by Jayne Castle
The Western Islands look had consisted of designer versions of the hard-wearing boots and khaki clothing favored by the rugged folk who prospected and mined the fuel source called jelly-ice. The attire had sometimes appeared a little silly on trendy urban types such as Byron, but at least it had looked as though it had been designed for real human beings. The Alien Artifact style, on the other hand, was over the top in Zinnia’s professional opinion.
Today Byron was a vision in tight-fitting acid-green pants and a matching shirt patterned with images of the artifacts. He wore a heavy necklace made out of plastic designed to resemble the strange silver-colored alloy the aliens had used for their tools. His blond hair was razored to within a quarter of an inch around his entire skull. The toes of his black-and-green knee-high patent leather boots were so pointed Zinnia wondered how he managed to walk.
“Sex, murder, and crazy-fog. How exciting can life get?” Byron chuckled gleefully as he put down the copy of Synsation. “How did you ever come to meet Nick Chastain? I want to hear every single juicy detail, Zinnia. Never in a million years would I have guessed that the two of you were involved in a relationship. You’ve been hiding things from your good buddy, Byron. I’m devastated.”
Zinnia glowered at him. “For the record, Mr. Chastain and I are not involved in a relationship.”
“The Times called you Chastain’s companion, a loaded word if ever there was one.” He stabbed a finger at the tabloid lying on the desk. “And Synsation clearly states that you two are a couple. So, which is it?”
“Neither. Is Clementine in yet?”
“I’m here, Zinnia.” Clementine stuck her head around the door of her office. “I nearly had a seizure when I opened the paper. You okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Zinnia relaxed slightly. The sight of her part-time boss was somehow reassuring.
Clementine Malone could be brusque and acerbic, and she had a very short fuse, but she was also savvy, good-hearted, and loyal to her employees.
Unlike Byron, Clementine was not swayed by every passing gust of the fashion wind. Year in and year out she stuck with studded black leather and steel accessories. Her brush-cut, stark white hair was a brilliant contrast to her dark eyes.
“I tried to call you but there was no answer,” Clementine said. “Kept getting the machine so I hung up and didn’t leave a message.”
Zinnia grimaced. “The phone started ringing before I even got out of bed. I haven’t answered it all morning.”
Clementine eyed her thoughtfully. “Mind telling me how in five hells you wound up in the company of Nick Chastain last night?”
“It’s a long story. When I still couldn’t reach Morris Fenwick late yesterday evening, I sort of panicked. I leaped to the conclusion that Mr. Chastain had, uh, gotten hold of him.”
“Gotten hold of him?”
Zinnia groaned. “If you must know, I decided that Chastain had kidnapped him in order to try to intimidate him into turning over that journal that Morris had discovered. So I finally went to see him.”
“Who? Fenwick?”
“No, Nick Chastain.”
Byron uttered a soft low whistle. “Holy synergy.”
Clementine’s eyes narrowed. “Let me get this straight. You actually confronted Chastain in his own casino and accused him of snatching Fenwick?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Byron cleared his throat. “I hate to ask this, but does Chastain know that you work here part-time?”
“Yes, he does.” Zinnia glanced at him. “Why?”
Byron shuddered. “Just wanted to know if we should be prepared for a visit from some of his security personnel.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Byron.” Zinnia frowned. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You accused him of kidnapping?” Clementine fell back against the door. “Say it ain’t so, Zin. Tell me that you’re just having a little cruel fun at poor old Clem’s expense.”
For some obscure reason, Zinnia felt obliged to defend Nick. “He was actually quite decent about the whole thing. I don’t think he’s the type to hold a grudge.”
“Decent?” Clementine pushed herself away from the door. “Not hold a grudge? For your information, Nick Chastain has a reputation in this city-state. No one screws Chastain and gets away with it. Nor does he take insults well. And he absolutely hates publicity, especially the kind he got in this morning’s papers.”
“How do you know so much about him?” Zinnia asked.
Clementine made a face. “Everybody who knows anything knows something about Chastain’s reputation. Gracie filled me in on some of the lesser-known tidbits, such as his dislike of publicity.”
Gracie Proud, owner of Proud Prisms, was Clementine’s permanent partner. Same-sex alliances were treated just as seriously by society and the law as heterosexual marriages. Gracie and Clementine had been matched by a professional match-making agency several years ago and had been blissfully happy ever since, in spite of the fact that they were fierce business rivals. Gracie was always a fountain of inside information, rumors, and gossip, much of which tended to be extremely accurate.
Zinnia drew herself up. “It certainly wasn’t my fault that Mr. Chastain chose to have me followed after I left the casino last night and that the guy who did the following called him when he saw me go into Fenwick’s Books.”
Byron gazed at her, goggle-eyed. “Nick Chastain had you followed?”
“He had a business arrangement with poor Morris. He wanted to see what was going on and therefore happened to be on the scene when I discovered the body.”
“He actually had you followed,” Byron repeated in a voice infused with delicious horror. “There was nothing about that in the papers.”
“He was just making certain that I got home safely.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Clementine muttered. “This gets worse by the minute. The owner of Chastain’s Palace has you followed after you leave the casino and you think it’s just business as usual.”
“It probably is for Chastain,” Byron said.
Zinnia had had enough. “Look, I can’t hang around here all morning just to entertain the two of you. If you need me, I’ll be at home, working. I’ll be screening my calls with my answering machine, so stay on the line if you want to talk to me.”
Clementine gave her a level look. “If you have any more problems with Nick Chastain, call me. I don’t know what the hell I can do about it, but I’ll think of something.”
Zinnia smiled wryly. “Thanks, Clementine, but I really don’t think there’s any need to worry about Mr. Chastain. My biggest problem at the moment is my family.”
“Hey, everybody’s biggest problem is family,” Byron said cheerfully.
Chapter 6
“Zin? Are you there? It’s me, Leo, I just saw the papers. Talk to me, big sister. What’s going on? Are you really seeing that Chastain guy? Aunt Willy and Uncle Stanley are having fits and cousin Maribeth is making an appointment with a therapist. She says she can’t take this kind of stress.”
Zinnia put down the letter she had been about to open and picked up the phone. “Leo? I’m here. Hang on a second.” She stabbed various buttons in a random manner until the answering machine clicked off with a last beep of protest. “Sorry about that. I’ve been screening my calls.”
“I don’t blame you. Unfortunately when no one in the family could get hold of you, they all decided to call me. I had to go out and buy a paper to see what was happening with my own sister. What’s this about you and the owner of Chastain’s Palace finding a murdered man last night? I assume the reporters got everything screwed up, as usual?”
“Not entirely.” Zinnia leaned back in her chair and stared at the stack of mail that she had just started to open.
It was good to hear her brother’s voice. Leo was the one person she could depend on to remain calm and rational in the face of a family crisis. He was in his senior year at the University of New Seattle. A class-nine psychometric-talent with a
n intuitive feel for the age and past history of old objects, he was majoring in Synergistic Historical Analysis.
As far as Zinnia was concerned, Leo was destined for a career in academia. He had a passion for his studies and she was certain that he would leave his mark on his field. The rest of the family was already starting to fret about that very possibility.
For four generations, the Spring fortunes had been firmly founded in the world of business. The bankruptcy, which had followed the death of Edward Spring, had stunned the family. Everyone except Zinnia was obsessed with the notion that Leo should assume the responsibility of rebuilding Spring Industries. Zinnia was determined to protect him from the mounting pressure.
“One of my focus clients was killed yesterday,” she explained. “I found the body late last night. Mr. Chastain happened to be with me at the time. We both had to give statements to the police.”
“Chastain just happened to be there, huh? Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to wash with the family. This is your brother speaking, Zin. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s complicated. Mr. Chastain was involved in negotiations with my client, Morris Fenwick.” She gave Leo a quick summary of events. “So, you see,” she concluded. “We had a mutual interest in poor Morris.”
“Hmm.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Leo admitted. “But I think I understand why Aunt Willy and the others are in hysterics. Especially after what happened eighteen months ago when that bastard, Eaton, set you up to take the fall as his mistress.”
“I assure you, Nick Chastain and Rexford Eaton have absolutely nothing in common.”
That was nothing less than the truth, she thought. Rexford Eaton, patron of the arts, major contributor to the Founders’ Values political party and all-around very-important person, had hired her to design new interiors for the Eaton estate.
At the time, she had been fervently grateful for the lucrative commission. The death of her parents, followed by the downfall of Spring Industries had put her and Leo in bad financial straits. The fortunes of the rest of the extended Spring family had gone down with the business so there was no one she could turn to for help.
She had poured all of her energy into building Zinnia Spring Interiors into a viable design firm. She had been thrilled when she had secured the Eaton project, not just because it paid well, but because it gave her an entree into the closed world of the high-end design market. She knew that if she satisfied the Batons, they would tell others in their exclusive circle.
But less than two weeks after she had begun work on the Eaton estate, she had found herself on the front page of Synsation as well as several other tabloids. When she saw the photo of herself emerging from a bedroom of the Eaton estate into a garden with Rexford Eaton at her side, she realized that she had been set up. No one believed that she and Eaton had been examining wallpaper samples inside that bedroom.
It had taken her a while to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together.
Rexford and his elegant wife, Bethany, had conspired to use her as a cover for the menáge-à-trois affair that they had been conducting with Daria Gardener, a powerful politician in the Founders’ Values political party.
Following the trail of rumors deliberately leaked by one of Gardener’s political rivals, reporters had begun asking pointed questions. The Eatons and Daria Gardener had crafted a scheme to throw a chunk of raw meat to the wolf-dogs of the press in an effort to put them off the scent. Zinnia was the dish they had served up on a silver platter.
It had all gone off like clockwork. Bethany Eaton had staged a tastefully tearful scene as the wronged spouse when the tabloids portrayed Zinnia as her husband’s mistress.
On the surface, it appeared to be just one more unfortunate tale of a philandering husband caught with his passing fancy who just happened to be the daughter of a once-prominent city-state family. No one suspected the three-way arrangement with Daria Gardener.
An affair was regrettable but survivable. A threesome involving one of the most prominent couples in society and an important politician, on the other hand, would have done serious damage to both the Eatons and Gardener. None of the three lovers would have made it through such a scandal unscathed.
In the end, Zinnia was the only one who had been hurt. Daria Gardener was never once mentioned in the press. There was quiet sympathy for Bethany Eaton who bore up nobly. As for Rexford, most people just shook their heads when they read about his affair.
Straying husbands were not all that uncommon, especially among the elite where people were not always matched by an agency. It was an open secret that the very wealthy sometimes entered into marriages for reasons of property and money rather than with the goal of a happy, stable relationship. With divorce an impossibility, there had been no question but that the Eaton marriage would make it through the unpleasantness.
The whole thing had been forgotten by the press within three days.
But three days of sensationalistic journalism, it turned out, was long enough to cost Zinnia much of the design business that she had labored so hard to build after the fall of Spring Industries.
Three days had also been long enough to shred her own personal reputation. When she had finally accepted that she could not outrun the label of the “Scarlet Lady,” she had defiantly adopted the color as her business trademark.
To her family’s horror and chagrin, she now had a closet full of red. Coats, suits, pants, jackets, skirts, dresses, the garments spanned the red spectrum from bright vermilion to deep dark cherry-berry. There were some obvious limitations, Zinnia conceded, but on the positive side, accessorizing was a snap.
She had lost her shot at the exclusive high-end market after the scandal, but during the past eighteen months she had slowly begun to attract the attention of the up-and-coming entrepreneurial crowd. She was determined to hang on to her new market niche.
“Aunt Willy and cousin Maribeth are frothing at the mouth,” Leo said. “I think their biggest fear is that Luttrell will cancel his next date with you.”
“Between you and me, it wouldn’t break my heart. Duncan’s a nice man and I enjoy his company but that’s about as far as it goes.”
“You’re forgetting the very high F factor here, Zin.”
“F factor?”
“Family factor,” Leo explained. “Duncan Luttrell doubled his net worth overnight when he pulled off the recent expansion of his company. When he releases his new generation of software, he’ll probably triple his bottom line. I have a feeling that Aunt Willy, Uncle Stanley, and the others will soon start hinting that it’s as easy to fall in love with a wealthy man as it is a poor one.”
“So what?” Zinnia flipped through some bills and a couple of catalogs. “If they get pushy, I’ll play my ace card.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Leo’s voice took on a comically pathetic, melodramatic whine. “You would never dream of contracting an unmatched marriage and the best agency in town, Synergistic Connections, declared you to be unmatchable.”
“You got it,” she retorted cheerfully. “Statistically improbable, but it does happen. Hey, what can you do?”
“Take it from me, Zin, your unmatchable status won’t stop Aunt Willy and the gang.”
“How could the members of my very own family even dream of asking me to risk an unmatched marriage?” Zinnia smiled to herself as she reached for the letter opener. “Besides, what decent, sensible man would want to marry a woman who has been declared unmatchable?”
“You know what I think?” Leo retorted. “I think you secretly like the fact that the agency said it couldn’t find you a match.”
“How can you possibly suggest such a thing?” Zinnia slit open an envelope and found another bill inside. “Being declared unmatchable is a fate worse than death. Everyone knows that.”
“Except you, apparently.”
Zinnia smiled to herself. Four years earlier, shortly before her parents had bee
n lost at sea, she had thought she might be falling in love. His name had been Sterling Dean, He had been a handsome vice-president at Spring Industries and it had seemed to Zinnia that they had a lot in common. They had both registered at Synergistic Connections to confirm that their mutual choice was a good one.
To everyone’s amazement and the acute dismay of the syn-psych counselor, Zinnia had emerged from the testing process with the dubious distinction of being one of an extremely small number of people declared to be unmatchable. Something to do with her paranormal psychological profile, the experts said. She was different in some subtle ways that made it impossible to successfully match her with Sterling Dean or anyone else who was listed on the registry at that time.
Zinnia had not even begun to adjust to the shock of being told that she might never marry when the news of her parents’ deaths had arrived. After that, she’d been too busy dealing with grief, the crumbling Spring empire and the family’s future to worry about her official status as an eternal spinster.
Family and friends who had learned about her agency results viewed her with mingled shock, fascination, and pity. But lately Zinnia had begun to see distinct advantages in her situation. In a society where enormous pressure was applied to everyone to marry, she had a free pass.
The conventional wisdom was that what she actually possessed was a ticket to loneliness, but she did not spend much time thinking about it these days. She was too busy trying to make a living.
“Aunt Willy says you told her that you enjoy Luttrell’s company and that he’s got a nice sense of humor,” Leo pointed out.
“I do and he does.” She did not add that a week ago Duncan had gone so far as to hint that he might be open to the notion of a non-agency marriage.
Duncan was the president of SyncIce, a high-profile computer firm. He had introduced himself to Zinnia six weeks ago at an art exhibition. They had fallen into conversation when they had found themselves standing, equally baffled, in front of a painting from the Neo-Second Generation school. They had each taken a long look at the meaningless blobs of paint, caught each other’s eye, and immediately succumbed to laughter.