Zinnia

Chapter 4

This was probably not a good idea. Unfortunately, she did not have a better one. She knew something was wrong. Morris Fenwick was an eccentric, neurotic, mid-range matrix-talent, but he was a client. And he was delicate. She could not help worrying about him.

Zinnia took one more look at the shadowed alley. The mingled light of the twin moons, Chelan and Yakima, gleamed dully on the lid of a large trash container. The rest of the narrow bricked passageway lay in dense shadow.

She took a grip on the unlocked window. If she did not do this right now, she would lose her nerve. She could not go home tonight until she had taken a look around the shop. She had to be sure that Morris was not lying dead or injured inside.

A strong sense of foreboding had settled on her after she left the casino. No surprise, she thought. She was not used to this kind of excitement. It was not every evening that she got jumped by a genuine psychic vampire and then went on to have a jolly little interview with the reclusive owner of the most notorious casinos in town. No doubt about it, her social life was a lot more exciting lately than it had been in a very long time.

She shoved hard on the sill. The window opened with a moan. The musty odor of old books wafted past her. This was not technically breaking and entering, she decided. After all, she had found this window unlocked.

She eased first one leg and then the other over the ledge and dropped lightly to the floor. She was in Morris's back room. The place where he stored his less valuable stock.

The darkness was absolute. She took a tentative step forward and immediately stubbed her toe against something hard. Stifling a groan, she switched on the small flashlight she had retrieved from the glove compartment of her car.

The narrow beam of light revealed a maze of boxes stacked on the floor. Each was stuffed with books. She raised the light and used it to scan her surroundings. The storeroom was crammed from floor to ceiling with volumes of all shapes, sizes, and descriptions. The shelves that lined the walls sagged beneath the weight of aging tomes.

The stillness was even more disconcerting than the darkness. The light beam wavered a little. Zinnia realized her pulse was racing.

The sense of dread intensified. She glanced at the open window. It would only take a couple of minutes to get back to the safety of her car. Another few minutes and she would be at the door of her loft apartment. The knowledge was tempting.

But she could not leave yet.

If only Aunt Willy and Uncle Stanley could see her now, she thought ruefully. They would faint with shock. They still had not recovered from the dizzy-ingly swift decline in the Spring family fortunes which had followed the death of her parents four years earlier. Nor had they even begun to rally from the humiliation they had been forced to endure eighteen months ago when she had gotten herself involved in what had become known as the Eaton scandal.

Only her younger brother, Leo, would be likely to appreciate tonight's adventure. She suddenly wished he was with her.

She made her way through the storeroom and cautiously opened the door on the far side. The smell was a lot worse in the main room. She realized it must have been shut up for some time.

The blinds were pulled closed on the windows that faced the street. The darkness was very dense.

She paused on the threshold and flicked the flashlight around the interior of the high-ceilinged shop. The sight that greeted her made her jaw drop. "Dear God."

Chaos reigned. She gazed, stunned at the mess. Books had been pulled from the shelves and dumped on the floor. The glass counter top had been smashed. The surface of Morris's heavy old-fashioned Later Expansion Period desk was strewn with papers. The contents of the drawers were scattered every which way. The aging swivel chair lay on its side.

She took a step back. Every instinct she possessed was screaming at her to get out of the shop. She had to find a phone so that she could summon the police, she told herself. That was reason enough to leave.

Then she remembered that the nearest phone was the one on Morris's desk. She picked it out with the flashlight beam.

With an effort of will she made herself start toward the instrument. She was halfway across the room when she saw the crumpled form at the edge of the circle of light. The too-still figure lay at the foot of the tall rolling ladder that was used to access the highest shelves in the shop.

"Morris." She started forward. "No. Please, God, no."

"For what it's worth, my advice is not to touch him."

She gasped and spun around at the sound of Nick Chastain's dark disturbing voice. Her heart pounded as she aimed the light at the doorway of the storeroom.

Nick stood cloaked in the shadows. He wore an enigmatic mask on his cold ascetic features that was about as comforting as the expression of one of the proverbial Guardians at the gates of the Five Hells.

In that moment of acute awareness, she knew that he possessed strong psychic abilities of some kind. Even without a focus link, she could sense the metaphysical as well as the physical power in him. Math-talent or game-theory-talent, she thought. That would fit with his choice of career.

She realized that he must have entered the shop through the same unlocked window that she had used a short while earlier. For a minute she was too disoriented from the horror of her discovery to comprehend the significance of his presence.

Then it hit her. Nick Chastain had followed her.

The flashlight trembled again as she pinned Nick in the beam. She struggled to keep her hand from shaking.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

"I would have thought that was obvious. We both have a serious interest in Morris Fenwick. And apparently we aren't the only ones." Nick ignored the glare of the flashlight to glance at the body on the floor.

Nothing flickered in his gaze as he studied Fen-wick's motionless figure. Perhaps encountering dead bodies was not that much out of the ordinary for him, Zinnia thought. She realized she was hovering on the edge of hysteria.

"I think-" She broke off and tried again. "I think he's-"

"Dead?" Nick moved out of the light. He went to stand looking down at the pathetic shape on the floor. "Yes, I think we can safely assume that much. Looks like someone smashed in his skull with a heavy object. Most likely that stone figure."

Zinnia jerked the flashlight to follow him. The beam gleamed briefly on his collar-length black hair, which was brushed straight back from a peak above his high forehead.

She moved the light downward. A familiar face carved in pale marble lay on the floor near the toe of one of Nick's very pricey black leather shoes. She swallowed when she spotted the reddish-brown stain on one corner of the statue.

"It's the bust of Patricia Thorncroft North that Morris always kept on the counter," she whispered.

"North?" Nick's brows rose slightly. "The philosopher who discovered the Three Principles of Synergy?"

"Yes. Morris specialized in the early theoretical works on synergy. He has, I mean he had, a fine collection of North's writings." Zinnia knew she was babbling. She had to get control of herself. "The police. I was about to call them."

"I'll do it." Nick turned away from the body and crossed through the rubble to the desk. "Why don't you see if you can find the light switch?"

Belatedly Zinnia realized that she was still holding the flashlight. There was no longer any need to conceal her presence, she thought. Morris was dead and the police would soon be on their way. She walked to the wall and found the switch that activated the old fashioned jelly-ice lamps.

Their soft warm glow spilled across the wreckage that had been Morris's book shop. Zinnia did not took at the crumpled body near the ladder.

When she turned she saw Nick reach for the phone. For the first time she noticed that he was wearing a pair of thin black driving gloves. She stared, riveted by the sight of his powerful long-fingered hands, as he punched in the emergency number.

He glanced at her, an expression of polite interest in his green-and-gold eyes. "Something wrong?"

She would not let him reduce her to a trembling mass of jelly-ice. She was a Spring. The family coffers might be empty and the tabloids may have labeled her the "Scarlet Lady," but she still had sufficient pride to face down the owner of a gambling casino.

"I just wondered why you bothered to wear a pair of gloves here tonight," she said. "No offense, but it gives the impression that you came prepared for something illegal."

"Yes, it does, doesn't it? At least one of us was prepared. Unfortunately, you've probably left your prints all over the windowsill and everything else you've touched so far."

His sarcasm outraged her. "I have no intention of denying that I was here tonight. Why would I lie to the police?"

"If you can't think of a reasonable answer to that question, there's no point getting into an in-depth discussion of the subject." Nick broke off to speak into the phone. "Give me Detective Anselm, please."

Zinnia listened as Nick spoke briefly with the person on the other end of the line. There was a marked note of casual familiarity in his voice. This was obviously not the first time he had dealt with the police. Given his line of work, that was probably not surprising, she thought.

"Yes, we'll both wait until you get here," Nick concluded. He replaced the receiver with his black-gloved hand and looked at Zinnia. "Anselm said he'd be here in a few minutes."

She relaxed slightly. The authorities were on their way. It would all be over soon.

"Poor Morris." She tried to think of something constructive to do. "I wonder if I should call his wife."

Nick's gaze sharpened. "Fenwick is married?" "Yes, I think her name is Polly. The two of them haven't lived together for several years. Morris told me once that Polly moved out a long time ago because she thought he was getting too weird." "I see."

"A very sad situation. They couldn't get a divorce, of course, so all they could do was separate. Morris blamed himself. Everyone knows matrix-talents are difficult to match properly." "So I'm told," Nick muttered. "Morris said that when they were dating, he and Polly had gone to an agency where the syn-psych counselors warned them that it wasn't a good match, just barely passable. But they went ahead and got married, anyway." Zinnia closed her eyes. "Good lord, I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"Let the police notify Mrs. Fenwick," Nick suggested with surprising gentleness. "It's their job." "Yes. Poor Morris."

"Do you think you could stop calling him 'poor Morris'?"

"He was irritable and eccentric and secretive, and he was forever concocting conspiracy theories the way matrix-talents are inclined to do, but I got to know him. I was fond of him. At heart he was just a harmless little man who loved old books. I can't imagine anyone killing him. Unless-" "Unless what?"

She glanced around uneasily. "I wonder if this is connected to the Chastain journal."

"Not likely." Nick surveyed the room with a single assessing glance. "For one thing, as far as I know, I'm the only one who wanted the journal badly enough to do something this drastic."

She felt as if she had just stepped into an empty elevator shaft. "My God, are you saying that you would have murdered someone in order to get your hands on the journal?"

His mouth curved with deep cynical amusement, as if he had expected her to make the accusation.

"Only as a last resort," he said.

"If that's a joke, it's in extremely poor taste."

"I'm noted for my lousy taste. But that's another matter. Bottom line here is that I prefer to pay for what I want and Fenwick knew that. He had assured me that he would let me top any offer he got and I believed him. As I told you, we had an understanding."

"A gentlemen's agreement, you mean?"

"I'm flattered that you classify me as a gentleman, Miss Spring. I had the distinct impression that you thought I was one of the lower life forms."

Guilt assailed her. She knew that she had been very rude. "I'm sorry. I certainly did not mean to imply that I thought you were a, uh, lower form of life."

"It's difficult to accuse a man of kidnapping without insulting him in the process," he observed.

"Yes, I suppose so." She was thoroughly mortified now. "I beg your pardon. I'm afraid that I jumped to some unfortunate conclusions."

He inclined his head in a graceful manner. "Apology accepted. If you want to know the truth, I found your concern for Fenwick rather touching. Not many people would go that far for a business client. Especially one who was an irritable, eccentric, secretive matrix."

The satisfaction in his words disturbed Zinnia. It occurred to her that Nick Chastain was a man who probably preferred to hold the high cards in any situation. Making her feel guilty and coaxing an apology from her were subtle ways of shifting the balance of power in their relationship.

This was a man who knew how to manipulate and intimidate others and did not hesitate to do so when it suited his purposes.

Fortunately their association was fated to be extremely brief, Zinnia thought. She knew that if she had any sense she should be profoundly relieved by that fact. And she was relieved. Definitely. No two ways about it. The last thing she wanted to do was get mixed up with Nick Chastain. She had problems enough in her life.

So why was she feeling a small wistful twinge of regret at the thought that she would probably never see him again after tonight, she wondered. Too much stress. That was the key. Her emotions were all over the board at the moment. After all, she had just stumbled into a murder scene.

She took a firm grip on over-stressed nerves. "Whoever did this must have been looking for something."

"Maybe. But I don't think it was the journal. It would have been too valuable to hide here in his main sales room. He was a matrix. He would have concealed it in a more clever fashion."

She peered at him, wondering why he seemed so certain of his conclusions. The evidence of a frantic search was all around them. "There's an old saying that things hidden in plain view are less likely to be discovered."

His mouth twisted with polite disdain. "No matrix would subscribe to that dumb theory."

She thought about it. "You're right. Matrix-talents are too secretive by nature to trust the plain view concept." She looked around. "Morris had other valuable books in his collection besides the journal.

Two original North monographs, for example. Perhaps the murderer was after them."

Nick studied the ransacked room and then shook his head once. "I doubt it. This place was torn apart in a random fashion. Whoever did it wasn't searching for valuable books."

"How can you be certain of that?"

He shrugged. "I can see at least two volumes of the third edition of the Founders' Encyclopedia on the floor. Each of them is worth at least five hundred dollars to a collector. No one who knew anything about the antiquarian book trade would have left them behind."

"Oh." Impressed, Zinnia switched her gaze back to Nick's face. He was watching her intently. Their eyes locked and for a moment she could not summon the will to look away.

The world grew very still around her. She felt the hair stir on the back of her neck. A prickling sensation coursed down her spine. It was as though every sense she possessed, physical and psychic, was poised on the cusp of acute awareness. The feeling was just a hairsbreadth shy of painful.

"What is it?" Nick asked in his soft heart-of-a-cavern voice.

"I hadn't realized that you knew so much about rare books."

"There's a lot that you don't know about me, Miss Spring." He smiled faintly. "And there's a great deal that I don't know about you. That makes us even."

She shivered. The small whispers of awareness continued to make her uneasy. She'd never experienced a reaction quite like this around any man. Then again, she had never been in a situation quite like this, she reminded herself. For some reason, her life had been so humdrum that she had never before found herself in a room with a dead client and a mysterious man who put on gloves before he walked into the middle of a murder scene.

She was relieved to hear a siren in the distance. "Why did you follow me?"

"I didn't. I had Feather follow you. He called me on the car phone when he realized what you were about to do."

That bit of information incensed her. "What business was it of yours, Mr. Chastain?"

"I think that, under the circumstances, my concern was reasonable. After all, you took the risk of confronting me in order to accuse me of kidnapping. There are very few people who would have done that. It indicated a certain degree of unpredictability and recklessness on your part. How could I know what you might do next?"

"Why should you care what I did next?"

"You're involved with the journal. I'm interested in anyone who's connected to it in any way."

"Did you follow me because you thought I might lead you to it?"

"No." He looked mildly surprised. "It never crossed my mind that you would know its whereabouts. Fenwick made it clear that he had it stashed safely away and that he was the only one who knew where it was. Since he was a matrix, it would probably take another matrix to find it."

"So you had me followed just to see what I would do next?"

"Something like that."

"Of all the nerve." The wail of a siren was louder now. It made her feel increasingly bold. "I suppose you realize that was an invasion of my privacy?"

"Would you rather be standing here all by yourself with Fenwick's body while you wait for the cops?"

He had a point. It would have been a lonely vigil. "No, not really."

She decided there was no point mentioning that there were a number of other people besides himself who would have made more comfortable companions in such a situation. He might take such a remark as yet another insult. Something told her that she had pushed her luck far enough tonight. Nick Chastain did not seem the type to tolerate insults well.

"Tell me," Nick said quietly, "Have you given any thought to how this is all going to look in the morning papers?"

She stared at him as the full import of what he was saying sank in. For the first time she realized that this might not end once the police arrived. Memories of the nasty tabloid headlines she had endured a year and a half ago flashed through her mind.

"Damn."

The cold amusement burned again, briefly, in his eyes. "My sentiments exactly."

"Well, it won't amount to much of a story for the New Seattle Times," she said. "After all, murder isn't exactly front-page news unless there's an unusual slant."

"Something tells me that as far as the Times is concerned, this particular murder will definitely have an interesting slant." He paused. "You're the Scarlet Lady from the Eaton scandal and I'm the owner of Chastain's Palace."

"Damn," she said again.

"I think we can safely assume that the New Seattle Times is going to splash Fenwick's death across the front page. And that's nothing compared to what the tabloids will do."

Zinnia became aware of a dull ache at the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and absently massaged her nape. "They'll have a field day, especially, Synsa-tion. The only thing that could make it worse, I suppose, would be an indication that drugs were involved. At least we know that's not the case."

"Why do you say that?"

She frowned. "This is poor Morris Fenwick we're talking about here. There's no way anyone, not even a tabloid journalist, could link his death to drugs."

"I take it you're a glass-half-full kind of person," Nick said. "That's okay. I've never understood optimistic types, but I've always found them to be amusing."