by Desiree Holt
“Not to worry, we’ll figure this out.” His voice was calm, comforting. “That’s what I do, remember?” He tucked strands of hair behind her ears. “Let me talk to Reno again. It looks like we’re going to have to move you out of here sooner than I’d hoped.”
“Okay. I’ll do whatever you say. Whatever you think is best.” Because he knew what he was doing. Wasn’t that why she’d called him?
“Time to get you someplace safe. I’d keep you here, but if they come looking for you, they’ll know Guardian is involved and that would complicate things more. Right now, we aren’t even on their radar with this. I promise you someone will always be with you. More than one person. I’m going to be very careful with your safety.”
“I know.” She sighed. “I have to get away from here. Away from you.”
“That’s right. Zoe, both the police and the bad guys will be doing an all-out manhunt for you. My name is bound to pop up sooner or later, and I’d rather it be later. Much later.”
“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “But where will I go? Do you have some place you can take me?”
“I do. I also picked up a few things to tide you over, since obviously, I couldn’t get anything from your house. Hold on a sec.” Zak jogged to the door that led from the house into the garage, the car door slammed, then he returned, holding two plastic bags. He handed them to her. “Temporary substitutes,” he told her. “I made a speedy trip through an all-night Wal-Mart.” His lips twitched in a grin. “I think I remembered the sizes.”
She gawked at him. “You nearly got your head blown off, and you thought about buying me clothes?”
He sighed. “It’s just a bag from Wal-Mart, Zoe not a wardrobe from Saks.”
“Didn’t anyone wonder why you looked the way you did?”
He laughed. “Have you ever seen the people who go to Wal-Mart at this hour of the morning? Now go on, wash your face while I make some calls and set things up.”
“What about my mother?” she asked again. “Are you sure there isn’t some way I can let her know I’m all right?”
Zak shook his head. “I’m truly sorry, but she’s just going to have to worry until I can figure out how to get word to her.”
“Thank you.”
“Listen. Your mother is a strong woman.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, a light touch like before. “Like you. She’s not going to fall apart.”
Zoe was touched at his thoughtfulness in such a dangerous situation. This was far more than she had a right to expect from him after the way things had ended between them. She clutched the bags to her chest, unable to find the right words to thank him, blinking back yet another flood of tears that threatened.
Damn tears. All these waterworks weren’t her style and wouldn’t do her any good. What she needed to do was hold onto her anger.
Again she realized what a stupid fool she’d been. Look what he’d done for her tonight, and all she’d done was wring her hands, cry all over him, and bemoan what happened to her. For someone so smart, she’d been really, really stupid.
But she wasn’t going to be stupid now. She’d made a huge mistake going into business with Nate Dunning, but that was the last mistake she was going to make. She was a computer genius, for heaven’s sake. A woman who headed her own corporation. Zak had always told her how smart she was. Now she needed to prove him right.
He lifted his hand and ran his knuckles lightly along her cheeks, giving her a tiny smile. “It’s okay. Go on. Go clean up. Then we’ll talk.”
Chapter Five
Zak knew he was being sucked right back into the emotional whirlpool that was Zoraya Lombardo, but he wasn’t sure if that was a bad thing or a good one. Something still tied them together, and it didn’t seem he could avoid it. He’d managed to submerge his real feelings for her for two years, but they were still there.
Admit it, Delaney. You’re still in love with her.
If he’d had any question at all about that, tonight answered them.
But he’d have to find a way to push that aside for the moment. Stash his emotions, which was becoming increasingly harder to do. He couldn’t afford to let emotions cloud or blur his thinking. There were things he needed to get started on before any more time passed. Like making sure the place he took Zoe was secure.
He dialed his partner once again and in a short conversation found out what he needed to know. He’d discovered soon after the merger that there seemed to be an endless list to Guardian’s resources. Tonight just drove that home again.
“By the way,” Reno said, “you were right about her house being wired.”
“What did you find?” Zak asked. “And how did you find out without anyone getting suspicious.”
Reno laughed. “I sent Keith. He’s great at this. He has a little dog he takes with him, and he walks up and down a street as if he lives there.”
Zak found himself returning a chuckle. “You guys think of everything. So what did he say?”
“From what he overheard, the front, back, and side doors were all wired to blow as soon as anyone opened them. Good thing you’re smart and kicked the door in first.”
“Didn’t blowing up her house defeat the purpose of setting her up as the killer? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Chuck said he overheard two cops speculating that she did this herself, to get rid of any incriminating evidence about so-called criminal activities.”
“That’s just fucking stupid. Do they think she’s an idiot?”
“They think they can get away with anything. We’re not dealing with nobodies here. To pull all of this off the way they want, they have to have some people in their pocket, including some cops.”
“That just makes me sick,” Zak told him. “Okay, we’d better set the next piece of the plan in motion.”
“We’re on it at this end,” Reno assured him.
Zak had just disconnected the call when Zoe walked back into the room. Although her eyes were still swollen and she was paler than snow, her face was scrubbed clean, her hair pulled into a braid, and she’d put on a pair of the jeans and a new T-shirt he’d picked up at Wal-Mart. Despite everything, she looked so good he couldn’t help smiling.
“Not bad.” His gaze raked over her. “Not bad at all.”
Her answering smile was more valiant than real. “I can’t believe you took the time to pick out lacy, um, undies.”
“I couldn’t see you in basic white cotton,” he joked, trying to lighten the atmosphere. He swallowed a grin at the red flush on her cheeks. Was she actually blushing?
“You did good on the sizes,” she told him. “You were right. You did remember. Thank you. If you let me know how much I owe you—”
“Forget it. That’s not even on the list of things we need to talk about.” He waved a hand as if brushing it away. “Got a question for you. Can you get into the Lombardo Simulations computer system from remote locations?”
“Of course, but they’ll know the minute I do.”
“That doesn’t matter now. The need for stealth in that area disappeared with Dunning’s murder and the explosion at your house.”
“Okay, then. I still have all the codes and passwords in a cloud file. All I need is a computer.”
“Good. Come with me.” He led her to his desk and sat her down at his laptop. “Do your thing.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Anything that isn’t a simulation. Financial information. Correspondence. Anything you can find.”
“Okay. I’ll see if it lets me in.”
“If it does, once you get in there, start pulling all the files you can and saving them to the cloud, so you can access them from wherever we stash you. Copy them to my hard drive, too. It’s big enough to hold a lot of data in case we are someplace with it where there’s no Internet.”
Zoe nodded and started clicking keys.
A glance at his watch told Zak it was just past five in the morning. The people he needed to talk to wer
e used to calls at ungodly hours. Sleeping until five would almost be a luxury for some of them. And he needed to do this before they were faced with full daylight. He took his cell into the kitchen where he had one of the security monitors set up and began speed-dialing the people who could get things moving. All the while he kept his eyes glued to the screen on the monitor. When he was in the den with Zoe, he’d looked at the monitor there and had seen some activity that made him uneasy.
“Yeah, we have to time this just right,” he said into the phone. “An unmarked car has rolled past here three or four times since I got back from the disaster at Zoe’s house. I caught it on the monitor, but I haven’t said anything to her. It means we’re about out of time to get this thing done. And we’ll have to be very, very careful pulling this off.”
“I hear you,” Reno acknowledged, “and I’ve been working on it.”
“Thanks. I know you’ll make sure she’s well taken care of.”
“This is Job One at the moment,” Reno told him, “because it’s personal. You just get her ready. I’ll take care of the rest.”
How did he say this?” Reno, I don’t know how to thank you—”
“It’s what we do for each other,” Reno interrupted. “I know you’ve heard the story of how Nick led a covert operation to México to rescue my daughter from a cartel leader. The baby was barely a year old at the time, and Sarah was in the hospital. So let’s get this done.”
He walked back into the den to find Zoe staring at the laptop, an angry look on her face.
“Damn it,” she swore at the computer.
“Problem?” he asked.
He went to stand behind her, watching her fingers fly over the keyboard as she frowned at the Access Denied message that kept flashing.
“I’m in the system, but I can’t get into any of the financial files or corporate documents the way I could before. It doesn’t matter what I try. It’s obvious someone’s put their own back door into the system. Damn!” She spat the word. “They must have hotfooted it over to the offices the minute Nate was dead.”
“Or before,” Zak corrected, “because they knew what was going to happen. I’m sure they did this before the law could stick its nose in. That explosion at your house was probably as much to destroy evidence you might have at home as it was to get rid of you.”
“But evidence of what?”
“Just what I said before. Money laundering. And that may not be the only thing Nate was into. There’s no telling right now what all he was involved in. I have an itchy feeling he kept a lot of his records on the LI computer network because he was afraid someone would find them on his own servers.”
“Let’s hope the files are just blocked and not deleted.”
“I’m gambling they’re still there. I have a hunch he stashed information he didn’t want on the Dunning International network. Whatever he was doing with your company that was illegal, those files will hold the records. He’s not going to get rid of them. And I don’t think he’d trust them to a flash drive that could get lost or stolen.”
Zoe nibbled on her lower lip. “I’ll have Internet wherever I’ll be staying, right?”
Zak nodded. “Of course.”
“Okay. Let me work on it there. You learn a lot of things writing code.” She grinned. “One of them is how to crack someone else’s code.”
“Guardian actually has a couple of people who excel at that. I’m going to get them started on the Lombardo International system, to see what they can pull down. I’ll also tell them to hack the Dunning International computers and see what we can get there. We’ll be looking into Nate’s finances and information on how he got started. You keep after the files you know should be there.”
“Okay. I fiddled around with a program called Escape that I planned to turn into a game. I want to try using some of the code from that to get into the LI system and see if I can find what you want.”
“That would be amazing.”
“So if I find them and open them, what am I looking for?”
“The best place to start is with Nate himself. What was going on with his own business, who he hung out with, who’s involved with his various operations. Stuff that you may not have any idea about but that he kept on your servers so they’d be away from prying eyes. Also, whatever backup documents he might have kept on your servers.”
“I want to know what you find,” she told him. “I want all the details on that scum.”
Zak took a healthy swallow of his coffee. “I told you I was making some arrangements for your safety, and I have. I hope to keep the cops and the bad guys off our backs for a little bit and give us some breathing room.”
“What happens with Lombardo Simulations now? What about the staff I had working there?”
Zak shook his head. “No one is going to be doing any work there for a while. Even while they’re waiting for the warrants, the district attorney has the authority to shut the business down.”
“Crap. This just keeps getting worse.”
“I agree. But look at where we are. Nate’s dead. Fingers are pointing at you. The district attorney will want to stick his nose into the business where you were partners. As soon as he can he’ll have people going over everything at Lombardo with microscopic precision.”
Zoe leaned back in her chair and rubbed her forehead.
Why is this happening? This is a nightmare, and I’ll wake up any minute.
She’d be back in her house, which would still be whole instead of a pile of ashes. Getting ready to go to work in a still flourishing business. The dizziness that hit her now wasn’t from any drug but from the reality of the situation. The realization that everything about her life had spiraled out of control.
All because you were too hard-headed to listen to Zak two years ago. See what happens when you’re an idiot?
He cupped her chin and forced her to look at him straight again. “You still trust me, right?”
She nodded. “More than anyone in the world.”
His face was close to hers again, close enough that his warm breath fanned across her cheeks. Her heart leapt at the whispery touch, her pulse accelerated, and need curled low in her belly.
Kiss me, Zak, and tell me everything will be all right.
His eyes darkened and held that familiar flash of heat again. Then his phone made its chirping sound, and the moment disappeared like smoke. He hit the button to accept the call.
“Yeah? Okay. Good. We’re on our way.” He disconnected and looked at her. “Sit tight for a minute.”
He left the room, and when he returned, he had an old duffel bag in his hands. “Not signature luggage,” he joked, “but it’ll serve the purpose.”
Unzipping it, he stuffed into it everything he’d gotten for her at Wal-Mart.
“Get your purse,” he told her, “and bring it here.”
Zoe hurried into the family room where she’d left the purse on the table. Lifting it, she realized the gun was still inside. She handed it to Zak as if it would bite her.
“Good.”
He took a padded envelope from a desk drawer and emptied everything from the purse into it including the gun. He took a moment to separate the battery from her cell phone and disable the GPS chip. Then he locked everything in a wall safe. The empty purse he dropped into the duffel with her other things.
“No phone?” Her phone was her lifeline.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get a new cell. I won’t leave you without a way for me to keep in touch with you.” He took her hand. “Let’s go.”
Then very quietly, he led her out the side door and through the trees in his backyard. They sidestepped through his neighbor’s yard in the rear, using trees and high shrubs to shield themselves from the rising gray of dawn. They made it to the street that ran behind his house where an SUV sat at the curb with its engine idling.
Zak opened the passenger door.
“Quick.” He pointed to the driver. “This is Dean McMann. He knows the score. Do
whatever he says.”
The two men exchanged a nod, and Dean handed something to Zak. He closed the door and tapped it twice. Zoe watched through the passenger window as the SUV pulled away from the curb. Zak was already melting back into the trees.
Turning around, she curled in a corner of the big SUV, chilled despite the rising warmth of a Texas summer morning. As soon as they were a few blocks away from the pickup spot, Dean handed her a navy windbreaker and a Houston Astros ball cap and told her to put them on. In the back seat was the duffel Zak had lent her with everything she had to her name.
“Put this in your pocket,” Dean said, lifting a cell phone from a cup holder in the console. “It’s a throwaway with five hundred minutes on it. You won’t need them all, but we like our clients to be prepared.”
Clients!
Somehow, she hadn’t thought of herself that way, but that was what she was, albeit a nonpaying one. It bothered her that Zak was spending Guardian resources on her like this, but she also knew if she offered him money, the argument they’d have wouldn’t be worth it.
“I gave a clean one to Zak just now,” Dean added, “with this number programmed in. He’s the only one who has it so if it rings you’ll know it’s him.”
Zoe stuffed the phone in her jeans. “Can I also call him on this one?”
“Sure, if you really need to. Or if something happens and you panic, just hit the number two twice. That will speed dial him.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem. Guardian keeps a supply of disposable phones just for situations like this.”
Dean McMann, huge and stolid, sat comfortably behind the wheel as he drove, his face giving nothing away as they wound through one street after another, making so many turns that her head was dizzy.
“Where are we going?” she asked, breaking the silence, her curiosity pricking at her.
“Didn’t Zak tell you?”
She shrugged. “Just said some place where he thought I’d be safe. At least for now.”
“The place where you’ll be staying isn’t on anyone’s radar. No worries on that score.”
