Eye of the Beholder

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “It’s about sacrifice, Alexa. I worked so hard, but you ruined everything. I’m afraid only another sacrifice can realign the vortices now.”

  “I ruined things? You’re crazy.”

  Dylan’s eyes glittered with sudden fury. “Joanna and Radstone should both be dead by now, along with Guthrie. The vortices should have come back into balance. Peace and serenity should have been reestablished here in Avalon. But because of you and Trask, the harmony of the energy forces is still deeply disturbed.”

  Harriet pursed her lips. “What’s this talk about sacrifice, young man?”

  Alexa tightened her grip on the journal. “Don’t you see, Mac? The little creep thinks he’s sacrificed himself for the sake of the vortices. But he screwed up. Things didn’t go the way he planned.”

  “No, no, Alexa.” Dylan used the gun to motion the two women back into the store room. “You don’t understand,” he said as he followed them through the door. “You, Alexa, are the sacrifice. Your death will calm the vortices. Unfortunately, I’m afraid your friend, here, will also have to die. Sorry, ma’am. One of those wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time things, you know?”

  “She’s not answering the shop phone or her cell phone.” Trask cut the connection.

  “Take it easy,” Webster said. “Maybe she’s busy with a customer. Or maybe she just stepped out for a moment.”

  “I don’t like it.” Trask picked up his keys and went to the door. “I’m going to drive over to Avalon Plaza. Want to come along?”

  “Yes.” Webster went after him. “On the way, you can tell me what you think is going on here.”

  “I’ve got a question for you first.” Trask reached the hall and went swiftly toward the stairs. “How long has Dylan been associated with Dimensions?”

  “Since the beginning.” Webster descended the staircase behind Trask. “He came to work for me when I opened the Institute.”

  “I knew it,” Trask said. “I always knew it. Should have figured it all out a hell of a lot sooner.”

  “Are you implying that Dylan is the killer?”

  “Yes. He’ll be very desperate and very frustrated by now. He’ll be looking for someone to blame.” Trask hit the first floor and shifted into a run.

  Webster huffed after him. “You think he’s a danger to Alexa?”

  “He has the shop two doors down from her, and I can’t get her on the phone. What do you think?”

  “I think there may be a problem,” Webster muttered.

  “I should have answered the phone,” Alexa said. “Someone might wonder why I didn’t.” Someone like Trask, for instance.

  “Not likely,” Dylan said. “Whoever it is will think you’re in the rest room or something.”

  The call had been from Trask. She was sure of it. Or was desperation causing her to conjure fantasies of rescue?

  Mentally she projected a vision of Trask getting into his Jeep and driving over to the Plaza to see what was going on. It was a weak vision, at best. Maybe she should have paid more attention to some of Webster Bell’s theories of positive image projection.

  “What’s the plan, Dylan?” Alexa clutched Joanna’s journal and tried hard not to look at the gun. Beside her, Harriet appeared uncharacteristically anxious, even dithery.

  “The plan,” Dylan said, “is to wait until after five o’clock. When the rest of the shops have closed and everyone has gone home for the day, the sacrifice will be made.”

  Alexa stared at him. “You think you can just kill me and go on with business as usual?”

  “Unfortunately, I’ll have to leave Avalon with my work only partially accomplished.” Dylan’s eyes slitted. “All because of you. I tried to keep you out of this. I knew that you would disturb the vortices. But you insisted on continuing to interfere. You got involved with him. You slept with him.”

  “Trask?”

  “Yes, Trask.” Dylan frowned. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this. It was supposed to be neat and tidy. All of the forces were supposed to be back in proper alignment by now.”

  Harriet put a hand to her throat. “Oh, my, I’m feeling a little dizzy.”

  Alexa doubted that Harriet had ever been dizzy in her life, but she refrained from commenting. Instead she looked at Dylan. “Let my friend go. She doesn’t know anything about any of this.”

  “I can’t do that.” Dylan glanced at his watch. “She’ll cause trouble.”

  “She won’t go to the cops, if that’s what you mean. She has a few issues with the police herself.”

  “Really, dear,” Harriet said in a weak, breathy voice. “There is no need to air dirty laundry in front of strangers.”

  Dylan scowled. “I don’t care if she’s wanted for murder. I can’t trust her. I’m not letting her leave.”

  “Is it hot in here or is it just me?” Harriet asked.

  Alexa summoned up what she hoped was an anxious expression. “Maybe you’d better sit down, Mac.”

  She used her eyes to indicate a rank of winged lions. Understanding flashed in Harriet’s gaze.

  If they could put a few of the cartons full of stone pedestals and imitation statuary between themselves and Dylan, they might be able to use them as a barricade. With luck, one of them, at least, might make it into the outer room when the shooting started.

  “Yes, I suppose that would be best.” Harriet tottered to the row of heavy lions and started to lower herself onto a carton. “My doctor told me to avoid undue excitement.”

  “Don’t move,” Dylan said sharply. “Stay right where you are.”

  “Whatever you say,” Harriet murmured. She straightened with what appeared to be painful effort. “Would you mind if I got my pills out of my purse?”

  Dylan glanced at her handbag. “You won’t need them.”

  Alexa looked at him. “You know you won’t get away with this. Trask will figure out what happened. He won’t give up until he finds you. He’s that way about some things. A little obsessive.”

  Dylan tightened his grip on the gun. “I’ll take care of Trask later. After the sacrifice calms the vortices.”

  “You do realize that all this talk of a sacrifice makes you sound less than sane, don’t you?” Alexa asked casually.

  Dylan uttered a disgusted sound. “You don’t understand any of it, do you?”

  “Why don’t you explain it to me? Start with how you found out that Foster Radstone was skimming funds from the Institute.”

  “I’ve always kept close tabs on the Institute’s financial status. It was one of my duties as the Guardian. I suspected Radstone was skimming months ago. I added him to my list.”

  Harriet peered at him with wide-eyed interest. “Forgive me, young man, but you don’t appear to be the type who takes an interest in financial matters.”

  Dylan gave her a brief, chilling smile. “I was a corporate financial officer for over a decade before I found the path to Dimensions.”

  “And you seemed like such a nice man,” Alexa muttered. “What was this list you mentioned?”

  His expression implied that she was not very bright. “The list of people who had to be removed so that the message of Dimensions could expand farther into the world. There were three of them on it at the beginning. Dean Guthrie was at the top. Radstone was next. Liz Guthrie was to be the last.”

  “My God,” Alexa whispered.

  He ignored that. “I meditated for a long time on how to proceed.”

  “Not long enough, apparently,” Alexa said. “Why did you wait until Trask arrived in Avalon?”

  “If it had been necessary to get rid of Guthrie immediately, I would have done so. But I knew that I could afford to wait for a few months to begin the process of getting rid of those who stood in the way. The problem was that I had to arrange for several deaths rather close together in time.”

  “And you wanted to be sure that Chief Strood didn’t conclude there was a link between them, is that it?” Alexa asked.

  “Exactly. I knew that having Trask
in town at the time of Guthrie’s accident would provide a distraction in case Strood got suspicious.”

  “Which he didn’t,” Alexa said.

  Dylan’s mouth tightened with disdain. “Chief Strood was his usual incompetent self. He never seriously questioned Guthrie’s crash.”

  “After Guthrie’s death went off without a hitch, you figured you were on a roll, didn’t you?”

  “The vortices were in flux. There was an enormous amount of negative energy available for me to tap. It was a sign that I was to continue with my plan.”

  “But after Guthrie, things started going wrong, didn’t they?”

  Dylan’s jaw locked in fury. “I had everything planned so that each killing would look different. Unrelated to any of the others. But the only one that went right was Guthrie. You and Trask screwed up the others.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Alexa saw Harriet give her a speculative glance. She realized that the older woman was willing to take her cue from her.

  The only thing Alexa could think of to do at that moment was keep Dylan talking while she and Harriet tried to maneuver behind a makeshift barricade.

  “Tell me about Liz,” Alexa said. “Is she okay?”

  Irritation flickered in his eyes. “It’s much too soon for her to die. It would look weird if her accident followed too closely on the heels of her ex-husband’s death.”

  Alexa sank her nails into the journal. “I can see where that might raise a few questions. Sooner or later everyone’s going to find out that Liz inherits Dean’s entire estate, right? And I’ll bet she, in turn, has left her entire estate to the Institute.”

  Dylan blinked owlishly. “You know about the wills?”

  “Trask and I figured it out.”

  “Ultimately everything Liz possesses will go to the Dimensions Trust,” Dylan said with evident satisfaction.

  “You’re her personal meditation guide, aren’t you? You’re the one who sent her away the morning that I went to see her.”

  Dylan’s fist tightened around the gun. “When she hung up the phone and said you were planning to drop by after her meditation session, I realized you were starting to ask too many questions. And you were involved with Trask. It was all getting very complicated.”

  “You couldn’t risk having me talk to Liz, could you?”

  “No. You might have put doubts into her head. I didn’t know how much you and Trask already suspected, you see.”

  “How did you get her to leave so suddenly?”

  He gave her his impish smile. “She trusted me implicitly. I warned her that the vortices had become extremely dangerous for her. Which was true enough, when you think about it. I told her she had to leave the area at once and stay away until I let her know that it was safe to return.”

  “And then you hung around her house to terrorize me, didn’t you?”

  The gun in Dylan’s hand trembled slightly. “No, I left right after I saw Liz off. Then I realized that her personal journal was still in the house. In her rush to pack, she had forgotten it and so had I.”

  “You didn’t want me to find it and browse through it, did you?”

  “No. I was afraid that she might have mentioned me, you see. If you saw my name in her journal you would only ask more questions. I went back to get the damned thing. But I saw your car in the drive.”

  “And you knew that I was already there.”

  “Prowling around like a burglar.” Dylan fixed her with an accusing look. “I decided to give you a good scare. I parked farther down the road and put on the robes that I wear when I guide Liz’s meditation. I entered through the front door while you were looking through the garage window. Got a knife from the kitchen. All I intended to do at first was frighten you off so that I could get the journal and leave.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s true.” He scowled. “But then it occurred to me that our encounter was a sign. I realized the vortices had provided me with an opportunity to get rid of you.”

  “But you failed again, didn’t you?” Alexa said. “Tell me, did I do any damage when I sent that little landslide down on top of you?”

  “Bitch.” Dylan leveled the gun at her. “When I think about how I actually tried to keep you out of this…”

  “I’m very sorry,” Harriet quavered. “But I’m afraid that if I don’t sit down, I shall collapse. I really don’t feel at all well.”

  Dylan hesitated. Then he made an offhand motion with his free hand. “Go ahead. Sit down.”

  Moving with a fragile air, Harriet sank gracefully onto a small box behind the row of winged lions.

  Once seated, only her head and shoulders were visible above the backs of the stone beasts. She gave Dylan a weak, pitifully grateful smile. “Thank you, dear boy. So kind.”

  Dylan paid no attention. He glanced at his watch again. “Only a few more minutes. Then it will all be over.”

  Alexa was keenly aware of the distant, muted sounds of cars pulling out of the parking lot. Most of the shoppers would have left by now. Her fellow tenants would be finished counting the day’s receipts soon. It would not be long before Avalon Plaza would be deserted.

  Keep Dylan talking and pray that Trask was on his way.

  Think positive.

  “How did you kill Dean Guthrie?” she asked as casually as possible.

  “Guthrie was easy. He was drunk, as usual, when he left the bar that night. I hid in the backseat of that big car of his. When he got behind the wheel, I hit him on the head. He went out like a light.”

  “Then you drove him to Avalon Point?”

  Dylan nodded happily. “I got out, wedged his foot against the gas pedal, and put the car in gear. It went straight over the edge.”

  Alexa shuddered. “You chose Avalon Point because of the connection to Trask, didn’t you?”

  “Sure. Like I said, if any questions were asked afterward, I wanted Strood to look in Trask’s direction. Besides, it was sort of symbolic, you know?”

  “Symbolic?”

  Dylan’s smile was snake-thin. “That’s the same place where I forced Harry Trask off the road twelve years ago.”

  Alexa took a deep breath. “So Trask was right all along. His father was murdered.”

  Dylan raised one shoulder in another dismissing motion. “I had to get rid of him. He stood in the way of the expansion of Dimensions.”

  “But why did you murder poor Stewart? He wasn’t on your list.”

  Rage flickered in Dylan’s eyes. “I did not murder Stewart. He was a sacrifice, just like you.”

  “There’s a difference between murder and sacrifice?”

  “A world of difference. Stewart was my loyal, gallant squire. He was as committed as I am to the cause. But after things went wrong again last night, I realized that it was necessary to feed the dark vortices. Besides, he had failed to get rid of Joanna. It was only fitting that he pay the price.”

  “You weren’t trying to pacify the vortices,” Alexa shot back. “You figured that if Stewart conveniently committed suicide, it might satisfy both Trask and Strood. Get them off your back. Why did you send Stewart to kill Joanna, anyway?”

  Dylan’s hand tightened on the gun. “In her efforts to keep the past buried, she was doing great harm. She was starting to ask her own questions. She and Liz are close, you see. They began to talk about the similarities between the deaths of Guthrie and Harry Trask. I couldn’t allow that. I appointed Stewart to get rid of her.”

  “What’s in her journal? Why do you want it?”

  “I don’t know,” Dylan said harshly. “But that idiot, Liz, contacted her after she went into hiding. She was warned not to talk to anyone, but when I called her, she admitted that she was so scared the day she left Avalon that she called her closest friend.”

  “Joanna.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you’re afraid that Joanna might have written something in her journal that implicates you.”

  “Looking back,”
Dylan muttered, “I think she’d had her suspicions all along.”

  “But she kept quiet,” Webster said in a great rolling voice that filled the little stock room to the brim, “because deep down she was afraid that I was the killer.”

  Everyone’s head snapped around to stare at Webster, who stood in the alley doorway.

  Dylan jerked as though one of the energy vortices had delivered a high-voltage shock. “Webster. No. You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be involved in this.”

  “Put the gun down,” Webster said in a commanding voice. “It’s all over.”

  “Don’t come any closer or I’ll kill her.” Dylan edged closer to Alexa as he spoke. “I swear I will.”

  “Give me the gun,” Webster said quietly.

  “But, Webster, I’m your Guardian Knight. Don’t you see? I live to serve the Dimensions Way. You must trust me to handle this.”

  “Put down the gun, Dylan.”

  Harriet shot to her feet with a high, keening shriek. “My heart. My heart.” She clawed wildly at her throat and toppled sideways into a tower of cartons. The boxes cascaded around her.

  Dylan’s face worked in fury. “You stupid old woman.” He aimed the gun at Harriet.

  “Don’t hurt her.” Alexa seized the first thing at hand, a box of medieval maps. She raised it high over her head and flung it at Dylan.

  Dylan sidestepped the box. He swung the gun back toward Alexa, hand tightening on the grip. “You’ve ruined everything. It wasn’t supposed to end like this—”

  A sickening thud cut off his shrill words.

  He collapsed to the floor with such suddenness that Alexa did not even realize what had happened until she saw that his gun had fallen to the floor.

  Dylan lay unmoving. He was neatly pinned between a carton emblazoned with a picture of Stonehenge and the words Some Assembly Required, and a three-foot-tall sculpture of Sir Lancelot.

  “Alexa.” Trask vaulted over a recumbent dragon and seized her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She leaned into his big, strong body. She was definitely not the clinging type, she thought. But right now Trask felt awfully good. “Yes, I’m all right.”

  “You scared the hell out of me. When I realized that Dylan…”