LITMIR.BIZ

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to know. Who could be doing such an awful thing, blackmailing that sweet old man?

      “That is what I intend to find out. Belle, get me—” He stopped talking and looked at her as if he hadn’t really seen her today. “Are you feeling all right, Belle?” he asked.

      No, I feel as if my stomach is being twisted inside out and it’s all going to be coming up into my throat at any second, she thought, desperately trying to hold it together.

      It was her own fault, she upbraided herself. She was the one asking questions, detaining Zane. She should have just nodded and withdrawn, pretending to go back to her desk. This way she could really be hurrying off to the ladies’ room, praying it was unoccupied. The last thing she needed was to have someone overhearing her throwing up and offering to take her to the company nurse.

      “I’m fine, sir,” she told him, hoping she sounded convincing.

      No, she wasn’t, Zane observed. She wasn’t fine. His administrative assistant looked very pale and it made him feel guilty. She was undoubtedly concerned about his father’s well-being and reacting to what he’d just told her. Images of blackmailers and the way some might handle a situation that wasn’t to their liking didn’t exactly create calming scenarios.

      He shouldn’t have said anything to her.

      Feeling responsible for making her feel this way, Zane took her hand in his in a gesture of comfort.

      “Don’t worry,” he assured her, “he’ll be all right.”

      Mirabella looked at her boss, confused even as she found herself reacting to the gentle way he was holding her hand.

      There’d never been any physical contact between them before. Despite the nausea gripping her, something else was going on as well, something faint, but compelling nonetheless. She had no idea where this was coming from or why it seemed to momentarily supersede everything else.

      This assault on her hormones she experienced because of the baby had literally knocked out all the rules. She quite frankly didn’t know what to expect from herself from one minute to the next.

      Right now, all she could think about was telling Zane how totally attracted to him she was. It was a real struggle not to. Almost as much of a struggle as it was to keep down whatever was threatening to purge itself right this minute.

      So she forced herself to smile, desperately hoping she wasn’t going to start sweating—which she knew would only lead to more questions.

      Instead, she said, “I know everything will be all right because you’ll find Mr. Eldridge, I know you will.”

      “First thing I’m going to find,” Zane told her, releasing her hand and turning toward his desk, “is exactly where and to whom these monthly withdrawals are going.”

      Though everything within her screamed to leave right this second while she still could, before risking embarrassment, Mirabella had to ask, “The sheriff really didn’t tell you?”

      “The sheriff indicated he didn’t know.” Whether or not that was the truth he didn’t know, but he was going with that assumption for now. “He said something about it going into an untraceable bank account.”

      Which could very well be the truth. Despite the fact that this was the age of the hacker and people who were versed in all sorts of internet sleight of hand, not everyone was a cyber expert.

      Be that as it may, Zane had the feeling the sheriff was not the country bumpkin he wanted everyone to believe him to be. That was just to throw everyone off their game and cause them to let slip things they might not have around someone they considered to be more savvy.

      Whatever the case, right now he didn’t have the time to spend trying to figure the sheriff out. He needed to track down exactly where Eldridge’s withdrawals were going and just who was on the receiving end of those withdrawals.

      And just as important, he needed to find out why. Just what was his father being blackmailed about?

      “Will there be anything else, Mr. Colton?” Mirabella asked, really struggling not to allow her breakfast to come up.

      “No, not right now,” he replied, looking away. And then he looked up again. “Wait,” he called after her.

      Her back now to him, Mirabella didn’t turn around. Instead, she pressed her hand against her chest. She was going to start heaving any second.

      A rather breathless “Yes?” was really all she could manage in the way of a reply.

      “Get me Meyer Stanley on the phone,” he requested, addressing the words to her back.

      Meyer was his recently transferred IT wizard, the man who could track down absolutely anything via the internet. If Meyer couldn’t find something, then it didn’t exist.

      Mirabella remained where she was, with her back still facing him. Rather than turning around or even verbally responding to the request, Mirabella merely nodded her head and then held up one hand in the air, jiggling it as if to confirm she had heard him and she would get the man’s number immediately.

      Then, before he could say anything further—or had a chance to inquire after her health again because she was behaving so oddly—Mirabella all but fled the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

      Leaving Zane to stare at it in utter, albeit fleeting, bewilderment.

      The next moment his mind was back on his stepfather and the mysterious monthly withdrawals. Things were becoming much more complicated.

      Just what the hell was going on here?

Chapter 3

      His IT wizard still hadn’t gotten back to him, but then, Meyer had only been given the assignment a little more than a day ago, Zane reminded himself. Even wizardry took time.

      He took comfort in the fact that nothing was ever totally untraceable. Tracking something down through cyberspace wasn’t impossible, just exceedingly time-consuming and tricky, requiring a great deal of patience, especially if they were dealing with an expert. He would be the first to admit that.

      Even so, a restlessness was threatening to completely undo Zane if he didn’t get out of the office for at least a little while and hit the field himself. If, in the interim, Meyer came up with anything, the man knew enough to make sure to reach him on his cell phone. These days it felt as if his phone was another appendage, never out of reach.

      As he walked out of his office, habit had Zane glancing at Mirabella’s desk.

      She wasn’t there.

      Lately, whenever he passed her desk, either on his way in or out of his office, he’d noticed that more than half the time, the woman wasn’t at her desk. Was she ill the way he’d suspected yesterday?

      Pausing for a moment, Zane tried to remember if he’d heard anything about a bug going around the office lately, but came up empty. If he were being totally honest with himself, he was rather oblivious to common everyday occurrences lately. Everything in life as he normally knew it had taken a distant backseat to his stepfather’s disappearance.

      Even so, bug or not, the next time their paths crossed, he was going to confront Mirabella about his suspicions again, and this time he wasn’t going to allow her to just shrug them off. He both appreciated and understood the woman’s dedication to her job, but he didn’t want her coming in if she was feeling ill. There was such a thing as carrying dedication too far.

      Maybe he should pay attention to his own philosophy, Zane silently lectured himself. Investigations belonged in the hands of investigators, not in the hands of relatives who were too close to the situation to be impartial detectives.

      That might be true, he wordlessly granted the next moment, but who had the bigger stake in finding his father, some worn-out sheriff or someone who cared whether or not Eldridge Colton lived or died? Zane

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