Twist of Fate

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “It’s too short.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “Gideon, there is absolutely no need for you to stay with me tonight.”

  “It’s nearly midnight and I haven’t got a hotel room.”

  “Damn it,” she muttered, “that’s hardly my fault. You should have arranged one earlier.”

  “Please, Hannah.”

  That stopped her. She was braced for an argument, not a plea. She glared at him. “Please, what?”

  “Let me stay.” He waved a hand to indicate the sofa. “I’ll sleep out here. You don’t have to worry about being assaulted in the middle of the night.”

  “Why do you want to stay?”

  “Because I came all this way to be with you.”

  She drew a long breath. “I don’t think this is an emotionally healthy situation, Gideon.”

  “Is that guidance counseling talk? Emotionally healthy situation?”

  “It’s common sense, which is what guidance counseling is all about.”

  “Go to bed, Hannah. I promise I’ll behave myself. It’s raining outside, I’m tired, and I don’t even have a hotel reservation. I’m being as humble as I can. Let me stay.”

  She tipped her head to one side, examining him cautiously. “You ought to try groveling a bit more often. It suits you.”

  “Remember what you said earlier, Hannah. You’re not in my league yet. Don’t start something you can’t win.”

  “Is that a threat, Gideon?”

  “It’s a plea for common sense and intelligence. Go to bed, honey.”

  She went, a small smile of triumph on her face.

  THE SHRILL RINGING of the telephone woke Gideon shortly after seven the next morning. He sat up, stiff and sore from the effects of the sofa, which had definitely been too short. For a moment he sat with his elbows on his knees, glaring around the room as he tried to locate the phone. It was hidden behind a pile of books he vaguely recognized as having come from Elizabeth Nord’s cottage. The phone was on its fifth or sixth ring by the time he got to it.

  “Make it quick. I am not in a good mood.”

  “I don’t care what kind of mood you’re in,” Steve Decker said. “I’m just glad to be able to find you at all. Gideon, you’re not going to have a business left to run if you don’t stop dropping out of sight whenever the notion strikes you.”

  “I told you I’d be back in a couple of days.” He glanced at his watch. “Tomorrow in fact. How did you find me?”

  “Mary Ann said you’d bought a ticket to Seattle. I figured there was only one reason you’d go to Seattle. This is Hannah Jessett’s apartment, isn’t it?”

  “You know it is. Get to the point, Steve. Why are you dragging me out of a warm sofa at this hour of the morning?”

  “Sofa? You slept on a sofa?”

  “Forget it. Just tell me why you’re calling.”

  “I’m calling, Gideon, because you’re not the only one who’s taken to dropping out of sight lately. Ballantine’s left his office again. My contact says he’s disappeared.”

  “We’re going to have a tough time fighting the war if nobody shows up, aren’t we?”

  “This is serious business, Gideon. As far as I can tell, you’re chasing tail when you should be here making decisions on everything from the Surbrook deal to the annual bonus plan. And I don’t like hearing that Ballantine’s gone again. The last time he disappeared, he went to Seattle, too.”

  “Chasing tail? Does Angie know you talk like that?”

  “Damn it, Gideon….”

  “All right. Calm down. Maybe Seattle is where the final battle will take place. Have you thought of that?”

  Decker held his tongue and slowly counted to ten. “Our kind of battles take place in your office, Gideon. You damn well know it.”

  “You’re right, as usual, Decker. Try and hold things together until I get back, okay?” He hung up the phone before Steve could respond. Gideon turned to find Hannah watching him silently from the hall. She was wearing a robe patterned with huge tropical flowers and her hair was nicely tousled. He liked the way she looked in the mornings.

  “What was that all about?” she asked.

  “My assistant. He was phoning to say Ballantine’s dropped out of sight.”

  “You people certainly keep tabs on each other, don’t you? Where is he?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t particularly give a damn. The last time he did this, though, he came to Seattle to see you.”

  “Well, he hasn’t seen me this time.” She yawned and then glanced at the journal on her desk. “At least, I don’t think he has.” She headed for the kitchen. “Want some coffee, Gideon?”

  “Hannah,” he said slowly, “you don’t really think he was in here last night, do you?”

  “No.” Memories of blue eyes behind a diving mask floated back into her head. “No, I think that’s highly unlikely. I don’t think anyone was in here last night. My imagination has been a little overactive lately. Go get dressed, Gideon. I’m not used to having men run around my apartment in their Jockey shorts.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “ARE YOU SURE you want to spend an hour and a half in here?” Hannah paused at the door of the athletic club and eyed Gideon dubiously.

  “Your brother took me here yesterday. They’ve got a good pool.”

  “An hour and a half is a lot of swimming.”

  Gideon leaned around her, shoving open the door. “Stop trying to get rid of me, Hannah. I’m not going back to Tucson until tomorrow.”

  “You are a very stubborn man.” She turned and walked briskly through the door. He followed in her wake.

  “Around you a man doesn’t have much choice. He’s either stubborn or he’s nowhere.”

  “Are you sure the front desk will let you in?”

  “Nick said he’d okay it.”

  “You and Nick seem to be getting along just splendidly these days.”

  “You’re right. Splendidly.” Which was a lot more than he could say for the way he was getting along with Hannah, Gideon thought. He scrawled his name in the visitor’s book and watched her disappear into the ladies’ locker room to change her clothes. He hadn’t expected to spend the night on the sofa. He’d been so sure of her and of the welcome he’d eventually find in her arms.

  He was beginning to think that all his problems were Elizabeth Nord’s fault. Hannah had become obsessed with the journals. Last night, after Hannah had gone to bed, Gideon had read a few pages in the book that was open on the desk. Nord, herself, had been obsessed with the cult she had been describing. The journal had been a personal one, devoid of the air of scientific objectivity that characterized her published writings. Nord had seen the cult on Revelation Island as the chief source of political and social power in the group. She had been fascinated with it and had been allowed to participate in the rituals.

  Her female informants had apparently accepted her completely because she was a woman. They had talked freely of their surprisingly liberal sex lives, which had included a fair amount of interest in lesbianism as well as male-female relationships. Gideon had always assumed that the more primitive the culture the more the men controlled the sexual activities of the women. Of course, Gideon reflected in amusement, Nord’s famous descriptions of the liberated lives of the ladies of Revelation Island was one of the things that had made several generations of undergraduate students read Amazons with some enthusiasm.

  There had been no mention of “Dear Roddy” in the pages Gideon had read. He wondered vaguely what had happened to the man. It didn’t take much guesswork to come to the conclusion that Roddy, whoever he was, had been left behind in the dust as Elizabeth Nord moved forward in her career.

  Gideon knew what it was like to leave others behind in the dust. He’d done it often enough himself. It didn’t surprise him that Elizabeth Nord had done it also. Anyone as successful as Nord probably got very good at it. What was beginning to worry Gideon was that Hannah seemed to be trying to emul
ate her aunt. Gideon decided he didn’t like the idea of being the one left behind.

  Hannah emerged from the locker room a few minutes later dressed in a vivid yellow and turquoise outfit that made him blink in amused astonishment.

  “You can’t come into a place like this unless you’re properly dressed,” she informed him. Her eyes moved briefly over his swimsuit. Gideon couldn’t tell if she was remembering their time together in the Caribbean or not. He hoped she was.

  “You don’t have to explain that getup to me,” he told her. “This is supposed to be a free country.”

  “You don’t like it?” She glanced down at herself.

  “I like you better in nothing at all.”

  “Go take your swim, Gideon.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Into that room with all those horrible machines. The therapist here has worked out a program for my knee.” She peered through the glass doors that separated the machine room from the lobby. “Just my luck. Vicky and Drake are here. You’d think they’d get tired of pumping iron day in and day out.”

  Gideon moved up behind her, curious. “Vicky? The infamous Victoria Armitage? The lady who has done so much to inspire you lately?”

  “That’s her. The one with red hair and the emerald green leotard cut up to her armpits.”

  Gideon studied the other woman for a moment. “Great pecs.”

  Hannah made a rude noise and pushed open the door. “That’s exactly what my brother said.”

  Gideon stood at the door watching Hannah laboriously strap herself into a stainless steel machine that almost immediately began prying her legs widely apart. From where he was standing he had an excellent view. She looked up, saw him staring at her crotch and stuck her tongue out at him. He waved and walked off toward the swimming pool.

  She was still in the workout room, albeit struggling with a different machine, when Gideon finished his swim and came back to check on her progress. He could tell from the damp stains on her yellow leotard that she had been working hard. Her face was set in lines of deep concentration and he realized that she was talking to Victoria Armitage as she worked. Gideon assumed that the man on the stationary bicycle was Victoria’s husband, Drake. He looked in the same excellent physical shape as his wife. Long contours of well-proportioned muscles shaped his shoulders and back. There was strength in the man’s body, although Gideon thought he looked weak in other ways. Something about Drake Armitage’s handsome mouth and eyes made Gideon wonder how he was able to hold his own with the flame-haired Vicky. Victoria’s beautiful features held no trace of weakness. For the first time Gideon began to see why Hannah saw her as both a challenge and a nemesis. There was a sense of energy and disciplined determination radiating from Victoria Armitage that was somewhat daunting. If she tackled her career the way she was tackling those weights Gideon could understand why she was so successful at such an early age.

  For Hannah the sight of Vicky Armitage was probably the same experience Gideon had when he looked at Hugh Ballantine. There was a certain implacableness in both that let everyone in the vicinity know they could either stand and fight, in which case they might get clobbered, or they could turn and run. People such as Vicky and Ballantine didn’t negotiate or compromise very well.

  But, then, Gideon remembered as he pushed open the door of the machine room, people had often said the same thing about him.

  “Gideon! Finished your swim already?”

  He tried to decide whether Hannah looked somewhat relieved to see him. Perhaps she was tired of battling both the machine and Vicky Armitage. “I’ve had enough for one day,” he said agreeably, nodding pleasantly at Vicky, who gave him the once over with unabashed professional interest.

  “This is Dr. Victoria Armitage,” Hannah said coolly. “And her husband, Dr. Drake Armitage. I believe I’ve mentioned them. Gideon Cage,” she went on to inform the other two. “An acquaintance of mine who’s visiting from Tucson.”

  Drake inclined his head in an easy fashion from the bicycle. “You swim, huh? Do any weights?”

  “No,” Gideon said.

  “You need the weights to build strength. Swimming alone won’t do it.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  Vicky smiled at him but her eyes still glittered with a certain fire that told him she’d been in the midst of an argument with Hannah when he’d interrupted. “We were just discussing Hannah’s aunt’s work. My father was also an anthropologist. Taught for several years.”

  “I see.” Gideon kept his response bland. He didn’t like the militant look in Hannah’s eyes. She kept flexing her knee on the machine as the conversation continued.

  “Vicky’s father wrote a couple of papers discrediting Nord’s work,” Hannah said quietly.

  “Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to successfully challenge someone as established as Nord was,” Vicky said, shifting the weights on her machine. “No one paid much attention to his papers, although he did get them published.”

  “Nord was such a giant in her field that anyone who wanted to discredit her work would have to come up with some very convincing evidence.” Hannah kicked out on the machine with furious energy. “Apparently your father didn’t have that kind of evidence.”

  “My father was able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that she couldn’t possibly have been right in her analysis of the power structure on Revelation Island. She was out to prove what she wanted to prove and she skewed her findings accordingly. The female cult she found so interesting was nothing more than a simple social institution similar to a nineteenth-century sewing bee.”

  “The hell it was,” Hannah said.

  “Prove it. Turn the journals and papers over to qualified professionals who can interpret them properly.”

  “Now, Vicky,” Drake began mildly, “there’s no need to badger Hannah. The library is hers. She can do whatever she wants with it.”

  “Thank you, Drake.” Hannah reached down and unfastened her leg from the flexing machine. “I’m glad someone realizes that.”

  “Don’t mind Vicky, she’s just frustrated because that research grant from the Carter Foundation has been delayed.” True to form, Drake moved in to smooth the troubled waters left by his wife. “I’ve told her there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve spoken to the head of the foundation myself and he’s assured me everything’s on track. We’ll have the money by the end of the second quarter. Vicky and I will take off for some field work next spring.”

  “I detest having to depend on these silly foundations run by a bunch of amateurs who think they have the right to judge what’s worthy of research.” Vicky leaned heavily on the weight machine, her irritation obvious.

  Hannah smiled grimly. “You can’t be too choosy, Vicky. You’ll have to take the money from whatever source you can find. That’s life in the academic world.”

  “It’s a bunch of bullshit,” Vicky muttered.

  Hannah looked up, her eyes unnaturally bright. “I’m finished Gideon. Let’s go have lunch.”

  “Fine with me.” He watched her get cautiously out of the machine. It was obvious the workout had left her knee sore. Instinct told him she wouldn’t appreciate him giving her a hand in front of the Armitages. He nodded again at Vicky and Drake and followed Hannah out of the room.

  “I know I shouldn’t let her get to me,” Hannah sighed on the other side of the glass doors, “but sometimes she drives me straight up the wall. Drake is decent enough and he tries to keep things polite when he’s around, but you can see that Vicky is hard to stop.”

  “She’ll go far if she doesn’t ruin her chances with her mouth.”

  “She’s got Drake to handle the social side of life. I’ll be out in a few minutes, Gideon.” Hannah ran the back of her hand across her perspiring forehead and moved toward the locker room.

  They ate in the chic café attached to the athletic club. Gideon ordered salmon and watched Hannah order a hamburger.

  “At these prices you’r
e ordering a hamburger?”

  “Best burgers in town. I eat here whenever I can get Nick to take me. The chef has all sorts of fancy certificates but underneath he’s really just a good fast-food fry cook.”

  Gideon didn’t argue. “How do you want to spend the afternoon?”

  “I assume you’re going to hang around?”

  “I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  She nodded. “In that case we might as well go on down to the Pike Place Market. I can pick up some vegetables.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  Hannah raised her eyebrows. “Anytime you get bored, you know what you can do about it.”

  “I think you’ve been hanging around Vicky Armitage too much. You’re starting to have a similar problem with your mouth.”

  “I feel,” Hannah said softly, “that I spend most of my time lately trying to hold my own against the rest of you.” The hamburger arrived, a huge, wonderfully greasy thing stacked with onions, tomatoes, lettuce and jalapeño peppers. Hannah took a giant bite and then said, “By the way, thanks for not helping me out of the weight room as if I were a little old lady.”

  “Maybe we communicate better than you think, Hannah.”

  PIKE PLACE MARKET was alive with activity in the daytime, Gideon discovered. It didn’t resemble the night version he’d seen the evening that he’d walked back to his hotel from the restaurant. The nooks and crannies that had been filled with shadows, winos, and other assorted creatures of the evening were now filled with vendors selling everything from home-grown raddish sprouts to handmade leather goods. The vegetable stalls were stocked with red tomatoes, yellowing papayas, green limes, and purple cabbage—all artfully displayed, drawing a great deal of attention from tourists and their cameras, and painters and their brushes.

  The fish markets displayed the Pacific Northwest salmon for which they were famous and added a few of the large, phallic-shaped geoduck clams as attention getters. Nobody passed up a stack of geoducks without staring. Once you’d stopped to stare, an aggressive fishmonger moved in to sell you a pound of shrimp and a couple of slices of halibut.