The Chilling Deception

by Jayne Castle

  She concentrated on sprinkling vinegar on her french fries. “I just said I’d mention the incident in his studio last night. He’s going to report it to the police, of course. But as he said, they won’t be able to do much. Just another small case of vandalism as far as they’re concerned. They might even write it off as a case of professional jealousy. Mason’s going to have his first show tonight. It could be that not everyone wishes him well. At any rate, Mason’s fairly sure it isn’t something one of his acquaintances would do. And there’s something odd about that particular kind of vandalism, Zac. I mean, that business with the pentagram and the bolt of lightning in the center. It wasn’t just malicious or nasty. It was weird. Pentagrams are associated with the occult.”

  “You’re rambling, Gwen. Get to the point. What exactly did you tell Mason Adair?”

  “I told you,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I said I’d mention the matter to you.”

  “And?” Zac prompted ominously.

  “And maybe see if you had any advice for him,” she concluded in a mumbled rush as she munched a french fry.

  “Advice?” Zac ate the last of his clams and pushed the plastic bucket out of the way. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, his hard blunt face set in a ruthless unrelenting expression that seemed to slip all too easily into place. His rough voice was softer than ever. “No, Gwen, I don’t have any free advice for your starving artist. But I do have some for you.”

  “Now, Zac—”

  “You will stay clear of him, Guinevere. You will not get involved with pentagrams, slashed canvases, or artists who run around in only a towel while they wave good morning to their female neighbors. Understood?”

  Guinevere drew a deep breath. “Zac, I was asking for advice, not a lecture. If you’re not willing to help—”

  “But I am willing to help, Gwen. I’m helping you stay out of trouble. Or have you already forgotten what happened the last time you tried to involve me in a case I wasn’t interested in handling?”

  “Now, Zac, you collected a nice fee for that business in the San Juans. You can hardly complain about my involving you.”

  “Hah. I can complain and I will complain. Furthermore . . .”

  Zac was warming to his topic now. The lecture might have continued unabated for the remainder of the lunch hour, if a small toddler in an emblazoned designer polo shirt and shorts hadn’t come screeching down the aisle between tables and made a lunge for Zac’s empty plastic clam container. The child, giggling dementedly, scrambled up onto Zac’s lap, grabbed the container, and spilled the contents across Zac’s trouser leg. Empty clamshells and the accompanying juice ran every which way, splattering the restrained tie and white shirt Zac was wearing with the trousers. There was a shriek of delight from the toddler and then the child was racing off to wreak more havoc and destruction.

  Zac sat looking after the small boy, a stunned expression replacing the hard one with which he had been favoring Guinevere. In the distance two distinctly yuppie parents ran after their errant offspring. They had the same designer’s emblem on their polo shirts that their son had on his. A coordinated family.

  “Have you noticed,” Zac asked in an odd voice, “how many small children there are around these days? Whatever happened to all those women who said they were going to have careers instead of babies?”

  Guinevere tried to stifle a small grin. “I’m still keeping the faith.”

  Zac’s gaze returned to her face. “It’s the biological-clock syndrome, you know.”

  “Biological clock?”

  “It’s running out for women your age,” he explained in that same odd voice.

  Guinevere’s grin disappeared. “Zac, what on earth are you talking about?”

  “Babies,” he said grimly. “My God, even Elizabeth Gallinger is talking about babies.”

  “Elizabeth Gallinger! Zac, what in the world were you doing talking to Elizabeth Gallinger about babies?”

  But Zac was staring sadly at the clamshells strewn across his trousers. “I have the feeling this suit will never be the same.”

  Jayne Castle, the author of Canyons of Night, Midnight Crystal, Obsidian Prey, Dark Light, Silver Master, Ghost Hunter, After Glow, and After Dark, is a pseudonym for Jayne Ann Krentz, the author of more than fifty New York Times bestsellers. She writes contemporary romantic suspense novels under the Krentz name, as well as historical novels under the pseudonym Amanda Quick. She lives in Seattle. You can find her online at www.jayneannkrentz.com.