”

      “Let’s try this on for size,” Lamar responded. “You don’t take a witness out of the hospital without permission from me. You don’t take her to undisclosed locations or hide her away somewhere for safekeeping, either.”

      “Seeing as how she’s sitting in my SUV waiting for us to finish in here, I’d say she’s not exactly hiding.”

      “I’m making it clear for future reference, because if she suddenly disappears, your entire team is going to be on the line for it.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?” It took a lot to get him riled up, but Boone was heading there. He stayed out of the way. He played nice. He’d followed Chance’s rules of engagement with local police. What he wasn’t going to do was stand there and take it while HEART was used as a scapegoat.

      “It hasn’t escaped my notice that you were the last person aside from Scout to see Lucy—”

      “Don’t go there, Lamar.” He bit the words out. “Because if you do, I’ll go here—you and your team need as much help as you can get on this. Turning away an organization that has made its name freeing hostages and bringing them home safely isn’t the smart way to go.”

      “I know who you work for, and I know what HEART does. What I don’t know is why you’re wasting time on this case when there are bigger, more lucrative cases you could be tackling.”

      “Because it isn’t about money. It’s about family,” he retorted, full-out riled, and he’d better not let it show. He’d made that mistake on one too many occasions, and local police hadn’t much appreciated it. Neither had Chance. Boone didn’t care all that much, but if he wanted to help Scout, he needed to play things smart.

      “Everything is about money, Anderson. You work this job enough, and you start to realize it,” Lamar said wearily as he used gloved hands to lift a photo from the floor. Nearly ripped in two, it was a close-up of Scout and Lucy taken when Lucy was a baby. Probably one of those Sears or Walmart portraits. It shouldn’t have been beautiful. The background was a little too bright, the lighting a little harsh, but Scout looked soft and sweet, her expression so filled with love it made Boone’s heart ache. He’d seen that look in Lana’s eyes the day Kendal was born.

      Had it been there after that?

      He didn’t remember. He’d been out of town a lot, working missions that he couldn’t talk about in places he wasn’t allowed to reveal. He’d missed out on weeks and months of memories. Some days that hurt worse than others. Today, looking at the photo of Scout smiling at a sleeping Lucy, it hurt a lot.

      “I’ll wait outside,” he said abruptly, because he didn’t want to stand in the doorway of the nursery any longer, thinking about his daughter, who was out in the world somewhere. Lost to him until he could find her again.