Maybe. Probably.
“Well, he didn’t retire,” Zach clipped out.
Flint’s hard expression changed almost imperceptibly. “I know, and I’m sorry. I really am. Your dad and I were rivals, but it was a friendly rivalry. I had a lot of respect for the guy.”
Zach nodded tersely. Every single thing Flint said was true. He knew it. Flint knew it. It didn’t make it hurt any less. But more to the point, his dad was gone, and as painful as that was—too painful to stand here casually discussing with Flint—it changed everything.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Flint said. “In your enthusiastic inexperience, you’re going to run what’s left of Fred’s business into the ground. And then you’ll end up going back to being an accountant for some high-powered firm, just like your dad wanted. Only instead of having a nice little nest egg for your mother and sister, you’ll be shit out of luck because this is my last offer.”
“You already said that.”
Flint looked genuinely baffled. “I don’t get it. You’re a smart guy. An educated guy. No one’s going to offer you more. No one’s going to offer you anything.”
Zach struggled with himself. Maybe he was being too impulsive, too sentimental about this. Flint was right about no one offering more. In fact, the real question was why did Flint want their client list so badly when his was the more successful firm?
He let out a long breath, straightened his shoulders. “Okay. Listen. Our new client advanced us enough to see us through the next couple of months. I want my shot at running this business. I got my PI license before Pop died. It’s something I’ve been thinking of for a long time. So if in three months, you’re still interested—”
“What new client?”
“What does it matter? We have a client.”
Flint stared at him. “Alton Beacher?”
“I’m not at liberty—”
Flint gave a disbelieving laugh. “Are you nuts?”
Zach’s heart sank. Flint’s tone was not the tone of someone regretting he hadn’t landed a lucrative contract. And so much for Beacher’s story of coming up with his preposterous scenario while eavesdropping in the front lobby. It was pretty clear from the expression on Flint’s face that Beacher had tried to run the same crazy idea past him.
He said defensively, “It’s twelve grand in the bank.”
Flint’s lip curled. “Yeah? Well, you come cheap.”
Zach felt himself turning red and then white. He was not about to violate his NDA or explain himself to Flint. Not least because that sardonic gleam in Flint’s eyes made it clear he wasn’t buying it. Any of it. And maybe Flint’s reaction was the right one. The normal one. The reaction of someone who wasn’t so desperate they’d do almost anything, even if it was something that went against their own best instincts.
He pulled himself together, said tersely, “Go to hell.”
As he turned and walked away, he could hear Flint laughing behind him.
Chapter Three
“I’d almost forgotten what that stuff looked like,” Brooke joked as Zach replaced the long gone fifty dollars in the petty-cash drawer. “It’s so green when it’s freshly picked!”
Zach grunted acknowledgment, handed twenty-five of the remaining cash to her. “For the mailing supplies you paid for last week.”
“Thanks!” Brooke tucked the bills into her magician’s bag of a purse. Despite the fact that her purse didn’t look like it had room for more than a credit card and her phone, she was constantly shoving things inside or whipping things out with Felix The Cat alacrity. She glanced at him, glanced at him again. “Are you okay?”
“Hm?” Zach threw her a distracted glance.
“You look a little…rattled.”
“Rattled?” Zach shook his head. “Nope. Not me.” He picked up the dossier from her desk, flipping through it. “What do you think?”
“That you ran into Flint.” Her tone was sympathetic.
“Huh? No. I mean, yes. But it has nothing to do with Flint.”
“What does? Doesn’t?”
Zach gazed at her, baffled. “What are we talking about?”
Brooke shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Did anything jump out at you when you looked through the file?”
“Literally? No.”
Zach gave her a long, steady look, and Brooke grinned. “I do wonder what kind of person puts together a dossier on his friends and family.”
“The kind of person friends and family want to kill?”
“Maybe. He has a reputation for being eccentric.”
“Nothing that’s happened so far makes me think that rep isn’t justified.”
Brooke cooed, “And yet you still fell in love with him!” At Zach’s glare, she admitted, “Okay, yes. I did hear more than I let on. You know how thin these walls are. You’ll be lucky if Mr. Yen next door didn’t hear the whole scheme over the dumpling steamers.”
“That was very unprofessional,” Zach said crushingly.
Brooke was uncrushed. “I don’t see how. We’re in the snooper business. You have to assume everyone in this office is practicing their tradecraft at all times.”
“Everyone meaning you?”
“Until we’re in position to hire another operative.” She kept talking as he opened his mouth to object. “Anyway, it’s not like you could keep that part secret from me.”
Probably not, but he’d sure planned on trying. Especially after Flint’s scathing reaction. He still felt hot with embarrassment at the memory.
Brooke’s thoughts were running in a different direction. “My money’s on the wife. Cherchez la femme.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not much of a leap, given her threats to destroy him personally and professionally and/or kill herself and frame him for her murder.”
“It’s a little extra,” Brooke agreed. “But you know who she is, right?”
Zach admitted, “At this point, you probably know more about our suspects than I do.”
“Zora Kaschak-Beacher. Zora Kaschak.”
“Is that someone from People magazine?” Brooke was an inveterate People magazine reader. She also claimed to be Army, whatever the hell that was, and seemed to communicate with her comrades almost solely through hashtags and gifs. Which was just one reason why Zach was secretly dubious about Pop’s plans for her to become a human-resources manager. He wasn’t convinced she was entirely human. Surely somewhere in outer space an alien civilization was scouring the volcanic plains for one of their Army?
“The Kaschak family owns the Haunted Hollow Theme Park chain. Zora’s the sole heir to a multimillion-dollar empire.”
“With inflation, that doesn’t mean what it used to.” But Zach flipped back to the file pages on Zora. The photo at the top of the page (Alton was nothing if not thorough) showed a pale, washed-out-looking woman with fair hair and light-brown eyes. Her face was round and colorless. Nondescript. Someone who could easily blend into a crowd. Except, according to the file, she was an independently wealthy fifty-seven-year-old agoraphobe, so blending into crowds was probably not her thing. Supposedly, she had not left the family estate in over a decade.