The Zaanics Deceit (Cate Lyr #1)

by Nina Post

  “I’ll call her.”

  “No!” Lyr yelled. “I see I’ll have to go to her myself.”

  As Lyr stalked out to his car, Peter put up a hand to Benjamin. “Don’t bother. He’s on a tear. I barely had time to get in the car before he left Gaelen’s house, and I’m just trying to make sure he doesn’t do anything foolish.”

  Jude was waiting for her, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and holding a chilled martini. Gaelen plucked the glass from his hand and took a long sip, the rocket fuel of the gin coursing through her, warming and energizing her. This loft was her sanctuary, and buying it was one of the best decisions she’d made.

  “You don’t want to stay home with Philip tonight?” Jude said, teasing her.

  She pressed up against him, brushed her cheek against the stubble on his, and set down the glass behind him. “Philip doesn’t make me feel alive,” she murmured. “Philip is — ” she moaned as he bit at her ear then picked her up so smoothly she barely noticed, “ — soporific. And if there’s one thing I live by,” she said as Jude carried her to the bed, “it’s that I want to get the most out of my life.”

  Romane stalked after the intruder with a baseball bat. She pounced past a wall of her living room and heard a scream.

  “Peter?” She gripped the bat like Ty Cobb.

  He shrieked, then panted, hand on his chest. “Oh. Romane. You scared me.” He put his hands on his knees and leaned over, breathing hard. “I think I’m having a myocardial infarction.”

  Romane lowered the bat. “You’re twelve. You’re fine.”

  “I’m thirty-one, and you don’t know. I could have an underlying genetic condition.”

  “What are you doing in my house? Is my father here?”

  “He has a key …” Peter tried to catch his breath. “To your front door. I think he went,” he held up a finger, “in the kitchen.”

  Romane slapped the bat against her palm. Jason came in from the living room holding a huge bowl of popcorn. “What’s going on?”

  “My father,” Romane said, tossing the bat on a chair and taking the bowl. “He used his key, which I never gave him. And I nearly splattered Peter’s brains on the wall.”

  “Where is he right now?” Jason asked.

  Romane went into the kitchen. Her father had collected a half-dozen items from the refrigerator and pantry and was putting together a sandwich. Jason came up behind her. Peter went around them and sat on a stool by the espresso machine.

  “I’m glad to see you, Papa,” Romane said with a tight smile. “What are you doing here?”

  Lyr licked mayonnaise from his thumb and spread the mayo on a piece of bread, then covered the bread with ham slices. “Romane, your sister is wicked. She is venæ pejoris,” he muttered, laying salami and then pickle slices on the ham, “and Marit would be horrified if she knew how your sister were treating me, because Gaelen is pecking away here,” he patted a hand over his heart, “like a viþonoh to carrion.”

  “Be patient,” Romane said. “I have to think this is more your underestimation of her worth than her cessation of duty to you. Gaelen is the most responsible person I know, and she would never disregard her obligations.”

  Lyr held up the knife and glowered at Romane. “Bullshit!”

  Romane stood across the island from him and put her hands on the counter, disregarding the knife. “Papa, you are old. You have already passed on your legacy, and should be under the watchful eye of someone who knows you better than you know yourself. So, please, go back to Gaelen’s house and apologize.”

  Lyr paused mid-cut. “Do you forget that this is the same house where I heard, ‘old people are a superfluous burden’?”

  “You exaggerate, Papa. Go back and be humble.”

  “No, she is hateful! I have bred a sociopath who cares more for the position of power that I gave her than for her own father. I refuse to prostrate myself to her.”

  Romane raised her voice. “Don’t be obstinate! Is it so impossible that I could give you good counsel? Is it so hard for you to understand that you’re being irrational? Go and ask Gaelen’s forgiveness.”

  “Ask her forgiveness? Never. All of my efforts with her have added up to nothing. Less than nothing. May a military drone obliterate her house and that fiendish Italian car of hers.”

  “You’ve been watching too much Fox News, Papa.”

  The doorbell rang and Jason left the room.

  “And you’ll say the same of me the next time you’re in a mood,” Romane muttered, turning away from him.

  “No, I will not,” her father said in a growl, “because you aren’t merciless like your gelid-hearted sister. It is not your life’s goal, Romane, to reduce me for the sport of it. You have a true daughter’s gratitude and courtesy. You haven’t forgotten how I gave you a portion of the company.”

  “Thank you, Papa.”

  Jason returned with Yuji.

  “Is Gaelen with you?” Romane asked Yuji.

  Lyr scoffed at Gaelen’s assistant. “Him? He’s nothing but a lap dog whose self-worth depends on Her Highness’ favor — something none of us have. Get out of here!”

  Gaelen appeared behind Yuji, put a hand on his shoulder and walked around him to stand next to Romane. “I don’t know how I’ve offended you, Papa. You are much more likely these days to perceive well-intended suggestions as malicious criticism, and honestly, I’m getting tired of it.”

  “Papa,” Romane pleaded. “Live out the rest of the month with Gaelen, then come stay here after that. We simply can’t host you right now. Jason’s parents are visiting next week.”

  Ly finished his sandwich and washed it down with a long swallow of pomegranate juice. Just as Gaelen and Romane started to look relieved, and parted to go to different places in the kitchen, Lyr spoke again. “I renounce all roofs, and choose to try my luck in the elements with the coyote and the owl. Return to Gaelen’s? I’d sooner claw my own eyes out.”

  “Fine.” Gaelen released Romane’s hand and crossed her arms. “It’s your choice.”

  “Do not make me mad,” Lyr warned.

  Jason snorted lightly. “Oh, that hasn’t happened yet?” he murmured under his breath.

  “You’re still my flesh, my blood, my daughter,” Lyr said to Gaelen, “but like an infected sore, a plague boil. I can be patient. I will stay here with Romane.”

  “We’re not set up for your prolonged stay, Papa. We just aren’t. Be reasonable.”

  “Ah,” their father said, contemptuously. “A man’s life is as cheap as a beast’s. God give me the patience I need to endure.” He addressed the heavens and stabbed the knife he used for the sandwich into the wood cutting board.

  “Papa,” Gaelen started, stepping closer to him. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  Lyr extended an arm and pointed a finger between Gaelen and Romane. “No, you disloyal deceivers, I will have my revenge before my death, which is anticipated, I’m sure, with X’d-out days on your calendars. ‘Still not dead. X. Still not dead. X.’”

  “I have been nothing but nice to you, and this is how you repay us?” Romane flushed with anger. “By painting us as monsters?”

  “You mislead me with your testaments to filial devotion, then make it your life’s work to reduce me to nothing. If the shoe fits, as they say.”

  “Don’t be upset, Papa,” Gaelen said in a soothing tone.

  “Upset? This weary old heart will splinter into a hundred thousand pieces before I shed one tear for you.”

  Their father pushed past them with Peter following, left the front door open, and then got in his car. He reversed, then pulled forward, driving over Romane’s landscaping and lights, then peeled out onto the street as they all watched from the entrance.

  “Ms. Lyr,” Yuji said, utterly calm. “We should go. There’s a storm coming.”

  Cate had dinner alone at the hotel restaurant as a storm lashed rain against the window, then went back to her room overlooking the wharf. She showered, changed into pajamas, and
piled up the pillows on the bed to watch Steilacoom.

  The hotel phone rang and she let it go to voice mail. A few minutes later, she checked the message.

  “Miss Lyr, this is Marcus Metcalfe at the front desk. I apologize for bothering you, but we have a number of boxes down here that a courier dropped off for you earlier. They escaped our attention for a while, unfortunately.”

  She called back and asked them to bring them up to her room.

  The knock on the door came five minutes later.

  “It’s Marcus from the front desk.”

  She wondered if that’s what he said whenever people asked him where he was from. ‘The front desk.’ Then the person would ask, But where is your family from? And Marcus would answer, ‘The front desk.’

  She raised up on the balls of her feet to get a better look. Marcus had a cart piled high with boxes. She unlocked the door, nodded back at Marcus, and held open the door. Marcus brought three good-sized boxes into the front entrance by the closet.

  “Is that all of them?” she asked, wryly.

  “Yes, Miss Lyr.”

  “Thank you for bringing them up.”

  “Of course.” He nodded and started to go, but she gave him a generous tip, said good night, then locked up the door again.

  Who could have sent three boxes? And what was in them? She picked one up. It was heavy. She shook it, and nothing shifted. The return label said ‘Victor Zaanics,’ at a San Francisco address she didn’t recognize. “Victor Zaanics?” She laughed and used the file on her mini Swiss army knife to cut through the packing tape.

  The first box was full of books from the Kinokuniya bookstore in Japantown — books she hadn’t looked at, but ones she would have wanted to buy if she knew about them. She opened the next box, a lighter one. It was packed full of kawaii things from the Mai Do stationary store she had spent way too much time in: office accessories, tiny erasers, folders, pencil cases, stamps, stickers, magnets, push-pins. And pens. The third box contained a few things she had admired in New People, all perfectly wrapped.

  The books and stationary made her happy. She checked the clock. It was almost nine.

  It had been too long, and she only talked to him for a few minutes, in the bookstore … but Benjamin had given her his number. Cate started tapping the number into his phone, but the phone showed an incoming call before she was finished.

  “Benjamin?” she said. “What is it?”

  “Your father had an,” he hesitated, “episode, and is now missing.”

  “Missing? How?”

  “He left Gaelen’s after they had a fight, then argued with Romane at her house, then drove to my house. More accurately, he nearly drove through my house,” he added in a dry tone. “Peter was with him. And then they left, in your father’s car.”

  “What do you mean, he had an episode?”

  “He had a fight with Gaelen and Romane.”

  Cate chuckled. “That’s considered an episode now? Why, because he’s old?”

  “You’ll have to talk to your sisters about it.”

  “That’s not going to happen, and you damn well know it, so just tell me now.”

  Benjamin sighed. “He, as some would say, ‘completely lost his shit.’”

  “Okay. I’m going to go look for him. Any idea where he might have gone?”

  “No, but he’s under the impression that he’s still in charge at Lyr Logistics, so perhaps he went there, to take refuge in an office that’s no longer his. But you shouldn’t be driving in this storm.”

  “I have to,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m coming there first.”

  Cate’s phone rang as she was on her way to Benjamin’s house in the rental car she couldn’t wait to turn back in.

  “Hello?”

  “Cate? This is Noah.”

  Head-slap. “Noah. Benjamin called just as I was about to call you.”

  “Understandable. He’s better-looking, has more money, he’s a reasonable height …”

  She pulled into Benjamin’s driveway, relieved, because her windshield wipers could barely keep up with the torrent.

  “No, no, my father’s missing. He’s out in the storm.”

  “Steak Diane!”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. It’s a thing I do,” he said.

  “You said ‘profiteroles’ before, at the bookstore.”

  “I used to curse,” Noah said. “Not masters-level cursing, but someone at work made a fuss about it. So I just replaced the usual curse words with dishes from classic French cuisine, because this person was always talking about one day ‘attending the Cordon Bleu.’” Noah pronounced this last part in an imitation of the snooty-sounding person who said it.

  “Did it piss them off?”

  “Yeah, it drove her crazy, but she couldn’t do anything about it. And then it just stuck, so I guess the joke’s on me, huh?”

  She chuckled. “I kind of like it, Victor Zaanics.”

  “You found me out.”

  “I found you out. It didn’t take a genius detective.”

  “Did you … like them? The things I sent?”

  “Did I like them? You made my whole year, and probably the year before that. How did you know?”

  “I, uh … I kind of followed you,” Noah said, sheepishly. “In Japantown. It’s — I know what it sounds like, but I heard you were back and wanted to see you but didn’t think you’d want to see me, considering everything that happened — ”

  “Which had nothing to do with you.”

  “You never got in touch with me after you left,” he pointed out.

  She listened to the rain. “I’m sorry. I should have, but I just couldn’t. It wasn’t you, it was just … complicated.”

  “I know,” Noah said. “And I don’t want to get on your case about it. Really. But maybe we could not let another five years go by again?”

  “Deal,” Cate said. “In fact, there’s something I need to talk to you about it, but not now. I have to look for my father.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Probably near Benjamin’s house.”

  “You’re not going outside, are you?”

  “I’m going to drive around and look for him, and then if I have to get out, I’ll get out. No one else is looking for him.”

  “No, wait there. I’ll come with you. Can you wait?”

  “Why don’t you call me when you get there?” Noah said. “I won’t be far, and then I’ll drive over to help you.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But Noah — be careful.”

  She hung up with him and called Benjamin.

  “I’m in your driveway,” she said.

  “It’s a very popular driveway,” Benjamin replied. “I’ll be billing your father for the damage. Are you coming in?”

  “No, I’m going to drive around, see if I can find him. But Noah’s going to meet me here soon.”

  “In my driveway,” Benjamin said, wry.

  “Where else? Have you tried the pancakes here? They’re unbelievable.”

  Cate hung up and pulled back into the residential street, wishing there were a turbo speed for the windshield wipers. She was looking mostly for her father’s car. He probably just wanted to get away from Gaelen and Romane, and wouldn’t have gone very far in the storm.

  Fifteen minutes of very slow driving later, Noah called.

  “Is that you?” he asked.

  “What?”

  A car ahead of her flashed its lights then stopped next to her. Noah waved.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “Looking for your father. He owes me money.” He kept driving.

  She passed him another four times in the next ten minutes. He called again. “Um, can we just look for him together? I know it would be more efficient to do it separately, but less … oh god, fun is a really inappropriate word.”

  “Sounds good,” she said, then parked in Benjamin’s driveway. Noah parked then hurried out of his car and into hers.
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  “Croque monsieur, it’s bad out there,” Noah said, breathing a little fast, getting himself settled. She drove at the very bottom of the speedometer through the island.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”

  “I’m taking a French executive to Six Flags Great America tomorrow, so I shouldn’t stay up too late, but there’s nothing I’d rather be doing.”

  “You have some strange hobbies,” Cate said.

  “It’s my job.”

  “Taking French businessmen to ride roller coasters?”

  “I work for a large corporation that has a lot of high-powered international clients. When those clients are in San Francisco, I serve as their translator, personal assistant, and problem-solver. And if they ask me very nicely, I do the bird of paradise dance.”

  She snorted. He leaned forward and pointed. “Wait, stop. Is that his car?”

  She waited until the movement of the wipers gave her a clear enough sliver of sight. “I think so, yeah.”

  But Noah was already out the door, running into the storm.

  Chapter 7

  Aaron Lyr abandoned his SL in a muddy patch of ground, leaving his keys in the ignition, then walked away with nothing but the clothes he was wearing — loafers with silk socks, wool pants, and a cashmere sweater over a collared shirt.

  Peter jogged to keep up with him. “Please, Mr. Lyr, I beg you — make up with your daughters! Compromise!”

  “Blow, wind!” Lyr bellowed at the sky as he fought through the branches. “Burn, lightning, and strike my daughters’ houses, then set my building to blaze, a monument of an old man’s folly! Gush, rain, and flood their houses! Rumble, thunder, and shake us from our illusions of loyalty!” Lyr broke off a branch that snagged his sweater and hit another tree.

  Peter cried out as a thick branch cracked off a tree and crashed to the ground behind him. He stumbled closer to Lyr, who was turning slowly in a circle. “I can’t stay out here, Mr. Lyr,” he pleaded. “I’m not an outdoors person. I need to be indoors, with electricity.”

  When Lyr started walking again, Peter followed, holding up his arms to protect his face from branches. “Mr. Lyr, I’m wearing wet jeans!”