CHAPTER 6
“You're a sadist. You know that?”
“Why do you say that?” Zane asked.
Brent let out a snort between puffs of air. “Not all of us have been through basic training.”
Now it was Zane's turn to snort. “Basic training was a dozen years ago, and actually that was the easiest of all my trainings. Hell Week was way worse, and the Green Team training was no better.”
Brent sent him a sideways glance. “You really don't do anything small do you?”
Zane laughed. “Not if I can help it. So, what did you want to talk about?”
“If you slow down a little, I'll be able to talk.”
“You seem to have no trouble bitching at me, but all right.” Zane slowed a bit. “Better?”
Brent matched his pace. “Yes, thank you.”
Zane thought he heard a mumbled bastard follow that less than sincere apology. It made him smile. Torturing desk jockeys was too easy.
“So you know about my family history. With Aunt Patty.” Brent shot him a sideways glance.
“I do.”
Everybody did. Patricia Hearst wasn't just famous, she was infamous.
The granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst kidnapped in the seventies by a small terrorist group. In a classic case of Stockholm syndrome, she became sympathetic to her captors. Even joined them in some pretty illegal activities. After she was found and liberated, she was convicted for the bank robbery she'd participated in during her nearly two years with the group.
She never did time but the story continued to haunt the family, as evidenced by Brent's pained expression now.
“Is Patty in trouble?” Zane asked.
She had to be up there in years now if she was in college in the early seventies when she'd been kidnapped. Too old to be getting into trouble that would require Brent's intervention, he would think.
“No. It's not her. It's my cousin.” Brent answered between puffs of breath. Zane took the speed down another notch and waited for him to continue. “I'm afraid she might be inadvertently getting involved in something. If the media gets a whiff of it, they're going to drag up the family's past all over again.”
He was right. They would. And they'd enjoy doing it too.
“Yup,” Zane agreed. “So, what is she involved with?”
“Maybe nothing. And maybe something bad.”
That narrowed it right down. “All right. Can you be more specific?” In the interest of getting Brent to actually give him some useful information, Zane stopped running.
He moved off the path and onto the side so the other joggers could pass. Brent followed him, bending over and bracing his hands on his knees.
Zane gave the man a moment to catch his breath before making him talk, but he wasn't going to let him off the hook completely. “You really need to get out from behind that desk of yours once in a while. Take a walk around the block or something.”
The look Brent sent him was not kind. “I go to the gym every damn day.”
“To do what? Sit at the smoothie bar?” Zane chuckled.
“No, I run for half an hour on the treadmill first . . . then I get a smoothie.”
Zane shook his head that he'd guessed correctly. After working out on base or at whatever makeshift gym they managed to throw together while deployed, he had no patience for what passed for civilian gyms nowadays. “But seriously, the treadmill is not the same as pounding the pavement outdoors.”
“Apparently.” Brent finally managed to stand upright.
“Now that you can breathe again, you wanna tell me what you think your cousin is into and what evidence you have? Which cousin is it, anyway?” There were a lot of them, if Zane remembered correctly.
“Lizzie.”
Zane would have to look into her online later.
For now he listened as Brent continued, “She's spending a lot of time with this guy online. None of us have ever met him. Hell, as far as I know she's never met him in person. Now she's looking into liquidating some of her assets to travel and I have a feeling he had something to do with it. The whole situation is setting off my warning bells.”
It was setting off Zane's warning bells too.
A pretty young heiress sporting a last name like Hearst was no doubt a prime target for online predators. Most likely the guy—or girl because nowadays you never knew who was on the other end of the computer keyboard—was looking to get her to sign over some money before he or she disappeared.
Zane nodded. “I'll look into it. Give me all the information you've got. On Lizzie. On this guy. I'll see what I can find.”
“Okay. I hope I'm wrong but . . .”
“Better to be safe than sorry,” Zane finished the sentence.
“Exactly. Thank you, Zane, for doing this. And of course I'll pay you whatever your going rate is for this type of work—”
“Nope.” Zane shook his head.
“Zane. You don't have to do that. I don't have Great Granddad's kind of money but I'm not exactly hurting.”
“I know. This has nothing to do with money. I'm not planning on running this through my company anyway. I'm handling this on my own. Just me doing an old friend a favor.”
Looking pained to do so, Brent finally nodded. “All right. Thank you. And I'm serious, if you ever need anything from me I'm here for you. Not that I know what that could be but . . .” Brent shrugged.
“And I'll take you up on that if the need arises. Now, let's get going. I wanna run past the building I'm thinking of renting office space in. Check out the neighborhood before I meet with the owner later today.”
Brent groaned.
“Come on, it's not far. I'll take you past my gym on the way back. We can even grab a smoothie there if you'd like.” Zane dangled that promise more to taunt Brent than to tempt him.
Brent knew what he was up to. He cocked one brow high. “I thought you didn't do gyms.”
“Oh, I go occasionally. I just don't like it.” Zane grinned and took off running.
He smiled when he heard Brent's curse behind him, followed by the sound of his footsteps, fast and hard on the trail as he tried to catch up.