Janet Evanovich - Full Scoop

"Run, Mom!" the girl yelled. "He's got a gun tucked in the back of his pants!"

"Mel, no!" Maggie cried. She swung her umbrella, and hit Zack, as hard as she could, in the gut. He grunted. "Let go of my daughter, you scumbag!" she shouted, hitting him again. "Or I'll beat you so hard your mother won't recognize you."

"Hey, wait!" Zack said. "I'm FBI." He reached for his wallet, just as Queenie hurled her cell phone at him. It bounced off the side of his head. Zack blinked several times. "What the hell?"

"Hang on!" Everest said, trying to squeeze through the window on the passenger's side of Queenie's car and getting stuck as a result. He finally pulled free and hit the pavement in a dead run. "I'll save ya'll!"

Zack looked up. "Holy shit!" he said, a split second before impact.

"I can't tell you how sorry we are, Mr. Madden," Maggie said for the third or fourth time as she and Everest pulled Zack from the ground and insisted on helping him inside the house. Even in her concern she couldn't help notice how solid he was; the muscles in his back and upper arms were hard and defined.

"Look, I'm okay," Zack said. "Really," he added when the tension in her face didn't lessen. She was pretty, despite her distress. "But if you ask me to do jumping jacks I'm going to have to decline." He looked up at Everest. "Have you ever thought of becoming a bulldozer?"

"I feel bad about this," Everest said. "I thought you were Carl Lee Stanton."

"I'm much better looking."

Maggie paid scant attention to the two as she took in the damage. "You're all skinned up and bleeding," she said. "Mel, please hand me my medical bag."

"No big deal," Zack said. "I've hurt myself worse than this going out for my newspaper."

Mel looked awed. "Man, Everest just mowed him down!" she said, grabbing the bag from the top of the refrigerator.

Queenie stared at the badge that Zack had asked Everest to pull from his wallet, even as the big man had held him in a body lock, Zack's face pressed against the concrete driveway. She glanced from the badge to Zack and back to the badge.

"Problem?" Zack asked.

"How do we know this badge is for real?" she asked. "And if it is real, how do we know this is you? This man doesn't have a beard. And how come you're driving a hippie van? FBI agents drive black cars with tinted windows."

"Yeah, and they wear black suits and sunglasses," Mel said. "Didn't you see Men in Black?"

"And how come somebody from the FBI didn't alert Dr. Davenport to the fact they would be sending an agent to look after the doc and her daughter?" Queenie added.

"I just did," Zack said. "There wasn't a whole lot of time to plan. I was on a plane within minutes of learning about Stanton's escape. You can't get service that quick in a fast-food restaurant. And to tell you the truth, I don't want people knowing. Only reason I blurted it out like I did was because I was losing oxygen, and my aunt Gertrude, rest her soul, was trying to convince me to come to the light."

All four stared back as though they didn't know what to make of him. "I'm kidding about Aunt Gertrude," he said. "I don't even have an Aunt Gertrude."

"So if nobody is supposed to know who you are what are we going to tell people?" Maggie asked.

"I'm a long-lost relative?" He looked at Mel. "I could be your favorite uncle."

"I don't have an uncle. My dad was an orphan."

"We'll pretend."

Everest snapped his fingers. "I get it! He's undercover. But he's smarter than most undercover cops because they like to blend. People like Carl Lee Stanton will be looking for someone who blends. Zack is definitely not blending; you can see that van three blocks away. Not to mention the beard and Hawaiian shirt."

Maggie looked up from her bag. Beard? Hawaiian shirt? She felt the hairs stand on the back of her neck as she recalled Destiny Moultrie's questions.

"In other words," Everest said. "Zack is so obvious that he's not obvious. Does that make sense?"

"I think I get it," Zack said.

"You need to sit down so I can reach your head," Maggie said, noting how tall he was. The fact that she noticed the width of his shoulders as well stymied her.

"I don't think very many people know my dad was orphaned," Mel said.

"Just call me Uncle Zack," he said, and pulled his pistol from the back of his jeans. Maggie yelped and pushed Mel behind her, Queenie started down the hall.

Everest tried to wrestle the gun from him.

"Hold it!" Zack said. "I'm not going to shoot anybody. I'm just trying to get comfortable."

Everest backed off. "Sorry. Just doing my job."

Zack offered the gun, handle first, to Maggie. "Would you please put this on top of your refrigerator so it'll be out of the way?"

"Huh?" She stared at the weapon. "Do we have to keep it inside?"

Zack shrugged. "I guess I could lock it in the van, but if Stanton and his buddies show up, one of you will have to cover me while I run out for it."

"Okay," Maggie said begrudgingly. She took the gun between two fingers and very slowly crossed the room with it as though it were a hand grenade, and she feared it would explode at any moment. "I hate guns," she added as she placed it on the refrigerator.

Zack gave her a sympathetic nod. "I don't really have a choice. My boss sort of expects me to keep one on me." He glanced about the group. "Listen, if it'll make everybody feel better you can call the bureau and check me out. Thomas Helms, the director, will vouch for me."

"I think we all need to settle down," Maggie said.

"Mr. Madden, would you like something to eat or drink? Or should I refer to you as Agent Madden?"

"Just call me Zack. I'm not hungry. I had something called a shrimp burger on the drive from the airport. Now that's something you don't see a lot of in Virginia." He caught Queenie staring, eyes narrowed like slits. "Uh-oh, I'm going to be real embarrassed if you tell me I have a shrimp hull wedged between my teeth."

"I think she's giving you the eye," Everest said, almost reverently.

"I'm thinking you don't look so good," Queenie said, pulling a chair from the table and sitting. Everest and Mel sat as well. "You look like you need to be in the hospital."

"You'd think the FBI would have sent someone healthy," Mel said, glancing at the cast on his right arm. "I hope you don't shoot with your right hand."

Zack nodded. "Sorry. But if it'll make you feel better, they actually tried to break my left arm too."

Everest laughed out loud and slapped his hand on his thigh. "You just kill me."

"You don't seem to take your job very seriously," Queenie said. "I would think you'd be plotting and planning and all sorts of FBI stuff, seeing that we might have a cold-blooded killer on the way."

"I need to clean your wounds and make sure you don't have a head injury," Maggie said, feeling a little shy, and a little dopey because of it. But most of the males she was accustomed to treating usually drooled and gnawed teething rings. "Is your vision okay?"

Zack glanced about the room.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" Mel asked.

"Eleven."

"Fun-neee."

Maggie sifted through his coarse dark hair, her fingers skimming his warm scalp, unleashing the scent of his shampoo. His hair fell well past his collar. "Any tenderness or pressure?" she asked.

"Not yet," he said, knowing there was going to be a whole lot of pressure building if she kept raking her fingers through his hair.

"Excuse me?"

"No," he amended.

"Does anything hurt?"

Zack looked at her. He'd been about to answer, "Only my whole damn body," until he noted the color of her eyes. Sky blue. "I'm good," he said.

"This is going to sting a little," Maggie told him. She put alcohol on a cotton ball and touched the cut at his cheek.