Page 1
Story: Puzzle for Two
Chapter One
Was someone pranking him?
For the first four minutes of his interview with prospective client Alton Beacher, Zach couldn’t quite decide.
It was the kind of elaborate joke Ben would find funny, but Ben was not about to invest energy (or money) in making Zach look foolish given that healreadythought Zach looked like a fool for struggling to keep his dad’s PI business afloat. Ben was probably right. Tactless, as usual, but probably right.
Nobody knew the dire financial situation of Davies Detective Agency better than Zachariah Davies, former accountant turned lead investigator.
Turnedonlyinvestigator.
In the midst of these bleak reflections, Alton Beacher’s light, slightly affected voice trailed off. The silence that followed was punctuated only by a faint chatter of Davies’s receptionist (and Zach’s kid sister) Brooke, coming from behind the office door. Judging by the giggles, Brooke was not speaking with another client.
Not least because they didn’thaveany other clients.
He’d spent the last month making new contacts in Monterey County, paying visits to insurance companies, lawyers, the risk-management directors of local municipalities, and anybody else he could think of who might need the services of a private investigator. Eventually, some of that footwork was bound to pay off, but so farnada.
Beacher’s pale brows drew together in a frown as he waited for some sign of life from Zach.
Zach pulled himself together. He lifted his coffee mug, took a stalling-for-time swallow, said finally, “Let me get this straight. You’re hiring me to pose as your boyfriend while I investigate a series of death threats you’ve received over the past couple of weeks?”
If he sounded skeptical—well, whowouldn’tsound skeptical? For one thing, Beacher was wearing a gold wedding band. For another, well, this was as far-fetched as anything in those goofy PI novels Zach used to devour as a kid.
No, actually, it was more like something out of a screwball comedy movie from the 1940s. This couldnotbe a serious job proposal.
Could it?
Beacher’s “Correct,” sounded stiff and a little defensive.
“Really?”
“Surely, you’ve run into this kind of situation before? You’ve been in business twenty years.”
Right. Did Beacher actually think Zach had been working as a PI when he was ten years old? Cracking the case of Ms. Gordon’s missingWall Street Journalin between Little League practice and mastering common factors and multiples?
In fairness, Davies Detection Agencyhadbeen around for twenty years. Zach tried to imagine his bluff, gruff ex-cop dad being asked to pose as someone’s boyfriend and nearly choked on his coffee.
No question Pop would have saidhard passto the Beacher case.Though less politely.
“What made you choose us?”
What Zach really meant was why pick a little indie operation rather than a large security firm with all the bells, whistles, and resources someone as rich as Alton Beacher would presumably expect. But Zach already knew the answer. A big, classy company would laugh Beacher right out of their expensively appointed lobby.
For one fleeting instant, Beacher looked uncomfortable. “To be honest, I was going to try that place at the other end of the shopping center.”
Zach set his coffee cup down very carefully. “Carey Confidential?”
Beacher nodded curtly. “But I didn’t like the look of the man. Those beady eyes. That sarcastic smile. No.”
Oh my God.Zach would have given anything, ANYTHING, to see Alton Beacher ask Flint Carey to be his pretend boyfriend. And the beady-eyes comment? That was pure gold.
But Beacher was right about the sarcastic smile. Flint did have—could have—an unpleasant smile when he thought you were being a bigger ass than usual. His eyes weren’t beady, though. They were hazel, that elusive combination of brown-green-gold, and disarmingly long-lashed.Maybea little narrow, especially when he laughed, which admittedly, was rarely.
Zach said gravely, “He’s a tough customer, that guy,” ignoring the feeling that somewhere, somehow Pop was shaking his head at him.
“Then I saw your sign, and it seemed like a…a…”
“Sign?” Zach offered.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103