paused at the desk. “Good afternoon, Kim.”
The receptionist smiled. “I was just telling this woman you wouldn’t be in today.”
“A change in plans. We’ll be in my office, but I’d prefer my presence here be kept a secret.”
Surprise flitted across Kim’s face as her gaze swung from Dr. Collier to Maggie. “Sure.”
Zach indicated for Maggie to go first toward a hallway behind the receptionist’s desk. “My office is the third one on the right.”
Maggie made her way to the door and stopped. Okay, so everyone at the college thought the world of Dr. Zach Collier. That didn’t mean he wasn’t behind whatever was going on—and she still wasn’t sure what that was. She needed to be cautious. After years of conditioning by Gramps, she wouldn’t easily trust anyone with the last name Collier, no matter how persuasive he could be or how popular he was with his students and the college staff.
He unlocked his door and waved her inside. “I must say I wasn’t expecting a change of heart this fast, but I’m glad you want to work with me.”
Maggie froze a few feet into the office, then pivoted toward the man. “Work with you? I never said I was going to do that.” The very idea still didn’t sit well with her, even though logically she knew she should work with him if she wanted to find out what was going on.
“Then why are you here?”
The sound of the door clicking closed shimmied down her. “You know, that is a good question.”
He arched a brow. “And? Are you going to answer it?”
“No.” Because she didn’t have an answer. Why was she here? In the light of a new day she wondered if what had happened less than twenty-four hours ago was all a dream. The one thing she did know was that her grandfather would be furious if he knew she was talking with the enemy.
“So you aren’t convinced that Jake Somers was murdered?”
“Gramps’s horse got spooked, and it threw him. That wasn’t the first time he had fallen from one. This time he hit his head on a rock.” As she stated the facts told to her by the sheriff, she tried to distance herself from the situation, but she couldn’t shake the vision of Gramps lying at the top of the mesa for half a day until his body had been discovered by a ranch hand, who had found her grandfather’s horse riderless near the barn.
“Accidents can be faked. How do you explain your grandfather’s house being ransacked yesterday, like my grandfather’s was?”
“Everyone knew about Gramps’s funeral.” Of course, those people were his friends and neighbors, whom she couldn’t imagine robbing him. So the possibility that Zach Collier might be right had taken root in her mind while she had tossed and turned in her bed. Finally at five in the morning she’d given up the pretense of sleeping, and had done some research concerning Zach Collier on the Internet. She’d read about his grandfather’s death and about Zach’s disappearance the year before in the Amazon. Everyone had thought he was dead until his sister, Kate, had found him living with a tribe of Indians in a remote part of the jungle.
Zach went behind his desk and sat. “Was anything taken?”
“I don’t know. I still have a lot to clean up.” She lowered herself onto a chair nearby, and although a desk separated them, the room was too small, too intimate with its wall-to-wall bookcases filled with Indian artifacts interspersed among scientific volumes, mostly dealing with chemistry and biology. She felt enclosed in a tomb, drawn toward this man against her better judgment.
“I noticed the television was still there. His guns. Those are items a robber would steal.”
“True.” And Gramps’s prized Indian collection had been trashed, not stolen. “Maybe you scared them away.” She was grasping at straws, but she just wasn’t ready to admit to the possibility her grandfather had been murdered. The implication shook her very foundation.
“So you don’t think my theory holds up?” He tapped his fingers against the padded arm of his chair.
“I didn’t say that. I’m here to listen. I owe that much to Gramps.”
He glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly dinnertime. Let’s go someplace and eat. I talk better on a full stomach.”
“So like a man to say that,” she muttered as she rose.
He chuckled. “So much of my life has been spent in primitive surroundings searching for the next wonder drug, that when I can I indulge in the finer things in life, like good food.”
“I read in the newspaper last year about your company’s troubles.”
His eyes widened. “You read about a Collier?”
“I like to be informed about the family enemy. Actually, Gramps took great pleasure in showing me the article. You lost the company?”
He shrugged. “One of my partners was dealing in illegal drugs. By the time the dust settled the company was in shambles.”
“So you came here?” Maggie gestured around her.
“My grandfather needed me. I came to be close to him and do something different with my life. I’ve discovered I enjoy teaching, as well as researching. Here I get to do both.”
When Maggie walked to the office door, Zach reached around to open it. His arm grazed hers. An electrical jolt streaked through her. It took all her willpower not to jump back from his touch, not to show him that he could make her react to his very nearness. She sent him a shaky smile as she stepped into the corridor. He returned it with a mind-shattering one that made her legs wobble.
While she strode next to him toward the parking lot, she tried to steel herself against the charm that seemed to come to him so effortlessly today. She reminded herself that he wanted something from her, so of course he would turn it on. It could probably be turned off just as easily. She recalled the evening before. Right now he fit into the civilized environment around him, but she strongly suspected he was more at home in the jungle, with its raw primitiveness. The article she had read had recounted the story of him being lost in the Amazon for weeks, and his near death. His life had been saved by a group of Indians who shunned outsiders, and yet had taken him into their tribe.
“You can follow me, or I can drive and bring you back later. I have to come back anyway to do some work tonight.” Zach paused at her car.
“Your hours are as bad as a medical doctor’s.”
“At the end of the term, I’m mounting an expedition into the jungle, so there’s work to be done. I do it when I can. I have four weeks to get everything done.”
“And find your grandfather’s killer, too?”
His look sharpened. “And yours. I’ll make the time if I have to. I owe my grandfather a lot.”
As she did hers. The thought emphasized a bond between them she wished she could deny. They each loved their grandfathers. “I’ll ride with you. It’ll give us more time to talk.”
Zach indicated his red sports car a few spaces away.
