Up in Flames (6 page)

Zane’s office was still taped off the next morning, but that didn’t stop Carl Reznick from calling his cell phone to find out if he would have a crew back at work on his property today. Zane assured him he would. Sitting in a borrowed truck, surveying the vacant parking lot of Natural Designs, he hoped he wasn’t lying.

He’d barely hung up when the phone rang again. He glanced at the caller ID with a sinking feeling. “Hello, Annie.”

“Hi, Zane.” He could already hear the regret in her voice. “I, uh, can’t make it in today.”

“That’s okay, they still aren’t letting us get in the office.”

“Oh. That’s good. I mean, it’s not, but, um . . . Zane, Paul doesn’t want me to go back to work.”

“I see.”

“I would, but . . .”

“Maybe when things get back to normal.”

“Yes.” It came out on a relieved breath. “It’s just that with a killer around, he’s worried about my safety.”

Worried about her working for a killer, more like it. “I understand.”

“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

“You do that.”

“Zane, you, uh, you take care, okay?”

“I will. Thanks, Annie.” He ended the call, swore, and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. How many more call-offs would he get today?

He had an answer fifteen minutes later. Hooter arrived, polished off his breakfast McMuffin, and started loading supplies into the pickup. Cory and Manny were no-shows. Zane considered calling them, but figured there was no point. If they weren’t here by now, they weren’t coming. And if they were trying to avoid being part of a police investigation, it wouldn’t work. They’d had access to the yard, and the police would check them out anyway. For their sake, he hoped they had nothing to hide.

He bit back more swear words and grabbed a pair of work gloves. “Looks like it’s just you and me today, Hooter.”

“You sure about that?”

Zane looked up, following Hooter’s nod toward the parking lot in time to see Sophie’s red Wrangler pull up. He watched as she slammed the driver’s door and strolled toward the yard, tugging her ponytail through the back of the pink John Deere cap as she walked.

Damn it, didn’t she understand the meaning of
no
?

She stopped in front of him, pulling on her ridiculous pink gloves as she took a pointed look around the quiet yard. “Sorry I’m late, boss. Where do you want me to start?”

Her determination might have softened him if she was truly being supportive, but her reasons for wanting to work were purely selfish. “Sophie, I’m not changing my mind.” Even though he was tempted to. She didn’t seem to have an agenda like she’d had ten years ago, and she wasn’t using him for anything other than what she’d said—a way to make money. He couldn’t blame her for that.

But he also couldn’t take advantage of her naiveté. “This could get uglier than anything you’ve seen before.”

Her hands stilled with only one glove on. Her chin came up and something glittered, diamond sharp, in her eyes. “You wanna bet?”

He remembered then. The scandal that had nearly destroyed her sister Maggie’s life two years ago. He wasn’t sure of the details, but remembered that Sophie had been dragged into it somehow, her schoolwork threatened by the same rumors that had trashed Maggie’s reputation. She and Zoe had stood by Maggie, unflinching in the face of scathing tabloid lies and local gossip. She might have been sheltered when he first knew her, but not after that summer two years ago. She’d had personal experience with vicious rumors.

Still. “This will be worse, Sophie. I’m not talking about people whispering behind your back, or laughing at you. I’m talking about fear and disgust. About having doors slammed in your face because of who and what you’re associated with.”

“Really? Did you tell Hooter that?”

He frowned, unable to say what he was thinking aloud, that Hooter didn’t have a good reputation to lose. Thankfully, Hooter offered his own explanation. “I’m a man, sugar. Anyone disrespects me, they pay for it.”

She flicked a glance at Hooter, then raised an eyebrow at Zane, waiting for a more intelligent argument. He didn’t have one.

“Come on, I thought you wanted to make things tough for me, Zane.”

“Not like this.” The words came out gruff and low, because he hated to admit it. But no one deserved the kind of hate the Thorsons aroused.

She cocked a hip and gave a loud sigh of impatience. “Look, I don’t see a lot of guys lining up to work here, and I know you’ve got at least one contract on the line, but if you can’t finish it, you aren’t likely to get more. There goes your business, and take it from me, unemployment sucks. Now, do you want help or not?”

It was the one argument he couldn’t counter, and it was a crucial one. He’d scraped and struggled for years to make his business work, and he couldn’t throw it away now just to shield her from rumors. Especially not when she wasn’t the least bit grateful for that consideration.

He nodded curtly. “Okay, you’re hired.” A grin lit her face like a sunbeam, but he refused to return it. “Help Hooter load the slate tiles.”

“In a minute. There’s one more thing.”

“What, do you want me to paint the flatbed pink? The answer’s no.”

She didn’t smile, and she stepped closer, lowering her voice enough that Hooter wouldn’t hear. “I want to know why you told me not to dig in that field.”

Finally. He’d wondered when she was going to ask. “You think I didn’t want you to find the body I buried there?”

She gave him a sour look. “If I did, I would have told the police, and I wouldn’t be here right now.”

It made sense, and eased a tightness in his chest that he hadn’t realized was due to that uncertainty. What she thought had mattered. He considered it a failing and didn’t need to let her know about it, so he kept his face expressionless. “I was preparing it for planting some young trees this fall so I won’t have to buy so much from outside sources.”

She nodded. “Okay, thanks.”

He wasn’t about to show the tiny flare of gratitude he felt simply because she believed him. “Get to work.”

She did, hustling into action, her pert ponytail swinging like a pendulum. He watched, reminding himself that she was here because she needed a job. Not because she cared. Lack of money trumped everything else, even associating with a possible killer. He should be grateful that fear wasn’t as terrifying for her as it apparently was for Annie’s husband.

Afraid or not, he would have to watch out for Sophie. He hadn’t voiced his most important concern, that being near him might put her in contact with a killer. Someone had buried a body in his gated and locked equipment yard rather than dumping it in the vast wilderness of the surrounding mountains. Why?

There was only one possible answer—because if it was discovered, suspicion would be focused on Zane. Otherwise police might look harder for a suspect. This way, the obvious one was standing right in front of them.

It had to be someone local, someone who knew the abrasive relationship the cops had with anyone named Thorson. Someone who’d found a way to sneak onto his property, or to be there without arousing suspicion.

Possibly someone who worked for him.

Would the killer avoid work in order to distance himself from the crime? Zane tried to imagine Cory, brash and cocky, losing control with a girl and becoming violent. Or Manny, quiet, married, but possibly hiding a violent urge to hurt women.

Or would the killer stick close, coming to work so he could watch the investigation at the crime scene, or to see if they questioned Zane again. He shot a look at Hooter. The man overflowed with ego and an obvious lack of respect for women. He was big and powerful, and short-tempered enough to be dangerous.

Zane shook off the suspicion that ate at the corners of his mind. This was what other people did to
him
, judging him based on circumstance rather than facts. He couldn’t do the same thing.

Nevertheless, he would keep a close eye on Sophie at the job site. And on Hooter. They would never be alone together.

Sophie hated the feeling of being babysat, and wasn’t sure why Zane was so zealous about it. Did he think she would sneak off and search his potted trees for hidden evidence? Steal tools? Pick a fight with Hooter?

That last one might actually be fun if she could get a well-placed knee in before he pulverized her. She was pretty sure he wanted to. She caught his sneering looks a couple of times, as if she was sticking close to Zane on purpose, like a toddler hanging on to her mother’s skirts while sticking her tongue out at the bullies.

It wasn’t her fault Zane wouldn’t leave her, but at least they were getting along. When “Pass me the tile cutter” had become too boring, she’d started asking him about Natural Designs, and how he’d started the business. She’d been secretly dying to know, since the man she’d turned her back on ten years ago had been a grease monkey with no ambition.

It evolved into a normal conversation, their first in ten years. Talking about his accomplishments, Zane seemed to forget to hate her. He told her about saving his money until he could afford to buy the used front-end loader, then how he had picked up the odd landscaping job with other contractors until he knew enough to start his own business.

“I had no idea you wanted to go into landscaping,” she said as she leaned forward on her hands and knees, troweling a sandy mixture between the tiles.

He took a mallet to the line he’d cut in a slab of stone, splitting it in two. “You thought I’d work at that gas station forever?”

She colored and didn’t look up, hoping he couldn’t see it. She
had
thought that. “You never mentioned landscaping. Your plans were pretty vague.”

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Just that I needed to do something I could take pride in.”

She remembered he’d said something to that effect, which had sounded like no plan at all compared to the detailed, career-oriented path she’d been on. Even before getting to college, she’d known every class she would take over the next four years, every scholarship she would apply for, and was weighing what area she would concentrate on for her master’s thesis. Compared to her, Zane had been drifting through life with no goals.

She didn’t want to remind him of that. “Who’d you work with on this project?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who did the design work?”

“I did.”

She lowered the trowel and sat back on her heels, looking at him in amazement. “You created all this?” She waved her hand to encompass the entire backyard of the Reznick estate with its terraced patios, outdoor kitchen, gazebo, and pool.

His gaze followed her gesture, and she saw the quiet pride in his eyes that he’d never say aloud. “Yes.” He looked down at the tile in his hand, and appeared to concentrate on brushing away invisible specks. Without looking at her, he asked, “What do you think of it?”

He’d tried to toss it off as a careless question, but it sounded awkward. Touched by his unexpected vulnerability, she smiled. He saw it, a flash of worry jumping into his glance, and she hurried to say, “It’s amazing, Zane. Absolutely stunning. But you must know that.”

“I like it,” he said simply, looking around again. Satisfied.

“I can’t believe you learned to do all this without any formal training. You didn’t even take classes in landscape architecture?”

His expression darkened, and she watched in confusion as all the joy and pride she’d seen disappeared. “Still measuring people’s worth by their level of education, Dr. Larkin? It’s possible to accomplish something without a college degree, you know.”

Furious heat rushed to her cheeks, anger mixed with embarrassment. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Yes, you did. You’ve always thought being accomplished required holding an advanced degree in something. Better yet, in three things.”

She couldn’t deny it. She’d been raised by a bunch of highly educated hippies who used their degrees in agriculture, marketing, and a half dozen other disciplines to create a commune that had not only succeeded, but excelled. They practiced a simple formula—success required the proper preparation, and preparation meant learning a subject inside and out. A love of formal education came as naturally to her as breathing. She’d never questioned it.