Mia's day had been relatively simple until then. Most of the morning had been taken up with a meeting with one of her clients in which she had informed the woman that her husband was in fact cheating on her. She had finally comforted the woman's hysterical sobs when her boss called her in.

Candace Kutcher had hired Mia after she had only been a cop for two years. Something had attracted her to the young girl, for although she looked delicate on the outside, she was tougher than most of the men in her agency. Very simply, she was exactly what she had been looking for.

She didn't know a lot about Mia's past, but she didn't think had been a happy one. Mia had a hardness in her manner that suggested extreme hardship in her past.

When Mia first walked into the office, she immediately noticed a man sitting in front of Candace's desk, looking more grief-stricken than she'd known anyone could look.

When he caught sight of Mia, he stood up immediately. "Mrs. Kutcher, I think I've made a mistake. I asked for your best investigator, not a little girl with a gun."

Mia's eyes narrowed. She could have broken his arm before he realized she had moved towards him, but she stopped herself. Better to give him the benefit of the doubt before she reacted as she wanted to.

"Mia is my best person." Candace motioned for him to sit back down. "Her best attribute is her petite frame. People rarely consider her someone to be wary of, but she's stronger than most of the men here."

He stared at her for a moment. "I'm Zac," he said finally. If Candace Kutcher said she was the best, she must be the best. And he needed the best he possibly could find.

"Why don't you take Mr. Hanson back to your office and discuss the case," Candace suggested.

Mia nodded and motioned for Zac to follow her. When they reached her office, she sat down in her chair and pulled out a clean pad of paper. "What can I do for you, Zac?"

"Someone kidnapped my daughter, Amie, this morning." Mia looked up in surprise. Even as a well known private investigator, she rarely worked on kidnapping cases. Most of her cases in the past year had been men or women wanting to know once and for all if their spouse was cheating on them.

He pulled several photographs out of his pocket and placed them on the desk in front of her. As she flipped through them, the little girl's bright blue eyes and pale hair struck a soft note in her body. How could someone take this sweet little girl from her father? She thought.

Noticing Zac still looking at her, she turned back to business. "Do you have an idea of who could have taken her? An Ex-wife, an angry co-worker maybe?"

"My wife died three months ago."

"You're positive it was a kidnapping?" Mia tried to remain impersonal. She couldn't let herself be too emotional about this case. That was all it was, a case. Her job.

Zac's eyes filled with tears as he thought about it. "There was a phone call two weeks ago," he began. "A man said that I had better watch my step. Before that there were letters," his voice trailed off as he pushed his tears aside with a fist. "I didn't think anything of them."

He'd thought it was just a prank, or an empty threat. It wasn't like he'd never gotten threats before. Usually it turned out to be a bored thirteen year old home sick from school with nothing productive to do. Stephanie had hated the bodyguards, so he'd thought he was doing her a favor by firing them all after her death. She didn't want her daughter to grow up feeling like there was danger lurking around ever corner.

"Please, find my little girl," he whispered heart-wrenchingly. "She's all I have left."

* * * *

It had been hard to leave Mia's office that day. She'd assured him that she was going to do everything in her power to get his daughter back, but he still felt like he wasn't doing enough.

The phone rang, and he listened to his mother beg him to pick up, but he just couldn't. It had taken everything out of him just to tell Mia everything that she needed to know to start investigating.

His phone had been bugged, and a tracking device installed in his car. Someone was going to be stationed watching his home, and Mia herself would be staying there for a few days. "It's easier if I'm there, in case the kidnapper calls or tries to make contact. Time is of the essence here." He had been too tired to fight.

The answering machine finally cut out and, with a sigh of relief, Zac sank down in the couch.

"Daddy cry?"

Zac looked up in surprise to see Amie standing in front of him, peering curiously in his face. He pulled her into his arms and gave her a tight hug. "No, sweetie, Daddy's not going to cry."

"Mama come home?" She placed her tiny hands onto his cheeks. "Mama come home soon?"

With a start, Zac realized he was alone, hugging the air. It had been so real, like she was right there. Probably because she asked for her mother almost every day. He didn't know how to make her understand. Again and again, he told her that her mother wasn't coming back, that she was dead. But how do you make a three-year-old understand death?

"Are you okay?"

Mia stood in front of him, looking obviously confused. "Zac?"

"Sorry." He shook his head. "I'm fine."

She walked across the room and pulled the curtains over the back door. "I knocked, but you didn't answer. You really shouldn't leave the door unlocked, you know."

Especially now. It was unspoken, but Zac still heard it.

She motioned to the blinking light on his answering machine. "Who called?"

Zac sighed. "My mom, my father-in-law, my two older brothers, and my younger sister." Apparently the first call hadn't deterred any of them either, because all but his father-in-law had called twice.

"Big family?"

"Six siblings." And not a single person could understand that he didn't want to talk to them. There was too much pain right now.

Mia smiled. "I'm an only child."

He couldn't care. Why bother to be friendly when some psychopath had his little girl? When he couldn't put his arms around her and tell her it would be all right?

What would they tell her when she asked about her mother?