by Jayne Castle
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From Amaryllis to Obsidian Prey, critics adore the electrifyingly passionate and suspense-charged novels of
Jayne Castle
“With her typical offbeat humor and flair, Castle takes a pair of powerful, unmatchable protagonists, sets them down in her innovative, synergistic world of St. Helen’s, and gives them a mystery to solve, villains to outwit, and a passion to explore.”
—Library Journal
“A fun, fast frolic on another metaphysical plane! The characters are fun and sexy…. A romance that will link your senses to the primitive side!”
—The Literary Times
“Classic sharp wit and unrivaled skill for creating captivating characters.”
—Booklist
“A scintillating foray into love in another place and time [with] the heady charm of a great romance.”
—Romantic Times
… and they are equally enamored of her irresistible page-turners written under her real name, the beloved New York Times bestselling author
Jayne Ann Krentz
“One of the hottest writers in romance today.”
—USA Today
Turn the page for more rave reviews!
Praise for the sparkling contemporary romances of New York Times bestselling author
Jayne Ann Krentz
… “nobody does it better!”*
“Krentz at her best … with the snappy dialogue that has become her trademark and a cast of characters you want to know personally.”
—Sandra Brown
“The phenomenal Jayne Ann Krentz once again delivers one of her patented storytelling gems…. Another guaranteed top-notch read.”
—Romantic Times*
“Absolutely sizzles.”
—The State (Columbia, SC)
“The inimitable Jayne Ann Krentz [is] always a consistent delight…. A winner.”
—Rave Reviews
“Krentz deftly mingles chilling danger and simmering sexual tension.”
—Booklist
“Fast, steamy, and wildly entertaining.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Psychic thrills and sharp wit.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Entertaining and delightful…. This is romantic suspense at its most enjoyable, enhanced by Krentz’s trademark humor and quirky characters.”
—Library Journal
“Spicy…. Jayne Ann Krentz is one of the most talented authors writing romance fiction today.”
—The Midwest Book Review
“[Krentz] scores with a sexy thriller.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A welcome escape into art-world intrigue…. A surprise ending caps this delightful mystery from a seasoned pro.”
—People
“One of the feistiest, most memorable heroines … Jayne Ann Krentz at her very best. Pure entertainment.”
—Susan Elizabeth Phillips
“A suspenseful and satisfying story that strikes a deep, human chord.”
—Patricia Matthews
Also by Jayne Ann Krentz
Absolutely, Positively
Deep Waters
Eye of the Beholder
Family Man
Flash
The Golden Chance
Grand Passion
Hidden Talents
Perfect Partners
Sharp Edges
Silver Linings
Sweet Fortune
Trust Me
Wildest Hearts
Written under the name Jayne Castle
Amaryllis
Orchid
Zinnia
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1996 by Jayne Ann Krentz
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Pocket Books paperback edition October 1996
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Illustration by Craig White
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5
ISBN 978-0-6715-6903-7
eISBN-13: 978-1-451-62401-4
Chapter
1
“Damn it, I don’t need a conscience, Miss Lark.” Lucas Trent eyed the woman seated behind the desk with grim determination. “I need a security expert.”
“Our company believes that the two are not incompatible,” the lady said coolly.
She was starting to irritate him already, Lucas thought. And it was unlikely that the situation would improve. Unfortunately, he needed her.
Her name was Amaryllis Lark and she worked for Psynergy, Inc. Lucas knew that, while he could do business with her, she was potentially very dangerous.
But you’d never know it to look at her, he thought.
She had green-gold eyes and hair the color of dark amber. Approximately thirty seconds after meeting her, Lucas concluded that she was the most interesting thing he had encountered since he had blundered into a cave full of mysterious relics in the Western Islands.
He was baffled by his own reaction. It was obvious that Amaryllis was, in her own way, as alien to him as the ancient artifacts. She was prim, proper, and downright prissy. She looked as if she could have modeled for a statue of one of the heroic, determined, and excruciatingly upright founders.
The expression in her green-gold eyes was perceptive, intelligent, and vaguely disapproving. The rich, thick, amber hair was bound in a prim knot at the nape of her neck. The neatly buttoned jacket of a conservative little business suit concealed whatever curves were beneath the fabric. A discreetly flared, calf-length skirt hid the rest of what appeared to be a slender figure and, judging by the trim ankles, nicely shaped legs.
Lucas had a strong suspicion that Amaryllis was stuffed to her pretty eyeballs with a host of old-fashioned, boring, and very inconvenient virtues.
Definitely not his type.
But that was not the worst of it. He was accustomed to taking challenges in his stride, after all. He might have persuaded himself to tackle this one, too, if it had not been for the fact that she worked for Psynergy, Inc.
Lucas exhaled deeply and forced himself to concentrate on the reason he was here in Amaryllis’s extremely well organized, highly functional
office.
He got to his feet and planted his hands on the unnaturally neat desk and leaned forward just far enough to ensure that he had the lady’s full attention.
“I was told that Psynergy, Inc. was one of the best companies in the business.”
“I assure you that it is, Mr. Trent.” Amaryllis’s feathery brows snapped together above her very straight nose. “It is also a company that maintains the highest professional standards. We do not take just any sort of case, and that is why I am obliged to ask certain questions. If you don’t care to answer, that is your affair. But don’t expect me to work with you without first ascertaining that you are a suitable client.”
“Suitable?” Lucas set his teeth and willed his simmering irritation to stay below full boil. “I’m Lucas Trent, president of Lodestar Exploration. I’ve got unlimited lines of credit with every bank in New Seattle. I can call the mayor’s office and get Her Honor to vouch for me. Hell, I can call the city-state governor’s office for that matter. Damn it, what more do you need to know?”
“I know who you are, Mr. Trent.” Something that might have been genuine excitement sparked in her eyes. “Everyone in New Seattle knows who you are.” She lowered her gaze and made a small show of shuffling the forms that lay on the desk in front of her. “I’m quite satisfied that you can afford our fees.”
She was blushing.
Lucas was stunned by the sight of the unmistakable tint of pink on Amaryllis’s high cheekbones. The prissy little founder was actually blushing.
He looked down at his big, scarred, calloused hands which were still flattened on the desk. He was suddenly very conscious of Amaryllis’s elegant, neatly manicured fingers. The clear polish on her short nails caught his eye. He noticed that she was not wearing a wedding ring.
Lucas gave his brain a mental shake in an effort to override his basic masculine response to Amaryllis’s blush. He did not date women who were endowed with her particular psychic abilities. He had enough problems.
Amaryllis was a highly trained prism. She had no true paranormal talents, as Lucas did, but she had the unique ability—and the professional training—to help people with psychic powers focus their otherwise erratic and unpredictable gifts.
It was a fact of life that even the strongest talent was helpless to utilize his or her abilities for more than a few seconds without the assistance of an equally strong prism.
The world being what it was, the economics of supply and demand pretty much guaranteed that powerful, well-trained prisms enjoyed a generous annual income.
“If you’re satisfied that I can pay my bills,” Lucas said, “Why all the questions? I thought you folks were running a business here.”
“The matter of our fees is only one of the issues with which we here at Psynergy, Inc. are concerned.” The blush faded from Amaryllis’s cheeks. She gave Lucas a gratingly professional smile. “It’s not even the most important matter, as I’m sure you’re well aware.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Lucas stifled a groan and straightened away from the desk. He flexed his hands as he stalked across the small office to the window. He had known this would not be easy. He came to a halt and gazed unseeingly at the busy street three floors below.
It was midmorning and the city was humming. The discordant melody produced by traffic, dockside activity, and people bustling to and fro was a pleasant tune in Lucas’s opinion. It had the lively beat of a booming economy and the exuberant lilt of a community that looked to the future with anticipation. New Seattle had not always sung such an enthusiastic song. Nor had it’s sister city-states, New Portland and New Vancouver.
A large percentage of the colonists who had been stranded on St. Helens shortly after the planet had been discovered two hundred years earlier had been from a region on Earth known as the Pacific Northwest. When they had found themselves alone, cut off forever from their home world, the settlers had done what colonists had always done down through the ages. They had named their new communities after the cities and towns that they would never see again. Today the city-states of New Seattle, New Portland, and New Vancouver formed a thriving, but still fragile, necklace of civilization along the edge of the western coast of St. Helens’s largest continent.
The sophisticated Earth-based technology the colonists had brought with them had disintegrated within months after the newcomers had been stranded. St. Helens had welcomed the new life-forms, but it had refused to accept the alien machines they had depended upon. Rustproof alloys had turned to dust in a matter of weeks. Plastics that were virtually indestructible on Earth had dissolved in St. Helens’s otherwise hospitable atmosphere. In the end, nothing manufactured on the home world had survived. St. Helens had demanded that the newcomers adapt to the local environment or die.
The colonists had adapted, but it had not been easy. They had finally managed to get a toehold on their new world, learned to utilize native metals and materials, but the effort had cost a great deal, including the loss of several generations’ worth of science and technology.
The history books informed the descendants of the founders that their modern machines and their science were both primitive by the standards of the home world. But the reality was that the ways of Earth were of academic interest at best to the current generation.
After two centuries of being on their own, no one, with the exception of the members of some obscure religious cults, expected Earth to miraculously rediscover its lost colony.
St. Helens was home and a rich, green world it was. Although a sizable portion of the planet had yet to be explored and mapped, it appeared that the descendants of the colonists constituted the only intelligent life-forms.
The artifacts Lucas had uncovered had caused a great deal of interest but no serious alarm in the academic community. It was obvious that they were very, very old. Most researchers were convinced that they were not native in origin. The consensus of scientific opinion was that the relics were the remains of some ancient spacefaring people who had briefly established an outpost on St. Helens at some point in the distant past. It was clear that whoever they were, those other settlers had long since disappeared or departed. The human population faced no competition.
“Now, then, Mr. Trent,” Amaryllis said crisply. “If you still wish to hire a professional, academically trained prism to assist you, let us proceed to the next question.”
Lucas grimaced at the unsubtle emphasis she gave to the words professional and trained. There were untrained, unprofessional prisms available, but it would have been dangerous for him to use one. He was already taking a risk by hiring someone from a reputable agency. Lucas would have cheerfully sold a chunk of his soul to avoid having to use a prism of any kind.
“It’s not like I have a hell of a lot of choice, is it?” Lucas glanced back at her over his shoulder. He felt his jaw clench as he made a bid to keep his voice unemotional. “Ask your damn questions.”
Amaryllis searched his face, her eyes sharp and altogether too probing. Lucas deliberately made his expression as unreadable as possible. He knew he was good at concealing his thoughts. He’d had a lot of practice.
“Very well.” Amaryllis looked down at her notes. “You say this is a security matter?”
“Yes.”
“What sort of security issue is involved?”
“Corporate security.”
“I understand that, Mr. Trent,” she said patiently. “I’m asking you to be more specific.”
“All right. To put it bluntly, someone I trust is selling me out. Is that specific enough for you?” It was astonishing how hard it was to say the words aloud.
Lucas closed one hand into a fist at his side. He turned back to the view of the street. A deep, gnawing pain that was almost physical unfurled inside him. He had been betrayed. It was certainly not the first time, but he never seemed to grow accustomed to the cold sensation he got inside whenever it happened.
The tally was growing, he thought wearily. His wife, Dora. His partner, Jackson Ry
e. And now his vice president in charge of public relations, Miranda Locking.
He’d never even wanted to establish a public relations department for Lodestar. It had been Jackson Rye’s idea. Jackson had had a lot of ideas for Lodestar Exploration.
“I see.” Amaryllis sounded surprisingly subdued.
Lucas winced at the unmistakable hint of sympathy he thought he heard in her voice. He reminded himself that expert, full-spectrum prisms had a reputation for being unusually intuitive and perceptive. He would have to watch his step around Amaryllis.
“Someone on my staff is selling proprietary information to one of my competitors,” Lucas explained.
“Did you consider contacting the police?”
“I don’t want to involve the police because I don’t intend to prosecute.”
“I understand. A lot of our corporate clients take that approach on security matters. Few of them want the bad publicity they fear would result.”
“Right. No company needs that kind of press. Makes management look stupid for not having had better safeguards in place.” He already knew just how stupid he had been. He didn’t need to see it spelled out in the headlines or on the evening news. Nelson Burlton, the most popular news anchor on television, would have a field day with the story.
But the bad publicity was the least of Lucas’s concerns. What he craved was an answer. He needed to know why Miranda had done this to him, although the truth probably wouldn’t do him any good. After all, he’d figured out why his wife and partner had betrayed him, but the answers had done nothing to lessen the chill in his gut. They had only made it worse.
If he had any sense, he’d fire Miranda and forget about finding answers.
“Rest assured that Psynergy has a policy of maintaining absolute confidentiality in all of its dealings with clients,” Amaryllis said.
“It damn well better have such a policy.” Lucas glanced at her again. It occurred to him that her eyes reminded him of a very special, fern-shrouded grotto pool in the islands. Serene on the surface but unfathomably deep. He reminded himself that the lively intelligence he saw in Amaryllis’s vivid features was another warning to tread warily.
