“What if we can’t reach her?” Guinevere dumped the pile of mushrooms into a frying pan and let them sizzle in butter.
“I guess if we can’t get hold of her in a couple of days, we can drive over to the coast and see if we can find her,” Zac said reluctantly.
“Good idea! I’m impressed that you found her so quickly.” Guinevere picked up her wineglass and took a rather large swallow. “You really are awfully good at your work, aren’t you, Zac?”
Zac blinked lazily, watching her movements with a shuttered curiosity. The tension in her this evening was new. He’d seen it the moment he’d come through the door. Because of it, he’d refrained from asking her who had been smoking a cigarette in the apartment before he’d arrived. He’d caught the lingering scent of burning tobacco as soon as he’d entered the hall. But before he could casually ask who’d been visiting, Guinevere had thrown herself into his arms. Instinct had warned Zac to wait and see. “In my own slow, humble way I try to do my job,” he said with grave modesty. To his surprise she reacted strongly to the joke.
“You are not slow or humble or plodding or anything like it,” Guinevere said fiercely. “You are downright brilliant at times.”
“Gosh, lady, I didn’t know I’d made such a great impression.”
She turned back to the stove brusquely. “Well, you have. Are you ready? The salmon is done and so are the mushrooms.”
Zac cocked one thick brow. “Salmon? Now I’m the one impressed. What did I do to deserve salmon tonight?” He swung his foot down off the chair and got up to pour another glass of tequila.
“Nothing special. I stopped by the market on the way home from work and spotted a great buy on salmon, so I got some for us. Ready?”
“I’m ready.”
She continued to chatter throughout dinner. Zac let her, content to eat the beautifully poached salmon and listen to Guinevere’s conversation. The truth was, most of the time he liked listening to her talk. She had a talent for soothing him or teasing him or nagging him or arguing with him that was very satisfying. Zac had a feeling he could listen to her for the rest of his life, merely taking steps to close her mouth when he was ready to take her to bed. Maybe not even then. He liked the small, passionate sounds she made in bed. But there was no getting around the fact that her conversation tonight contained a thread of tension. Zac waited. He was a patient man, and he’d always been good at waiting when it was necessary.
After dinner Guinevere sat back in her chair and drained the last of her wine. “That,” she announced, “was terrific salmon, even if I do say so myself.”
“It was,” Zac agreed, smiling at her. “And this kitchen will smell of fish tomorrow if I don’t empty your garbage for you tonight. I’ll take care of it while you start the dishes.”
“Why do I always get to start the dishes while you empty the trash? There’s a male-chauvinist pattern developing in this household, Zac Justis.” But she got to her feet and began rinsing dishes under the faucet.
“Some things are biologically preordained,” Zac explained as he hauled the garbage out from under the sink. “Women have evolved with a certain innate ability to do dishes, and men seem to have gotten stuck with a talent for emptying garbage. I suppose it’s all fair enough, when you consider the great cosmic scheme of things. Be back in a minute.”
He opened a drawer and found a twist tie for the garbage sack and headed for the front door. The building’s garbage chute was located near the stairs in the outside hall. Standing before the metal panel that opened onto the chute, Zac caught the stale cigarette smell as he started to twist the tie around the plastic bag.
He stood still for a moment, thinking. Then he calmly opened the bag and glanced inside. He found the damp cigarette butt under the paper that had been used to wrap the salmon. Zac stared at it for a moment and then twisted the bag closed and dumped it down the chute. He would be patient.
***
The damning photos arrived in Guinevere’s mail the following day.
She had decided to go back to the apartment before returning to the office after lunch, and her mail had already arrived. The lack of a return address in the upper left-hand corner made her curious about the plain manila envelope. She tore it open with an inexplicable sense of urgency. The message was as straightforward as the one Sally Evenson had received. It also appeared to have been typed on the same typewriter. Madame Zoltana had been busy.
Guinevere stood in the hall of her apartment building, reading and rereading the message.
IF YOU WOULD PREFER THAT MR. JUSTIS DID NOT SEE THESE PHOTOS, YOU WILL STOP MAKING INQUIRIES ABOUT ME. I DO NOT APPRECIATE THE INTERFERENCE IN MY BUSINESS.
After having read the message through at least four times, Guinevere unwrapped the black-and-white photos with a sense of dread. She was not surprised when she saw the crude shots of herself lying naked in Rick Overstreet’s arms. No, she was not surprised, but she was suddenly physically sick.
Stuffing the photos and the message back into the envelope, Guinevere ran up the two flights of stairs and stabbed her key into her lock. It took several tries before she could control her shaking hand long enough to get the door open. Her breath was coming in tight gasps and her stomach threatened to rebel. She was damp with perspiration. Blindly she groped her way down the hall to the bathroom and sat down on the edge of the tub, waiting to see if she was going to lose her lunch.
Crouched on the cold porcelain edge of the tub, she clutched the terrible envelope in both hands and thought, This was what it was like for poor Sally. I didn’t understand. How could I have known how awful it really is. Blackmail.
The photos were fakes, of course. Someone had cleverly taken head shots of her and Rick and applied them to two anonymous nude bodies. But they looked perfectly real. Modern photography techniques could mask almost any kind of fakery.
She had never been to bed with Rick Overstreet, not two years ago, not this past week, not ever. But, oh God, the photos looked so real. What’s more, they were definitely recent shots. She had not worn her hair that way two years ago. It was the way she wore it now. Zoltana had made certain these pictures appeared very current. Zac would have understood Guinevere’s involvement in an affair with another man two years ago. He wouldn’t appreciate having it thrown in his face—no man would—but he’d have understood.
But he would never tolerate being a cuckold. Zoltana had wanted her victim to see these shots, to know that if Zac saw them, he must certainly assume Guinevere was currently having an affair with Rick Overstreet. Any man who looked at these photos would believe the worst.
Guinevere sat waiting for the nausea to pass and tried desperately to think. For a few perilous moments it all seemed too much. She wanted to run and hide from Zac and the world. The only way she could steady herself was by thinking of Sally Evenson. That poor, poor woman. How easy it had been to give her bracing advice and tell her not to worry. How easy it had been to hand out the usual trite words about never paying off a blackmailer. Only now, finding herself in the same position, did she know the sense of awful doom and the utter helplessness. Guinevere opened her eyes and stared across the room. At this moment she understood completely how any blackmail victim might commit murder. But she didn’t even have that option. Madame Zoltana had disappeared.
The phone rang in the kitchen. For a moment Guinevere blocked the intrusion out of her mind. She couldn’t handle anything as normal as the phone right now. Besides, she wasn’t even supposed to be home at this hour of the day. But it rang again and again, and at last Guinevere responded out of the habit of a lifetime. Ringing phones had to be answered. Like a zombie she walked into the kitchen.
“Hello?”
“Gwen? What the hell are you doing home at this time of day?”
When she heard Zac’s voice, Guinevere thought her throat would close up completely. “I ha
d lunch nearby. Just thought I’d stop and grab my mail.”
“I see. When I couldn’t get hold of you at the office, I decided to take a chance and try the apartment. Trina said you should have been back from lunch by now.”
“What did you want, Zac?”
“I was just doing my consultant’s duty and reporting in. I still can’t get hold of Denise Bates. I think we’re going to have to drive over to the coast. What about tomorrow morning?”
She nodded, realized belatedly he couldn’t see her response, and finally found her voice. “Yes. Tomorrow would be fine, Zac. I’ll tell Trina she’ll be in charge all day.”
“Okay, then I’ll make arrangements here. Maybe it’s all for the best. I was supposed to meet with that crazy interior designer in the morning. This will give me a perfect excuse for canceling the meeting. Oh, by the way, the caterer called to discuss adding a basil dip, for the vegetables, and a bunch of miniature eggplants. I told him to forget both, but he insisted on talking to you first.”
“I’ll give him a call, Zac.”
“I don’t care what you do about the basil dip, but I do not want to waste a dime on eggplant, miniature or otherwise. I hate eggplant. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Zac.”
“I mean it, Gwen. No eggplant,” he said, suspicious of her quick, obedient response.
“I heard you. No eggplant. I’ll call him this afternoon. Is that all, Zac?”
There was a short pause. “Are you going back to the office now?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll pick you up after work. We can walk back to your place together this evening.”
Guinevere cleared her throat in a wave of panic. “Uh, Zac, you’ve been over here for dinner every night this week. And you’ve stayed the night every night this week. Don’t you need to take care of some things around your own apartment? What about your laundry?”
“My laundry’s under control, Gwen,” he said laconically. “Don’t worry, if you don’t feel like cooking, I’ll handle it. We can have tacos again.”
She wanted to cry, and instead she had to sound calm and firm. “Zac, I think we need a little time apart, don’t you? After all, we’ve been almost living together lately. I think . . . I think we’re rushing things. We need to maintain our separate identities. We haven’t really discussed this, I know, but I thought we understood each other. Please, Zac.” She held her breath, knowing her inner agitation was showing and unable to control it.
There was another brief pause from Zac’s end of the line, and then he said quietly, “I thought we understood each other, too. I’ll pick you up tomorrow for the drive to the coast. Have a good evening, Gwen.”
When he gently hung up on her, Guinevere let go of the hold she had been maintaining while on the phone. The tears fell freely until there were no more left inside. Then she picked up the phone again, called the office, and calmly told Trina that she would not be in for the rest of the afternoon or tomorrow.
“Is anything wrong, Gwen?” Trina added, concern in her voice.
“No, Trina. Nothing’s wrong.” She replaced the receiver and went into the living room. There she spread out the awful photos on the coffee table and tried to imagine exactly how Zac would respond if he ever saw them. When her mind refused to form a picture of his reaction, she decided it was because she couldn’t bear to think about it.
Feeling weary and drained, Guinevere leaned back against the couch cushions and wondered vaguely how Madame Zoltana had learned about her and Zac. She wondered how Zoltana knew enough to select Rick Overstreet to use in the photos. And she wondered how Zoltana had found out that Guinevere was making inquiries.
When she got nowhere with that line of questioning, she remembered something Zoltana had said about Zac. You will not be able to trust him.
“Oh, Zac,” Guinevere whispered wretchedly, “it’s not a question of trust.” But it was, wasn’t it? Yet how could any woman expect a man to look at such pictures and not believe the lie they portrayed? If only Rick Overstreet had not shown up in her life a second time.
Which led back to the interesting question of how Zoltana could have known about Overstreet. Someone at Gage and Watson might have seen them together, Guinevere speculated listlessly. Or perhaps Rick had commented on their past relationship. Gossip could have filtered back to Zoltana’s informant.
Guinevere tried pursuing that line of thought for a while, but it led nowhere. Nothing led anywhere. All her thoughts were running in useless little circles. An hour later she was still sitting on the couch, staring helplessly at the photos.
* * *
Zac found his own apartment very dull and very confining. It was not a place of relaxation and refuge, and it hadn’t been for some time, he realized. Guinevere’s apartment was home now. And he hadn’t been invited home this evening.
He sat with his feet propped on his coffee table and stared out of his high-rise window, watching night settle on Elliott Bay. He was on his second tequila and was seriously thinking of forgoing dinner altogether in favor of getting disgustingly drunk. He rarely got disgustingly drunk. He couldn’t even remember the last time. Probably back in college shortly before he’d dropped out in his junior year. Maybe not even then.
He liked his tequila, but the truth was, he wasn’t the type of man who did anything that would take him beyond his own self-control. Except make love to Guinevere Jones. Zac had to admit that when she came alive under his hands, he forgot everything else in the world but their combined excitement and satisfaction.
He wondered what she was doing at this particular moment. Eating, probably. He glanced at his watch. No, by now she would have finished eating. It was almost seven thirty.
Why hadn’t she wanted him there tonight? He had to face the fact that he might have worn out his welcome. Zac took another sip of tequila, and when he was tired of confronting that fact, he went on to the next fact, which was that Guinevere Jones had said she loved him. She belonged to him.
Maybe she just wanted some time to herself. Everyone needed time alone. She was right, he had practically moved in with her lately, and she wasn’t accustomed to having a man in the house. Of course, the reverse was true, too. He wasn’t accustomed to living with a woman. They both had adjustments to make. They both needed time to make those adjustments. Perhaps he had been rushing things lately, but it had all seemed so right.
But tonight everything seemed very, very wrong. He didn’t like the feeling. There was the same sense of wrongness he felt when a case was going sour. But this hardly constituted a Free Enterprise Security case. This was Guinevere Jones.
Zac’s mind jumped to the matter of the cigarette butt in Guinevere’s garbage. That led to the memory of her tension last night. She had even been tense in bed for a while. He hadn’t tried to make love to her. Instead he had pulled her close, his arm wrapped around her bare waist, and just held her. Eventually she had fallen into a heavy sleep. When he knew for certain she was no longer awake, he, too, had been able to sleep.
The vague tension he had sensed in her last night was nothing compared to the tension that had gripped her this afternoon when he had phoned her at home. Hell, if it were any other woman, he would have thought he’d interrupted an afternoon tryst with a lover.
The tequila in his glass slopped onto the coffee table as that last thought flashed through his mind. No. Not Guinevere. She wouldn’t do that to him.
The memory of cigarette smoke drifted through his mind again, nagging at him, refusing to let go.
She wouldn’t betray him with another man. She would be totally honest. She would tell him if she had fallen in love with someone else.
Unless she sensed how hard he would fight to keep her from walking out of his life.
She would still be honest. It was her nature.
This was getting him nowhe
re. He was a patient man, Zac told himself. A slow, patient, plodding man. Hell, the people he’d once worked with had called him the Glacier. But he had his limits. Zac set down the tequila glass and got to his feet. Taking his windbreaker out of the hall closet, he opened the door, went out into the hall, and took the elevator down to the lobby.
Out on First Avenue he caught a bus that took him to Pioneer Square. He got off near Guinevere’s apartment house and stood on the sidewalk looking up at her window. The arched panes of glass were dark. If she wasn’t home, he’d go out of his mind.
He used the key she had given him to let himself inside the apartment house door, and then he steadily climbed the two flights to Guinevere’s door. When he stood outside her apartment, he hesitated a moment, listening. Slowly he inserted his key into the lock.
Guinevere was stricken with a curious sense of inevitability when she heard the key turn in the lock. She didn’t move, but she turned her head to look at him as he opened the door. She hadn’t bothered to turn on the lights, and in the shadows he seemed to fill the doorway. Carefully she set down her half empty wineglass. She couldn’t find any words, so she stared mutely. It was Zac who spoke first, not moving from the threshold.
“You want to tell me what this is all about?” he asked, far too softly.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love you,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Then you have to tell me,” he said simply. He still didn’t move. “I’ll go crazy if you don’t.”
“You’ll despise me if I do.”
Unexpectedly he smiled at that. “You know that’s not true.”
She shook her head helplessly. “Please go away, Zac.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
She caught her breath. You won’t be able to trust him. “She said I wouldn’t, you know. That afternoon when I had the psychic session with Madame Zoltana, she said I would be afraid to trust you when the chips were down.”
The Fatal Fortune Page 9
