by Jayne Castle
“Can’t argue that,” Davis admitted. “All right, so Benson Landry wants to become a senator.”
“Yes. And that’s why he came to me. To achieve his objectives, he needs to marry outside the Guild, preferably the daughter of a wealthy business family or someone from an elite political family. He requires an alliance that can help him build strong connections outside the Guild.”
“He wanted you to find him that perfect wife,” Davis concluded.
“Yes.”
“You told him no.”
She touched Araminta again, lightly. He was coming to recognize that small action.
“I tried to do it carefully,” Celinda said. “Professionally. I knew Landry was dangerous. I made it clear that I only worked on Covenant Marriages based on sound parapsych principles of personal compatibility, et cetera, et cetera. I told him that I did not believe that marriages based on political connections and financial issues stood much chance of achieving long-term happiness for either party.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he wasn’t interested in all that, quote, garbage, unquote, about happiness and that I could ignore the compatibility aspects. I was to concentrate on finding him a wife from a good, socially connected family, and he would take care of the rest. He even had a couple of names for me to start with.”
“Why didn’t he do his own courting, in that case?”
“He assumed, quite rightly, that most non-Guild families would discourage their daughters from marrying a Guild man, even one who was set to become the head of the organization.”
No surprise there, he thought. The social divisions between Guild and non-Guild weren’t as strong as they had been in the old days, but they still existed, especially in upper-class circles. Landry’s decision to try to marry into a socially prominent family outside the Guild was testimony to his determination to achieve his objectives.
“I think I see where this is going,” he said. “Landry figured that if the most exclusive matchmaker in Frequency City recommended a match between himself and one of the women on his list, the woman and her family might be willing to consider the match. Is that it?”
“Yes. I suspect he also planned to apply other kinds of pressure as well, once he had made his selection. The dirty little secret of most of the socially prominent families in Frequency or any other city is that chances are they’ve had some mutually beneficial dealings with the Guild in the past. A lot of them owe the Guild a favor or two. And just as the Guild always pays its debts, it has a reputation for collecting them as well.”
“Let’s not go into that again.” He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, holding on to his patience with an act of will. “All right, I’ve got the picture. You refused to accept Benson Landry as a client. What happened next?”
“He didn’t take being declined well.” Celinda’s fingertips tangled in Araminta’s scruffy fur. “I knew he was furious, but I hoped that, given his enormous ambition, he would focus on finding another way to achieve his objective.”
“But that wasn’t how it went down?”
“For a while I thought I was safe. He never came back to my office. Then, one evening I had an appointment that didn’t finish until quite late. After the client left, I stayed at the office for another hour, doing some paperwork. When I finally went downstairs, the garage was almost empty.”
She stopped talking. Davis glanced at her. She was staring straight ahead at the highway, her expression stark and frozen. Her hand was still on Araminta. The dust bunny was huddled very close on her shoulder.
“Go on,” he said quietly.
“I walked past a pillar.” There was no emotion at all in her voice now. “Landry leaped out and grabbed me from behind. He plunged a needle into my arm.”
Cold fire burned in Davis’s veins. He gripped the steering wheel so hard he wondered that it didn’t shatter in his hands.
“Bastard,” he said very softly.
“I tried to scream for help, but the stuff worked fast. Within seconds I was numb all over. I couldn’t even stand. But I didn’t go out. I realized later that he didn’t want me unconscious, just unable to move or speak. He put me in the trunk of his car. I’m claustrophobic. It was…a nightmare.”
He thought about the weeks he had spent at the Glenfield Institute. Been there, done that. He said nothing. He knew better than anyone that there wasn’t anything he could say to erase the trauma.
Araminta made a small, anxious sound.
Davis fought his freezing rage in silence.
“He carried me to that hotel room,” Celinda continued, still speaking without any trace of emotion in her voice. “He let everyone think I was drunk. When we were alone, he stripped off my clothes and pulled a nightgown over my head.”
He had to ask the question, had to know how bad it had been for her. “Did he rape you?”
“No.”
But an odd note had crept into her voice.
“He left me in the bed at the hotel. I later found out that he was due at a civic function that evening. He had to make an appearance there.”
“What about the photographers?”
“The drug Landry gave me had just started to wear off when he returned to the room. The first thing he did was pick up the phone and call someone. I heard him say, ‘Bring the champagne up now.’”
Again he detected the curious flattening in her voice. He was no psi-reader, but in his business he’d heard a lot of people tell a lot of lies. He usually recognized them when he heard them. She wasn’t exactly lying now, he decided. But he was certain that she was leaving out something important. Perhaps Landry had raped her, and she did not want to talk about it. He could understand and respect that.
“After he made the phone call, Landry changed into a bathrobe,” she continued. “I could move a little by then, but I kept very still, hoping he would think I was still immobile. I knew that my only chance was to shout for help when room service arrived.”
“What happened?”
“Room service was very prompt,” she said. “The problem was that the man pushing the cart wasn’t the only person who showed up. There were also a couple of photographers.”
“The tabloid paparazzi guys?”
“Yes. I staggered to my feet and screamed at them, but no one paid any attention. Evidently, ‘Help me, this man kidnapped me,’ isn’t a universally recognized cry for assistance. The photographers took the photos and ran off. The room service person started to leave.”
“I doubt if that was room service. More likely someone Landry paid to stage the scene.”
She glanced at him in surprise. “I hadn’t even considered that, but it makes sense.”
“What did you do?”
“My only thought was to get out of the room before the door closed behind the guy with the cart. My head was spinning. I had a terrible headache, and I thought I might throw up. But at least I could move again. I made it out the door. Landry didn’t even try to stop me. He laughed and said something about this being just the beginning. One of the last things he said to me as I left was, ‘I’m going to destroy you.’”
“Bastard,” he repeated, softer this time.
“Sick bastard. I told you, the man is not right in the head. He’s scary crazy, because he’s able to conceal his craziness from others.”
“I believe you. What did you do next?”
“I went down a back staircase and found a hotel linen closet. There were some spare spa robes inside. I grabbed one and left through a back door. But the two photographers were waiting in the parking lot.”
“The bathrobe photos.”
“Yes.”
She stopped talking. He knew she was wondering if she had just made a major mistake by confiding in him.
“Got one more question,” he said.
She shook her head slightly, not saying no, more like pulling herself out of the past and back to the present. She was still petting Araminta.
“Can I assume
you didn’t go to the cops because you didn’t think they would take your word over that of a member of the Guild Council?” he asked.
“No,” she said, visibly regaining her fortitude and iron-willed determination. “I kept quiet because his threat to destroy me was not the very last thing he said.”
He went even colder inside. “He threatened to kill you?”
She shook her head again, a clear negative this time. “Oh, no. The last thing he would have wanted was a murder investigation, especially with me as the victim. There were too many clues that would have led back to him. He had made it clear to the press that I was his mistress, after all. There was a record of the appointment he made to meet with me at my office. I had left notes about my decision not to take him as a client and so on. No, he didn’t threaten to kill me.”
“What did he threaten?”
“He said that if I went to the police he would destroy my family.”
“Did he say how?”
“He was very specific. He said he’d see to it that my father lost his job at the company where he has worked for over thirty years and that my mother would be forced out of her position at the library. He said he’d make sure my brother never got accepted as a member of any of the new rain forest exploration teams. He even went so far as to promise that he’d make sure my sister’s marriage was called off.”
“Does your family know the truth about what happened?”
“No, absolutely not,” she said, sinking a little into the seat. “I didn’t dare tell them the truth. They would have insisted that I go to the police and damn the consequences. I just couldn’t risk it.”
“They think what everyone else in Frequency thinks? That you fell hard for Landry, and when the affair was exposed in the press, you had no choice but to close your business and leave town?”
“Yes.” She gave a tiny shrug. “Part of it was true. I didn’t have any choice but to leave Frequency. I decided that it would be safer for everyone. Besides, my business was doomed, anyway, after the scandal broke.”
“Do you really believe that Landry could have carried out his threats?”
“For the record, I don’t think he could have stopped Josh Santana from marrying my sister. I don’t think there’s any force on the planet that could keep those two apart. But Landry has more than enough power to make life hell for both of them as long as they live in Frequency City.”
“The Guilds aren’t all-powerful, in spite of what you seem to think.”
“Give me a break. Back in Cadence, if Mercer Wyatt set out to get a librarian and a midlevel executive fired, don’t you think he could call in some debts and get it done?”
He exhaled slowly. She was right, he thought. Mercer Wyatt had spent years playing the IOU game in Cadence. He could do a lot of damage if he chose.
“Yeah, probably,” he admitted.
“And he certainly would be able to keep a young, newly minted research scientist like my brother off an exploration team. The Guilds have enormous control over who goes into the rain forest.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that. The big difference is that Wyatt doesn’t operate that crudely.”
“You mean, he wouldn’t cash in a lot of valuable debts to the Guild just to carry out a personal vendetta against a matchmaker.”
“Be a waste of assets,” Davis said. “Wyatt is too smart to go in for that kind of petty manipulation.”
“You mean he’s not crazy.”
“No,” he agreed. “Wyatt is not crazy.”
“Trust me, Benson Landry is.”
Chapter 15
MIDWAY THROUGH THE REHEARSAL DINNER, CELINDA’S great-aunt, Octavia, who was on her third green ruin martini, leaned over to whisper in her ear. “I like your new boyfriend.” Octavia winked. “He’s hot. Ghost hunter by any chance?”
Celinda felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Her only consolation was that it was highly unlikely that anyone else had overheard the comment. The large, private hotel dining room was packed with various members of the Ingram and Santana families as well as assorted bridesmaids and groomsmen. Two long tables, decorated with a sea of pink flowers, pink napkins, pink tablecloths, and pink favors, had been set up to accommodate the crowd. Pink champagne and cocktails had been flowing freely all evening. Things were getting loud.
“Not exactly,” Celinda whispered back.
“You sure?” Octavia asked. She looked skeptical.
Octavia was a small, dynamic woman who, after she had a few martinis in her, tended to veer toward the unpredictable and outrageous. Tonight she wore one of the blonde big-hair wigs from her vast collection and sparkled under the weight of what must have been a couple of pounds of glittery costume jewelry.
There were certainly those in the Ingram clan who were of the opinion that Aunt Octavia’s skirts were too short and her heels were too high for a woman of her age, but Celinda was not one of them. She usually found her aunt wonderfully entertaining. But tonight she was starting to get a little worried.
Everyone had been polite and friendly this afternoon, but, as she had warned Davis, her arrival at the hotel with a strange man had sent shock waves through the family. Fortunately, what might under normal circumstances have been an overwhelming flood of pointed questions had been drastically tempered by the fact that the focus of attention was on the bridal couple.
Celinda had concluded that she and Davis just might be able to pull off the deception if they could escape early from the reception tomorrow evening.
But now Octavia, fueled by the martinis, was starting to get dangerous.
Octavia leaned back in her chair and squinted a little to get a better look at Davis, who was seated on the other side of Celinda. At the moment Davis was deep in conversation with Celinda’s brother, Walker. They were talking about the rain forest expedition team that Walker planned to join next month.
Octavia chuckled. “Your Davis reminds me of a hunter I knew when I was your age.” She fanned herself theatrically with a napkin. “Talk about hot. Ooh-hah. I’ll never forget that night we went down into the catacombs, just the two of us, with a sleeping bag. He worked a little ghost light, and I’m telling you, talk about setting fire to the sheets.” She paused reflectively. “Actually, he did set fire to the sleeping bag. It was an accident, of course. The ghost he pulled got a little too close and—”
“Aunt Octavia, please,” Celinda interrupted, a little desperate. “I told you, Davis is not a ghost hunter. He’s in the security business.”
“Don’t care what line he’s in, I’m sure that man must be some kind of hunter.” Octavia peered at Davis again. “Not the usual type, though. Whatever he is, he’s strong. Yes, indeedy, I can feel some real psi energy there.”
The problem was that Octavia probably did sense Davis’s energy. It was no secret in the family that Celinda had inherited at least certain elements of her particular psi talents from her.
The difference between them was that, although Octavia could sense energy in others, she could not read the waves and patterns the way Celinda could. She would never have been able to distinguish between the clean, strong currents that came from Davis and the twisted, scary patterns given off by a man like Benson Landry. She did, however, recognize raw power when she picked up the vibes.
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention your theory to anyone else, Aunt Octavia,” Celinda said in a very low voice. What was it Davis had said? Something about sticking to the truth as much as possible. “Davis is nonstandard. Like you and me. He tries to downplay his talent. You know how it is; if it got out that he’s a little different, it could hurt his business.”
“Of course.” Octavia assumed a sage air and took another swallow of her martini. “Perfectly understandable. Mum’s the word.”
“Thanks.” Celinda picked up her wineglass and took a healthy swallow. It was going to be a very long night.
At the far end of the table, her father, Newell, and the groom’s father, Anthony Santana, rose to toa
st the bridal pair.
Newell Ingram was of medium height, wiry and compact. His green eyes were lit with intelligence and good humor. He picked up a spoon and gave Celinda’s mother a private smile. It was the sort of smile that only two people who have known each other for a very long time could exchange.
Gloria Ingram reached out and briefly touched his hand. Celinda looked at her lovely, vivacious mother and thought how radiant she was tonight.
Newell used the spoon to strike a water glass lightly. The room fell silent.
He smiled proudly at Rachel and launched into a small, fatherly speech that had every woman in the room reaching for tissues.
“Ever since you were born, I’ve known this day would come,” he said quietly, as though speaking to her alone. “I used to lie awake at nights worrying about it, dreading it. And yet, more than anything else in the world, I wanted you to find the kind of happiness that your mother and I have known.”
Celinda looked at her sister through a film of happy tears. Rachel was glowing. Her pale blonde hair was cut in a graceful curve, framing her delicate features and beautiful eyes. Tomorrow in her wedding dress she was going to look like a princess out of a fairy tale, Celinda thought.
Beside her, Josh Santana, dark-haired and dark-eyed, held her hand. He looked handsome and so very proud.
Celinda smiled a little to herself. A perfect match.
“…And so, Josh, I welcome you into our family,” Newell concluded. “I know that you will make my little girl very happy. That is all I ask.”
Everyone rose to drink the toast. A cheer went up.
Davis leaned in close to Celinda. “Nice family.”
“Yes, I know.” She dabbed at her eye with her pink napkin. “I’ve been so worried that moving away from Frequency might not have been enough—” She broke off abruptly, not wanting to spoil the moment.
