Zinnia

Chapter 15

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw Feather move to intercept the charging Leo. The guard rounded the desk. The receptionist got to his feet and started to press a concealed button that would bring more assistance.

It all happened in less than two seconds, but to Nick's senses, sharpened by his matrix-talent instincts, every action was a clear distinct event in the total matrix. He sorted it all out and made his decision.

"No," he said softly.

With the exception of Leo, everyone in the hall froze as if they had been trapped in a deposit of jelly-ice.

Leo crashed into Nick, swinging his fist wildly. The force of the impact sent both of them to the thickly carpeted floor.

"Damn you." Leo scrambled awkwardly to his feet. Breathing heavily, he stood looking down at Nick. His face was twisted with rage. His fists were clenched at his side. "I won't let you use her, you bastard. She's taken enough bat-snake shit from guys like you."

Nick rose on one elbow and absently touched the edge of his mouth. When he glanced at his fingers he saw blood. He looked up at Leo.

"You want to talk about this in private?" he asked. "Or would you rather have all these nice people listen to us discuss your sister and her reputation?"

Leo scowled. He glanced hurriedly around and saw the watchful faces of Feather, the guards, and the receptionist. He flushed and turned back to Nick. "Why don't you sic your goons on me?"

"I don't employ goons." Nick got slowly to his feet, careful to keep a pragmatic distance between Leo and himself. "These folks are all highly skilled professionals."

"Yeah, right." Leo looked a little uncertain now. Common sense had obviously started to reassert itself. It was clear that he was no longer sure how to proceed. "What the hell do you think you're doing with my sister?"

Good question, Nick thought. He wished he knew the answer. All he could be sure of this morning was that he did not want to have to do without her. At least not yet. Maybe not for a long time.

The knowledge made him more than uneasy. It worried him as nothing else had for a long time. Last night, after he had surfaced from the pool of desire in which he had been submerged, he had finally recognized the nature of the danger in which he found himself.

Where Zinnia was concerned, he was deep into a new uncharted matrix. He had to be careful. He had to remain in control.

"Let's go into my office." He did not glance back as he turned and led the way into the gilded chamber.

Behind him he felt Leo hesitate and then follow. Feather shifted slightly. Nick shook his head.

"It's okay. I don't think he's going to hit me again. Are you, Leo?"

"Depends," Leo muttered. He walked through the door and gazed around the red, black, and gilded chamber with an expression of acute amazement. "Sheesh. I guess it's sort of obvious that you and Zinnia don't have a lot in common when it comes to taste." He glared at Nick. "Or anything else for that matter."

"Your sister is an adult." Nick pressed the hidden switch to open the secret panel. "Why don't you let her make her own decisions?"

"Most of the time Zinnia is good at figuring out people." Leo stepped warily into the concealed office. "But you're a matrix."

"She told you that?" Nick crossed the room to open the door of the small private bath.

"Yeah."

Nick studied his cut lip in the mirror over the sink. A thin trickle of blood coursed down his chin. He turned on the water. "What does my being a matrix-talent have to do with anything?"

"Are you serious? Being a matrix is bad enough. But on top of everything else, Zinnia's got a soft spot in her heart for matrix-talents." Leo began to pace the room. "She feels sorry for them. Thinks they're delicate and misunderstood. Lord knows why."

Nick looked at his own reflection. The eyes that stared back at him could have belonged to a ghost. Whatever it was he wanted from Zinnia, it was definitely not pity.

He leaned over the sink to rinse the blood from his mouth. "Did your sister tell you that she and I have formed a partnership?"

"Partnership? That's shit synergy and you know it." Leo leveled a finger at him. "Guys like you don't form partnerships, especially not with women like Zinnia. You use people."

Nick finished washing off the blood and snagged a towel. "What do you know about men like me?"

"You're a matrix-talent and you run a casino. That says it all as far as I'm concerned. Look, I came here to tell you to leave my sister alone."

"Why don't you tell her to leave me alone?"

"I tried doing that." Leo grimaced. "But she's made up her mind to find out who killed Morris Fenwick and she believes that you can help her. The problem is that once Zinnia decides to do something, it's almost impossible to talk her out of it. She's got a stubborn streak."

Nick smiled ruefully. "I've noticed."

"You seduced her last night, didn't you? You took her to the old Garrett estate and you took advantage of her."

"I took her to the new Chastain estate, not the old Garrett estate."

"Damn it, I don't care what you call it. I know how you got your hands on that mansion. It will always be the old Garrett estate as far as people in this town are concerned. That's not the point. I'm talking about what you did to my sister."

"Did Zinnia tell you that I seduced her?"

"She won't discuss it." Leo stalked back and forth. "Says it's none of my business. She thinks she can handle you. But I saw today's edition of Synsation. And so did just about everyone else in New Seattle. It was pretty obvious what you'd done to her."

"I'm sorry about the picture in the paper." Nick tossed the towel into the hamper. "I tried to prevent it."

"She told me that you took the film out of the photographer's camera, but obviously you didn't. You probably lied to her."

"Why would I do that?"

"Damned if I know." Leo shrugged. "You're a matrix. Who the hell knows how you think? Maybe it suits your purposes to have her name linked with yours. Maybe you've decided it's a way to ensure her cooperation in this so-called partnership. My guess is you need her to help you find that journal you're after."

"Not a bad conspiracy theory." Nick switched off the bathroom light and walked to the desk. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you had a touch of matrix-talent, yourself."

"Look, I want you to leave my sister alone, Chas-tain. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you." Nick halted in front of the desk and leaned back against the edge. He braced his hands on either side and waited until Leo looked at him. "But you just told me, yourself, that there's no stopping Zinnia once she makes up her mind to do something."

"She was always independent." Leo's mouth tightened into a grim line. "But after our parents died, I swear, she developed a will of iron. She was the one who had to handle the bankruptcy and the bad press that surrounded it. The rest of the family was worse than useless. Aunt Willy and the others fluttered and fretted and carried on as if the loss of the company was more awful than the loss of Mom and Dad."

"I see."

"Most of our relatives went into hiding. They claimed they couldn't handle the humiliation of it all. It was Zinnia who had to deal with the creditors and the reporters and all the wolf-dogs at the door."

"That kind of experience can either make or break a person."

"Yeah, and that wasn't the end of it. A year and a half ago she got dragged into another mess."

"The Eaton scandal."

Leo stopped near a wall and slammed his palm against it. "The Eatons used her to hide the fact that they were involved in a three-way sex thing with a Founders' Values politician named Dana Gardener. The papers made it look as if Zinnia had been having an affair with Rexford Eaton. It was all a lie."

"The Eatons in a menage-a-trois with Daria Gardener? Interesting." Nick filed that fact away for later analysis. During the last election Gardener had tried to use Chastain's Palace as an example of the sort of business she intended to clean up in New Seattle.

"And now the family has the gall to put pressure on Zinnia to marry money. They don't care about her happiness. All they care about is regaining their position in society."

Nick listened to the old anger spill forth. Leo's rage vibrated in the air. The punch in the jaw a few minutes ago was not just the result of seeing the photo in today's issue of Synsation. It was the culmination of several years of a younger brother's simmering frustration over his own inability to protect his sister.

"Leo, I understand what you're telling me. I know you want to take care of Zinnia. So do I. But as you said, she's set on finding Fenwick's killer. That could be a dangerous business."

Leo whirled around. "For God's sake, don't you think I know that?"

"You just admitted that you can't convince her to abandon the project. The next best thing you can do is make sure she's got someone around who can keep an eye on her. Someone who can make sure that she doesn't get in over her head."

Leo shot him a disgusted look. "And that someone is you, I assume?"

"Think about it. As her partner, I'm in the best possible position to look after her. I can control the situation. Take me out of the matrix and you'll have a lot more to worry about than you do already."

There was a short fraught silence while Leo processed that.

"Damn." Leo came to a halt, his hands knotted on his hips. He looked around as if searching for something to kick. "Damn."

Nick assessed the various possibilities and probabilities. He had enough problems without adding the complications of an enraged, suspicious Leo to the list. His best course was to get the younger man on his side and he needed to establish the alliance quickly.

"Someone just gave me the name of the forger who produced the fake copy of my father's journal," Nick said quietly. "I was on my way to talk to him when you showed up. Want to come with me?"

Leo swung around. "Are you serious?"

"Why not? I could use some backup. Just in case."

Twenty minutes later Leo studied a small nondescript house through the Synchron's front window. "How do you know that this Alfred Wilkes is the man who forged the journal?"

"The source of my information on this is highly reliable." Nick opened the door. "You coming?"

"Yeah. I'm coming." Leo looked wary but determined. He got out of the car and stood waiting as Nick came around the front of the vehicle. "The name on the mailbox is Boyd, not Wilkes. You sure this is the right place?"

"I'm sure. Let's go." Nick went up the walk of the house.

"You're going to just knock on the guy's door?" Leo asked, incredulous.

"Got a better suggestion?"

"I guess not. But Wilkes must know who you are. Why would he open the door to you?"

"Maybe because he'll be afraid to not open it." Nick knocked twice and waited.

There was no response.

"See?" Leo looked morosely satisfied. "I told you he wouldn't answer."

"Let's go around back."

"Huh? Wait. What are you going to do?"

Nick did not bother to respond. He walked quickly around the corner, down the narrow space that separated Wilkes's house from its neighbors, and arrived at a small, tidy backyard. Leo followed, looking more uneasy than ever.

He stood watching as Nick studied the door. "Look, if you're thinking of breaking in or something, you can count me out."

"All right. Wait for me in the car." Nick examined the lock as he pulled the thin driving gloves out of his pocket. He was interested to see that the mechanism was much more sophisticated than most jelly-ice house locks.

But it was still child's play for a matrix-talent whose every instinct was to seek out patterns. Even without a prism to focus for him, Nick had no problem with locks. He pulled on the gloves and set to work.

Leo made no move to return to the car. He stood watching, first with sharp concern and acute disapproval and then with gathering curiosity and fascination as Nick made short work of the lock's secrets.

"Where'd you learn how to do that?" he asked as Nick opened the back door.

"I had what some would call a misspent youth."

"Yeah, I'll just bet you did."

Nick stepped into the kitchen. "Feel that?"

"Feel what?" Leo glanced around at the pristine interior. "Something wrong?"

"I don't know yet. Don't touch anything."

"Believe me, I wasn't going to touch a damned thing."

"Good." Nick walked through the house the same way he had once walked through the jungles of the Western Islands, with every sense on full alert. The feeling of wrongness was strong, but there was no outward sign of it.

"Looks like Wilkes is a perfectionist to a fault," Leo observed in a subdued voice as he glanced into the small bathroom. "A place for everything and everything in its place."

It was true, Nick thought. Each of the rooms in the single-story house was in painstakingly neat condition. He noted absently that there was a pattern to the order of everything from the way in which the books were shelved to the arrangement of the furniture. Taken as a whole, it all formed a coherent matrix that spoke volumes about Alfred Wilkes.

There was no sign of the owner of the house. But the sense of wrongness persisted.

"Maybe he's out grocery shopping," Leo suggested.

"I don't think so." Nick sent out a short surge of talent.

Without a prism he could not hold a focus. But he could use the wild energy long enough to catch some glimpses of the internal workings of the patterns that surrounded him.

For a few seconds the scene around him came into exquisitely sharp focus. The position of every item in the room assumed a deeper significance.

Too neat. Too orderly. The condition of the house was too perfect, even for an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist. Nobody lived in these rooms. This was a forgery of a real house.

Realization came to Nick as his flickering talent dissipated. He looked up. "There's no attic, so there must be a basement. Look for a door."

Leo frowned. "I don't see one."

"It has to be here somewhere."

"Not everyone is into secret rooms that way you are, Chastain."

"Whoever owns this house definitely has another place where he lives and works." Nick walked slowly back through each of the perfect little rooms.

He found no telltale lines in the walls, no secret doors inside the closets. Together he and Leo pulled up the area rugs, but there was no trapdoor in the floor.

"The rooms where Wilkes really lives have to be here somewhere. Stonebraker is never wrong when it comes to this kind of stuff." Nick reached the kitchen and stood gazing at the various appliances. "Notice anything missing?"

Leo glanced around. "Nope. Looks like a normal kitchen."

"Except for one thing. The icerator isn't humming."

Leo looked at the large white appliance in the far corner. "You're right. Maybe he turned it off."

"Or maybe he uses it for something besides keeping food cold." Nick walked across the kitchen and opened the icerator door.

There were no shelves or containers of food inside. The interior was at room temperature. At the back of the wide appliance was the thin, almost invisible outline of a door.

Nick reached into the icerator and shoved hard against the back panel. It swung open without protest to reveal a flight of steps.

Leo whistled soundlessly. "Five hells. How did you guess?"

"You've seen one hidden entrance, you've seen 'em all. Ready?"

"Yeah. I hate to admit it, but this is getting interesting."

"It does kind of grow on you." Nick stepped into the icerator.

Leo followed quickly.

Halfway down the basement steps, Nick knew that he had found the real house, the place where Alfred Wilkes lived and plied his trade.

There was another complete apartment here, including kitchen, bath, and bedroom. But most of the downstairs suite was devoted to what was obviously a workroom.

And it was a shambles.

Leo whistled softly. "Synergistic hell."

Benches, racks of chemicals, tools, reams of paper, and various instruments were scattered around the room. Drawers stood open, their contents in jumbled disarray. A lamp lay smashed on the floor.

Nick studied the scene closely. Superficially, it bore a striking resemblance to Morris Fenwick's ransacked bookshop. But there was something different about the matrix pattern of this mess. Unlike the other situation, which had struck him as a completely random piece of vandalism, this bore the subtle earmarks of a frantic but deliberate search.

"Someone really tore this place apart." Leo sounded shaken.

"The question is, did he find whatever it was that he was looking for." Nick crouched down to study some papers scattered on the floor.

They were miscellaneous receipts for some expensive office equipment. Forged receipts, he concluded after a closer glance. Probably commissioned by one of Wilkes's clients for use in an embezzlement scheme.

"If Wilkes was a professional forger he must have made a few enemies over the years," Leo noted.

"Yes." Nick rose and began to walk slowly through the disarray, searching for some pattern that would give him a clue to the object of the hasty search.

"I wonder what happened to Wilkes."

"I don't see any signs of a struggle. No blood on the floor. I don't think he was around when this happened."

Leo looked up from an examination of a small printing press. "He probably decided to take a long vacation in one of the other city-states after he finished forging the Chastain journal. If I'd been in his shoes, I'd have gone all the way out to the Western Islands. Maybe a little farther. He must have known that sooner or later you'd come calling."

"Yes." Nick paused beside a desk and surveyed the cluttered surface. "He must have known. He was the cautious, careful type. He'd have left town as soon as he got his money."

A glint of gold on the floor caught his eye as he turned away from the desk. It winked at him from under a table. He bent down and scooped up a small cuff link. An elegantly scrolled letter C entwined with a smaller O was inscribed on it.

"Find something interesting?" Leo asked from the other side of the room.

"No." Nick dropped the small bit of beautifully wrought gold into his pocket. He would have to pay another call on his uncle to ask him why one of his cuff links had been found in the secret room of a master forger.

"Any idea why someone would have done this?" Leo asked.

Nick glanced at more papers lying on the floor. "I think whoever went through this room was trying to cut off the money trail."

"What do you mean?"

"There's a pattern to the papers that have been pulled out of the drawers and the desk. Most of them relate to routine business matters. Receipts, bills, orders, that kind of thing. Some are real, some are forged."

Leo glanced at the papers. "So?"

"I have a hunch that whoever went through this room was trying to find any records Wilkes might have made regarding the sale of the forged copy of the Chastain journal."

"You mean the man who ordered the fake journal came back because he figured out that Wilkes might have made some incriminating records of the deal?"

"It's one of a couple of possibilities." Nick thought of the cuff link in his pocket. "Money leaves a stain that is just as permanent as blood. Very hard to wash out."

Leo slanted him a sidelong glance. "You sound like you know something about the subject."

"Anyone who runs a large business has to know something about it. A money trail can be dangerous." Nick was suddenly annoyed with himself. "I should have considered that element of the matrix more closely. I've been concentrating on other factors."

"Think the guy who did this found what he was looking for?"

Nick surveyed the room. His attention was caught by the broken lamp. "I don't know. But it's clear he was in a rage when he did it."

"How can you tell?"

Nick gestured toward the smashed lamp. "It didn't fall accidentally. It was hurled against a wall."

"Whoever tore this place apart was real mad, huh?"

"Yes."

"Maybe he was scared, too," Leo offered. "Maybe like the forger, he figured out that you'd come calling."

Zinnia held the phone in one hand and used the other to flip through the latest copy of Architectural Synergy as Wilhelmina continued her tirade.

"The entire family is appalled." Wilhelmina's voice rose to a shrill pitch. "Absolutely appalled. How can you shame us like this? What will that nice Duncan Luttrell think when he sees that dreadful picture in that cheap tacky tabloid?"

"You'll be glad to know that Duncan called an hour ago, Aunt Willy. We had a pleasant chat."

"Thank God. Such a nice man. How on St. Helens did you explain that disgusting photo?"

Duncan had been kind, understanding, and very sympathetic. He had, however, offered a gentle warning about the folly of risking one's reputation with a man such as Nick Chastain. Zinnia had resisted the nearly overpowering urge to tell him to mind his own business. She knew that Duncan meant well.

"I told him the same thing I'm telling you. Mr. Chastain has hired me to restore the interiors of his new property. He was showing me the house."

"That isn't his property. It's the old Garrett estate."

Zinnia smiled. "Better start calling it the new Chastain estate."

"Nonsense," Wilhelmina sniffed. "That would imply that it belongs to the legitimate branch of the Chastain family, which it most certainly does not."

"Has anyone told you that you're a snob, Aunt Willy?"

"Someone in the family must maintain standards."

"I know, it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. Look, I've got to run. I've got an appointment in a few minutes. Goodbye, Aunt Willy."

"I haven't finished, yet-"

Zinnia pretended not to hear Wilhelmina's squawk of protest. She hung up the phone very gently.

She exhaled deeply, tossed the magazine aside, and leaned back in her chair. Morosely she eyed the heavy glass paperweight that sat atop a stack of sketches.

The sketches had been made for a new client who had phoned a few minutes earlier to fire her. The client had been horrified by the photo in Synsation.

Business was drying up quickly. She wondered if she ought to accept Nick's offer of a real job. She needed the money and the designer in her was excited at the prospect of redoing the classic interiors of the new Chastain estate.

But the part of her that was falling in love with Nick found it difficult to accept the fact that another woman would live in the house once it was completed. Better not to pour her heart and soul into that particular project, she decided. Things were dicey enough as it was.

On impulse, she reached for the phone and punched in his private number. Feather answered.

"Yeah?"

"You have a lovely telephone personality, Ms. Feather. So warm and welcoming. Is Mr. Chastain back yet?"

"He just walked in the door with your brother."

"Leo?" Zinnia was so surprised she nearly dropped the phone. "What's he doing there?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Put him on the phone, please, Feather."

"Mr. Chastain or your brother?"

"My brother," Zinnia snapped.

There was a short pause and then Leo came on the line. He sounded energized. "Hey, Zin, you'll never guess where Nick and I were when you called earlier."

"What's going on, Leo?"

"We went to the forger's house."

Zinnia felt her jaw drop. "The forger who did the fake Chastain journal?"

"Right. Alfred Wilkes. Nick got his name from somebody named Stonebraker and we drove over there. The place had been ransacked. Wilkes was gone but Nick thinks someone searched the place to find any kind of financial paperwork that would have linked him to the forgery."

Zinnia clamped her hand very tightly around the receiver. "Let me get this straight. The two of you went to see this suspected forger together?"

"Yeah."

"Without bothering to tell me your plans?"

There was a short pause before Leo rushed into explanations.

"Things happened kind of fast. Nick said there was no time to lose. It was really weird, Zin. The guy had a secret door built into his icerator." He broke off abruptly. "Hang on, Nick wants to talk to you."

"Good," Zinnia said through set teeth. "Because I have a few things to say to him."

"Hello, Zinnia." Nick's voice was as cool and controlled as always, just as if last night had never happened.

"How dare you go to that forger's house without me?" Anger made her chest suddenly tight. "We're supposed to be partners. That means we consult with each other before we take action. Either we work together on this project or you can forget the whole plan."

"Calm down, Zinnia."

"I will not calm down. I'm furious. Listen to me, Chastain, we had an agreement. You promised to share information with me."

"I had to move quickly. As it was, Wilkes had already skipped. I'll tell you everything over dinner."

"Forget dinner. I've got other things to do tonight." The depths of her rage and anguish stunned her. She realized that both were far more powerful than the situation warranted, but she could not squelch the emotions.

"Zinnia, give me a chance to explain the situation."

"The only thing I want to know is why my brother is involved in this."

"Leo showed up just as I was leaving. He was concerned about the photo in Synsation."

"Oh, no." Zinnia braced her head on her hand and closed her eyes. "He went to see you about it?"

"It was a perfectly normal reaction for a brother. We talked and then I offered to take him with me when I went to Wilkes's house. Which should tell you that I wasn't trying to be secretive. I simply wanted to move fast."

"Would you have bothered to tell me anything about this Alfred Wilkes person if Leo hadn't happened to be there when you decided to talk to him?"

There was an acute silence on the other end of the line.

"I'm getting the impression that you don't trust me." Nick's voice dropped to an exquisitely dangerous whisper.

"You're damned perceptive for a matrix." Zinnia slammed down the phone.

Suddenly it was all too much. She had a vision of pressure building steadily for over four years. Her parents' death, the bankruptcy, the never-ending money problems, the scandals, the marriage-agency verdict declaring her to be unmatchable, her worries about Leo, Aunt Willy's unceasing demands, Morris Fenwick's death.

And now this. The only man she had ever wanted badly enough to have an affair with was acting like the secretive, manipulative matrix-talent that he was.

It was just too much.

She put her head down on her arms and burst into tears.