Amaryllis

by Jayne Castle

  It had been a struggle to conceal her reaction from Lucas. She hoped he hadn’t noticed just how stunned she had been. At least she had managed to hold the focus in a reasonably professional manner.

  Amaryllis took comfort from the knowledge that she had done her job properly, even under such adverse circumstances.

  She would think about the problem later, she told herself as she followed Miranda Locking from a discreet distance. There had to be a logical explanation for the phenomenon.

  At the moment she had other problems. Her client wanted answers. She would try to get them for him. This kind of thing was not in her job description, but Amaryllis believed in going the extra mile, regardless of the task. She knew what it felt like to need answers.

  Miranda Locking did not pause at the door of the restroom. She went straight past it, moving swiftly down the hall toward the shadowed regions of an office corridor. Her high-heeled evening shoes made a loud tapping on the hardwood floor.

  Surprised, Amaryllis grabbed a fistful of fluttering scarves and quickened her pace. Miranda’s blond hair gleamed briefly in the hallway light, and then she turned a corner and disappeared.

  Amaryllis broke into a run. Scarves flying, she rounded the corner.

  And collided with Miranda Locking and Merrick Beech.

  “What the hell?” Beech, a soft-featured man with a noticeable paunch, grunted heavily. He stumbled back against the wall, lost his balance completely, and sat down hard.

  Miranda shrieked as Amaryllis plowed into her. “What do you think you’re doing?” She staggered. Her high heels shot out from under her and she fell to the floor. Her large purse flew from her hand.

  “Oomph.” Amaryllis landed on top of her in a tangle of wildly fluttering scarves. “Sorry.”

  “Get off me, you idiot.” Miranda struggled to a sitting position. “Who are you, anyway?” Her eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion. “Did you follow me?”

  “Sort of.” Amaryllis scrambled to her knees.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Miranda’s purse lying on the carpet. It had come open. A sheaf of papers had fallen out and scattered across the rug. Amaryllis saw the familiar green and gold Lodestar logo at the top of one of the pages. She could also see the red “Confidential” stamp.

  “Damn.” Merrick Beech apparently noticed the papers at the same moment that Amaryllis did. “The bid numbers.” He started to heave himself to his feet.

  A large foot sheathed in polished black leather came down on top of the incriminating papers.

  “Five hells,” Beech muttered. “Should have known you’d show up sooner or later, Trent.”

  Without a word, Lucas bent down to retrieve the papers that had fallen from Miranda’s purse. He glanced at them briefly as he straightened.

  “How much did you pay her, Beech?” he asked very softly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Beech stood and brushed meticulously at his clothing. “Miranda and I are close friends. We were just having a quiet conversation here when this odd woman interrupted us.”

  Amaryllis glared at him as she got to her feet.

  “I know who you are, Beech, and I know what you are,” Lucas said. “I’ll deal with you later. Get out of my sight.”

  Beech bridled. “Don’t give me orders. You can’t prove I did anything illegal, and even if you could, you wouldn’t press charges. We’re all adults here. We know the facts of corporate life.”

  “I said, I will deal with you later, Beech.”

  At that moment Amaryllis could have sworn that she felt a cold wind move through the hall, but the scarves of her gown did not move. She shivered and automatically glanced around to see if there was an open window in the vicinity. She did not see one.

  Beech’s eyes widened and then narrowed quickly. His face turned an unpleasant shade of red. “You can’t intimidate me.”

  Lucas just looked at him. He said nothing.

  “Bastard,” Beech snarled. “I’ll go to the police.”

  Amaryllis was outraged. “Really, Mr. Beech, you have no call to act as if you are the offended party here. I think it’s obvious to everyone present that you have been involved in some sort of unethical and very probably illegal activity. You should be ashamed of yourself. My personal opinion is that Mr. Trent should prosecute.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Beech muttered. “There isn’t a damn thing Trent can do to me.”

  “What about your own conscience, Mr. Beech?” Amaryllis demanded. “How will you justify your activities to yourself?”

  Icy amusement glittered in Lucas’s eyes. “Yeah, Beech. What about your conscience? Maybe it needs a little prodding.”

  Beech sputtered in helpless fury. “Don’t threaten me.”

  “I’m not threatening you. I’m going to give you some advice. It’s time for a lateral career move, Beech. Get out of New Seattle and stay out.”

  “You can’t do this to me.” Beech started to edge his way along the corridor wall. “You know you can’t.”

  Lucas gazed at him thoughtfully. Another whisper of cold wind wafted through the hall. Amaryllis’s dress did not flutter, but she realized she had goose bumps on her arms.

  Beech’s mouth worked. Then, with an inarticulate exclamation, he turned and fled.

  Amaryllis exhaled deeply, releasing the breath she had not been aware of holding.

  Miranda lifted her chin and stared at Lucas with seething, defiant eyes. “He didn’t have to pay for the information, Lucas. I gave it to him for free.”

  Lucas studied her with an unreadable expression. “Mind telling me why?”

  “You fool. You really don’t know, do you? In three long years, you’ve never once figured it out.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  Miranda raised her head with fierce pride. “I did it to avenge Jackson.”

  “Jackson?” Lucas stared at her.

  “He was your partner and you killed him, you murdering bastard. I knew I’d never be able to prove it, so I found another way to get revenge.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Miranda shoved a wing of pale hair back out of her eyes. Tears shimmered on her cheeks. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. You wanted to get rid of Jackson because you had no further use for him.”

  “Miranda—” Lucas broke off abruptly, as if he had no more words.

  “You used him to set up your business contacts here in the city because his family had the connections you needed. Then you got rid of him.”

  Shocked, Amaryllis took a step toward Miranda, her hand outstretched. “That’s not true. It can’t be true.”

  “What would you know about it?” Miranda pulled quickly back out of Amaryllis’s reach. “You weren’t there. Lucas set him up to be killed by those pirates. I know he did. It’s the only explanation. There’s no other reason why it happened the way it did. No reason why Jackson would have been at that cabin with her that day.”

  “Miss Locking, listen to me.” Amaryllis took another step closer.

  “Don’t come near me,” Miranda hissed. “Lucas knew what would happen when he sent Jackson to that abandoned base camp. He sent Jackson into the jungle to die.” She spun around and ran off down the hall. The echo of her footsteps rang in the corridor for a long time.

  “Three years.” Lucas eased the Icer to a stop in front of Amaryllis’s small house. “She blamed me for Jackson’s death for three years. Plotted against me all that time. And I never knew what was going on.”

  Amaryllis gave a small start at the sound of his voice. It was the first time Lucas had spoken since the scene with Miranda and Beech in the museum corridor. It was not just the surprise of hearing the heavy silence broken at last that made her flinch. It was the disbelief and pain embedded in the words.

  She glanced uneasily at Lucas’s grim profile. He sat, one big hand resting on the steering bar, and gazed out into the night. The light from Chelan and Yakima, St. Helens’s two moons, etched his fa
ce in cold silver and bleak shadows.

  “I’m sorry.” Amaryllis decided that this was not the time to mention that she would put his bill in the mail first thing in the morning.

  “I trusted her.”

  Amaryllis did not know what to say to that. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s common knowledge that high-class talents are not usually very intuitive.”

  “I wanted to do something for her.” Lucas clenched the steering bar so tightly that the moonlight gleamed white on his knuckles. “I knew that Rye’s death had hit her hard. The company had an obligation to take care of her. She had been engaged to Jackson. They were due to be married in the spring of that year. Lodestar looks after its own.”

  “I understand. These things are difficult.” Amaryllis groped for the door handle.

  “She was smart and well educated.” Lucas sounded as if he was unaware that he had a listener in the car with him. “Good family background. I had no reason not to trust her.”

  “Of course, you didn’t. How could you have known?”

  “I thought we had both gone through all five hells together. That we shared some kind of bond because of what had happened. I never told her that Rye had betrayed us both.”

  Amaryllis thought she had heard incorrectly. “Your partner betrayed you?”

  “There was no point telling Miranda the whole damn story. She was already hurting. I tried to bury the truth as deep as I could for everyone’s sake.”

  It was time to end the evening, Amaryllis thought. The assignment was finished. If she had any sense, she would get out of the car and bid Lucas good night. He had his answers. As Clementine had said, it was up to the client to deal with the results of a focus session.

  “Would you like to come in for a cup of coff-tea?” she heard herself ask.

  He turned his head to look at her. His eyes glittered in the moonlight. She knew that he was somewhere else, sunk deep in his memories.

  “Coff-tea?” Lucas repeated blankly.

  Amaryllis panicked. Stupid, she thought. Very stupid. Lucas was hurting, but there was nothing she could do for him. “Never mind.” She gave him a quick smile and shoved open the car door. “It’s late. I’ll be in my office at nine if you have any further questions concerning the results of your security problem. But I think it’s been wrapped up. It was obviously a personal situation.”

  “Yeah.” He watched her face in the moonlight. “Personal.”

  “The case was unpleasant for all concerned, but at least it was relatively straightforward.” Amaryllis summoned up what she hoped was a breezy smile. “No psychic vampire hypno-talents involved.”

  “No psychic vampires.”

  Amaryllis scrambled out of the Icer and bent down to look at him. “Good night, Mr. Trent.”

  “I’ll come in for coff-tea.”

  “Uh, well—”

  He opened the door on the driver’s side and climbed out of the car. Amaryllis watched him walk around the front of the sleek vehicle. She realized her mouth was still open.

  Lucas went past her up the path to the front door.

  “Wait a second.” Amaryllis hurried after him.

  He came to a halt on the top step and waited patiently for her to unlock the door.

  Unable to think of anything more clever to do, Amaryllis deactivated the jelly-ice lock. The door opened.

  With the air of a man walking in his sleep, Lucas moved into the darkened hall.

  “This way,” Amaryllis said very brightly. What was she doing, she berated herself. This was not a good idea. Definitely bad synergy, as Byron would say.

  She dropped her purse on a small table and led the way into the kitchen. The Iceman was here in her house. Again. For the second time. Amaryllis felt an oppressive sense of impending danger mingled with great excitement. Her breathing quickened.

  She must stay calm and in control. She was a professional.

  She walked into the kitchen, aware of Lucas following close behind her. The orderly pattern of the pristine black-and-white tiles that marched across the floor and up the walls calmed her immediately.

  She took a deep breath. Here, amid the neat, the functional, and the familiar, she regained her sense of self-possession.

  Lucas glanced curiously around the black-and-white kitchen as he shrugged out of his jacket. “This house fits you, doesn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Very neat. Very clean. A certain air of the fastidious, which I suppose suits a full-spectrum prism. A place for everything and everything in its place.”

  She was too neat for him. That was a first. “A little bit of clutter goes a long way in a small house like this.”

  “Personally, I don’t worry a whole lot about clutter.” Lucas tossed the jacket carelessly across a nearby stool. He sat down at the white tiled counter. “Growing up on the edge of a jungle teaches you to tolerate a low standard of housekeeping. You can never get rid of all the bugs, and there’s always something green growing on the shower wall.”

  “I see.” They really were complete opposites, Amaryllis thought. Amazing. Just as all the syn-psychs who studied powerful prisms and talents claimed.

  “Does this happen a lot?” Lucas watched her with faintly narrowed eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Amaryllis busied herself with her new coff-tea machine. She was very proud of the gleaming black appliance, which was trimmed with a great many impressive red buttons. It had been one of the first purchases she had made after taking the high-paying job at Psynergy, Inc.

  “Do you invite all the losers in for coff-tea and pity?”

  She looked up from the act of spooning the fragrant ground coff-tea into the machine. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Trent.”

  His expression darkened. “I don’t need your damned sympathy, you know.”

  “Okay. Right. No problem. You won’t get any sympathy out of me. Still want the coff-tea?”

  He scowled. “Yeah.”

  “How do you want it?”

  “Make it a triple. Straight up. No cream, no sugar, no spice.”

  “Triple strength?” Amaryllis raised her brows. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. I know you’re the big, tough Iceman.”

  He had the grace to flush. “I learned to drink my coff-tea in the Western Islands. We like it on the strong side.”

  “You got it. Strong it shall be.” Amaryllis adjusted the buttons on the machine. The comforting aroma of the brewing coff-tea filled the cozy room.

  “I don’t have this kind of problem a lot, you know,” Lucas said. “I’m usually careful. But when I screw up, I generally do a hell of a job of it.”

  “Are we talking about coff-tea or personal relationships?”

  “I’m careful who I trust.”

  Amaryllis nodded. “Personal relationships. Got it. Who says a full-spectrum prism can’t carry on a meaningful conversation with a high-class talent? You mustn’t blame yourself, Lucas. We all make occasional mistakes when it comes to trusting the right people.”

  “All these years Miranda has believed that I deliberately set Jackson up to be killed because I wanted to get rid of him.” Lucas shook his head. “I knew the Ryes held me responsible in a way for Jackson’s death, but even they never accused me of arranging for him to be murdered.”

  Amaryllis removed the pot of freshly made coff-tea and poured the golden brown brew into two mugs. “The news accounts called Jackson Rye a hero. They said he was killed at the beginning of the invasion.”

  “I was away on one of the neighboring islands when it happened. Jackson told people at company headquarters in Port LeConner that he wanted to take a break. He said he was going up into the mountains with a friend.”

  Amaryllis put a mug on the counter in front of him. “What about the pirates?”

  “No one knew the bastards were on the island at that point. Jackson and—” Lucas hesitated a beat, as if searching for the right word. “Jackson and his companion went to an aban
doned company camp. They planned to stay in one of the old cabins and do some fishing. And a few other things.”

  “What happened?”

  “When I got back to headquarters, I realized something was wrong. I went up to the old mountain camp to look for Jackson and his, ah, friend. I found the bodies.” Lucas pulled the mug closer and gazed into the murky depths of the coff-tea. “At first it appeared that the pirates had happened onto the camp by chance, discovered Jackson and his companion, and killed both of them so that they couldn’t give a warning.”

  Amaryllis shuddered. “How ghastly.”

  “Later I learned that the situation was somewhat different.”

  “What happened?”

  Lucas looked up, his eyes bleak. “The leader of the raiders was reasonably well organized. When it was all over, I searched his ship’s cabin. He had extensive files. All sorts of records, notes, and plans. I discovered that it wasn’t just bad luck that Jackson had gone to that old camp on that particular day. He was in league with the pirates.”

  Amaryllis nearly spilled her coff-tea. She stared at Lucas from the other side of the counter. “He was working with them?”

  Lucas wrapped both hands around his mug. “Anyone who wants to take control of the Western Islands has to deal with Lodestar Exploration.”

  “Yes, of course.” Amaryllis frowned. “It’s no secret that Lodestar virtually runs the Western Islands.”

  “The company doesn’t have much choice. The amenities of civilization are a little short out there. The only reason anyone even lives in the islands is because of the jelly-ice.”

  “I know.”

  “Lodestar is the chief employer in the islands. The company provides all the basic services and ensures reliable supply lines. Taking control of Lodestar means taking control of the islands and vice versa.” Lucas paused. “I didn’t want to get rid of Jackson Rye. He wanted to get rid of me. He knew he needed help, at least at the beginning, because my employees, on the whole, are loyal. And I have a lot of friends out there. He required manpower so he did a deal with the pirates.”