CHAPTER 13
Zane glanced out the window as the private jet descended over Oakland International Airport and the pilot prepared to touch down in sunny California.
For once, he wasn't overwhelmingly relieved the cross country flight was over.
The wide leather seat was insanely comfortable. The champaign was cold, the nuts warm and the flight attendant hot—Zane noticed Brent seemed to appreciate that last perk the most.
Finally the wheels touched down on the tarmac, a landing so gentle Zane wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been looking outside.
He twisted in his seat to shoot a look at Brent. “Damn, bud. This is a hell of a way to travel.”
“One of the benefits of having access to the assets of the Hearst Corporation.” Brent grinned.
“No doubt.” The corporation, the family, the billions—it was a nice benefits package. “Got a helicopter I can borrow when there's traffic on 66 or the Beltway?” Zane was only half joking.
Brent laughed. “If I did, I'd use it for the traffic on the bridge between Jersey and New York. Believe me.”
Zane's family was rich—from his mother's inheritance and the trust fund that provided, as well as from his father's business and the vast income that provided. But it was very obvious there was a huge difference between being well off and being obscenely wealthy. A fact extremely evident to him during this cross-country flight to California in the Hearst private jet.
He had to admit it was pretty amazing and inspirational. It gave Zane the kick in the ass he needed to set his sights a little higher.
A few years ago his only goal had been to make a go of the company. They'd done that. Now, he vowed to make the company big and lucrative enough to warrant their own jet. Yeah, it might be a pie in the sky dream but without dreams, without goals, what did a man have to aim for?
Zane's inner pep talk was interrupted when he got a look at Brent's expression. “Hey.”
Brent glanced up. “What?”
“What's up? You okay?” Zane asked.
“I want to meet with him.”
Zane shook his head. “No.”
Brent scowled. “What if he's a scammer just after her money? Or . . . I don't know . . . a reporter looking for a juicy story?”
“What if he's not?” Apparently Zane's biggest duty here was to keep Brent from beating up this guy in a Starbucks and causing the very scandal they were trying to avoid. “Brent, what if he's a perfectly nice guy who just really likes your cousin?”
“And what if he's not?” Brent turned Zane’s words back on him.
Not liking that turnaround, Zane frowned. “Either way, I'm the one going in there, as planned.”
The flight attendant walked toward them. “Gentlemen, you're welcome to unbuckle your seatbelts and move about the cabin. Welcome to California.”
“Thank you.” Brent flashed her a million dollar smile—make that a thirty-five billion dollar Hearst family net wealth smile—and then reached for the release on his seatbelt as he turned his attention back to Zane. “Okay, what if I agree you can do any interacting with him but I get to be there?”
“Why?” Zane released his own seat belt and stood.
“So I can see him. Get a feel for him.” Brent reached for his laptop case and looped the strap over his shoulder. “You might be the big bad SEAL but I'm not without some people skills myself. I hire and fire people every day and a lot of that is based on gut instincts, just like the ones you're always talking about using.”
Zane grabbed his own carry-on, his favorite duffle bag containing anything he might need and it was still smaller and lighter than the wheeled hard-sided suitcase Brent had boarded with that the flight crew was currently retrieving.
“The difference is I'm not emotionally involved in this. She's not my family. Unlike you I'm detached from the situation. I can be objective.”
“Are you saying I can't be objective?” Brent's eyes widened.
“Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.” Zane didn't blame Brent. If someone was messing with Missy, even if it was only online, he didn't know what he'd do.
Kill him, perhaps? He’d at the very least make him regret it in a really big way.
After stepping through the cabin door and out into the bright sunshine, Zane descended the metal stairs to the tarmac. When he reached the bottom he stopped dead at what he saw.
He shot Brent a glance over his shoulder. “A chauffeur driven limo?”
They were going to have to get dropped off a block away and walk so no one saw them getting out of this thing.
Brent cocked a brow high. “Stop right there with the comments. Now is not the time to pretend I'm normal. I'm not and my family's not. That's exactly why we're in this mess. So yes, a fucking limo instead of a taxi or a rental car. You got anything else to say?”
“Well, hallelujah, bro. Admitting your family isn’t normal is the first thing you've said that made sense today.” Zane saw Brent's scowl and decided to lighten up on the teasing. “Come on. Let's go fishing.”
And if this guy turned out to be a cat fish, one of those lowlife bastards who pretended to be someone else online to defraud and take advantage of unknowing innocent people, then God help him. Zane could think of numerous ways to teach him a lesson. Some of those lessons fell within that same hazy gray area that Will might or might not have worked within when investigating this case.
Zane slid inside the dim cool car and across the back seat, picking up a brochure left there along the way.
He flipped through it absently. One photo caption had him laughing, which had Brent turning toward him.
“Something amusing?”
“You think we'll have time to catch a show at the . . .” Zane read the description aloud, “Open-air Hearst Greek Theatre while we're here?”
“Fuck off.” Brent scowled.
The obscenity only made Zane grin wider. Old friends could—and did—tell each other to fuck off often. It was all part of the relationship.
Zane cut a sideways gaze at his friend. “Jeez, I guess having a name so famous it’s all over the damn place makes a person cranky.”
“Yes, sometimes it does. But now maybe you can appreciate why I'm so concerned about my cousin?”
“Of course, I do. Brent, I wouldn't be here otherwise.”
“I know. And thank you. I am grateful.” Brent looked at Zane closer, his gaze dropping down his body then back up again. “You packing?”
Zane burst out with a bark of a laugh. “Packing? No, I'm not.”
“Why not? We took a private plane. You could have easily traveled with a weapon.”
“Concealed carry in California is tricky. It's a may-issue state. Local law enforcement has discretion—” Zane saw Brent's expression, baffled and a little bored at the same time, and decided to cut the explanation short. “The legalities would've been too complicated, so no, I'm not carrying, which is the less ridiculous way to say packing.”
“However you say it, I hope you don’t end up being sorry you're not carrying.” Brent stressed the word with a heavy dose of bad attitude.
Zane laughed. “If this guy is a danger at all, his weapon of choice is obviously the computer while he hides behind the anonymity of the internet. I'm not worried. Seriously.”
What was the guy going to do in the middle of a coffee shop anyway? Toss his scone or a latte at him?
Yes, Zane had seen men do plenty of bad shit, but he was having trouble taking a man who spent twelve hours a day, everyday, in a coffee shop.
At least, according to Will that’s what this Paul guy did.
But if things did go south, Zane was confident he could handle it. He hadn't been out of active service that long and he’d kept up his training. He was as strong and as sharp as he'd been while in the teams.
He glanced at Brent. “Don't worry. I got this. No matter what happens. Okay?”
Brent nodded.
The limo pulled up in front of the coffee shop and Zane leaned forward. “Can you drive around the corner and let me out there, please?”
“Yes, sir.”
After the driver shifted the limo into gear again, Zane turned to glance at Brent. “You should wait in the car.”
“Nope.” He shook his head, leaving no doubt he wasn't about to be left behind.
“Okay. Fine. But wait two minutes before you walk in. Order a coffee, get it and then sit down somewhere out of the way. And don't make it obvious that you're watching him. Or me,” Zane added as an afterthought.
Brent cocked up one brow. “You’re just full of rules today, aren’t you?”
“Follow my rules or I'll choke you out and leave you here in the car. Don't think I can't do it.”
“Oh, I know you can do it. Even before you became a big bad SEAL you used to cheat so you could take me in a fight.”
Brent was built big and solid. A little training and he'd be a damn good fighter. But back in college he was either drinking too much or laughing too hard to defend himself from Zane, who always had a natural ability even with as scrappy as he was back in the old days.
“I never cheated and we were just play fighting anyway.” Zane opened the door. “All right, I'm trusting you. I'll go in and scope out the situation. Identify the mark and proceed from there. You—”
“Stay out of the way. Yeah, yeah. I got it.” Brent rolled his eyes.
“Good.” Zane smiled, enjoying how having to follow his orders was pissing off Brent.
But he knew Brent wasn't stupid. He'd control himself if it meant catching a possible predator who was endangering his family . . . at least Zane hoped he would.
The only thing Zane carried into the coffee shop was his laptop.
In spite of what he’d told Brent, not being armed did feel strange, but you don't bring a gun to a computer fight.
He’d brought the laptop because he needed something to do to not look out of place. He needed be able to hang out for a while if necessary. Look busy while keeping an eye out.
Since the target's profile pictures on all his social media were of his dog, Will had hooked up Zane with a photo. It was a grainy security camera image that Zane didn't ask the origin of.
Zane didn't even want to think about how Will obtained it. All he knew was that it was a shot of the guy leaving this very coffee shop, laptop in hand, captured just a few days ago.
He'd studied the image for long enough he didn't need to have it out to recognize him now—Paul James Neuman. Lizzie Hearst’s mystery man.
That Paul was there wasn't a surprise since Will had tracked his internet usage to this coffee shop all day, every day. But it was where the guy was located within the coffee shop that had Zane wanting to slap himself in the forehead.
Paul was behind the counter. The damn guy worked there. That's why he was there all day. That's why all his internet posts originated from this network.
Zane nearly turned around to go outside and waylay Brent because the reason for the lack of photos became quickly apparent as well.
The kid was young. Like a freshman in college, if Zane had to guess, though he could be wrong about that. Maybe he just wasn't genetically predisposed to growing decent facial hair, because the beard—if it could be called that—was pitiful.
Since Brent's cousin Lizzie had close to a decade on this kid, age wise, it made sense Paul wasn't forthcoming with public pictures.
Of course, Zane didn't know if other photos of a different nature had been exchanged. The kind of pictures featuring body parts besides his face.
Would Will have been able to trace that exchange? He shuddered, not wanting to even contemplate that possibility. As Zane stepped up behind the next customer waiting for service, he vowed to never put anything private online ever again.
Paul finished with the customer in front of him and Zane stepped up to the counter. “Hey, Paul.”
“Hey. What can I get for ya?” the kid asked, not even blinking at Zane’s use of his name since he was wearing a name tag.
“Can you take a quick break?”
A frown creased his young brow. “Um, yeah. I guess. Can I ask why?”
“You can but I'm not discussing this here at the counter.”
“Uh. Yeah, okay.” Paul twisted toward the girl behind the counter with him, who was in the process of stocking the pastries in the case. “Can you watch the counter for a sec? I'll be right back.”
She nodded.
Paul turned back to Zane. “All right. Where you wanna go?”
After making sure Brent wasn’t in the vicinity, Zane tipped his head toward a free table in the far corner. “Right over there is fine.”
Paul looked both confused and concerned but nodded. “Okay.”
Zane had prepared on the cross-country flight so when he set his laptop on the table and flipped it open the screen sprang to life to display a screen capture of Lizzie Hearst's Facebook page and one of Paul's more flirty posts on it.
“I'm here to discuss Lizzie.”
The kid visibly paled. “Uh, I didn't mean anything by that. I was just playing around. You know how it is online.”
Zane cocked a brow. “No, not really.”
“Who are you anyway? Her boyfriend?” Now he looked really panicked. Paul’s eyes widened as he shook his head. “Dude, she never told me—”
“Why does it matter who I am? What exactly has been going on between you two?” Zane leaned forward and waited.
“Nothing. Nothing's going on. We haven't even met in real life.”
“And why not? You've been talking for quite a while.” Zane clicked to a screen shot of the very first interaction between the two.
The kid breathed out a curse. “I'm sorry. I won't talk to her ever again. I promise.”
“You still haven't answered my question. What were you looking for here? What was your end goal?”
Paul drew in a breath. Finally, he said, “I know she's older than me. And hell, I'm not blind. I know she's completely out of my league. But I figured if I could make my life seem more interesting online, like hers is, maybe we could like, I don't know, meet and start to date.”
“Date? Seriously?” Zane asked. This man-child was delusional if he thought a globe trotting twenty-nine year old heiress who’d worked as a model would date a nineteen or twenty-year old nerdy barista.
“Well, not right away. She'd have to, like, be in love with me before I could let her know I'm working here to help my parents cover my college bills. But I figured we could build a relationship online first. People do it all the time.”
Zane watched and listened, evaluating his body language and the visceral clues, more than the farfetched words he spoke. Zane believed the kid. He could be wrong but he didn't think so. This kid truly believed what he was saying.
“You believe me, right?” The kid's tone rose high, no doubt from fear as he asked the question.
Zane didn't answer that. Instead he leaned forward. “This is what's going to happen. You're going to shut down all your social media accounts.”
The kid's mouth dropped open and he looked about to speak. Zane held up his hand to stop any protest.
“You're never going to contact her again through any means. And if she contacts you somehow, you're going to ignore it. Hell, change your cell phone number and your email address if you have to but do not interact with her in any way.”
“But—”
“No. No but. You're going to do all that and if you don't do exactly as I say, I'll know. Trust me, I'll know.”
“What's she going to think? My ghosting her is going to hurt her feelings.”
Zane had to admit he was impressed the kid was concerned about Lizzie's feelings. That didn't change anything. “I’m guessing she'll assume you're exactly what you are—a fraud. Don't worry. She'll be upset by that, but she'll get over it. She’s not really your concern any longer.”
The kid's shoulders visibly slumped. “Okay.”
For some strange reason, Zane felt sorry for him. “Listen to me, kid. You're right. She is out of your league. And not because of her looks either. She's way older than you, dude. Not just in years but in experiences. She has an established life and a career. You're just starting out. Stick to girls your own age. Find someone nice at school. Someone you can be yourself with. Someone who's going to fall in love with who you really are, not who you're pretending to be. You're a good kid. I'm gambling that you can be an honest one too and do what I ask. Am I going to regret that?”
He shook his head. “No, sir.”
“Good.” Zane flipped the laptop closed and stood. He pulled a five out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “Now go pour me a coffee to go, cream and sugar. Keep the change.”
“Okay. Thanks.” He jumped up from the chair, grabbed the bill and took off for behind the counter.
Zane turned and, as expected, found Brent watching all the action.
He'd almost done as Zane had asked. He was off to the side, but standing at one of the high counters. A coffee cup sat, ignored, near his elbow.
The kid returned in no time.
“Thanks.” Zane took the cup and raised his gaze to meet the kid's skittish one. “We good?”
“Yes.” He nodded hard.
“Good. Now get back to work, but I expect your accounts will be gone by end of day. Got it?”
He looked physically pained, but he said, “Yeah. I got it.”
Zane nodded, spun and headed out to the street, knowing Brent would follow, if only from curiosity to find out what had been said.
It turned out Zane’s assumption was right. Brent was behind him in seconds as they both walked toward where the car was waiting for them.
“What's happening?” Brent asked.
“Keep walking but hang back a few steps until we're around the corner and then I'll tell you.” Zane didn't want Brent attached to this thing in case the kid was watching out the window.
It would defeat the purpose of trying to keep the Hearst name out of the spotlight. He didn't think the kid had it in him to give the story to the press, but that a member of the Hearst family had hired someone of Zane’s caliber and reputation to threaten him would be a juicy story. Best to take precautions.
On the next block, Zane stopped by the limo, turned and waited for Brent.
He didn't have long to wait. The man was walking so fast and close he almost barreled Zane over.
“Tell me,” Brent demanded.
“He's a college kid who thought she was hot.”
“Seriously? That can’t be it.” Brent looked skeptical.
“Did you get a good look at him?” Zane asked, wide-eyed.
“Yes.”
“Then you saw he's just a kid. I told him to shut down his accounts and never contact her again.”
“Do you think he will?”
“Yes. But if he doesn't, we'll know. I'll keep an eye on him. And on Lizzie too.” Zane figured Will would be up for a bit of follow up. The bored computer guru enjoyed the intrigue of this case too much to not be involved in the aftermath.
Brent drew in a breath and let it out. “So that's it then?”
“That's it as far as I can see. He did bring up a good point though. Lizzie is going to wonder why he disappeared.”
Brent cringed. “I don't suppose I could convince you to handle Lizzie too?”
“Yeah, no.” Zane laughed, but sobered when he saw how genuinely miserable his friend looked. “Come on, bud. Let's grab something to eat. We'll figure it out.”
“Thanks, Zane. I owe you big for this. I mean it.”
Little did Brent know, Zane had meant it too when he said he planned to collect on that debt one day.
A man like Brent, who ran in elite circles those without household names couldn’t, would come in handy.
Zane didn’t know when or how, but one day the company might need a set of eyes in certain venues that normal people didn't have access to.
He'd figure out the details when the time came to cash in on that favor, but right now he punched in a text to Missy telling her his business was done and he’d be flying home as soon as Brent could arrange the flight plan.
This was exactly the kind of job he liked. In and out in a day then back home to his girl.
He really did need to get back home. He'd made a decision and once Zane Alexander made up his mind to do something, he wasn’t happy waiting around to take action.
This was one thing he didn't want to wait on.