by Sara Rosett
“It is rather...far-fetched, but if it’s the truth—”
“Of course, I never was able to fully weigh the pros and cons of that course of action because they were going to kill me.”
Zoe looked at him doubtfully.
“Zoe,” Jack spun her toward him and gripped her upper arms. “They were going to kill me. Kill me.” His hands tightened on her arms, emphasizing his words. “Not rough me up a bit and walk away. I was their job. Their assignment. I heard it all while I had my face planted in the carpet under Sharon’s desk while they argued.”
Zoe stared at him, processing his words. Finally, she said, “But you got away.”
“Yes.” He released her, and they walked again. “Barely,” he said, his hand moving to his side.
“And the two guys...what happened with them?” Zoe edged away slightly. She didn’t know this man. It wasn’t only his physical appearance that had changed. Under the stubble and the weird clothes, he had a hard edge, an intensity that she’d never seen. He’d always been focused, especially when he was working business deals, but his manner then seemed mild compared to the single-minded concentration radiating off him now.
“Don’t look at me like that. They were breathing when I left. Unconscious, but breathing.”
“I only ask because there was no one else there when I found Connor,” she said, slowing her pace.
He glanced at her quickly, frowning...with concern? Zoe wasn’t sure about his expression. “You found him?”
“The next morning. I went by the office to tell him and Sharon about you—that you were missing. At first glance, every thing looked normal—aside from Connor, that is.”
“Sorry you saw that,” Jack said quietly.
“Sharon was there almost as soon as I found him.”
“Odd that they’d tidy up,” Jack said. “They didn’t seem the type.”
Zoe wasn’t too interested in what the men did. They could have waxed the floor for all she cared. “So after you left the office, you what? Decided to disappear? Make it look as if you were dead?”
“It was the only thing I could think of. They weren’t leaving Dallas with me alive—that was clear from their conversation. They’d already used my gun to kill Connor. It had my fingerprints on it. And there was the money—I saw the transfer into my account before I found Connor.”
“You own a gun?” Zoe said incredulously and so loudly that several people on the sidewalk gave them curious looks. She’d told the police he didn’t own a gun. It was the one thing that she’d been so sure of, but now that seemed like a long time ago.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t I ever see it?”
“I kept it in a safe place. It just never came up.”
Zoe stared at him a few seconds, then blinked. “Okay,” she said, drawing out the syllables. “Forget the gun for now. Let’s get back to your disappearance. Your ‘death’ wouldn’t fool them—or the police—forever.” Zoe glanced back involuntarily as they followed the curve of the sidewalk and joined the procession of tourists moving up and down The Strip. No blazer people.
“No, but it protected you. If I’d gone home...”
She gave him a long look. “Really. You did it all for me? The whole disappearing act was to protect me?”
He gave her a small smile in concession to her mocking tone. “And it bought me time, which is what I needed to clear up any...misunderstanding, shall we say, that the police might have about my involvement in Connor’s death. I suspected that I wouldn’t have the freedom of movement to figure out what Connor had gotten into if I went to the police.”
“So you’re going to figure out why someone—not you—killed Connor and present it to the police in a tidy package. They’ll appreciate that.”
“Something like that.”
Zoe felt the back of her neck prickle and looked over her shoulder. The crowds swirled around them.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. I just had that weird feeling someone was staring at me,” she said as she scanned the sea of faces behind them.
“There’s thousands of people here,” Jack said, wearily.
“There,” Zoe said, her gaze locking with a man in a silver sedan a few feet behind them. “The guy in the silver car.” He was driving, creeping slowly as he exited The Venetian in their wake. There was something about the intensity of his gaze that made her walk faster. “Why is he driving so slowly?” Zoe asked. There weren’t any cars in front of the silver car. “Do you think he’s hotel security?”
Jack glanced at her, then over his shoulder. A screech cut through the air, then the deep rumble of an engine. He peeled out, Zoe thought, her mind moving much faster than her body. She felt Jack, who still had a firm grip on her arm, yank her to the other side of the white waist-high pylons that studded the sidewalk. They stumbled and fell in a tangle of limbs. Jack’s breath hissed out. An explosive crash sounded, seemingly inches behind them.
Zoe disengaged herself from Jack and looked behind them. The car’s grill was squashed into a pylon, which was almost horizontal. Fluids dripped out of the engine, sending up hisses of steam as they hit the hot pavement. The airbags had deployed and Zoe couldn’t see the driver.
Jack used his elbow to roll into a sitting position then stood up, pulling Zoe with him. His sunglasses were gone. They’d skittered across the sidewalk. She reached out to pick them up. “Leave them,” he said, as people closed in around them.
“Are you okay?”
“Should we call an ambulance?”
“Lord, almighty. Did you see that? He must be drunk as a skunk.”
Jack pushed through the people, waving off their questions and offers of help. “We’re fine. No harm done,” he said, cutting a quick glance over his shoulder as they shoved through the crowds, moving north toward the Treasure Island Casino.
“Speak for yourself,” Zoe said, checking the raw, pink skin on her elbow.
“You’re fine,” Jack said. “I know. I broke your fall.”
“Well, my elbow is on fire.”
“I’m sure it’s less painful than being flattened like that pylon. Come on. The driver is on his feet.”
“What?” The driver, a short man carrying a little too much weight for his size with thin black hair, cut close to his head, was scanning the crowd, squinting his dark eyes in an intent way, as if he were hunting for something. Zoe spun away from him. “Let’s go.”
The outdoor pirate show at Treasure Island was in full swing.
Jack gripped her hand as they melted into the throng. They threaded their way through the tourists and emerged on the far side of the crowd. Jack walked faster, but maintained his slouchy stride as they hurried along the street that ran at a right angle to The Strip. They hurried along, passing a huge mall.
Zoe glanced back, but couldn’t tell if the short guy with the scary eyes was following them.
“Is your car parked around here?” he asked.
“Back at the garage in The Venetian,” she said.
“We’ll take mine,” he said as they crossed another street and suddenly they were out of the tourist district. They were in a quiet, industrial area with low warehouses and few cars. No flashing lights, no pressing crowds, no high-rise hotels. Just flat, dusty terrain, a few scraggy palm trees, and the occasional whoosh of cars as they accelerated up a nearby freeway entrance ramp.
Amazing to think that only a few blocks away The Strip vibrated with activity. The sudden quiet was creepy. Jack transferred his grip to her elbow as they scrambled over a set of railroad tracks.
Zoe felt a curl of self-doubt. This was a man she didn’t know. What am I doing, walking away into a deserted area with him? Sure, his story explained what had happened—sort of—but he’d lied to her about so many things, the passports, the money, and...she hadn’t even known he owned a gun.
She twisted her arm, and he let go. He didn’t notice that she’d stopped walking. He continued on to a black hatc
hback. He slipped a set of keys out of his pocket, unlocked the doors, and slid into the driver’s seat. He glanced around and saw her standing behind him. He put one foot on the ground as he leaned out and called back. “You coming?”
“That’s not your car.”
“It is now.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I don’t think we have time for this right now.”
A metal sign a few feet in front of the car pinged and swiveled back and forth as if someone had thumped it. Zoe frowned and looked at it. It read, NO OVERNIGHT PARKING.
There was a hole in the “o” of the word “overnight.” Zoe looked back the way they’d come and saw the short man standing at the railroad tracks, his arm extended, pointing a gun at her.
Chapter Twelve
Las Vegas
Friday, 4:10 p.m.
JACK reached across and opened the passenger door. She dove for the car as the sign vibrated again.
Jack threw the car in reverse as Zoe tumbled into the floorboard, then the car surged forward, and the momentum shut the passenger door with a solid thud. Zoe flailed around, trying to get herself upright and in the seat.
“Stay down.” Jack shoved her shoulder, and she slid back to the floor. She didn’t hear any more shots, but it was hard to hear anything above the engine noise. Jack scrunched down in the seat, his head and shoulders tucked low. She decided the floorboard was an excellent place to be. After a few quick turns, that tossed her around like the abandoned flyers flittering around The Strip in the wind, Jack’s foot pressed down on the accelerator, and he straightened in his seat. The road was smooth, a freeway Zoe saw as she eased into her seat and quickly fastened her seatbelt. “Is he following us?”
“No. He was on foot. I don’t think his car is drivable, so we should be okay,” he said as he passed a truck and slipped neatly in front of it.
Zoe brushed some strands of hair out of her eyes, tucking them behind her ears. “What is going on? Who was he?”
“No idea,” Jack said, his gaze switching quickly from the road to the mirrors and then back to the road. “I didn’t get a good look at him, but my best guess is that he’s one of my friends from the office.”
Maybe because her heart was still racing and her legs felt like she’d just finished a half marathon while he looked like he had nothing more important to do than set the cruise control, his cool response and expressionless face riled her. “How can you be so calm? What is going on? That man was shooting at us, no—at me,” she said, her voice rising. “Why was he shooting at me?”
“Taking your questions in order,” he said as he squinted into the sun at a green billboard listing exits, “I’m rather freaked out myself, but someone has to drive, don’t they?” He flashed her a quick smile. “So I’ll wait until we find a nice quiet rest stop to have a panic attack. Next, I have no idea what’s going on. And last, he shot at you, presumably, because you were with me. He couldn’t get a clear shot at me.”
Zoe gave him a long look, trying to assess if that comment about panic attack was a dig, but he seemed to be more concerned about who was on the road with them, than about shooting verbal barbs at her. He’d always been a reserved person. Early on, his very closed-off nature had been a bit of a turn-on for her. It was a challenge, breaking through that reticence. She flushed, remembering a few times when “reticent” would be the last word she would have picked to describe him. But there were only a few times like that. More often than not, he’d been emotionally shut away from her, locked in his own world. But there was something about that smile that he’d flung so casually at her, something unguarded and vulnerable in his face—something that she hadn’t seen in a long time. She gave herself a mental shake. That smile of his was dangerous. She’d fallen for that smile before and look where it had landed her: squarely in a murder and fraud investigation, not to mention the fact that someone was shooting at her. And what was she doing...thinking about his smile right now?
She turned sideways to face him. “So you’re as confused as I am?” He opened his mouth, but Zoe continued, “Because I’m pretty confused, Jack. Let’s start with my first hint that you’ve been lying to me: cousin Eddie—not a cousin and not a guy, by the way—why did you let me think that?”
“There are certain...things about me that you don’t know.” He switched on the blinker and moved to the exit ramp. Zoe noticed that when he reached up to adjust the rearview mirror, his hand trembled slightly.
She was glad to see he wasn’t completely unfazed by everything that had happened. “I arrived at that conclusion all by myself.” Jack winced. “Why don’t you fill me in on these...things?”
“I can’t,” he said. “I would have liked to have told you before, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Confidentiality agreement.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “You expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth,” he said, mildly as he guided the car into a busy eight-lane road lined with a mix of big box stores, low-slung shopping centers, and apartment complexes.
“So leading me to believe that Eddie was a man was part of the confidentiality agreement—that must be one specific document.”
“I didn’t lead you to believe anything. I mentioned the name and you assumed it was a guy,” Jack said.
“That’s still deception.”
“Omission,” he countered.
Zoe shook her head impatiently. “Okay, forget that. She is not your cousin. She says she doesn’t even know you.”
“She’s not my cousin,” Jack said.
“So what is she? An old girlfriend? And why did she lie to me?”
“Careful, it almost sounds as if you’re jealous.”
Zoe’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t care what she was...or is...to you. All I care about is that you lied to me about her and she lied to me. I want the truth. I want to know what is going on—what have you got me involved in, Jack? Or should I say Brian?”
His reaction was barely perceptible. He continued the smooth movement of his hands on the steering wheel, but she saw the tightening around the corners of his eyes. He stopped at a red light and swiveled toward Zoe, his arm angled over the steering wheel. “Look, Zoe, there are some things I can’t explain. I can’t tell you why I lied to you. Eddie lied to you because I told her to tell anyone who asked that she didn’t know me. She’s an old friend from work.”
“From your boring pharmaceutical sales job or your boring government job?”
“The government job.”
“I can’t quite picture it—you and Eddie talking over the cubicle walls, running out for a sandwich, and chipping in for the monthly birthday cake.”
“How do you know that’s what office workers do? You’ve never worked in an office.”
“You forget, I have Helen. And I did work in a claims department one summer.”
The light changed and Jack focused on the road. “I bet that didn’t last long,” he said, a shadow of a smile crossing his face.
“Fifty-four days. I couldn’t stand it,” Zoe said.
“Exactly how I felt. Of course, I stuck it out quite a bit longer than you.”
“I’m sure you did. So you know Eddie from...where exactly was it again?”
“Policy and Plans Division.”
“God, just the name makes me want to yawn,” Zoe said, and he grinned, but when he didn’t say anything else, Zoe waved her hand in a circular motion. “Go on.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “You want to know more about policy and plans? So few do. It can be quite fascinating, if you look at the big picture—”
“Eddie. More about Eddie,” Zoe said, sharply.
“Oh, Eddie. Well, we worked together. I quit and moved back to Georgia. We kept in touch sporadically.”
Zoe frowned. “I don’t remember anything like that—not even a Christmas card from her.”
Jack shrugged one shoulder. “Through e-mail. She got married and moved to Ve
gas. Her family owns the glass store. So when I came out here the first time, I went by to say hello. I introduced her to Connor later. It was when he and I went to one of those business expos.”
“And she’s the supplier for the paperweights you give to clients.”
“Yes. Connor insisted, you remember that.”
“Yes, I do,” she murmured. Zoe had been involved peripherally in a few business discussions early on in their marriage. She remembered how Connor swore that the paperweights were exactly right for the business to giveaway to clients—“a signature item that was unique and memorable.” Zoe hadn’t really seen it that way. She’d suggested something more cutting-edge because GRS was a green technology company. Connor had insisted, and Jack had said he didn’t care. Jack had been more concerned about developing business contacts and wrangling appointments with CEOs to pitch their services.
Zoe waved her hand as if swishing away the paperweight tangent they were on. “So she sells glass.”
“Murano glass,” Jack qualified. “It’s quite sought-after.”
“I don’t care if she sells diamonds. You went to her when you were in trouble.”
“Yes,” Jack said simply.
Zoe raised her eyebrows.
“More? Okay. Well, she was an old friend. I knew I could trust her, and she happened to live in the same city where Connor still had an apartment.”
Zoe frowned. “Connor has an apartment? Here? In Vegas? But he has a house in Dallas. He never said anything about living here.”
“Apparently, there were quite a few things he never said anything about.”
“And that’s where we’re going now?” she asked, noticing that in the space of a few miles the neighborhood had deteriorated. Aging, low-slung strip malls spotted with graffiti and gang tags lined the road. “That’s your plan? I know you have one. You’ve always got one.”
As they passed a small residential area of tired ranchers with patchy grass and dirt yards, Jack said, “You’re right. It’s not much, so I’m open to any other suggestions you might have, other than impulsively running in a random direction.”