Jennifer Crusie Bundle (14 page)

Anthony considered Zack for a moment. “All right. If it's all right with Lucy.”

“All right,” Lucy said after a moment and went upstairs to phone her principal.

“What are you doing?” Anthony asked when she was gone, and for once Zack was serious when he answered.

“I'm scared for her. You should have seen her at the hospital. She was absolutely rocked. I just want to keep her safe until we get this guy. We've got to pretty soon. We're close. I just want to keep her safe.”

“There's something else,” Anthony said. “I spent most of the afternoon on the phone to Beulah Ridge, Pennsylvania, trying to catch people while they were home. I talked to a couple of people who knew both Bradleys.”

“And?”

“And John Bradley was the school's golden boy until he got caught one too many times stealing and cheating. The strange thing was, even while people were talking about how bad he was, there was admiration in their voices. And they said, every one of them, that the one person who stuck by John Bradley through thick and thin, no matter what he did, was—”

“Let me guess.”

“Right. Lucy's Bradley.” He held up a hand when Zack opened his mouth. “Sorry. Bradley Porter. Seems like there wasn't much to Bradley Porter except for straight A's and the cleanest locker in the school. All the excitement he had, he got from hanging around with John Bradley. Hero worship.”

“That was twenty years ago.”

“Bradley Porter invited him to his wedding.”

Zack straightened so quickly that he almost fell off the love seat. “What?”

“Bianca Bergman Bradley found the invitation and set out about two weeks ago to track him here. The Bergmans called this morning. They haven't heard from her since Thursday. Her description matched the shooting victim. We told them about her, and they're on their way now.”

Zack sat down on the loveseat, totally confused. “The blonde in the hospital can't be Bianca Bradley. She's Bradley Porter's girlfriend. Lucy ID'd her.”

“Maybe she's both.”

“How?” Zack almost snarled the question. “How could she be? She was in California until two weeks ago.”

Anthony ignored him. “You know, if John Bradley came here to hide with Bradley Porter, a lot of things that didn't fit suddenly make sense. John Bradley embezzles the money in California and escapes from the cops, his homicidal in-laws, and his shrew of a wife. That part I could understand. But then I could never figure out why he'd come here to Riverbend. Let's face it, we're not the Paris of the Midwest. But if he's got an old friend here who has always done anything he wanted, that part falls into place, too. He calls Bradley Porter. Bradley gets him a room in Overlook using the name of their old home town as an alias.”

“What about the bonds?” Zack said.

“John Bradley hands over the bonds to Bradley Porter for safekeeping. After all, he'd have to be a fool to keep them in Overlook. Those people will kill you for your socks, let alone a million and a half. Then Bianca shows up and calls you to put the pressure on him, and he shoots her.”

“Right. How did she get my number?”

“She called the station and asked who was handling the Bradley case. They'd give her either you or me.”

Zack leaned back against the loveseat, scowling. “So how did Lucy get involved? Because Bradley Porter hid the bonds in this house?” He shook his head. “We really combed this place. Unless he took up the floor-boards, the bonds aren't here.”

“Well, something is.” Anthony stood to go. “It's possible that Bradley Porter doesn't even know about it. The desk clerk never saw him, so he may still be just an innocent bystander, helping out an old high-school friend.”

Zack shook his head. “Bradley Porter is involved. I know it.”

Anthony checked his watch and started for the door. “Well, just in case, you take care of Lucy. And don't assume because she sits there and blinks that she's okay.”

“Oh, you picked up on the blink, too, did you?” Zack followed him to the door. “You're spending too much time with her. And what's this about telling her about the concussion? What else did you tell her?”

“Nothing important. I'm going home to salvage what's left of my Sunday. Give my love to Lucy.”

“No,” Zack said, and Anthony laughed as he went out the door.

“T
HERE'S JUST SOMETHING
about it that just doesn't make sense,” Lucy told Zack later while she watched him chop onions at the big old porcelain sink in her kitchen. “This whole master-criminal thing. Especially this thing with you and Bradley pitting your wits against each other. Bradley never pitted a wit in his life.”

“Maybe he just hid that side of himself from you.” Zack picked up the cutting board and moved to the old white stove next to Lucy, where a cast-iron pan full of hamburger was simmering. He dumped the onions into the pan with the hamburger. “Face it, you weren't close.”

“We weren't,” Lucy agreed. “Bradley's a very…closed person, I guess. I thought he would relax after we were married, but he didn't. And after a while, I didn't try very hard to open him up. I had the house and the dogs, and that was enough.” She picked up a wooden spoon and stirred the hamburger to keep it from sticking. “I should have tried harder.”

“Why?” Zack took the spoon from her. “He's a rat who possibly tried to murder his girlfriend. That's like Mrs. Bluebeard saying ‘I just didn't give enough.”'

“I suppose.” Lucy felt herself growing depressed again. She opened a blue enameled cupboard door, took down the chili powder, and handed it to him. Then she changed the subject. “Wait until Anthony hears you can cook.”

“Forget Anthony,” Zack said.

T
HEY ATE DINNER IN THE
dining room in the soft amber light of the stained-glass lamp over Lucy's big oak dining-room table. They talked about his family and hers and about their jobs, moving in front of the fire to the love seat with their coffee when dinner was done. The hours passed, and they lost all track of time, sitting and laughing in the firelight. The only interruptions were two phone calls, both hang-ups that made Zack uneasy. He didn't discuss them with Lucy, and he made a conscious effort not to talk about either one of the Bradleys or the case, and he watched while all the tension drained out of her, and she smiled and laughed with him.

Maybe when this was all over, maybe then he could call her. Maybe they could go out, or just stay in and laugh.

Maybe when this mess was out of the way, and she was over Bradley, they could make love.

Maybe even fall in love.

It was a terrible thought because it appealed to him so much.

Falling in love meant commitment. Commitment meant marriage. Marriage meant responsibility and adulthood, which led to loss of instincts and old age and death. Or at least children.

Einstein poked his cold, wet nose at Zack's hand.

And dogs.

He looked around him, at the big old warm house, and the three dogs that were draped comfortably over his legs and snuggled next to Lucy, and most of all he looked at Lucy.

He'd be a fool to fall for her. She was a forever kind of woman, and his idea of forever was a three-day weekend.

Lucy looked up and caught him staring at her.

“Zack?” Her eyes were huge in the firelight, and her lips were soft and full, and without thinking, helpless with wanting her, he bent and kissed her.

L
ucy's lips parted a little, and then she kissed him, too, moving gently against his mouth, leaning into him so slightly that he sensed rather than felt her and went dizzy at the sensation.

And he wanted to pull her close more than he'd ever wanted anything. She was soft and warm and the best place he'd ever been, but he had to get away. If he didn't get away, he'd do something stupid like make love to her, and then when he'd leave—and he would because he always left—she'd be unhappy. He'd be worse for her than Bradley had been.

The thought of hurting her cooled him down considerably.

“Sorry.” He drew back. “I'm really sorry. Very unprofessional of me. I'm really sorry. Really.”

Lucy looked lost.

“Uh, excuse me.” He gently tipped Maxwell and Heisenberg off his legs and got up. “I better check in with Tony. I'll use the upstairs phone.”

“Oh.” Lucy bit her lip. “This late? It must be after ten.”

Zack checked his watch as he edged away. “Twelve, actually. But he won't care.” Then he escaped to use the phone while Lucy sat with the dogs and hugged herself in front of the fire.

“G
ET ME OUT OF HERE
,” Zack said when Anthony answered the phone on the sixth ring. He stood in the hall, stretching the phone cord to peer nervously over the banister into the faint glow cast by the fireplace below.

“Zack?” Anthony mumbled, half asleep. “Are you in trouble? Where are you?”

“Lucy's. Get me a replacement. Now.” Zack thought for a moment. “Just not Junior.”

“What are you talking about? It's the middle of the night.”

“It is not.” Zack dropped into a chair on the landing. “It isn't even one yet. Wake up.”

“I am awake. But I'm not coming to get you just because you've decided you don't like the company.”

“That's not the problem.” Zack pressed his hand to his forehead. “I'm crazy about the company. I'm having immoral thoughts about the company. At any moment, I'm going to start making my move on the company, and then I will be in trouble. Get me out of here before I do something to make this permanent.”

“Go take a cold shower,” Anthony said. “Better yet, grow up. Learn to control your baser instincts.”

Zack looked over the banister again to make sure that Lucy hadn't come within earshot. “Listen,” he said, lowering his voice. “She runs around in this white thing that's big enough to roof Riverfront Stadium, and she still drives me crazy. A cold shower is not going to do it.”

“She has green hair, too,” Anthony said. “I meant to ask, did she do that on purpose?”

“Will you please concentrate?” Zack took a deep breath. “I'm serious here. I'm too young to be married. Married is for old guys.”

“Married? Zack, you've only been there two days. Get a grip. You're hysterical.”

“Listen to me. Lucy is not the kind of woman who plays around. Lucy is the kind of woman who gets married. And I want her, but I don't want to get married. And I don't want to hurt her.”

“Good. I don't want you to hurt her, either. I like her.”

“Forget it. You'd be worse for her than I am.”

“Zack…”

“If you really like her, you'll get me out of here. Think what a lousy husband I'd make.”

“Zack…”

“Tony, get me some backup and get me out of here, or I will end up the stepfather of three dogs.”

“Worse things could happen.”

“Get me out of here,”
Zack said.

“No,” Anthony said and hung up.

“Hey!” Zack said to the dead phone, so loud that the dogs came up the stairs to see what was wrong, their toenails clicking like castanets.

“Zack?” Lucy called up from the living room.

“Nothing,” Zack called back. “It's nothing.” He looked down at the dogs. “If you have any loyalty to your mother, you will bite me if I get within two feet of her.”

Einstein leaned against his leg, Maxwell stared into space, and Heisenberg rolled over on his back.

“You guys have got to get a new routine.” He left them, calling back, “Dead dog,” when Heisenberg refused to roll over. “I'm going to take a shower. I'll see you in the morning,” he yelled down to Lucy, and then all but ran for the bathroom.

“Zack?” she called after him, but he slammed the bathroom door behind him to shut her out.

And in the morning, I'm gone,
he thought.
Because if I don't leave in the morning, I will never leave, and I'll end up remodeling this house, and telling Heisenberg “Dead dog” twenty times a day, and making love with Lucy until I die.

He stopped, nailed by the thought.

“Cold water,” he said, and stripped off his clothes.

W
ELL, THAT'S THAT
,
Lucy thought, settling back in front of the fire. He kissed her once and then he ran up the stairs to get away from her.

She couldn't possibly be that bad a kisser.

It must be that she wasn't his type. He probably went for really exciting women. Women who wore black lace and had long, thick, blond hair.

As opposed to, say, dry, fuzzy, curly, green hair.

Could hair as bad as hers send a man running up a flight of stairs?

“It's not the hair,” she told the dogs who had padded down to rejoin her when Zack shut them out of the bathroom. “It's me. I'm dull and unemotional. I should have jumped him when he kissed me, but did I? No. I was too polite.”

She let her head fall back against the love seat.

“Maybe this is all just fallout from the car blowing up,” she told the dogs. “You know, that ‘You're never more alive than when you're on the edge of death' thing people are always talking about. Except, even with the car bomb and everything else, I still find it hard to believe somebody's trying to kill me. Which would seem to mean it's not the edge of death that's getting me into trouble here. It's the edge of Zack.”

She considered what Tina had said. “Be irresponsible.” She should just go right up those stairs and climb into bed with him and seduce him until he was witless.

Except she wasn't sure how.

She thought about it for a while, trying to figure out how black lace nightgowns and champagne and all the other classic stuff would fit with Zack's cheerful eroticism. Zack would probably prefer somebody who just crawled into his bed naked.

She couldn't do that.

And then there was her hair.

Forget it.

She sighed and called the dogs to go upstairs to bed.

A
FTER A NIGHT OF
frustrating fantasies about a fully-clothed Lucy, Zack came downstairs planning to tell Lucy he was leaving right after breakfast. Then the phone rang, and he answered it, and the caller hung up.

“I don't like that,” he told Lucy as she came down the stairs. “That makes me nervous.”

“Everything makes you nervous.” Lucy moved past him to the kitchen. “You are a walking exposed nerve.”

“Hey, I can be calm.” Zack followed her to the kitchen, wanting to be with her. “I'm steady.”

“Well, I've got to admit I'm amazed you've stayed in one place this long. I thought you'd be out the door by now.”

Zack froze in the doorway. “Oh? Why?”

Lucy opened the refrigerator and took out an egg carton and the milk. “I thought you'd get bored. I had no idea you had this much staying power. And I want you to know, I appreciate it.” She nudged the refrigerator door shut with her hip and smiled at him. “I'm not really scared. But I appreciate it anyway. What do you want to make for breakfast? Eggs or French toast?”

Zack looked into her calm, open, trusting face. She needed him. “Eggs. We can have leftover chili for lunch.”

T
HE PROBLEM WAS
, there wasn't anything for him to do all day but look at Lucy and fantasize. He still couldn't see her naked, but it almost didn't matter.

Anthony was out checking prowler reports for Lucy's neighborhood, calling Pennsylvania again, and running credit-card checks to see if either one of the Bradleys was dumb enough to use his Visa card while he was on the lam. Even Junior was probably arresting jaywalkers. Only he was stuck baby-sitting three dogs and a marrying kind of woman he couldn't imagine naked.

He needed to do something with his hands. Fast. Before he put them all over her.

“You know, this kitchen tile is really ugly,” he said, kicking at the gray speckled stuff as Lucy put the breakfast dishes away. “I wonder what's underneath it?”

“I don't know,” Lucy said. “It's on my list of things to—Hey!”

As she spoke, the floor had slipped under her feet and she fell against the cupboard. When she turned, Zack was holding the edge of her kitchen floor in one hand, waist high, like a bedsheet.

“I don't believe this. The idiots put tile squares over sheet flooring. What dummies.” He looked under it to see what was left on the floor and missed Lucy's glare.

“Zack, put my floor down,” she said, but he didn't hear her.

“Come on,” he said, dropping it finally. “Water got under here and the whole thing's loose. Let's move the table and chairs out of here and peel this up. There's wood under there!”

“Of course, there's wood under there,” Lucy began, but he was already pulling the table toward the door.

“Pick up your end. We're going to have to turn it sideways.”

Lucy sighed and obeyed. She was going to have to do the floor anyway sooner or later, and at least it kept him out of trouble.

And with her.

He might even kiss her again, and if he did, she was going to pounce this time. No more shrinking violet.

As long as he made the first move.

“Okay, tilt it to the right,” Zack said, and Lucy obediently tilted the table.

Maybe if she wore her old tight jeans. He seemed impressed with them that day on the basement stairs.

Would that be fair?

Did she care?

“Come on,” Zack said, and she followed him with the table through the door into the dining room.

“Listen,” she said as they put the table down, “if we're going to do messy stuff, I'm changing into my jeans.”

A
NTHONY CALLED, AND
Z
ACK
took it in the living room, sinking into one of the oversoft chairs and moving his arm so Maxwell could climb into his lap.

“Glad you called. I want a phone tap,” Zack said. “Somebody is calling and hanging up every time I answer.”

“Sounds like a jealous ex-husband. You may want to watch your back. Mrs. Dover reported another prowler. If it's Bradley Porter, and he's the one running around with the .38, he uses it.”

“Just so he doesn't use it on Lucy. She insists that he's not violent, by the way.” Zack idly scratched Maxwell's ears. “Anything new on the car bomb?”

“I've got the final report here. Very neat. Plastic explosive, timer set on a five-minute delay, controlled damage. Professional job. And our Bradley—John Bradley—was in the Navy. Very tidy.”

“If this case is so tidy, why are we still so lost?”

“Speak for yourself,” Anthony said. “I'm pursuing the investigation with my usual cold, clean logic. What are you doing?”

“Ripping up Lucy's kitchen floor.”

“With your teeth? Well, at least you're calmer than you were last night. What happened, anyway?”

Lucy came down the stairs and walked by wearing her jeans. She smiled at Zack before she went into the kitchen.

He had a sudden vision of her naked.

“Oh,
hell.
”

“What?”

“You know that fantasizing problem I was having?”

“Is this the ‘Lucy naked' part?”

“Right. Well, I'm not having that problem anymore.”

“Oh.”

“I'm having other problems.”

“Try a cold shower.”

“There's not enough water in Riverbend.” Zack stood, dumping Maxwell off his lap, and craned his neck to try to see through the dining room into the kitchen. “I'm relying on self-control and maturity.”

“I'd be worried,” Anthony said, “but I know Lucy can defend herself. How's your lip?”

“Great. I have to go now. You wouldn't believe how tight this woman's jeans are.”

“Zack?” Anthony's voice was suddenly serious. “You know, it's not a great idea to seduce a woman you're protecting. All kidding aside, do you want me to send Matthews over?”