Hazardous Holiday (Men of Valor)

by Liz Johnson

  His forehead wrinkled, though he kept his eyes closed. “I had to get him to stop. Thought I could jump onto the hood, but he didn’t slow down.”

  “I’ll call an ambulance.” Carlos held up his phone.

  But before he could dial 911, Zach waved his hand. “I’ll be all right. Kris-ti.” His voice broke, and he cradled an arm around his ribs as he blinked several times into the bright sky. “Tell him. Ask him.”

  From her spot kneeling at Zach’s head, she looked up into del Olmo’s frowning face.

  “You mean this wasn’t an accident?” He gripped his phone in front of him in a defensive move. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  Her tongue suddenly felt heavy and listless, and the words she should say hid from her. “We’re—I mean, I’m—my son… My son is Cody McCloud. Does that name mean anything to you?”

  The billionaire frowned, looking bewildered. Did that mean he was innocent? Or did it mean that he hadn’t even bothered to learn the names of the children he had his thugs targeting? Either way, he was holding his phone in front of him like he would call in his security team at any moment.

  She was botching this. Bad. And she was shaking so hard from seeing Zach splayed on the ground that she couldn’t wrangle her thoughts into anything resembling cohesion. Let alone anything compelling.

  Then a hand found hers, Zach’s thick fingers weaving between hers. His voice sounded like he’d just woken up, but his words were clear. “Ask about his daughter.”

  “My daughter?” Anger was starting to show through the bewilderment on his face. “I’m calling the cops.”

  She glanced at Zach, whose breathing had slowed to a much more natural pace. The tension that had pulled his skin so tight across his face had disappeared. He gave her a little shake of his head. He didn’t need help. Just a moment to collect himself.

  “Please. Don’t. Just hear me out.” She licked her parched lips and prayed for the right words to come. “My son is sick—he needs a heart transplant. He’s been on the donor list for over a year now, and he’s near the top. Is your daughter on the list, too?”

  Carlos’s dark eyebrows met over his nose. “My daughter’s perfectly healthy. I’m sorry about your son, but I don’t understand what your situation has to do with me. I don’t personally handle my company’s charitable giving. You can contact—”

  “No. We don’t want your money.” The words came out quickly, but all she could think about was that if he was telling the truth—and from the way he was acting, she was fairly sure he was—then his daughter was fine, and he didn’t need the heart. And if he didn’t need the heart, he hadn’t been after them.

  His phone dropped to his side, but the confusion on his face didn’t abate. “Then what do you want?”

  “We think someone is—” Oh, dear. It was terrible to think about but a hundred times harder to say aloud. Her throat closed around the words as though her body physically refused to let her say them.

  Zach rolled to his side, then pushed himself to a sitting position with a soft groan, his arm always protecting his side. Then he made it to his feet and held out a hand to help her up before turning to address del Olmo so she didn’t have to. “A little girl on the transplant list was killed a few weeks ago. And now there have been multiple attacks against our son.”

  Her stomach lurched. And not because of the terrible ache his words produced. Because of the words themselves.

  Our son.

  It made her cheeks flush and her heart swell. Could it be Zach truly considered Cody his own?

  “I’m sorry to hear that, but I still don’t understand. What does this have to do with me?”

  Zach let out a sigh, and his shoulders slumped a little. “Yeah,” he said. “I know this must seem crazy. But the truth is, we thought you might have been connected to the attacks.”

  Thankfully Carlos looked more surprised than offended.

  “Why on earth would I—?”

  “Whoever’s behind these attacks against Cody has money—a lot of it. They’ve hired professionals to come after us, and they tried to bribe the family of the little girl, who was killed, to give up her place on the list. They offered two million dollars, so we were looking for someone with a lot of money who had an interest in pediatric heart disease. You attended a fund-raiser last summer, didn’t you?”

  He pressed his thumb and forefinger across his mustache, flattening it out with the measured movement. “Sure. In Palm Springs, right? My director of communications wanted me to donate some money. She says it looks good for the company. And my CFO likes the tax deductions. I didn’t mind—it’s good work. I’m happy we can help with all sorts of things—camps for kids in wheelchairs, food banks, homeless shelters.”

  Kristi filled in the last for him. “And pediatric heart disease research.”

  When Carlos nodded, she sagged against Zach, who immediately wrapped his arm around her waist. She felt more than heard him suck in a sharp breath, and she moved to pull away from whatever injury he’d sustained in his ill-advised stunt. But the arm at her waist locked into place, and he didn’t let her shift away. He seemed to know that everything she’d hoped for was crumbling at her feet, and he wasn’t letting her stand to face it alone.

  Del Olmo wasn’t going to be any help. He had no particular interest in heart disease and no use for the heart that could have been Greta’s. The one that might be Cody’s.

  “We saw the pictures from the benefit,” Zach explained, “including one of you with your daughter. We thought she might need a transplant, also.”

  “And if she did,” Carlos continued, putting the pieces together, “you thought I’d be willing to pay someone to take out other kids if they stood between her and the top of the transplant list.”

  Zach nodded slowly.

  “That’s… I don’t even have words for what that is,” Carlos said. “I hope you don’t think that I—”

  “We know,” Kristi interrupted. “We believe you. We’re just…really desperate to find answers.” And now they were at another dead end.

  “Listen, I really am sorry about your son. That’s tough.” Carlos shoved his hands in his pockets, his frown filled with genuine concern. “I don’t have any idea who might be targeting him…but maybe I can help in another way? I have a friend who works with kids who need organs.”

  Zach’s body immediately stiffened, a low vibration flowing out of every pore. “A friend?”

  “She’s a transplant coordinator.”

  Kristi chomped on her tongue to keep from filling in the name she somehow already knew he would say.

  “Denise Engle.”

  Kristi let out a sigh, but Zach didn’t even pause. Instead, he jumped in with questions she hadn’t even begun to formulate. “How do you know her? Is she the reason you were at the party or chose that foundation?”

  Carlos shrugged. “We went to high school together. I didn’t even know she was going to be at the fund-raiser until I got there, but after I saw her, I remembered that my director of communications had told me that someone I knew had called, asking about the donation. I didn’t know it was Denise, but it wasn’t unusual. We’d stayed in touch through college and a little after. And when my first company was sold for seven million, old friends started coming out of the woodwork.”

  Kristi nodded in understanding, and Zach kept them moving forward. “And did she say or do anything strange?”

  Those dark brown eyebrows met again. “Like what?”

  Zach lifted a shoulder. “Like ask you if she could borrow some money. Or did she ask for your help with anything unusual?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. But…”

  Kristi held her breath and squeezed a hand into Zach’s waist to keep herself upright. Just long enough to hear what Carlos might say. What Denise had asked him for.

  “She did ask me a cybersecurity question. It was a little unusual.”

  Shivers raced down her spine. Denise was involved in the attacks agains
t Greta and Cody. Kristi was sure. She just didn’t know how.

  Carlos looked right into her face, but his eyes were focused on the past. “Very weird, actually. I thought about it for a few days after that conversation. We had bumped into each other when we came in, but we weren’t seated at the same table. So after dinner, I got up to network, and she came up to me out of nowhere. One minute I had a clear path to see a former Stanford classmate. The next, Denise was dragging me around the side of a big fountain.”

  She could see the same look on Zach’s face that must have been on hers—the urge to push him faster but the fear of missing a key part of the story.

  “She made small talk for a second and then said she had a question. For her cousin, she was careful to specify. She wanted to know if it was possible to make a secure server look like it had been hacked.” His face mimicked the confusion he must have felt on the evening of the conversation. “I didn’t understand. Still don’t. It was clear she didn’t know exactly what she was asking for. She was really confused.”

  That made two of them. Kristi had no idea what he was talking about.

  Carlos crossed his arms and shook his head. “Honestly I thought she’d had a few too many drinks at the open bar, so I dismissed it and never followed up. You think it has something to do with your son?”

  Kristi wasn’t sure how this nugget of information fit into the big picture, but Zach nodded his head. “Sure do.” He reached out his hand and shook Carlos’s when it was offered. “Thank you for your time. I’m sorry about that.” He glanced back at the hood of the car. “I didn’t mean to hit you so hard.”

  Carlos chuckled. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one who hit you. I’m sorry I looked down for a second. By the time I saw you I didn’t have time to slow all the way down. Hope you’re not hurt. You sure you don’t want me to call for an ambulance?”

  By way of a quick squat and two arm windmills, Zach confirmed he was physically fit.

  Maybe Carlos didn’t see it, but Zach couldn’t hide his wince from Kristi as his arm hit its apex the second time around.

  Handing a card to Zach, Carlos nodded. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help. If you need anything else, this has my private office number so you don’t have to get through the front-gate guard. Or worse, my secretary.”

  The impromptu roadside party split up. Carlos got in his car and flew off in the direction of his house as Zach and Kristi climbed into his car. But before they moved, Zach leaned over the console.

  “Something is going on with Denise Engle.”

  “Yes. But I don’t understand what she was asking about with the server.”

  If she’d expected Zach to sound frustrated, she was pleasantly surprised. “So a computer’s server is the home where a slew of digital information is stored.”

  “The info’s not on the computer itself?”

  “For a personal computer, sure. But if you’ve got a big network—like a company or a large foundation—where a lot of computers all need to access a central base of information, you’d store it on a server.”

  “Okay.”

  “And if a hacker broke into that server, he could access any of the information on it. If you’re a credit card company and someone hacked your server, they’d have access to the card numbers of your customers.”

  Sure. She’d heard of things like that happening. Her bank had sent her a new credit card a few months back because it thought some of her information might have been illegally accessed. “But what do credit cards have to do with Cody’s heart?”

  “The information on the server doesn’t have to be financial.”

  It all slammed into place like a garage door with a broken chain. On track, but heavy and loud. “Like a list of the names of the children waiting for a transplant.”

  “Bingo.”

  “So you think someone hacked into the server?”

  Zach scratched at his chin, his gaze wandering past her. “Not exactly. Carlos said that Denise said that she wanted to make it look like a server had been hacked. She wanted to know how to create a trail that would appear like someone had gotten in. Maybe even if no one had.”

  “Because the information was leaked by someone who already had access to those names.” Her stomach twisted. “And she wanted to cover it up by blaming an anonymous hacker.”

  “We’ve got to talk with Denise.”

  That was an understatement. Either Denise was responsible, or she was covering for someone who was. Either way, she knew a whole lot more than she had let on.

  Anger boiled below her skin, and Kristi scowled—but she felt her anger give way immediately to concern as Zach let out a little hiss when he reached for and buckled his seat belt.

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  He narrowed his gaze on her, intense and knowing. It sent a bolt of lightning shooting through her chest. “How do you read me so well?”

  Ignoring the effects of those hypnotizing eyes, she stared back at him with all the force she could muster. “Why do you always avoid answering my questions by asking another one?”

  That made him chuckle, and he shoved the key in place, turned over the engine and began the trek down the hill. “I’m fine.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  Ugh. Her tone was so much sharper than she wanted it to be. He just didn’t understand that she knew what it was like to lose the man she had loved. She didn’t want to do it again. And Zach was—

  Wait a minute, had she just thought of Zach as the man she loved?

  Oh, Lord. Please, no.

  But her prayer was too little too late. She should have been guarding her heart. Instead, it felt like she’d just stepped on it.

  Rubbing at the ache in her chest, she hunched over in her seat. What was she thinking? Falling in love with her husband was the worst thing she could do.

  Especially since he didn’t love her back.

  He never had, and he never would. He was taking care of her and Cody because he felt responsible for them. There was nothing more to it than that. Yet, he’d wormed his way beneath her skin and into her very soul. He’d made himself indispensable, the linchpin in her life she’d never even known she needed.

  No. No. No.

  A whole-body shiver crashed through her, as though she could shake off the truth.

  It didn’t work. There was a light in her chest that was just for him. It flickered like a candle in a Montana blizzard, but it refused to be extinguished. It refused to dim, refused to do anything but attest to the love that had thawed her heart.

  After the pain of losing Aaron, she’d assumed she couldn’t possibly fall in love again. But it had been two years, and this love—this strange light inside—had very little to do with Aaron and everything to do with the man sitting at her side. The one who cared for her and her son not like he had to, but like he wanted to. The one who seemed to know just when to reach for her hand. The one who continued to put himself in danger to save them.

  She gasped at the memory that flashed across her mind’s eye of Zach jumping onto the hood of the car. He’d tumbled, and she’d been able to think only one thing. This was so much worse than it looked.

  And then he went and proved her point. He reached for her hand and laced their fingers together. Like he intrinsically knew that she needed to feel his warmth and be reminded that he was safe and whole and not—hopefully—permanently injured.

  Without looking away from the horizon, he said in a quiet voice, “Cracked rib and a bruised hamstring. I’ll heal.”

  “Are you serious? You say that like it’s nothing.” Frustrated, she jerked away from his touch. Didn’t he know that it was safe to open up to her? Didn’t he trust her to take care of him like she trusted him? Didn’t he care how she felt? “Why do you always have to be such a tough guy? Why can’t you ever just decide to get it checked out? I mean, you refused to spend a night in the hospital when you got shot, for crying out loud. Shot!”

  He was silent for a very long moment, and
both of his hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.

  She felt a stab of guilt for adding to his stress when he was already injured. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I hate seeing you in pain. I hate that you keep putting yourself in danger.” It was too familiar. Too much like the pregnant clerk whom Aaron had stepped in front of at that convenience store.

  But could it be that that courage, that willingness to sacrifice his safety to protect someone else, had been one of the reasons she loved Aaron? One of the reasons it had been so easy to fall for Zach, too?

  Still, could it hurt for him to show a touch of fear? He ran into every situation headfirst, his decisions instantaneous and always so certain. Maybe if he showed a touch of hesitancy or a moment of consideration, she could believe he was actually concerned about the risk of dying and leaving behind her and Cody.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” He ground the words. “But that’s not going to change. That’s not who I am. I’m not… I’m not that guy.”

  For a split second she thought maybe he’d been about to compare himself to Aaron. But why would he? Zach had never promised her a future or a real marriage or anything beyond Cody’s surgery. Because he didn’t want any of those things.

  Did he?

  The words dried up, so they sat in silence as the car bumped down the road, onto the interstate and most of the way home.

  Thirty minutes away from the house, a shrill ring echoed through the car. It beeped and honked, and Zach swung his gaze on her. “Is that your phone?”

  “No.”

  But his gaze dropped to her purse at her feet, and she recognized the noise was definitely coming from that direction. Grabbing her tote, she dug through all of the effects moms were required to carry. A packet of tissues, toys to distract little boys and bandages for scuffed knees. Finally her hand wrapped around her phone.

  It was silent, its screen blank.

  But the shrieking continued. And finally, realization struck. Her stomach dropped. Tears gushed into her eyes.

  “It’s not my phone. It’s the phone.” With blurry eyes, she fumbled to open the zipper to the secret pocket in her bag.