by Desiree Holt
“Good. Thank you.”
Dean followed two more streets until he hit the Frontage Road for IH 10, then took the first on-ramp for the interstate, heading toward downtown San Antonio.
“Where are we going?” she asked again, squashing the anxiety that suddenly crept up.
“Just a little detour, making sure we don’t have unwanted company. Nothing to worry about, I promise.”
****
Zak had just poured himself a fresh mug of coffee when the doorbell rang. Taking one last quick look around to make sure there were no traces of Zoe left, he padded to the door barefooted, his T-shirt hanging loose over his jeans. He didn’t have to do much to make himself appear rumpled at this point.
When he pulled open the door, the familiar figure of Detective Joe Morales of the SAPD stood there. He and Zak had come in contact a number of times and developed a good working relationship. Zak had found as long as he shot straight with the detective, he could expect the same in return.
Morales’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile, and a uniformed cop stood uncomfortably behind him.
“Joe.” Zak nodded. “It’s always nice to see you, but to what do I owe the honor? And at this hour of the day? Someone in need of good security?”
“I wish.” Morales fidgeted, looking over his shoulder at the cop with him, then back at Zak. “I need to take a look through your house and see if you have a guest. They probably sent me because we know each other. I brought a helper with me.”
“And what guest would that be?”
“I think you know everyone’s looking for Zoraya Lombardo.”
Most of the force knew Zak and Guardian Security, and their reputation as straight shooters. Reno Sullivan and Nick Vanetta, the third partner, had made it a point to have strong relationships within the SAPD. This cop didn’t appear any happier about the visit than Joe or Zak.
Zak raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know why you’d look for her here. Your information must be a little out of date. We broke up two years ago.”
“People stay in touch.” Morales shifted uncomfortably.
“So, is this an official visit?” Zak looked at the detective’s obviously empty hands. “I don’t see a search warrant. What does the SAPD think they’ll find here, for god’s sake? Is this a fishing expedition of some kind? I can’t imagine what you’d be fishing for in my house.”
“Come on, Zak.” Morales huffed in frustration. “You can’t tell me you haven’t watched the morning news and seen what’s going on. Nate Dunning was murdered in his home last night. As his partner, your girlfriend—excuse me, former girlfriend—is the prime suspect.”
Zak didn’t move from his deceptively casual pose in the doorway. “Being someone’s business partner automatically makes them guilty of a crime? What evidence do you have that she’s the one who killed him? Nate Dunning is a major international player. He’s got to have a lot of enemies. Anyone could have killed him.”
“We have information that she was at the party at his house last night and they had a loud argument,” the detective snapped, his impatience with Zak’s stonewalling very obvious. “She stayed behind after everyone left. And her car was parked away from the house, for a quick exit.”
Zak lifted an eyebrow. “Did you get that from the anonymous source the news is quoting?”
“Oh, so you did see the news. Then don’t play dumb with me, Zak. If she’s not here, you have nothing to worry about. One quick peek, and we’re out of your hair.”
“I’m telling you, she’s not here.”
“Listen to me. Don’t be an idiot. This woman is a fugitive. She’s one step away from being arrested, so if she’s here, just hand her over.”
“Tell me again why you think she’d contact me after two years. Our breakup wasn’t exactly amicable.”
Morales studied his face. “Her damned house burned down last night. If you haven’t seen her, I guess you wouldn’t know about that, right?”
Zak forced a look of surprise on his face. “Her house? You’re kidding. But doesn’t that give you a clue that someone’s after her?”
Morales shook his head. “The district attorney thinks she arranged it. To destroy anything in there she didn’t want us to find.”
Zak actually laughed. “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? I mean, come on.”
He sighed. “You don’t need this kind of trouble. Be smart. I’d rather do this in a friendly manner.”
Zak shook his head. “Do what? You think it’s friendly for the cops to show up on my doorstep bright and early and accuse me of harboring a fugitive?”
“Again. Miss Lombardo seems to have vanished,” Morales said in a slow, deliberate voice, “and my lieutenant thinks she might have landed here” His gaze raked over Zak with a professional’s eye. “I’ve known you a long time, Zak. You go a long way for your clients, but you’ve never gone up against the cops before. Broken any laws.”
That you know of.
“If you let us in, I’ll explain,” the detective said.
“But no search warrant, huh?” Zak stared at Morales. “I’m guessing it’s because all you’ve got is that anonymous call. You don’t have one hard piece of evidence against her. Judges are getting a little antsy about issuing warrants on supposition these days, right?”
“Let us take a look and see if she’s here,” Morales pleaded, “and we’ll be on our way. Your cooperation will mean a lot.” He tried to peer around Zak into the house. “Can we come in? Please?”
With an exaggerated sigh, Zak stood aside to let the two of them enter. “Since I’m such a nice guy, I’ll forget about the piece of paper. Come on in and look around.”
Morales started toward the kitchen, then stopped, frowning. “How come you’re still home, anyway? Aren’t you usually out at the crack of dawn doing your thing?”
Zak’s jaw muscles tightened. “If you didn’t expect to find me home, why are you here? Were you planning to break in with a crowbar or something?”
“Zak, Zak, Zak.” The detective tried to make his tone placating. “I put away my rubber hoses and stuff a long time ago. I called your office, and your secretary said you were working at home this morning.” He held Zak’s gaze. “Any special reason why?”
“Yeah. I had a project to set up for a client, and I didn’t want to get caught up in all the office crap. Is that why I’m on the hot spot? Because I didn’t go to work today?”
Morales’ face sobered. “You’re on the hot spot because you used to be engaged to Zoraya Lombardo. You’re a big security hotshot. This would be the logical place for her to come, despite the fact that the two of you broke up.”
“She didn’t do it, Joe.”
Morales stared at him. “And you know this how?”
“Because I know the kind of person she is.” He pinned Morales with his gaze. “This is all some big mistake.”
“Mistake? So far she’s not only our best suspect but our only one. Like I said before, my lieutenant thinks there’s a good chance she called you for help. She’d need someplace to hide and someone who knows what they’re doing. I’m here to check that out.”
Zak snorted. “The last thing Zoe ever said to me was she never wanted to see my face or hear my voice again.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Morales scratched his neck. “But big trouble can make strange bedfellows.”
“Well, you’re welcome to look as much as you want.” He made is tone as casual as possible. “I’ll be in the den when you’re finished.”
The detective cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t want to check out what we’re doing?”
Zak shrugged. “What for? You won’t find anything. Just don’t make a mess, okay? My housekeeper doesn’t come in until tomorrow.”
It took every ounce of discipline Zak had to make himself sit at his computer and create busy work while Morales and the cop thumped their way through his house. It seemed to take them forever, but he sneaked a glance at his watch and realized only forty-five
minutes had passed before the detective appeared in the doorway to the den.
“Just so you know,” Morales said, “I told my lieutenant we wouldn’t find anything, but he’s covering all bases.”
“Covering his ass is more like it,” Zak retorted. “So I hid the body pretty well? Is that what you’re telling me?”
The detective leaned his shoulder against the door frame. “This is nothing to joke about. People at the party last night heard Ms. Lombardo in a loud, shall we say heated, conversation with Nate. I understand this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Word on the street is there was big trouble in paradise there, and she was mad as hell about something.”
“Word on the street, huh?” Zak gritted his teeth to keep from spitting out what he really wanted to say. “Business partners argue all the time. That doesn’t mean one murders the other.”
Morales tilted his head. “Yeah, word on the street. Rumor has it Nate was about to pull the plug on Lombardo Simulations. Yank all his money out, for whatever reason. That couldn’t have made her very happy.”
“Again, there are ways to settle a business dispute besides a gun.” Zak was having a hard time keeping his anger at bay.
“Well, a word to the wise,” Morales told him. “If you hear from her at all, convince her to turn herself in. It will be better all around.”
“Yeah? For who? Certainly not her.” Zak stood up. “We done here?”
Eyes narrowed, Morales studied him, then he pushed away from the door jamb. “Don’t get in the middle of this, Zak. I’m telling you this as a friend as well as a cop. You’ll get burned.”
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. And here’s a piece of advice for you. Despite our personal animosity, I’d stake my reputation on the fact that Zoe Lombardo didn’t kill Nate Dunning or anyone else.”
“You may have to. I’m sure I’ll be back again.”
Zak closed the door after the two men and reset the alarm, then stood in the front hall, hands jammed in his jeans pockets, trying to sort everything out in his mind. He didn’t doubt Zoe and Dunning had argued, especially after the things she’d told him. But no way did he see her shooting him. If he’d threatened to pull his money, she might actually have been relieved to be rid of him under the circumstances. He’d talk to her more about that tonight. They still had so much ground to cover.
On the other hand, if the people behind Nate saw both him and Zoe as a potential danger, what better way to solve the problem than to kill one and build a tight frame around the other? The key element here was finding out where Nate’s money came from and who was pulling his strings. He hoped Nina and her crew were making headway getting into Dunning’s computer systems and that they’d managed to find something.
Right now he had an urge to talk to Zoe, to hear her voice.
****
The streets weren’t yet busy with the normal traffic of the day, so they sped through the lights without much delay. On Houston Street, they pulled into a multi-story parking garage, Dean took a ticket from the machine and drove up the ramps until they reached the floor just below the roof.
At the far end of a row of parked vehicles, they turned into an empty space next to a four-door pickup truck. As soon as Dean killed the engine, a man climbed out of the truck and walked over to them. He was of medium height, dark-skinned with thick, longish black hair held back with a leather thong.
He smiled and held out his hand to Zoe. “Keith Diaz. I work for Zak. I’ll be taking over from here.”
“I have no idea what’s going on,” she told him, letting him help her out of the SUV.
“Just following Zak’s orders,” he told her. “Don’t worry. You’re in good hands. Zak will kill us if anything happens to you.” His gaze seemed to be looking everywhere at once before he turned to Dean. “I don’t see anyone coming up here behind you. No tails anywhere along the way?”
“Nope. And if there was one, I would have found it. You’re good to go.”
“Okay, then. This way, Miss Lombardo.” He tossed the duffel Dean handed him into the back seat of the truck cab, opened the passenger door, and pulled out a plaid, western-style shirt. “We need to make a quick change before we leave here.”
She handed him the navy jacket and shrugged into the plaid shirt. The Astros ball cap was replaced with a straw cowboy hat, and Keith handed her a pair of wraparound sunglasses.
“Am I in a spy novel?” she asked, amazed that she could find humor in this. She reminded herself these people knew what they were doing.
Keith grinned. “Let’s hope not. Okay, in you go.”
“What about Dean?” she asked, buckling her seat belt.
“He’ll go get a cup of coffee, hang out for a while then take a little tour of the countryside. If anyone has sniffed him out, they’ll be in for a scenic tour.”
They followed the interstate west before pulling off into a neighborhood of small houses, neat apartment complexes, and strip centers in what Zoe would classify a lower middle-income area. Men were leaving their homes and climbing into pickups, heading out to work. Women stood on porches, seeing them off, then shooing children on their way to school. Like every other neighborhood, from the lowest level of income to the highest, the Lone Star was in evidence wherever she looked—in hammered iron stars affixed to porches, on chain link fences, in flags flying everywhere.
Texas. There’s no other place like it.
Another couple of minutes, and they stopped in front of a well-kept house made of adobe and limestone. A chain link fence surrounded the property.
Keith pressed a button on a remote clipped to the sun visor, and the gate in the fence slid open. Another touch, and the garage door rolled up. They drove inside.
“What is this place?” Zoe asked, opening the door and climbing down from the cab.
“One of the houses Guardian keeps just for situations like this.”
“One of the houses?” Just from casual information, she knew Guardian Security had taken a big leap in growth the past few years, but exactly how big was it? How far up the ladder had Zak moved when she wasn’t looking? “How many does the company have?”
Keith chuckled. “I think you’ll have to ask Zak that yourself. I’m just a hired hand.”
She shook her head as if to rid it of cobwebs. “I must have missed a lot in the past two years. I thought I knew everything that goes on in this town.”
“Guardian Security pretty much flies under the radar except for the kind of people who need our services,” he told her. “A lot of what we do is a well-kept secret. That’s what makes us good.”
Zoe had to agree. What little she did know about the company had come from bits and pieces of conversation she’d overheard from Nate’s clients. She’d made a deliberate effort to avoid seeking any information about Zak for the past two years, so all of this had happened without her realizing it. She’d called Zak because she trusted him and because he had resources she would need. But this! This was more than she could have hoped for. Now she had the safety of a huge organization wrapped around her.
Keith walked her through the house, showing her where the bedrooms and bathrooms were, how the appliances worked in the kitchen, where things like towels and soap were kept.
“Why don’t you take the big bedroom? You’ll be more comfortable in there,” he told her. “I’ve got a couple of cartons of grub for you. Just staples. There are television sets in the living room and all the bedrooms, and Guardian pays for a full cable package.”
“Just out of curiosity, how long am I supposed to be here?”
He shrugged. “As long as it takes for Zak to get you out of hot water, I guess. Let me get that food.”
After he’d carried everything inside, he showed her how to set the alarm panel by the front door, giving her the code.
“This is always on,” he told her. “It only gets turned off when Zak or one of us has to go in or out, and they’ll call first.” He grinned. “The code word is kitten.”
/> Kitten. She had to smile at that one.
“Well. Thank you. I guess.”
“My pleasure. Don’t go outside or look out the windows. I’m going to turn on the security cameras and the monitor. That way I can see who drives up. Or around.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re staying?”
“For the moment. You don’t think Zak would leave you alone, do you? I think he plans to be here later, and then he’ll tell you what other arrangements he’s made.”
Zoe wandered through the rooms, trying to ignore Keith as he went about his business. The furniture was plain vanilla, nothing special to distinguish it, purchased for its functionality. All the colors were earth tones from the beige carpet to the chocolate bedspread in the room she chose. That was fine with her. She didn’t need any fancy decorating, only safety.
There was a small backyard with high hedges lining the fence. Every window had blackout shades, even the living room. When she checked the cupboards, she found the food Keith had stocked for her was as basic as the furniture, but at least she wouldn’t starve while she waited.
Waited.
Waited for what? Standing in the middle of the living room, in the empty house, she realized that, despite her bodyguard, she was completely alone. Except for Zak. Being with him had gotten her over the initial panic and helped her keep it together. Knowing he would get to the bottom of things eased her anxiety. After that the anger had taken over and was fueling her now.
She wished she could hear his voice. As if her thoughts had triggered it, the cell phone in her jeans pocket trilled, startling her, and she pulled it out and answered it.
“Zak?”
“It’d better be, since right now, I’m the only one with this number.” His deep voice was like balm to her frazzled nerves. “Just checking to make sure Dean and Keith took good care of you, and you got settled in all right.”
“Yes. Thank you. They’re great.” She swallowed. “The house is very nice.”
His laugh drifted over the connection. “I guess nice is a good enough way to describe it.”
“Have—Have the police been there yet? At your house?” She was almost afraid to ask the question.
