Authors: Kay Hooper
“Can I go through your pockets now?” she asked politely.
Zach replaced everything in the purse, then
drew out his wallet and tossed it to her in silence.
She was obviously surprised, but that didn’t stop her from opening the wallet and looking through it. She, too, ignored cash for other things. She found several credit cards—including two major ones authorized to Zach but in the name of a company she recognized, partly because it was constantly in the news.
“Long Enterprises.” She looked at him quickly. “Joshua Long’s company? You work for him?”
Zach made a silent mental note to tell Josh he was getting too damned well-known outside business circles—as if he hadn’t always been famous. Or infamous. “Yes. But I’m presently on vacation.”
After a moment Teddy went back to examining the wallet. A New York driver’s license. Social Security card. A permit to carry a concealed weapon. Identification naming Zach as a security consultant. A donor card. No photos.
Teddy closed the wallet and tossed it back to
him. Detached, she said, “We both know any of this stuff could have been faked. So where did it get us?”
“I believe you were just passing through,” he told her.
She was curious. “What convinced you?”
“I think it was the dog leash.”
Teddy blinked. “Oh. And what am I supposed to believe?”
Zach looked at her and quite suddenly wished they were in another place at another time. “Whatever you want to believe, I guess.”
She finished her coffee in silence and set the cup aside, trying to read his bland, hard face. It was impossible. His expression was unnerving—but not frightening. Not really. She felt peculiarly safe with this stranger.
“How long?” she asked abruptly. “You must have some idea.”
“A week, if we’re lucky.”
“And if we aren’t?”
“Then it’ll be longer.”
Teddy drew a soft breath. “And if I told you
that my sister is expecting a call tomorrow to let her know I’m all right?”
“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely.
She bit her lip. “Look, my sister is five months pregnant, and she’s miscarried twice. She knows the car isn’t—wasn’t—running too well. If I don’t let her know I’m okay, she’s going to worry.”
Zach gazed into those pleading eyes and wished for the second time that they were somewhere else. After a moment he sighed himself. “I’ll think of something. For now, why don’t you get some sleep?”
“I’m not sleepy.”
He sat back and sipped his coffee, watching her.
Teddy stirred restlessly. In a tone of foreboding she said, “If you’re the strong and silent type, we’re in trouble. I’m a talker. Silence drives me crazy.” She stared at him, adding sardonically, “Don’t tell me, loose lips sink ships?”
“Well, they do.” His tone was mild. “As it
happens, though, I just don’t have anything to say.”
“The situation’s getting worse. All right, accepting—not that I do—the fact that we’re not going to discuss what you’re doing here, there must be some safe topic. Ummm … let’s talk about your famous employer. Or is he involved in this thing you’re doing? No, you wouldn’t answer that, would—”
“He’s not involved,” Zach interrupted firmly. “I told you, I’m on vacation.”
“Then let’s talk about him.” Teddy clasped her arms around her upraised knees and leaned back against the wall. “The press has been going hot and heavy for months over the possibility that Long has gotten involved with that island dictator. They seem to think he’s about to invest in President Sereno’s country.”
Zach remained impassive.
Teddy eyed him. “We’re not going to talk about that?”
“I’m not.”
“It violates national security, I suppose?”
He said nothing.
With a sigh Teddy said, “You’re worse than a clam. What
can
we talk about? The weather requires no discussion, and things like politics drive me nuts. What does a security consultant do?” she asked abruptly.
Zach shrugged. “Consults. Checks out security systems, designs and installs them, solves security problems.”
“You do that for Long Enterprises?”
“Yes.”
Her gaze wandered around the room, focusing on the computer. “You work with computers?”
“Yes.”
“I mean,
really
work with them? Program them and stuff like that?”
“Yes.”
Quite suddenly, Teddy snatched up her empty plastic coffee cup and threw it at him. Zach deflected the missile with the quick instinctive reflexes of a fighter and stared at her stormy face in surprise.
“Did I miss something?” he asked dryly.
Her only response to the question was a deepening of her glare. “A clam. You’d make a lousy talk-show guest, you know that? One-word answers. Instruct the witness to answer just yes or no, please, Your Honor. We don’t want to waste the court’s time.”
Zach, who had never gone in much for small talk or social conversation, shrugged somewhat helplessly. “Sorry.”
Teddy rested her forehead on her upraised knees, and her voice emerged muffled. “I can see this is going to be a
long
incarceration.”
She awoke to faint jingling sounds and sat up, rubbing her eyes sleepily and blinking away the morning dryness of her contact lenses. When she could focus, she saw Zach unbuckling a tool belt from around his waist, and watched while he sat down and began removing spiked boots from both feet.
“Have you been climbing telephone poles?”
she asked in a voice still thick with sleep. It was then that she realized he’d been out of the cabin and that she could have escaped. Her disappointment was mild, which surprised her.
“You wanted to let your sister know you were all right,” he reminded her, hanging his coat on a peg by the door and going over to sit before the computer.
Teddy pushed away the blankets, wondering if he had covered her and removed her boots after she’d fallen asleep; she couldn’t even remember falling asleep. “Yes, but there’s no phone. Is there?”
“Next best thing,” he murmured, turning on the computer.
She got to her feet, stretching, and padded over to stand beside him. She was only partially awake but was still able to understand what he was doing. Access codes. He was using a connection to the phone lines to communicate with another computer. Teddy opened her mouth to comment, then decided there was no earthly
reason why this large man should know the extent of her own knowledge.
“What’re you doing?”
“Leaving a message,” he answered absently, still typing.
“My sister doesn’t have a computer.”
“Long Enterprises does.”
A
GLEAMING HIGH-RISE
in New York City housed the “home base” of Long Enterprises, and the entire fifteenth floor contained what was, in essence, the technological brain of the organization. Every room and office held a computer console, each tied to the central database that Zach Steele had designed. Every worker could request data from the central bank, but various security systems and access codes prevented anyone from gaining access to anything restricted without the proper permission.
And only those with top clearance could use computers to call “outside” the system through the telephone lines and via a modem—a practice that even with every precaution taken could leave the system open to tampering.
Lucas Kendrick, as chief investigator for the company, was one of the few with a top clearance, and he sat now in his office, yawning and drinking coffee, while he watched the blank screen of his humming console. His silvery blond hair bore the appearance of having had fingers run through it several times, and his blue eyes, though sharp, were also a bit sleepy.
It was just before eight
A.M
. New York time, on a mild Tuesday morning.
“Anything?” Rafferty Lewis came in and rested a hip on the corner of Lucas’s desk, holding a cup of coffee and, like Lucas, looking as if he’d been awakened rudely and before he was ready to face the day.
“Nothing yet.” Lucas checked his watch. “Should be coming through shortly, though.”
“Any idea where he is?” Rafferty asked him, impatiently brushing back a lock of coppery hair that insisted on falling over his forehead.
Lucas shook his head. “I only know what I told you over the phone. Tracy was working in the central computer room as usual last night, and she called me because when she checked the mainframe, there was a message flag. Zach wanted me to stand by this morning, leaving my console online.” His voice was low and curiously compelling, a voice that could charm the devil out of hell.
“I don’t suppose we could trace the call?” Rafferty’s lazy voice successfully hid the fact that he was one of Harvard Law School’s more brilliant graduates—something various courtroom opponents had discovered at their cost.
“From Zach? No way. He’ll probably have the call routed through so many dead ends that we wouldn’t be able to trace it if we had a month.”
Rafferty looked at his friend thoughtfully.
“Is that why you called me? Because he’s covering his tracks?”
“Something’s up. And I have this hollow feeling that it has to do with our federal nemesis.”
“Hagen?” Rafferty frowned. “We haven’t heard from him in months, not since Kadeira.”
Lucas grunted. “Want to bet he’s found some
assignment
that just cries out for a man of Zach’s vast talents?”
“I wouldn’t waste my money. I do wonder how he managed to convince Zach, though. Josh and Raven won’t be back for another week, right?” He waited for the nod. “I’ll call Sarah a little later and see if she can find out anything. She’s the only one of us in a position to get quick information, since she still works for him.”
Lucas looked up at him; he seemed especially solemn. “How’s the mother-to-be doing? Is she still serving you crackers in bed every morning?”
“Shut up,” Rafferty told him politely, but he
took a hasty sip of coffee as if to ward off nausea. Then, aggrievedly, he added, “I don’t care if it
is
a common phenomenon, I could sure do without it. Sarah bounds out of bed looking radiant every morning and eats anything she wants, and I walk around looking like a corpse.”
Lucas eyed him. “Uh-huh.”
There was no opportunity for Rafferty to retort, since the computer beeped just then, demanding attention.
“It’s coming through now,” Lucas said, humor fleeing.
Rafferty leaned forward to watch the screen, serious as well. “About time.”
Teddy was hardly aware her forearm was resting on Zach’s broad shoulder as she leaned forward to watch intently. Never very appearance-conscious, she was unconcerned that she had slept in her clothes, that her hair hadn’t been brushed this morning, and that she
wore no makeup. And if she’d been told that she looked glorious this morning, she would have been amused and disbelieving.
Zach had almost said as much to her. After the first contact well before dawn, Zach had waited to give Lucas time to get to the computer in New York. He had been silent, Teddy had been half asleep, so they had said very little to each other.
Now they could get a message through. She spelled her sister’s married name for him and watched the silent conversation on the screen continue, commenting only, “Isn’t it illegal to use language like that through the telephone lines?”
Trying to ignore her nearness and the elusive scent that reminded him of a mountain meadow in spring, he said, “Lucas isn’t happy with me, I’m afraid.”
“Obviously.” She watched a moment longer. “ ‘Just because the boss is in Canada’—who’s the boss? Long?”
“Um.” Zach quickly typed a response to Lucas’s reprimand.
“Have permission, do you?” Teddy murmured, watching words appear on the screen. Then she added, “I don’t think your friend is buying that.”
Zach typed a final decisive sentence, then turned the computer off before Lucas could berate him anymore.
“Will he deliver the message to Jennifer?” Teddy asked, straightening as she abruptly reminded herself this man was still wearing a gun.
“He’ll deliver it. And he has the charm to reassure her that you’re fine.”
Teddy hastily removed her arm from his shoulder. “Oh. Good.” She looked around, spotting a narrow door at the back of the cabin. “That wouldn’t happen to be a bathroom, would it?”
“It would, such as it is.”
She went to check out the room, looking
around the doorjamb a moment later to say resignedly, “There’s no shower or tub.”
“Sorry. There’s a stream not too far away.”
Teddy looked at him with the obvious horror of a city girl asked to do the unthinkable. “You mean you bathe in a freezing mountain stream?”
“Sure.”
She shivered elaborately, muttered, “No way,” and vanished back into the tiny room, closing the door behind her.
Zach wasn’t worried she’d escape; there was no window in there. Besides, he had a feeling he could leave the front door wide open and she wouldn’t try to get away. Not in her current mood, at any rate. She had fallen asleep last night with the suddenness of a child and slept deeply until morning. An unconscious sign of trust, he thought. And she had certainly accepted him to the extent of leaning on him companionably for long minutes while watching him work at the computer.
It had been unconscious, and he had
shrewdly noted the moment she’d become aware of her action and had somewhat hastily withdrawn from that closeness. Zach looked down at the large hands resting on either side of the keyboard, and his jaw tightened.
With a movement that was almost savage, he turned the computer back on. Useless, he thought, to wish again they’d met in another place and time. And useless to hope this entire situation turned out happily for all concerned.
Zach didn’t believe in fairy-tale endings.
He was busy working at the console when she came out of the bathroom to get a few things from her suitcase, so Teddy didn’t disturb him. She dug out a change of clothes, her toothbrush and toilet articles, then returned to the bathroom and did the best she could to freshen up.
Her movements were automatic, and she hardly looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror above the bare porcelain sink. She was
thinking, and since she was surprisingly logical for so emotional a woman, she was listing her conclusions mentally.