"You were about two words short of giving the whole thing away, you know that, Zeke?"
Without breaking stride Anton Zeekowsky looked down at Peter Quincy, his best friend and VP of public relations, as they followed a sunny corridor to his office.
"Sorry."
"Sorry? We've been preparing the launch of Z-Zap for nearly a year. A year — and you almost gave it away to that reporter. You're a loose cannon. God, I wish I could stash you on a deserted island for the next few weeks. I wonder if Elba's available."
What else could Zeke say, besides he was sorry? I forgot? He didn't think that would go over any better, though chances were good that Quince, who'd been his college roommate, knew that's exactly what had happened.
Zeke's mind had been on the future. Working on new problems, new challenges. He simply forgot Z-Zap was still a secret. It seemed a long time ago that he'd had the idea that became Z-Zap. And, to be totally honest, he wasn't interested in the project anymore. It was done, solved, completed. No more challenge.
He especially wasn't interested in the launch. Which Quince also knew and also didn't want to hear.
"Can you slow down, Zeke? We already worked out today." Quince heaved a gusty breath as Zeke slowed his pace. "Next time I'm going to work for a boss who's not six-five."
Zeke chuckled. Quince was six foot himself, and besides, he'd always worked with him. Always would.
That thought triggered a vague memory. What was it his assistant had said about Quince? Something about Zeke paying attention to his VP for public relations' job satisfaction or he'd be without a VP for public relations. Brenda was often right about things like that, as she never let him forget, but Quince would never leave. Still...
"I am sorry about the interview," Zeke said.
"I know."
Quince had worked hard on the interview's setup, then had unceremoniously yanked Zeke away and passed the reporter over to Vanessa Irish, Zeke's partner. Vanessa was brilliant with organization and finances, not to mention a heck of a lot easier to look at, but for some reason reporters wanted to talk to him. All Zeke wanted to do was work on the next puzzle.
"If I screwed up and let it slip about Z-Zap, there'll be another launch for you to orchestrate. Isn't Z-Pix coming out...uh, soon?"
"October tenth, Zeke. October tenth." The way Quince said it, Zeke knew he'd been told before. Quince continued,
"And there'll be more after that. So many that I'm exhausted.
I wish you had a hobby or something so you couldn't be so damned productive."
Quince sighed again, this one so deep and heartfelt, that Zeke was reminded of Brenda's warning.
Zeke frowned as they turned into his office suite. Brenda immediately stood and began spouting messages while she and Quince trailed him into his office.
"...and the last item is from your hometown —"
"Throw it out."
"But —"
"From his hometown? What is it?" Quince asked. His promotion antenna practically quivering, he took the paper from Brenda.
"An invitation —" she started.
"To yet another reunion," Zeke cut in. "Come on back to good old Drago High and relive those wonderful days when you were a geeky outsider ridiculed by the student body. No thanks."
"Doesn't your mother still live in Drago?" Quince asked absently.
"Yeah. I can't pry her away. At least not permanently. She'll visit, but just when I think I've persuaded her to move here, she announces it's time to go back."
"He always makes her come here for visits, never goes home to see her," Brenda volunteered.
"Thank you, Brenda," Zeke said with his best sarcasm.
"You can go now."
She shrugged, but didn't budge. "This isn't an invitation to a reunion." Quince said, studying the page.
"Then route it to the foundation."
"It's not hitting you up for a donation, either. They're inviting you to be Grand Marshal of the Drago Lilac Festival parade, head judge of the Drago Lilac Queen pageant and guest of honor at the Drago Lilac Festival dance. Got a few lilacs in Drago?"
That sweet, spicy scent. Spring of senior year, standing a block away from the parade route, well back from the crowds along the curb waving at the bands and clowns and floats. Something had drawn Zeke there, though he would not stand at the curb and gawk with the rest of them. He'd leaned against a tree, separate from the parade and the crowd.
And then came the float he'd been waiting for — the one with the Lilac Queen and her court. There were pale purple and white flowers everywhere — he thought he could smell them even from this distance. A flash of hair gleaming in the sun, faces smiling, hands waving. Then it was gone.
Abruptly, Zeke realized he hadn't answered Quince. Brenda was watching him with interest.
Quince was looking at the letter. "It's signed by Darcie Barrett — Do you know her?"
Zeke felt a tug at his mouth. Darcie, sitting across the chemistry lab table from him, grinning as she recited that poem — again — until he was about to go nuts.
"Darcie was a friend." The only person in Drago he'd ever thought of that way.
"Kept in touch?" Quince asked.
Zeke turned away, and picked up the mail Brenda had opened. "No. She left town, too. She must have let them use her name for this festival."
"How about Jennifer Truesdale?" Quince asked, shaking the letter. "She signed along with Darcie Barrett. It says they're co-chairs of —"
Zeke didn't look up. "You mean Jennifer Truesdale Stenner."
"It just says Jennifer Truesdale."
He snatched the paper from Quince. "Let me see that." Quince let it go willingly. Zeke was aware of him moving to the computer, bringing a large flat-panel screen on the wall to life, but his attention was on the paper.
There it was, printed in black on white: Jennifer Truesdale. No Stenner cluttering up the end.
Jennifer Truesdale had dumped Eric Stenner? The couple of Drago High had split up? She was available?
Anton Zeekowsky, founder and owner of a technology company that not only had weathered the dot-com bust but had come out of it stronger, couldn't form any other coherent thought. Zeke's brain short-circuited the way it had in high school at the mention of Jennifer Truesdale when a glimpse of her long blond hair and pouty lips could put him out of commission for days.
"So, where is Drago?" Quince demanded, looking at a map of Illinois on the wall screen.
"Southwest of Chicago," Zeke answered automatically.
"West of Kankakee, east of Peoria."
"And this Jennifer Truesdale?"
"Nobody."
Brenda harrumphed, hands on hips. "No matter who she is, what you should be looking at is the other letter that came in the envelope. It's from your mother. Asking you — begging you — to accept the invitation and finally come home for a visit. How you can treat that sweet woman this way, I will never understand."
Before he could defend himself by reminding Brenda that he brought his mother here to visit as often as she would come, provided her with as many conveniences as she would accept and called twice weekly, Quince crowed from behind him.
Zeke turned and saw that Quince had zoomed in on the dot on the map that was Drago, Illinois.
"I think we just found your Elba, Zeke." * * * "Keep your hands up!"
"Officer —"
"Be quiet. Now, back up toward me. Slow...slow..." Darcie Barrett eyed the figure inching backward across the parking lot of the long-closed D-Shop discount store. Broad shoulders tapered to narrow hips. A one-on-one tussle might be a struggle if this guy was in as good shape as he appeared to be. So she'd make sure it didn't come to that.
Especially since she really should have waited for backup. The driver had responded promptly to her patrol car's flashing lights by pulling into the empty parking lot — the dark, empty parking lot. That might indicate this wasn't the armed and dangerous kidnapper, last seen driving a sporty red or orange import car, possibly headed west on Illinois Route 285. But if this was the car the APB had come in about...
Maybe this guy thought he could pull something. Or talk his way around her. All the while, a little girl could be terrified or hurt, and this could be the scumball who knew where. Maybe even in the car.
That thought had motivated Darcie to act quickly. She'd given the dispatcher her location and the plate to run — as soon as the computers came back up.And then she'd started the drill to get the guy out of his car and under her control. Slowly. Giving her backup time to get here, because she was no hero.
She stayed behind her open car door, both for protection and so she could give chase faster if he dove back into his car and tried to make a run for it.
"Okay. That's far enough. Get on the ground. Face down." He looked over his shoulder, squinting hard against the glare of her headlights. The effort twisted his face into a grimace exaggerated by the harsh lights and drastic shadows. Why was he looking at her? Was he checking to see if she was alone? "Officer, if you would —"
"On the ground! Now! Don't turn around!"
He'd started to turn more fully toward her. She sighted her gun on him.
Maybe he saw that from the corner of his eye, because he turned away from her and lowered himself to the ground without another word.
"Spread your legs and put your arms out straight."
He complied.
She heard a siren coming nearer. The sound dipped, meaning the car was going under the railroad viaduct at Main Street. Another three blocks.
She should wait. Just a couple more minutes.
What if that little girl didn't have a couple more minutes? She eased out from behind the car door and moved quickly to his side, pulling out the cuffs as she put one knee to his back. He grunted.
"Hands behind your back — now!"
She slapped the cuffs on him — one, two — and checked them. Then she breathed. The siren cut off as her backup pulled in front of the suspect's car to box it in.
"Okay, get up." She tugged at the cuffs, then backed away so she could keep the gun on him without being so close he could knock it away. "On the car — no, face the car."
"Got him," Benny said from off to her left.
"I'm going to pat you down," she told the driver. "Do you have anything in your pockets I should know about? A gun? Anything sharp? A needle?"
"Officer, if you would tell me —"
"Do you have anything in —"
"No."
She patted the front jeans pockets over narrow hips, found nothing more than a key ring and nothing in the waistband.
Around to the back — a very firm back — where she pulled out a wallet and put it on the trunk. Down the legs and around the ankles. Nothing.
Darcie was starting to get a strange feeling about this man. Another car came into the lot and stopped. The door opened and she could hear the radio squawking.
"Okay, turn around."
A part of her she'd thought had sunk into permanent hibernation noticed that the front was as good as the back. He was tall — a good six inches above her five-ten — and had the kind of face where even with part of it in deep shadow, you could see the bones had been put together well.
"Darcie!" Sarge called from the newly arrived car. "This isn't the guy. They got him and the kid at a motel out on I-55. The kid's okay."
Continues...
Excerpted from What Are Friends For?by Patricia McLinn Copyright © 2006 by Patricia McLinn. Excerpted by permission.
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