The Zaanics Deceit (Cate Lyr #1)

by Nina Post

  “And?”

  “Well, it’s definitely a language. I mean, it’s not random.”

  “Wow. I’m so glad I paid you for that valuable information.”

  “If you increase the budget for this assignment,” he said, “I can send it on to the Max Planck Institute and have one of my contacts there work on it in conjunction with me.”

  These tiny leeches, trying to bleed her dry. But she had to get the books translated, and yesterday.

  “Fine. Invoice me,” she said. “But I want you to give it all of your attention.”

  “Of course. Oh, just one question: what about the poem?”

  Impatience bubbled inside her like a percolator. “What about it?”

  “Do you, uh, want me to translate it?”

  “Sure, knock yourself out, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of translating the book.” She hung up and opened a bottle of Excedrin and swallowed two without water.

  Chapter 4

  San Francisco — Five Years Earlier

  Cate was afraid to tell her family the good news and didn’t know why. Her life was changing, would change completely, and why shouldn’t they be excited? Even Gaelen and Romane would be happy to hear it … wouldn’t they? But her nerves were as taut as the fishing line in that scene from Jaws, where Roy Scheider looks up like a prairie dog.

  She wondered if she could trace the genetic markers, the personality traits, and the external and cultural factors that made her a coward when it came to talking to her family. But it didn’t take a spreadsheet or a flow chart to know how it happened. It was hundreds of moments and choices that seemed inconsequential at the time, when she let her father and her sisters bulldoze right over her.

  Her sisters had never been her champions, far from it. They saw her as an interloper, a threat, and took every advantage of her anxiety about … everything. Knowing she was constantly worried about the future, they would casually read horrible stories from the morning paper. On 9/11, she assumed they were making it up, until someone turned on the TV and she saw the news.

  Cate had always done everything the way she was supposed to, and always played by the rules, but she was starting to realize that it wasn’t getting her anywhere. Gaelen dutifully put in her hours on Zaanics, but as soon as she didn’t have to anymore, it was as though it never happened. Cate knew that if she needed to be more like her sisters to get what she wanted, it wasn’t worth it.

  Tonight, Cate decided, she would be strong and speak distinctly. She would honor her good news and expect her family to be happy to find out.

  The house was full of people, though none of the guests would know about the true purpose of the event. They were told it was a late debut into society for the three of them, even though Gaelen had made her debut many times, and received prescription medication for several of those. The Severn family knew about the private ceremony — they had conducted one themselves — but wouldn’t be attending. The families took a siloed approach to Zaanics, and didn’t interact much on the matter.

  Even though Cate wasn’t the chosen one in her family (in a number of ways), she and Noah were friends growing up, and worked together to pick up pieces of the language that they wouldn’t otherwise know on their own.

  Her family’s knowledge of Zaanics was like someone who goes to a foreign country with no knowledge of the written language, so much so that they can’t read the signs or menus, but who can have a verbal conversation with someone. Noah’s family could read the characters like a chant, but didn’t know what most of the words meant. And from what her father told them, this was all laid out in the Middle Ages when their ancestors created Zaanics — for the sole purpose of ruining Gaelen Lyr’s social life, one far-off day.

  Cate forced herself out of the corner where she was standing and forged a winding path through the room, smelling expensive perfume, aftershave, and cologne. Bartenders passed by with glasses of wine and champagne on silver trays. She spotted Gregory Severn, one of her father’s board members, taking what looked like a bourbon from one of the bartenders, and Jude, the oldest Severn brother, dancing an impromptu tango with a laughing Gaelen in a red dress. People watched. Of course they did — here were two tall, gorgeous people dancing in the push-pull dynamic of the pimp/whore relationship. Who could look away? She just hoped it wouldn’t incite anyone else to try, because nothing scared Cate as much as middle-aged, affluent white people dancing. She found it terrifying.

  As she passed one group, she heard, “We like cruising with them.” She plucked a tiny bruschetta with foie gras from a tray and put the whole thing in her mouth. As she passed another group, she heard a woman say, in a lowered tone, “The Spences are nice, but they’re five-day cruise friends, at best.” One of the group said something unintelligible, and the woman replied, “Oh, we like the Kendricks. They’re forty-day cruise friends.”

  Her father’s assistant, Peter, stopped by Cate’s side as she stopped another server and took something wrapped in bacon. She was still nervous as hell, which could mean she avoided food entirely or ate it compulsively.

  Peter’s superpower was the incredible ability to tell Aaron Lyr anything that resembled criticism and get away with it. Peter didn’t seem like the type of person who would have his job, but it was a cushy one. He was almost ineffably loyal to his boss, spending his time as a devoted votary of her father while retaining an oddly accurate vision of her family.

  Peter handed her a red drink. “Stomach-clenching disquietude awaits you in the library.”

  Cate accepted the drink. “Better than Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe. Or is it?” She cocked a brow dramatically then shook her head. “That was so lame.”

  “You can handle Colonel Mustard, easy,” Peter said. “It’s your family that concerns me.”

  “Will you be there? I could use an ally.” She hoped he would be. He was almost always standing a few feet away from her father, in the background of every photo, so she expected him there.

  “I’d rather have a splenectomy without anesthesia.” He smiled. “No, I wasn’t invited. I’ll probably go home and watch a movie. But I’d need to recuse myself if I were.”

  “Why?”

  His smile tightened as he looked around the room. “Profound disagreement. And I’d like to keep my job.”

  “Disagreement about what? The ceremony?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter what I think,” he muttered and casually looked around again. “But you got screwed, Cate. That’s what happens when you’re like us.”

  “Like us?” Cate raised a brow.

  “Just remember, big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life. Charles Schulz.” And then he was gone, probably back to work collecting information for his boss.

  Jude signaled his father, who was in conversation with one of the other Lyr board members. He gave Gaelen a last dip, murmuring “Come find me later” into her ear. Then he took a flute of champagne from a passing server and walked past his father as he went outside.

  “A beautiful night,” Gregory said, joining Jude in a quiet corner of the Lyr house, overlooking the Bay. “It must give you memories of our own ceremony.” He moved his glass in a circle, clinking the ice. “I had hoped you would find your focus after seeing your brother assume the full responsibility of Zaanics for the Severn family, but you haven’t quite pulled it together.”

  Jude managed a tight smile. Oh, he would enjoy this. “I know you’re proud of him.”

  “I am,” his father said. “Noah did his duty. It was a significant undertaking that required discipline, sacrifice, and integrity.”

  Implying, of course, that Jude lacked all of those things. Noah didn’t necessarily have those qualities. He was merely eager to please, like a dog. “Considering you chose him because he was your new family with your new wife, who was young enough to be your daughter — ”

  Gregory tossed his drink in Jude’s face.

  A Manhattan. The whisky stung like hell, but Jude just wiped a
t his eyes. “You expected Noah to make you proud, whereas I was barely an afterthought.”

  “You think that was your problem, Jude?”

  Jude chuckled. “Please, tell me again what my problem is.”

  His father set the glass down hard on a nearby table. “You’re lazy, you’re entitled, you want everything in exchange for very little effort, and you’re too easily distracted.”

  “Oh, is that all?”

  Gregory shifted his eyes to Gaelen, currently the center of attention in a large group by the pool. “I chose the son I thought could do what he had to do, and you just didn’t have that in you.”

  Jude scoffed. “What, tediousness? Just what every father wants to see in his son.” He was close to forty years old, and it still cut. How pathetic was that? “But it looks like Noah didn’t have it in him, either. Not for the long-term.” Jude dangled the bait. This would be the highlight of his whole year. Life was a meaningless game, and you took what you could from it.

  Gregory squinted. “What do you mean by that?”

  Jude held up the document envelope he’d been holding and tossed it on the table to his right. Gregory briefly met his eyes, then picked up the envelope. “What is this?”

  “Open it.”

  Gregory gave him a look that said, ‘This had better be good.’ Jude watched his father closely. Gregory pulled the single sheet of paper from the envelope. As he read it, his color drained until he was ashen. Jude relished every second of it.

  “I don’t understand,” Gregory said, eyes fixed on the letter with a harrowed expression. “Noah wants to abjure his stewardship of Yesuþoh?”

  “Noah made his wishes known to me before drafting this letter.”

  Gregory stared at the paper like it was showing him his death.

  “He asked me if I would take over his role of legal guardian of the VZ Yesuþoh for the family,” Jude added. “I couldn’t believe it, either. I tried to talk him out of it. But he refused to listen to reason.”

  Gregory let his hand drop. Jude half-expected him to just keel over. He waited to feel the delicious sensation of triumph, but it didn’t come, and Jude just felt ashamed, and even a little afraid. But if that’s what he had to feel to belong to the family, he could shoulder it.

  A part of him was furious at being treated like he wasn’t wanted, like he wasn’t as important as his father’s new family. But another part of him wanted to be included, wanted to stop watching from the periphery. Even after his father’s second wife died when Noah was just a little kid, Jude felt excluded. Even more so.

  “This is official?” His father’s voice was hollow. Jude wanted to take it back but knew he couldn’t. It was too late.

  “Yes.” Jude summoned some bravado. “You can see the notary stamp.” He touched his finger to the embossed stamp.

  “Yes, I see it.” Gregory let the paper go and it drifted to the ground, swishing gracefully to a stop. His eyes were both fixed and distant, but Jude didn’t think his father was actually seeing anything. Then Gregory turned and walked away, looking ten years older.

  Jude waited until his father was out of sight, then he marched toward Gaelen and pulled her away from the group. He pressed against her and held her wrist against the wall. “No more talking. I’m so tired of talking.”

  The ceremony wasn’t for another two hours, so Cate did her duty and walked around, keeping conversations as fleeting as possible. She was desperate to go outside, but went upstairs to get a warmer cardigan. As she walked down the hall, she heard voices from Gaelen’s room and halted.

  “I can’t sleep without you. I need you.”

  Cate couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Gaelen, pleading?

  “If you want me to leave Philip, I will.” Gaelen’s voice got low and husky. “He can’t make me scream like you, Jude.”

  “You should go,” Jude said, his deep voice carrying easily. “You’ll be late for your own ceremony, and I don’t want to deal with the fall-out between you and His Highness.”

  “That farce?” Gaelen spit the words out. “Who cares if I’m late. I spent so much of my life learning how to have conversations in a language that no one else in the world knows except my father, and now I’m almost free of it.” Her voice dropped. “Almost free of him.”

  Cate reared her head back an inch.

  “So celebrate your freedom,” Jude pleaded. “C’mon, babe, let’s go, hm?”

  “Celebrate my misery, you mean.” Gaelen’s voice got muffled and farther away, then she made a frustrated sound. “Why didn’t he pick Cate? She was always his favorite.”

  Cate nearly barked a laugh. His favorite? In what alternate universe?

  “I hate this!” It sounded like Gaelen was hitting a pillow against something over and over.

  “Baby, stop. Stop.”

  Cate snuck a look. Jude took the pillow out of Gaelen’s grip then wrapped his arms around her. He was dressed for the ceremony in a close-fitting midnight-blue shirt and black pants. His jacket was tossed over the back of a chair.

  “You know you’re his favorite,” Jude said in a low, reassuring voice. “He chose you to be steward. You always come first.”

  “I know.” Petulant.

  “It’s just one ceremony,” Jude told her. “And for what? Have a drink and get through it, then we’ll celebrate our way.” His voice rolled into a throaty growl.

  Cate knew it wasn’t right, to eavesdrop like this, but couldn’t stop listening.

  “I want to celebrate right now.” Gaelen’s voice was husky and suggestive.

  Cate peeked in. Jude practically threw Gaelen on the bed and she laughed. Cate put her back against the wall outside the room and felt the need for a shower, and not a cold one. Time to hightail it out of there.

  Romane appeared at the top of the stairs and strode toward her, dark hair bobbing on her shoulders. Her black dress with leather trim made Cate think of a shiny Japanese beetle. Jude and Gaelen went at it like animals. That was the last thing Cate wanted to overhear, so she launched away from the wall and walked toward Romane.

  “Where’s Gaelen?” Romane demanded, as though Cate were holding Gaelen hostage. Her sister’s face, as usual, displayed no warmth whatsoever. Cate shrugged and kept going, but Romane’s hand shot out and grabbed Cate’s forearm, her nails digging into Cate’s skin. “I asked you a question.”

  Romane yanked her over to the doorway. Jude and Gaelen hadn’t let up. Gaelen screamed in what Cate presumed was pleasure and Jude said something Cate thankfully couldn’t discern. Romane’s cheeks flushed, then drained of color. Cate even reached out her hand, worried her sister was about to pass out, but Romane closed her eyes for a second, breathed in, then went inside the room.

  “Jude?” Romane said, her voice unsteady. “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, hello, Romane,” Jude said, without losing an ounce of his cool. This new development apparently didn’t concern him.

  “What are we doing? What does it look like, you nosy cunt?” Gaelen’s voice was all contemptuous threat. “Get out!”

  Someone, probably Gaelen, threw a very solid object that landed with a thunk — Cate hoped not at Romane’s head. Romane stalked out and slammed the door behind her. As Gaelen’s laughter spilled around the door, Romane stepped up to Cate and slapped her, a vicious, stinging smack on her left cheek, then broke into a run down the wide hallway then ran down the stone steps.

  Cate pressed the back of her cool hand to her stinging cheek. “More like knives in the lawn of life, Peter,” she muttered, and headed back downstairs, regretting that she eavesdropped on Gaelen in the first place. When she reached the party, she went out the French doors into the chilly, sea-scented air and wound through a few more laughing groups of guests until she reached the hedge just above the steep cliff.

  Their house overlooked the expanse of the city, the Golden Gate Bridge, Angel Island and the Bay. The views were her favorite thing about the house, which in her opinion, was too big for an
yone’s good. It just encouraged distance among people who weren’t that close to begin with. But maybe if the house weren’t so gigantic half of them would be dead by now.

  She heard something behind her and turned her head to look.

  “Gaelen looks great tonight, doesn’t she?”

  Noah. She instantly relaxed.

  “I didn’t think you were going to be here,” she said.

  It was like he had some kind of force field around him. He was wearing a silver striped tie with a gray suit that was a remarkably good fit for his height, but his curly brown hair was messy, as always.

  “I only have a few minutes before I have to get back to work. But I wanted to see you.” He looked at Gaelen. “One would barely suspect that she actually spits venom. Jude should be wary of dancing with her.”

  “We tranquilize her beforehand so she can’t move her forked tongue.”

  “I wish I could stay longer. Are you having the ceremony tonight?”

  She was taken aback for a moment, but it hit her that of course he knew. Why wouldn’t the other family know when they were having it?

  “Yeah. We are. I don’t know why they even need me there. I’ll just be wallpaper.”

  “You’re better off as wallpaper, at least for this.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you okay? You look … nervous.”

  She smiled. Nervously, she supposed. He knew about her anxiety disorder, so he was asking if she was apprehensive about the ceremony. The truth was, she was apprehensive about pretty much everything. It was just the way she was wired.

  “I’m fine. I’m just on edge about giving some good news to my family.” She debated whether or not to mention it to Noah, then decided not to. “I think they’ll be happy, but …” she shook her head. “I have a weird feeling about it, so I should probably wait.”

  He gave her an unreadable look and opened his mouth like he was going to ask what the news was, but said, as he turned his head to look around, “Is your husband here with you? Sorry, your fiancé?”