Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3) (8 page)

Sweat. He was sweating. His shirt was damp. His brow glistened with moisture. And a bead slipped down his spine, making him itchier and more irritable by the minute.

“Zack, sit down.”

Eliza’s voice was soft, but it carried a hint of command.

She glanced over the top of her laptop and motioned for him to sit down on the other wing of the sectional sofa. Eliza’s apartment was a study in comfort. Decorated in warm earth tones with a splash of femininity. Not overdone. Not too girly. It was a place a man would feel welcome. A place he could call home.

He’d dreamed of surprising Gracie with a huge home. A two-story mansion with at least seven bedrooms, and jack-and-jill bathrooms connecting the children’s bedrooms in twos. He’d wanted four boys and then two girls. Six of the bedrooms would be connected by a bathroom so that only two children would ever have to share one. And of course he’d want the little girls last so they’d have older brothers to look out for them and spoil them every bit as much as he would.

Gracie had loved the house that Zack had grown up in. It was the epitome of the American dream. Two-story white frame house with homey dormers, a sprawling front porch with a swing and a white picket fence surrounding the house. It was precisely the sort of home she’d daydreamed about, though he’d never brought her over after that first disaster when he’d taken her to meet his father. The memory still enraged him. His father had completely humiliated Gracie. Had made her feel like a piece of filth. Hell, he’d even called her white trash. Had said that even the trailer park was too good for the likes of her. Given that Gracie was homeless for the most part, it had been a low blow. A trailer would have been welcome to Gracie. Anything that put a roof over her head.

After Gracie’s uncle had died, Zack had been relieved, until he realized that Gracie had no place to live. Still, he recognized she was much better off homeless than under the power of an abusive relative.

Zack had found her a tiny motel on the Dover side of the lake. She landed a position as a room cleaner, which didn’t provide much of anything in the way of a paycheck. But what it did provide was a place for her to live—a tiny bedroom on the first floor next to the office—and it provided her one meal a day, her choice of breakfast or dinner from the homestyle cooking restaurant attached to the motel. Zack gave her money for the other two meals of the day, and he often ate breakfast and dinner with her so that he ensured she didn’t go without.

Every morning she rose before dawn to begin her day. She left in time to get to school and then she resumed her job afterward.

Zack came home at every opportunity. His father was disgusted by the fact he was so hung up on a girl that he was blowing what should have been the best years of his life. There were no frat parties or endless girlfriends, no living large with his star quarterback fame. No, he attended his classes and made all his practices, but he always looked forward to the end of football season, when he could come home to Gracie.

He’d never stayed at school over the weekend once football season was over. As soon as his last class on Friday had ended, he’d immediately get into his truck, having already packed the night before, and head straight home.

Though he’d never offered her the disrespect of taking advantage of her sexually—he, like her, had wanted to wait—Zack had spent most nights with Gracie, him taking the floor while she slept in the bed, and they’d talk for hours.

He’d hated that she’d be so tired the next day, struggling to get up early and get her duties done by check-in time, and so he’d often help her. The two had become a formidable team, coming up with an efficient method of cleaning the rooms spotless in twenty minutes. That made Zack happy because it meant she was his for the rest of the day.

Most high school football players’ favorite night of the week was Friday. Friday meant football and the rush of adrenaline after pulling off an impossible play. Friday was Zack’s favorite day as well, but not because of football. To him, football was a means to an end. A way for him to provide for Gracie and the children they’d one day have.

It was his favorite day because he knew that at the end of it, Gracie would be in his arms, her head pillowed against his shoulder.

Until the time he returned home to find her gone. For good.

He didn’t understand it. Maybe he’d never understand it. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to walk away without some sort of an explanation. If she didn’t need him—didn’t want him—then by God she’d look him in the eye and tell him so.

“Zack?”

Eliza’s concerned voice filtered through his thoughts and he glanced over to see that evidently she’d been talking—or rather trying to talk—to him for the past several seconds, and he was unresponsive.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Just thinking.”

“That much is evident,” she said softly. “Want to tell me about it?”

Zack closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re going to think I’m a head case. I mean, when I stand back for a minute and truly look at the situation, if it were anyone else, I’d think they were a complete idiot. I mean who the hell stays hung up on a girl—woman—for
twelve years
? Jesus. It’s pathetic.”

He winced, realizing just how much he’d admitted. He blew out his breath in a long, frustrated stream. What the fuck did it matter? Eliza was going to find out anyway. He wasn’t going to hold back any information that might enable Eliza to track Gracie down, no matter how pitiful it made him look.

“I’d say someone who stays hung up on a woman for that long must have truly loved her,” Eliza said quietly.

There was no judgment in her eyes. No pity. Nothing but unwavering support and friendship.

“Yeah,” Zack murmured. “I did—do. Or at least I did. Hard to say what the fuck I’m feeling right now.”

“So tell me what happened and why you lost your shit when you saw her again in the gallery. I’m assuming that’s the first you’ve seen her since . . .”

He nodded and then sighed.

“There’s honestly not much to tell. Gracie and I were high school sweethearts. I say high school, but I was four years older than her so we only attended school together my senior year. She was a freshman when we met. I had a full ride to University of Tennessee playing football. Quarterback.”

“You played for the pros, didn’t you?”

“Until an injury took me out,” Zack said.

“You could have played still.”

Zack didn’t even respond to the fact she obviously knew his story. Or at least part of it. DSS would have done a thorough background check before hiring him on.

He nodded. “Yeah. I could have rehabbed. Missed one season at the most. Trained hard in the off-season and come back in the fall. The doctors thought I’d make a full recovery with intensive rehab.”

“But you chose not to.”

Again he nodded. The team owner, the manager and the coaches had been pissed. The fans had been pissed. He’d been labeled a quitter. A loser when for so long he’d been a winner. But without Gracie he didn’t feel like he’d won fucking anything. Football wasn’t enough to sustain him when he’d lost everything that meant anything to him. Football was only a means to provide for Gracie, for him to give her the kind of life he’d dreamed of. Without her, football didn’t mean shit.

“Because of Gracie?” she asked gently.

He hesitated a moment, then met her gaze again. “Yeah. Because of Gracie. She disappeared. One day she was there. And then I came home and she was gone. No note. No word. No message. Nothing. It was as if she’d never even existed. Only, to me she did. She was my entire fucking world. School. Football. None of it mattered if she wasn’t there to share it with me. I almost didn’t even go to the pros. My old man was apoplectic. And in the end, the only reason I did go to the pros is because I thought that if I had a high enough profile, Gracie would know where I was. That she would even contact me. Come to me if she was in trouble.”

“So you have no idea what happened to her?”

“None,” he said flatly.

“Did you report her missing? Get the police involved?”

He emitted a harsh laugh. “My father
was
the police. The chief of police. He didn’t lift one goddamn finger to find her. He was too busy
celebrating
. He fucking smiled when I told him about her disappearance. Told me it was the best news he’d heard all year. When I asked him to issue a missing person’s report and actually look into her disappearance he told me his department’s resources were much better used when not wasted on people who didn’t matter.”

Eliza frowned. “Excuse the observation but your father sounds like a real gem.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it for me,” he said, his jaw clenching. “He’s a bastard. A selfish, misogynistic chauvinist.”

“You’ll forgive me if I never go out of my way to meet him,” Eliza muttered.

Zack lifted one corner of his mouth in a half smile. “You’d kick his ass.”

“At least you fell pretty far from that tree,” she observed. “And damn right I’d kick his ass. If he pulled that bullshit with me I’d rearrange his balls for him. Now, let’s get back to Gracie. From what you’ve told me I can pretty well piece everything together. Or at least it suddenly makes sense. You get hurt. Choose to bow out instead of rehab. You enter law enforcement and go on to be recruited by a government organization until Beau stole you to our side. I assume you chose the career you did because of Gracie.”

Her eyes were far too discerning. It felt as though she had crawled underneath his skin and now had a prime view of everything he’d hidden from the world. And it wasn’t a very pleasant feeling.

He nodded, his jaw tight to the point of discomfort. “I wanted to find her. I looked fucking everywhere—have looked for her for twelve years. And then today, that closemouthed fucker at the gallery. Swear to God, Lizzie. I wanted to take him apart on the spot.”

“Yeah. I noticed.”

“I knew he knew something even before Gracie showed up. It was too coincidental. The painting was of a place only Gracie and I had knowledge of. Not that other people hadn’t ever seen it. But she and I never came across anyone in the years we met there. She loved to draw and paint. It was her dream. Now suddenly a painting of that same place shows up in a gallery and it’s signed ‘A.G.’? And the name of the painting is
Lost Dreams
? And then the bullshit about the artist not mattering security-wise, that the artist preferred anonymity. I guess the reason why is now apparent. She’s hiding. From me. But who else? And what the fuck is her connection to Sterling? Because that was not the reaction of a gallery owner to just another artist he plans to make money off of.”

“So Anna-Grace is her real name, but you call her Gracie.”

Zack nodded. “Only I called her Gracie. It was my pet name for her.”

Eliza typed as he spoke, presumably taking notes. When she finished pecking, she glanced back up, her gaze meeting Zack’s.

“I need you to grab a notebook and pen off the coffee table and write down every single thing you can think of that might help me locate her. Full name. Any known relatives even if they’re deceased. This could take a while, so how about you order takeout while I run some searches. It could be a long night.”

Hope eased a little of the burning sensation in his chest. His pulse sped up and he swallowed several times to keep the knot from forming in his throat.

“Thanks, Lizzie,” Zack said in a low, utterly sincere voice. “You have no idea what this means to me.”

Eliza shrugged and for a moment Zack could swear he saw a flash of pain in her pretty eyes. “We all have shit we deal with. We all deal with it our own way. I don’t want to build up false hope, Zack. I may not be able to turn up anything, but I’m going to try my damnedest.”

“Sterling has all the information I need,” Zack bit out. “He’s going to talk. I don’t give a fuck how he does it. But he will. I’ll fucking destroy him otherwise.”

“Be careful,” she warned. “He’s involved in a hell of a lot more than just art galleries. The galleries are mostly a front for his other ‘activities.’ ”

Zack lifted an eyebrow. “What does that mean exactly?”

“The preliminary background check that Quinn performs on all prospective clients turned up a few discrepancies.”

His gaze sharpened. “You think he’s dirty?”

“Can’t tell you that for a fact.”

“What’s your opinion then?”

“He’s dirty.”

“So why were we even meeting with him?” Zack asked. “Beau doesn’t operate like that. He’d die before ever doing anything reminiscent of his father.”

DSS didn’t take on any client who could potentially drag the company through the mud. They didn’t have to. They could pick and choose at their leisure. They certainly weren’t hurting for clients.

“Maybe Caleb made the decision. Beau may not have even seen the report yet,” Eliza said. “And as I said. I can’t tell you that he’s dirty for a fact. It’s merely and only my opinion. One that Dane doesn’t share—at least for the moment. I’m judgmental, what can I say? Dane is more tolerant.” She said the last with a shrug.

“Your instincts are good, Lizzie. I’ve never known you to be wrong about someone. So if you think he’s dirty, I’m certainly willing to believe the same. And if he is dirty then what the hell is his connection to Gracie? Because you didn’t see his eyes when I said her name. She’s not just a faceless artist he gives gallery space to in order to display her work. And he clammed up quick when I started asking questions about her.”

Pink dusted her cheeks and warmth reflected in her gaze at his assessment—confidence—in her skills. Lizzie, like Beau and everyone at DSS, were just good people. They’d certainly come along at a critical point in his life.

Instead of plunging recklessly into a risky career in law enforcement, one that came with a high possibility of burnout, he’d joined an elite agency. His job challenged him, made him focus on something other than the last twelve fucking years of his life. Made him feel as though he had a purpose instead of just going through the motions.

How ironic that just a couple of days earlier he had thought to himself, after a particularly bad night of tossing and turning, that perhaps it was time to let go—truly let go—and move on. Live his life and do something with it.