Читать книгу The Secret Millionaire - Ryanne Corey - Страница 8

Zack Daniels was an alpha male, from his gleaming ebony hair to the blue-and-white toes of his well-broken-in Reeboks.

He knew this because he watched the Animal Planet channel and was well-informed when it came to the characteristics of a dominant wolf, dog, cheetah, etc. Animal or human, the alpha males were easy to spot. They were driven by their powerful wills, more likely to survive harsh circumstances and always ready for a fight to maintain order in the pack.

True to form, Zack didn’t mind the occasional tussle. In fact, at the moment he was absolutely itching for a fight. He needed to vent.

He knew with total certainty that he was the most frustrated human being in the state of California. And when he drove his platinum silver 2001 Lotus Esprit across the California border into Oregon, he became the most frustrated human being in Oregon, as well. And why?

Because he was on vacation.

Zack could understand why maybe an accountant or an attorney or a loan officer at a bank would look forward to two weeks of vacation. Those poor guys were stuck in their routines day after day, often glued to a desk and forced to deal with tedious things like billing hours, credit reports and balance sheets. And what did they have to show for their labors at the end of the day? Could they look in a secure jail cell and wave to a dangerous criminal they had personally tracked down and apprehended? They could not. And how many distraught damsels in distress did the poor fellows come across in their line of work? Zack would venture to guess: none. Of course they loved their vacations. They looked forward to having a break from the relentless monotony of their lives.

Zack, on the other hand, had a different situation entirely. He was one of the fortunate few who was lucky enough to have a dream job. He was a cop, and he cheerfully danced with danger and unpredictability for the chance to make a difference in the world. And not just a tame waltz, either; he danced a wild tango with his whole heart and soul. He had never believed in doing anything halfway. Granted, he frequently faced risky situations, but on the whole he relished the satisfaction of being a duly sworn-in representative of justice in a world full of bad guys. He hated to sleep, simply because he might miss a chance to protect, serve, defend, nab evildoers and administer justice. He hated to spend an evening at a high-class restaurant, feeling he was somehow failing to do his job if he turned his pager off for two entire hours. But more than anything, Zack hated taking a meaningless vacation from a life that suited him to a T. And right now he was facing an indefinite period of teeth-grinding, nail-biting, migraine-headache boredom.

He had successfully avoided taking a vacation for the past four years. Unfortunately, a short while ago, he and his partner had been ambushed during a drug bust gone bad. “Pappy” Merkley was a powerful black man who looked more like a football player than a cop. Zack had always considered his friend and mentor impervious to harm, but this time Pappy had taken two bullets in the chest. It was nip and tuck for a couple of days, but the fifty-year-old veteran was a fighter. It was a good thing, too, because Zack would have called the Almighty on the carpet had an idealistic, gentle giant like Pappy lost his life because of a slimeball drug dealer. Once Pappy was moved out of the ICU, Zack was eager to administer what he termed “legal payback.”

Zack had many friends who knew him well. Not one of them wanted to be in the same state when he perceived an injustice and lost his temper. His precinct captain, Benjamin Todd, knew very well that it was only a matter of time until his fiercely loyal wunderkind tracked down the shooter and more than likely got himself in hot water. Todd had sentenced him to an open-ended vacation “anywhere out of California” until further notice.

Alpha males occasionally had difficulty relinquishing power to authority figures, and Zack was no exception. He absolutely, positively hated to be frustrated when it came to doing his job…almost as much as he hated taking vacations.

At the moment he was in his ninth hour of vacation and could hardly face the prospect of another minute, let alone an indefinite period of accomplishing absolutely nothing. The heavens had been raining on him since he’d left Los Angeles, doing a smear job on his recently detailed Lotus. To make matters worse, he also had a headache and a sore throat and feared he was coming down with a cold. He wasn’t surprised. His good health seemed to be directly related to the skirmishes he fought in the war against crime. Constant challenge and sweet justice guaranteed high spirits and general well-being. No challenge whatsoever, not to mention a good dose of frustration, translated into sneezes and a cough. True to form, Zack began to pine for dry sheets and a box of tissues. When he sneezed his way into a one-stoplight town called Providence, he decided it was as good a place as any to spend the night.

It was dusk, and the rosy light slanting in from the west did wonderful things for the Lotus’s platinum exterior finish. The exotic, hand-tooled car garnered him quite a bit of attention as he motored down good old “Main Street.” None of his friends or colleagues would have recognized the low-slung sports car he drove, for the simple reason that he kept it hidden in his garage beneath a chamois car cover. Like the rest of the cops he knew, Zack drove a battered economy car with bad tires and too many miles. Anyone who planned on going into law enforcement for the money was doomed to great disappointment and poor transportation.

Though he looked, walked and talked like a cop, Zack had a few secrets he kept with religious fervor. Heaven help him if any of his buddies on the force found out that he had a genius IQ. Though his photographic memory was a tremendous help in his work, he played it down as much as he could. He couldn’t help his intellectual gifts; he’d been born that way. Was it his fault that he had graduated summa cum laude from Berkeley with little effort and even less dedication? No. And so what if he happened to be a member of Mensa? Everyone had skeletons in their closets. Being labeled a genius had been seriously detrimental to his high school social life. He’d been saved from complete humiliation by securing the position of quarterback for the football team, guiding them to a state championship. All brains and no brawn would have made Zack a very dull boy.

At thirty-three, Zack was older and wiser, and by now an old hand at keeping his astonishing intellect under wraps. Still, certain challenges were irresistible to him. During his last year in college, he’d attended an economics lecture wherein the professor compared the chances of success in the stock market with the chances of success at a blackjack table in Vegas. Zack perked right up at the prospect of such an intriguing challenge. Immediately he had begun studying the stock market, quickly learning the ropes and spotting the trends. Initially he invested the small inheritance left to him by his father, and over the next few years created a fine bear market for himself. Simply put, he had become filthy rich. Not a soul on earth besides his banker and lawyer knew about his jaw-dropping fortune. Zack took great pains to keep it quiet, fearing his colleagues would no longer consider him “one of them” if they knew of his exalted tax bracket. Still, now and again he spoiled himself, as he had done when he’d impulsively purchased the Lotus. The only good thing about his vacation was the opportunity to bring his smoke-colored road rocket out of hiding. There was no denying it; alpha males liked to go fast.

As Zack reined in the growling Lotus at a stoplight, a sign in the lighted window of Appleton’s General Store caught his eye: “Beat the bug! Save money on all supplies for cold-and-flu season!” He pulled into the parking lot, only too happy to call it a night. He was knee-deep in his own personal cold-and-flu season. He could see a motel down the road with an electric-blue vacancy sign. In thirty minutes he would be seriously medicated and off to dreamland. When he awoke, another eight hours of his vacation would be history.

He climbed out of the car, hearing his popping spine protest the length of time he had been sitting in one position. Walking through a curtain of rain, he shook the water off his head like a black Lab fresh from a swim. He wore threadbare jeans frayed white at the knees, a gray T-shirt and an ancient brown leather jacket broken in to the consistency of soft butter. Unless he was called on to testify in court, these were his “work clothes.” It was a happy day when he had been promoted to the rank of detective four years earlier and given permission to shed his barely there marine haircut and ugly-as-sin patrolman’s uniform. Life was sweet, indeed; he had a perpetual green light to chase bad guys and help maintain order in the Los Angeles, California, pack.

Until now. Zack’s vacation instructions from Captain Todd were simple: “Forget work and read a book or something.” As far as Zack was concerned, Todd was a sadist. Still, on the way out of town, he had stopped at a bookstore and picked up a copy of Stephen Hawking’s Universe, a book he would never have bought had he been hanging out with his buddies. Maybe a little light reading would help him pass the time.

The notice on the sliding-glass door told Zack he had only two minutes to find his cold supplies before the store closed. He took off at a slow jog, scanning aisles one through ten before he saw the medicines in aisle eleven. He collected an armful of fine and potent cold remedies, including cough syrup with a very high alcohol content. Meanwhile a young employee mopped the floor around Zack’s sneakers, looking very irritated at the possibility that Zack would be responsible for his shift going thirty seconds overtime.

“Oh, chill out,” Zack growled, sniffing. He was in no mood to be pestered by a pimply faced teenager. “Just tell me where the tissues are, kid.”

“Right behind you,” the clerk muttered, pointing with the handle of his mop. “Any closer and they would have bit you. Could you move it along? I can’t mop the floor if you’re standing on it.”

Obviously, the kid didn’t know who he was dealing with. Zack decided to be difficult, for no other reason than he was miserable and it seemed fair that everyone else in the world should be miserable, too. “I always have a hard time making a decision. On one hand, you’ve got the really soft, puffy kind, but there’s also the kind with the lotion in it. Then you have to decide on one-ply or two-ply. And I pretty much prefer unscented, but that’s sometimes hard to find. It’s a dilemma, you know?”

“There, right in front of you. Second shelf from the top. We’ve got puffy, we’ve got lotion, we’ve got scented and unscented. Okay?”

“I love small towns,” Zack told the clerk with complete insincerity. “They’re so personal. When I retire, I think I’ll come right back here to good ol’ Providence. Live out my golden years basking in the warmth of your old-fashioned hospitality.”

“It’s five past ten,” the clerk pointed out, unimpressed with Zack’s sarcasm. “We’re officially closed. If you want your puffy tissues, you’d better get a move on before they close the registers.”

Zack’s headache was getting worse and he’d left his patience behind in California. “Well, you’re not closing promptly at ten tonight, bud. You know why? Because I want to walk around and make sure I get everything I need. I’m coming down with something, you know. I want to be prepared.”

The clerk glowered at him through his wire-rimmed glasses. “So tell me what you need and I’ll help you find it…fast.”

“That’s the trouble, you know? You never know what you’re forgetting till it’s too late. I’ll just mosey around and see what catches my eye. Maybe a hot-water bottle. Or maybe some herbal tea. And some vitamin C, my mom always said it was good for…my mom always said…holy smoke!”

Something—actually, someone—had caught his eye in a death grip. A woman breezed around the corner in a rush, obviously trying to beat the clock. She was tall, willowy, exotic-looking. Her waist-length hair whipped behind her in a multicolored curtain of honey-brown, ivory and dark gold. Her full-length black leather coat swung open, revealing a cream-colored sweater shot through with white sequins. Her jeans were black, her sexy, high-heeled leather boots a startling shade of cranberry red. Zack liked a woman who wore leather. Unfortunately, those very sexy boots were a poor choice for recently mopped linoleum.

Zack gleefully realized he was going to be called on to be heroic. He loved to be heroic. Everything happened at once. Her left boot started to skid. Her eyes met his, wide, startled and helpless. Those eyes were the clearest, brightest, most unusual shade of crystalline blue he had ever seen, fringed with outrageously long lashes. The light-diffused, shimmering color was a heart-stopping contrast to the rich summer tan gilding her flawless skin. Zack had to mentally slap himself to switch to hero mode, dropping his medical supplies and happily holding out his arms to catch the fragrant, feminine bundle that toppled into them.

She was a bit heavier than she looked, but he managed. For a wonderful moment he had her full weight, holding her high enough that her heels kicked above the slippery floor. He enjoyed it immensely.

“This is a really nice store,” he commented, winking at the startled clerk. Suddenly the kid wasn’t bothering him so much.

The young woman in his arms rolled her eyes, one of her heels connecting painfully with his shin. “Oh, dear,” she said innocently when he winced. “I’m terribly sorry. If you don’t mind, it would be best if you put me down before I accidentally kick you again.”

“I do mind,” Zack sighed. He could only hold her in the protective arms of the law for so long. “But I will put you down, because you asked politely and you’re wearing very sharp heels. Feisty little thing, aren’t you?”

Reluctantly he relinquished his hold. Her boots hit the ground walking. Just like that. He’d been dismissed.

“What?” Zack asked the back of her leather coat. “No thanks? No introduction? No love at first sight?”

She looked over her shoulder, fluttering her long lashes at him. He swore he could feel a breeze. “You’re sort of cute, but I’m afraid you’re a little cocky. Thanks for your help. Goodbye.”

“Shot down,” the clerk said, watching her round the corner and disappear.

Zack sighed, nodding sadly. “In flames.”

“I’ve never seen her in here before,” the clerk went on in a slightly dazed tone, no longer quite so upset at working late. “I guess I would have remembered if I had. Boy, was she hot.”

Zack stared him down with cool gray eyes, the same look he used on punk teenagers with an attitude. “Down, boy. Back to your mopping. Look here, someone has broken a bottle of cough syrup all over the floor. That’s too bad.”

“I’ll never get out of here,” the kid grumbled. “Hey, man, what’s that on your shirt? You’ve got her watch or something caught on your button.”

Zack looked down his nose at the middle of his chest. There was indeed a delicate silver chain dangling there; the clasp was caught in the loose thread from a button. “It’s not a watch,” he said, more to himself than the clerk. Carefully he untangled the almost weightless piece of jewelry from the front placket of his shirt. “It’s a bracelet. Her initials are on the clasp…H.S. I wonder what they stand for.”

“Heather,” the clerk said promptly, his attention caught despite the heavy burden of working overtime. “She looks like a Heather to me. Hey, you want me to take her bracelet up front? I can have her paged.”

“I can handle it.” Zack, holding the beautiful bracelet up to the light, began to smile. He’d completely forgotten about his cold. His symptoms had magically disappeared. He’d also forgotten about his vacation. Suddenly he had a fine new challenge, and the anticipation gave him a second wind. He actually laughed out loud, then took off in pursuit.

Unfortunately, the sweet-smelling lady in leather had vanished. He checked each and every aisle, then jogged up to the front where a big-haired girl with white-frosted lips waited in front of a register. Zack had a killer smile. One of his former lady friends had once described it as a nuclear weapon. He used it now for all he was worth. “Hello, there. I know you’re closing now, but I wondered if you could do me a little favor?”

She didn’t even consider it. “It’s past ten. My register is closed.”

Zack stared at her, taken aback. Apparently the nuclear weapon had been a dud. This had never happened before. “Look, I need to talk to one of your customers. A young woman wearing a long, black leather coat. Have you seen her?”

The girl nodded, snapping her gum. “Yeah. She asked me where the rest rooms were.”

“And you told her…?”

She opened her eyes wide. “Duh. I told her where they were.”

Zack stopped being charming and reverted to cop mode. “Look, lady, the sooner you start cooperating, the sooner you can leave. Where are the damned…the rest rooms?”

Her colorless, Casper the Ghost lips pouted. “Fine. Go to the double swinging doors at the rear of the store. Take your first door to the left and go down the stairs. You’ll see the signs. Hustle, will you? I’ve got a date tonight.”

Poor guy, Zack thought, sketching her a mocking salute.

Truth be told, he was surprised at his own determination to track down a woman who clearly wasn’t interested in being tracked down. He simply wasn’t accustomed to being dismissed by an attractive woman. It wasn’t so much that he was an egotist, he’d simply learned long ago to expect and receive special treatment from the ladies. He didn’t know if it was the cop thing or what, but women usually found him kind of appealing. Most women, anyway.

He did have his pride to consider. He had no intention of following the lovely lady into the women’s rest room. That would look too desperate, not to mention somewhat indecent. Still, there was no law about waiting for her in the vicinity. After all, he was a Good Samaritan trying to do her a favor. His motives were almost selfless.

Smiling to himself, he followed the cashier’s directions, going to the back offices of the store and through the double doors marked with an Employees Only notice, then opening the stairwell door. It was a heavy fire door, made of dull gray steel and posted with a No Exit sign. Another sign below this read, Authorized Personnel Only. Below that, Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted to the Full Extent of the Law. Zack decided this was the least friendly store he had ever patronized.

Other than a single yellow lightbulb swinging from the ceiling, the hallway was in shadows. His face split with a grin, Zack squatted and looked at the sliver of light beneath the door of the women’s rest room. He wasn’t a detective for nothing, no sir. Now all he had to do was hurry up the stairs, station himself by the door of many signs and gallantly return her bracelet. She would have no choice but to introduce herself. He didn’t know why it was so important that he know her name, but it was. His extraordinary intellect, combined with years of detective work, had left him with amazing powers of observation and recall. She had been wearing large, glittering earrings, obviously paste, but still nice. On close inspection her black coat was not leather at all, but a less-expensive imitation. Besides the thin silver chain around her wrist, she’d also worn a chunky men’s digital watch, an inexpensive Timex if he wasn’t mistaken. Most important, she had not been wearing a wedding ring. If he remembered accurately, she’d had a ring on every finger, with the single exception of her ring finger. It was a very important finger.

He heard the doorknob to the women’s room rattle a bit, and quickly loped up the stairs three at a time. He didn’t want to scare her by waiting in the hallway like some stalker. He’d go back into the well-lit storeroom and…and…

He tried the fire door a second time, with more force.

It was locked.

He winced as he heard her come out into the hallway. He was caught like a rabbit in a snare. This was going to severely affect his dignity. He remained rooted to the spot, hot blood burning his cheeks as he listened to the click, click, click of her heels moving down the hallway.

“Excuse me?” said a curious voice from the bottom of the stairs. “What are you doing up there?”

Zack’s forehead thumped loudly against the steel door. “Me? Oh, I’m just being perplexed.”

“Perplexed? Is there a problem? I know you’re closing soon. I’m sorry if I delayed you.”

Clearly she had mistaken him for someone who worked there. He wished he did; it would have made his explanation so much easier. He took a deep breath and slowly turned around, grateful the shadows hid the telltale wildfire in his face. “Hello, there. Fancy seeing you here.”

“You?” she asked, her eyebrows narrowing suspiciously. “What is this? Are you following me or what?”

“You should have your ego looked at. I think it’s swollen.” Zack had learned long ago to improvise with the best of them. It was one of his survival tools when working undercover. Feigning injured innocence, he pulled her bracelet from his pocket, swinging it from his fingers like a pendulum. “You left this tangled up with one of my buttons when you fell into my arms. I was simply trying to return it to you. Sorry, but no ulterior motives. You’re sort of cute, but you’re a little cocky.”

Now it was her turn to blush. “Oh. I suppose I jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

“Like a kangaroo.” Biting back a smile, Zack tossed her the bracelet, and she caught it in midair with a neat flick of her wrist. “Nice catch,” he murmured appreciatively. He loved a woman with good hand-eye coordination.

“Thank you,” she muttered, fastening the bracelet on her wrist. “This bracelet has tremendous sentimental value to me. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d lost it.”

“No problem.” Unfortunately, the words reminded Zack there was, in fact, a major problem. Once again he tried to open the door. He tried it again. Finally he slammed his hip against the stubborn metal. “Ouch. That’ll leave a mark. Listen, I hate to tell you this, but it seems we’re locked in.”

“What?” an alarmed voice directly behind him asked. “Locked in? As in locked in? We can’t get out?”

Zack jumped, unaware that she had come up the stairs. He looked over his shoulder, feeling the jolt of her stabbing blue eyes a mere twelve inches from his. Even in the shadows, they seemed an intensely brilliant source of light. Her skin was golden, her generous lips stained wetly with a rich cinnamon gloss. This was the sort of woman who could give a sought-after ladies’ man a run for his money…so to speak.

“We can’t get out,” Zack confirmed hoarsely, trying not to stare at that full-bloom rosebud mouth. “Not till they come and find us, at any rate.”

“Are you kidding me? Tell me you’re kidding me.” Then, a full octave higher, “We’re trapped?”

“Think positively,” Zack encouraged. “We’re not so much trapped as we are very, very secure.”

“I’m claustrophobic!” she yelped, losing her cool. She pushed past him, jerking on the handle with both hands and nearly knocking Zack off the steps in the process. “I can’t deal with this, I tell you. I have to know I can get out of places I go into. If I feel trapped, sometimes I…sometimes I panic and…”

“And what?” Zack asked warily, looking at her dilated pupils. “Oh-oh. You don’t look so good. Sometimes you what?”

“I…do…this,” she muttered weakly. And for the second time in less than ten minutes, she collapsed into Zack’s waiting arms.