Page 8 of Puzzle for Two

His lean, muscular body that always made Zach feel like he needed to work out more. A lot more. Like his clothes were too big for him or too small for him or something. Flint was actually a hair shorter, yet Zach always felt like Flint towered over him with his irritatingly broad shoulders and pronounced biceps.

“I don’t follow you,” Flint said. “You know as well as I do that Fred didn’t want you to be a field op. He spent a fortune sending you to college so you could be an accountant.”

“I don’twantto be an accountant!”

Okay.Thatwas embarrassing. That was a—loud—call back to when he’d been Brooke’s age. Of course, the circumstances were different. Zach cast a quick, sheepish look around, but the people rolling their carts in and out of the market paid them no attention. The drivers in the cars flashing past in their never-ending circles of the parking lot had eyes for nothing but potential empty spaces.

“But that’s what you are.” Flint was inexorable. “That’s what you trained for. You can’t just…just pick up and become a PI on a whim.”

“It’s not a whim! I’ve wanted this for years.” He stopped himself right there because A—it was none of Flint’s business, and B—this was painful territory.

“It’s not what Fred wanted. Fred planned on selling me the business when he retired.”

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 ismy 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 youanything.”

Zach struggled with himself. Maybe hewasbeing 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 licensebeforePop 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 younuts?”

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 NDAorexplain 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.”

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