Not that this was a big deal. It wasn’t like they’d made love. Just a few kisses. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have experience getting over Zeke.
But Drago wouldn’t get over not having his help.
“It’s not a matter of owing,” she said, looking into his still face. “It’s giving a hand so people can get started on a new path. People you’ve known most of your life.”
A sharp grunt expressed his opinion of that connection.
She sat back. She could try to go around his attitude, but that had rarely worked with Zeke as a teenager. Coming at him straight on had always been most effective. Possibly because he wasn’t used it. His glower kept most people from trying.
Now the glower was backed by maturity, power and prestige. An intimidating combination.
“Zeke, I know you felt you and your family didn’t fit in, but your mother doesn’t feel that way. I tried to tell you in high school that they would be friendlier to you if you’d be friendlier to them. Okay, not all of them. Idiots like Eric Stenner always would have been jerks. That’s because he’s only smart enough to be jealous of how incredibly smart you are and stupid enough to resent it. Not everyone’s like that. A lot of people respected you then and respect you now. Even more respect and like your mom and your dad when he was alive, because your parents reached out to people.”
Silence. Not even a grunt.
It seemed to be getting darker and darker. As if a light she needed to read him and his reactions had gone out.
“You could do a lot of good, Zeke. It wouldn’t take a lot to reach out to these people and this town. You could— Or Zeke-Tech could.”
“No it couldn’t.”
The coldness in his voice stopped her.
“Nothing personal,” he said, and they both knew it was a lie. “It’s business.”
“We’re not asking for a lot, Zeke. Seed money to help us pull more business in. Enough to get us started in the right direction. Jennifer and I have researched how we could set it up as a trust, and it would give you a great tax break, plus the town could pay it back—”
“Darcie.” She looked into his eyes, and saw the answer before he said the final word. “No.”
Zeke closed the front door after watching Darcie drive away, and encountered Ma’s basilisk stare.
Darcie had said almost nothing at the end, only, “Benny will pick you up tomorrow, Zeke.” He’d started to say her name but she’d talked over him. “It’ll be better that way. Good night.”
He supposed he should be grateful she hadn’t said more. He wasn’t going to be as lucky with his mother.
“What do you think, Anton? What do you think? I do not know this man who comes home as my son. What your papa would think—”
No. That he wouldn’t listen to. He cut across her words as he strode to the hall. “Good night, Ma.”
Two more strides took him to the small bedroom. With the door closed, he stood at the desk, one hand on the back of the chair, the other already poised over the familiar keys of the laptop.
What do you think?
The hell if he knew. Kissing Darcie? Definitely not problem solving at a higher level. More like at the most basic level. A chance to hold and kiss Darcie. Yahoo, boys let’s go for it.
That certainly hadn’t changed since that last night before he left Drago.
…you left and never looked back.
Darcie had said that to him that first day at the Community Center, when she’d agreed to help him out.
…you left and never looked back.
He’d accepted the words without argument then. They were the truth as far as words went. But they weren’t the truth of what had been inside him.
He hadn’t looked back. He wouldn’t let himself look back. For fear…
A dark welling void of fear that he could just catch sight of from the corner of his eye if he ever let his gaze stray from straight ahead. If he’d actually looked back, it would have swallowed him.
He hadn’t thought that then—he hadn’t thought of any of it then, he’d just felt it. And kept moving straight ahead.
Moving ahead of the fear. A fear he’d never recognized as existing until now.
Fear of what?
He still didn’t know. Maybe he’d be wise not to dig too much. Or maybe he didn’t have the courage to find out. But there was one thing he knew.
…you left and never looked back.
That wasn’t true, not the way she’d meant it.
Because even looking forward, always forward, the fear had never blotted out his memories of Darcie.
Darcie was not looking forward to calling Jennifer, but she owed her an update.
“You sound awful, Darce,” Jennifer said immediately. “Are you sick?”
“No. Didn’t get much sleep. Spent most of the night surfing the Web for a charity specializing in bailing out hard-up towns in the Corn Belt.”
Let Jennifer think the surfing had caused the sleeplessness, instead of the other way around.
After an aerobic workout in the form of tossing and turning, she’d wandered the apartment. When she’d found her fingers trailing over the case of the CD Zeke gave her that first night, like the memento of a lovesick teenager, she’d yanked back and occupied herself with fruitless surfing.
“I have two questions,” Jennifer said. “Any luck? And why?”
“No. And because I blew it.”
“I doubt that.” Jennifer’s warm laugh seemed to hint at secrets only she knew.
Darcie restrained herself from cursing, barely.
“Believe me. I blew it. I tried a gambit and it didn’t work.” Had she? Or had she tossed out that ultimatum because he’d scared her. She’d scared herself. She’d wanted him. Right there. On his mother’s porch. Oh, God. “We had a, uh, parting of the ways last night. Benny’s taking over Zeke duty as of this morning. I cleared it with the chief.”
“Darcie?”
“It’s up to you now.” She forced enough enthusiasm into her voice to override Jennifer. “But that’s great, with the way Zeke has always felt about you. All you have to do is look at him, and he melts.”
Jennifer laughed. “Give it up, Darcie. You’ve had this fixation that something was going to happen between us ever since we started this Zeke campaign.”
“I know Ashley isn’t wild about him, but that’ll change.”
“It’s moot, Darcie. Zeke and I have no chemistry.”
Chemistry. Sitting across from Zeke in Chem lab. Feeling the miracle of his rare smile all the way to her toes.
Stronger, more volatile, his mouth on hers.
Combustible, his touch on her skin.
Explosive, his body against hers, inside hers.
“Are you listening to me?” Jennifer asked.
“What? Sorry?”
“I said, Zeke and I are becoming friends, and I’m enjoying it. It’s fun to have a guy friend.”
“Great,” Darcie said, wondering what on earth she and Zeke had become. “Then you can persuade your friend, the stubborn mule, to bail out Drago.”
“Zeke, the office is transferring a call from your mother.” The head gardener of Lilac Commons held out a cell phone to him, and Zeke gladly accepted this reprieve, too.
It hadn’t seemed this bad when Darcie was around. At least he could look at her and know someone else knew what was going on in his head. But with Benny driving him for the fourth day, he felt isolated.
He’d jumped at the excuse to get away from the official picture taking when the gardener, Jerry, had offered a tour of the grounds, pointing out with pride his beds of tulips, hyacinths and daffodils. There were blooming cherry trees and huge oaks and pine trees. And of course lilacs. Age, shape, color, scent, each one different. Most interestingly, Jerry had identified a particular lilac bush that stopped Zeke dead when they’d walked past it.
Tinkerbelle. Darcie smelled like Tinkerbelle. God, he’d wanted to tell her—the one person he was in no position to tel
l anything.
He took the cell now from Jerry with thanks. He’d given Ma his cell phone number more times than he could remember. She refused to use it. She insisted anything without a cord and plug was not to be relied on. So she’d obviously called the parks department, which transferred her to the gardener’s cell. If she only knew.
“Ma?
“Anton, that machine of yours, it screeches on your desk.”
“I told you, you can’t lift it up to dust under—”
“I don’t dust!” she interrupted, indignant, as if she hadn’t originated the notion of preemptive dusting. “I am in kitchen, and it squeals. I do nothing. Box squeals. I go in your room. Window open. I shake it only a little and—”
“Get out of the house, Ma. Now. Go next door. I’m calling the police.”
“Why?”
“Mother. Do it. Please. For me.”
There was only the slightest pause before she said, “I do it.”
He waited for the click, hung up, handed the cell to the nearest hands, then was on the move. He shouted, “I have to go,” to anyone who cared to listen. He had his cell out and was dialing 9-1-1 as he got in his car.
Corine would have kept him on the line after he’d reported the facts, but he hung up and dialed Darcie’s cell. He got a message prompt.
“Someone’s tried to break in to Ma’s house, Darcie. I’m almost there.”
His mother and the neighbors were standing on their front porch as he pulled up. “Go inside!” he shouted as he loped toward the house. They ignored him.
He made a circuit of the house, noticing the open window, then came in the back door as a knock sounded at the front.
With the alarm still sounding, he opened the door to Darcie—no, to Officer Barrett. She was definitely in cop mode.
Only deep beneath her professional demeanor did he recognize that she would rather not be here. More precisely that she would rather be anywhere in the world but here. Because he was here.
“Someone broke in. The alarm—”
She nodded and moved past him, gun drawn. She gestured for him to stay where he was. She gave the living room a quick but thorough survey, opening the coat closet, saw that no human could possibly squeeze in among its packed contents, then scanned the kitchen. Her gaze lingered on the basement door, then she turned and started down the hall.
She ducked in and out of the bathroom before he could react. She was already in his room when he followed. Starting with behind the door, she made another room survey, checked the closet then looked under the bed. There was nowhere else to hide in the small room.
She glared at him as she backtracked to the hallway, then repeated the exercise in his mother’s neat bedroom.
Nothing. The tension in his shoulders eased but she hadn’t relaxed. She came close to him, stretched up and said into his ear, “Can you turn it off?”
Her closeness, the brush of her breath across his ear, put an end to what easing of muscles he’d gained, particularly below his belt. There he tightened and swelled.
Turn it off? Not with her turning him on. He wanted to kiss her. Even knowing how Monday night had ended, he wanted to take her in his arms and—
She stepped back, frowned and moved her mouth as if she’d tsked. She moved into his space to speak into his ear again. “The alarm—can you turn if off? Please!”
He jerked out a nod and went to the keyboard. The silence was abrupt and smothering.
He opened his mouth, but she commanded him to hold it with one hand. She was listening, hard. Apparently satisfied, she strode off, and he again followed. In the kitchen, she locked the door to the basement, then the door to the garage.
He followed her outside, where she took up a position where she could watch the front door, back door and garage.
“How does that alarm work?” she asked.
“If anyone tries to move the computer without entering a code first, it sets off the sound alarm, sends a message to my office and activates powerful, uh, call them magnets, though they’re not exactly magnets, they’re—”
“The window wasn’t open when you left?” she interrupted. “Your mother didn’t open it or move the computer.”
“That’s right.”
“Is it valuable?”
“Yes. The computer itself is special, but what’s in it is even more valuable.”
She still hadn’t looked at him. But he sure couldn’t complain how she was doing her job.
“Do you have enemies? Professional rivals who might stoop to this?”
“Yes. But none have any reason to know I’m here.”
She cut him a look, quick and cool. “Did you cover your tracks? Travel under an assumed name?”
“No, but—”
He didn’t bother to finish because she wasn’t listening. Another cop car pulled up, and after a quick consultation with Benny, she said, “Never go inside a house in a situation like this, Zeke. Never. Do you know what could have happened if the neighbors hadn’t shouted to me that you were inside? Stay here, and if you don’t, I will shoot you this time.”
He wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t mean it, but more important, he could tell by the way she and Benny moved as she went inside again and Benny took up a position covering the basement door, that this was serious. As much as he wanted to charge after her, stand between her and any bullets, his reason said that getting in her way was more likely to increase her danger.
Darcie emerged from the basement, and Zeke released the breath burning his lungs. After another quick consultation, Benny headed toward the neighbors. Darcie retrieved a camera and clipboard from her patrol car and started around the house, looking down.
His cell phone rang. With no intention of answering, he glanced at the number from habit. Then he did answer, briefly. “Brenda. It’s okay. The computer’s okay. I’m okay. I’ll get back to you.”
At the corner, where the flower bed extended deeper into the yard, Darcie paused, stared at something, then turned around to him.
“Are these your size fourteens, Zeekowsky?”
“Yeah.” He moved toward her, and when she didn’t object, he fell in behind her as she continued around the house. “I made a quick check before I went in the back.”
She grunted. Her path was a good three feet farther away from the house than his had been.
She took several photos, with notations for each. Over her shoulder he saw she had both a drawing of the house where she was noting where she’d taken photos, and a running list describing them.
When they neared the open window to his bedroom, her pace slowed to almost nothing. She snapped photo after photo of the plantings and window. She got low, then onto her hands and knees, looking away from the house.
She shot off another couple of photos. “Those probably won’t take,” she sighed. “Get down and see if you see anything.”
“What am I looking for?”
She shook her head. “You either see something or you don’t.”
He got down on all fours. Nothing. But she’d been lower…He dipped his head, so he was looking along the surface of the grass. There. A faint track of compressed grass leading directly to the upside-down crate Ma had used as a gardening stool for years. It made a perfect mounting block to hop the fence.
That left a quick sprint between two backyards, then up a grassed-in alley between windowless garages and across the street to the forest preserve where a bike could be stashed for a quick getaway. He knew because that had been his boyhood escape route.
He stood. She looked away, toward the fence and beyond.
“Someone jumped the fence. Headed for the forest preserve you think?”
She nodded. “Someone who had first climbed out of that window.”
She crouched again, looking at his footprint that straddled the neat edge between lawn and flower bed. Then, keeping her feet on an area of untouched grass, she propped her hands on her bent knees and leaned way over to peer at the base of a bush.
<
br /> The position stuck her derriere out and up, drawing the fabric tight over the rounded curves. His mouth went dry, his gut clenched.
“Zeke! Are you with me?”
“What?”
“Did you hear me? I asked who knew you’d be gone this morning?”
Finally, he saw what she was getting at. “Anyone who knew the pageant schedule, which includes anyone who reads the paper. You’re thinking one of my enemies, or industrial espionage…”
She was shaking her head.
“I doubt this is the work of a pro. With your mother in the house? Not anticipating your alarm? Daylight? No. Besides…” She shook her head again. “No.”
“You’re really good at your job, aren’t you.”
“Just go over with your mother and let me finish my job.”
What had he said to make her even madder? The chances he’d figure that out anytime soon were so infinitesimal that the man known for tackling the toughest technological challenges headed to the neighbor’s porch without another word.
“Zeke.”
He turned back, hoping…One look at her face ended that hope.
“You and your mom will need to check if anything is missing, and you might want to prepare Mrs. Z. I’m going to have to use fingerprint powder and it makes a mess. And give me a list of anyone whose fingerprints you would expect to find in your bedroom.”
Darcie heard the storm brewing in the distance, but she was almost done…almost.
For routine crimes—the only kind Drago had had in her years on the force—she or Sarge took all the fingerprints, since they were certified as evidence technicians. Mrs. Z would have a fit when she saw the marks on her furniture, but she should count herself lucky it wasn’t Sarge at work in Zeke’s bedroom.
Zeke’s bedroom.
How many times had she had to yank her mind away from that thought?
You’re really good at your job, aren’t you.
Right, like the New Technology’s Genius was impressed with her.
What she was, was intimately familiar with Drago, Illinois—the last thing on earth that would impress Zeke.
What Are Friends For? Page 13
