Zach's Law (14 page)

In a voice totally devoid of emotion Zach said, “I gather you two know each other?”

It was Josh who answered. “We’ve met a few times. Her father’s Justin Tyler. You’ve met him yourself.”

Zach remembered the tall, silver-haired industrialist who had joined Josh in a few business ventures several years back. And it was sheer chance Zach hadn’t been at the party Josh had mentioned; he often attended those business affairs. So Teddy was the fascinating girl with the leopard on a leash Josh had told him about. What would have happened, Zach wondered, if they had met then, under normal circumstances? He forced himself to listen as Josh went on calmly.

“We’d found out you were here in Colorado, of course, but we wouldn’t have known
where to look if Teddy hadn’t gotten in touch this morning.”

“You didn’t tell me you knew anything about computers,” Zach said mildly to Teddy.

She was hugging her raised knees, her chin resting on them as she gazed steadfastly into the fire. “You didn’t ask.”

“The access codes?”

She managed a shrug. “I paid attention when you called.”

Zach drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. Ignoring her, he looked at Josh. “You can help me by getting out of here, Josh. And by taking her with you.”

Teddy stiffened but still refused to look at him. She wished she could hate him. Hate couldn’t hurt worse than this, it
couldn’t
.

Josh drew out a gold cigarette case and didn’t reply until his cigarette was lighted. Then, completely calm, he said, “I seem to recall a few occasions when you tagged along against my wishes to make certain I didn’t shoot myself, Zach. We’re staying.”

“Dammit, it’s Clay Ryan.”

Josh’s blue eyes flickered and his lean face hardened, but his voice remained undisturbed when he spoke. “Yeah, I know. Lucas found that out. All the more reason.”

“Josh—”

“We all know what’s involved,” Josh told him. “When the shipment goes out, we can take turns following so they’ll never know they’re being tailed.”

Zach looked at Teddy again. “You certainly didn’t leave anything out,” he said coldly.

With equal coldness she said, “I believe in detail.”

Zach rose with an almost uncontrolled motion. “I’ll go talk to Lucas.”

“You won’t convince him, either,” Josh murmured.

Zach said something violently explicit that would have had most employers’ hair standing on end, and stalked from the cavelet.

Josh flicked a bit of ash from his cigarette into the fire and said musingly, “He’s more
than usually touchy. I haven’t seen him like this in years.”

Teddy didn’t ask when. Instead, she said, “He told me he didn’t have a kind bone in his body.”

After a moment Josh said thoughtfully, “Well, actually, he doesn’t.”

“I thought you were his friend.”

Josh looked at her, and his hard, handsome face softened in an expression of gentleness that few ever saw. In a tone to match his expression he said, “Teddy, people do brutal things to each other, and Zach’s spent too many years watching that. He’s been through a hellish war and a great many battles. He’s a strong man, and strong men don’t fall apart when they’re hurt. They just keep getting tougher. He isn’t kind. He’s the best man I know, but he isn’t kind.”

Staring at him, Teddy slowly began to understand. “But … if he does something that’s kind?”

“Then he has his reasons, and they’ll be personal and deeply felt—not abstract. He hates
gunrunners because he’s seen what guns do in the wrong hands. He hates criminals because he’s seen what
they
do. He isn’t afraid of anything that breathes. And there’s nothing he won’t do for a friend.”

She returned her gaze to the fire. “I love him,” she said suddenly, without thinking.

“I thought so,” Josh said quietly.

   Josh met Zach outside when he heard the whistled signal that he knew was meant to draw him out. “Any luck?” he asked dryly.

“No, and you damn well know it. Josh, you won’t leave?”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound it.

Zach sighed, accepting what he couldn’t change. “Dammit, my job is supposed to be to protect you.”

“You’re on vacation,” Josh reminded him politely.

Acknowledging the hit with a grunt, Zach said, “All right, then. If you won’t leave, then
you won’t. Look, I’m going to take Teddy to the Jeep at first light, and she’ll stay put there until we all move out.”

“Will she?”

“If I have to tie and gag her,” Zach said grimly, “she’ll stay there. She caught a graze from Ryan’s gun this morning, charging where she shouldn’t have in a misguided attempt to save my hide. I won’t let it happen again.”

Josh studied his friend as well as he could in the darkness, remarking only, “You know best, I’m sure.”

If there was any sarcasm intended, Zach didn’t hear it. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“Right.” Josh started away from the cavelet, then looked over his shoulder to say softly, “Zach? Justin happened to mention to me once that Teddy’s an expert marksman.” He didn’t wait to see the effect of his words but disappeared silently into the darkness.

Entering the cavelet, Zach said accusingly, “You didn’t tell me you could handle guns.”

“You didn’t ask.” She was sitting as he’d left her, but subdued now rather than stiff. And when she looked up at him with those huge doe eyes of hers, Zach had trouble remaining angry. He tried, though. “Why’d you call out the troops?”

Returning her gaze to the fire, Teddy murmured, “Because you aren’t bulletproof, armor or no armor.”

“What?”

“I was worried about you, Zach. And I rather like your body without a lot of bullets in it.”

“I could have handled it, Teddy.”

“I know.” She sighed. “But I couldn’t.”

After a moment, because there wasn’t anything else to say, Zach told her to turn in and get some sleep. Tomorrow would be busy. And Teddy crawled into the sleeping bag without a word, unsurprised when he remained by the fire, watchful and alert.

Sometime later, unable to sleep, Teddy asked a quiet question.

“Zach, what’s the law of the jungle?”

He answered almost automatically, “Travel light, fast, and alone.” Then he looked at her, frowning a little. “Why?”

“No reason.”

Neither of them said anything more, but after he’d turned back to the fire, a verse from Kipling flitted through Teddy’s head. And she denied it silently, fiercely. Just because Zach had broken a part of that law … just because
she
was hung around his neck like a millstone and his friends were here …

Damn Kipling.

   It wasn’t Zach’s fault that events had conspired to shake him off his normal balance. No matter how reckless he sometimes seemed, he was always cautious, shrewd, and methodical and was rarely caught off guard.

But for Zach, the past days had been trying, to say the least. What should have remained simply a job of surveillance at least until the last minute had turned into a deadly game of cat and mouse. He should have had only his own hide to worry about, instead of first one other, and then several others. And during a situation when emotional distractions were hardly something he could afford, he never should have been forced to deal with Teddy’s emotions and his own.

Still, Zach had a broad back, and he could carry these burdens. It was the final one that broke him. With everything else, he never should have had to crawl inside the twisted mind of a criminal and think as that other man thought, plan as that other man did.

He never should have had to search that other mind for weaknesses, even as his own were being shrewdly pondered. But he had to. And he tried. And it wasn’t his fault that his mind was filled with too many diverse problems and couldn’t quite handle one more.

So nobody blamed him for what happened. Except Zach.

Zach blamed himself.

   He woke Teddy at dawn, and she ate the soup he had prepared in silence. She didn’t object when he told her where he was taking her, and followed him silently through the woods without protest or noise of any kind. When they reached the Jeep, Zach put her inside and gave her the keys.

Zach hesitated before closing the door, looking at her small, vital face and big, doelike eyes. Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he leaned into the vehicle and kissed her, deeply and thoroughly. A lover’s kiss. When he finally drew back, her eyes seemed brighter than before.

“I’m sorry I called them, Zach,” she whispered.

His fingers lingered on her cheek for a moment,
and then Zach straightened and closed the door. “Stay put. I’ll be back.”

“All right.”

By the time Zach reached the house again, the sun was up. He made his way cautiously through the thick growth until he encountered Josh and Lucas, neither of whom looked much the worse for wear after a night without sleep. All three men were unshaven, wore rugged clothing, and held guns. They looked more like hunters one would expect to find in the area.

“Anything?” Zach asked, crouching beside them.

Josh shook his head. “Nothing. Lucas is circling the house every fifteen minutes or so. So far there’s been no movement. When’s the shipment expected?”

“Anytime.”

They waited in silence. A few minutes later Lucas melted away into the woods, leaving Josh and Zach alone.

“Teddy’s at the Jeep?” Josh asked then.

“Yes.”

Josh sent him a glance before returning his attention to the house. After a moment he said quietly, “She did what she had to do, Zach.”

“I know.”

“She loves you.”

Zach’s jaw tightened. “She thinks she does.”

“Oh, is that how it is?” Since their friendship had never precluded honesty, sometimes voiced harshly, Josh made no attempt to soften his sardonic tone. “Just her imagination, I suppose? And what about you, Zach? Are you
imagining
whatever it is that’s ripping at your guts right now?”

“Drop it, Josh.”

“The hell I will. It wasn’t so long ago that you made me face up to some possibilities about Raven. It’s my turn now. Are you going to be fool enough to let that girl go? Can you possibly be that pigheaded?”

“Josh—”

He was interrupted curtly. “If you can’t see that Teddy’s vastly different from that spoiled
debutante you brought out of the jungle, then you need your thick head examined. Badly.”

What Zach might have replied—and explosively, too—was never voiced, because Lucas returned somewhat breathlessly to their side just then. “I think we’ve got trouble,” he told them grimly.

“What kind?” Zach asked.

“I crossed the tracks you made coming back from the Jeep, Zach. There was another set almost on top of them—heading for the house. Tracks of a large man, but too deep for the size. As if he were carrying something heavy.”

“Carrying—” Zach realized in one awful, crashing second what had happened, and the tightness in his chest was squeezing the breath out of him. He had made one simple miscalculation, one tiny, dreadful mistake. He had forgotten that Ryan knew of Teddy’s presence, forgotten that an innocent victim was quite often the best tool, the most deadly weapon a vicious man could use.

Ryan had crawled into
his
head.

Ryan meant to go on with his plan, all right. He intended to load up his shipment and send it out under Zach’s nose. And he had waited patiently in order to get himself some gilt-edged insurance just to make certain that Zach could only watch helplessly.

“Zach?” Josh was gripping his arm, but Zach barely felt those powerful fingers. “Zach, dammit, don’t go off the deep end!”

Utterly still and unnaturally calm, Zach looked at him. “I’m fine,” he said mildly.

Josh didn’t let go; he knew his friend was a long way from being fine. He knew what the deadly pallor and blank eyes meant. And he wished hopelessly that Clay Ryan could also know, because then he would not use Teddy as hostage for Zach’s good behavior. Not even a madman would try using her.

A voice called out suddenly from the house, vicious and ringing with triumph.

“Steele? You out there, Steele?”

Vaguely, Zach decided that it was good
Ryan knew his name. A man should always know the name of his executioner.

“Steele? I’ve got your redhead. You stay out of my way and I might give her back to you. But if you don’t back off right now, I’ll start sending out pieces of her, and you can listen to her scream. Got that, Steele? I hope you have. She’s a cute little thing. I’d hate to have to hurt her.”

And then Teddy screamed.

T
EDDY NEVER SAW
it coming. She was daydreaming, remembering that last fleeting moment of tenderness in Zach’s eyes and hoping against hope that everything would be all right. Feeling safe, she had rolled the Jeep’s window down, and so had deprived herself of even the instant’s warning of an opening door. One moment she was breathing in the chill morning air, and the next a white cloth smelling sickly sweet was clamped over her nose and mouth.

After that she was conscious only of blackness
for a while. Gradually, though, she felt movement, and heard muted voices. The movement stopped and there was quiet. She was lying on something soft—a bed, perhaps. Her hands were tied behind her back. There was something familiar, she thought, in that.

Ah, yes. The big man with the dangerous face and soft voice had tied her to a tree and then drowned her car. She remembered. He’d carried her over his shoulder; that was why her ribs ached. And any minute now he’d untie her wrists and find a salve for the bruises. Any minute now he’d pour her coffee and make the instinctive fear go away and … and kiss her, make love to her until she couldn’t think and—

No. No, that had already happened. Why was it happening again?

Teddy’s eyes snapped open to the strangeness of a room and an unfamiliar face watching her. She caught her breath on a gasp, coldness sweeping over her.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” the man smiling down at her as if everything were normal said.

He was a tall man, broad across the shoulders and powerful. His face was regular of feature, his eyes empty of color or expression, his smile filled with even, white teeth and impersonal ferocity. He was leaning negligently against a tall corner post of the bed she lay in, appearing unthreatening and almost lazy.