Flash

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Right. Chantry came to me for venture capital funding two years ago, just before you joined Sloan & Associates. He wanted to expand the R&D side of his business. No bank would touch him because of his age.”

  “So you backed him?”

  “Sure. He obviously knew what he was doing, and he looked pretty damn healthy to me. Played tennis three times a week. From my point of view, Glow has always been a money cow, but now it’s set to become even more profitable.”

  Assuming the company was properly managed during the tricky transition period ahead. Jasper considered the problem. The loss of the founder and sole owner could easily deal a devastating blow to Glow, Inc., at this particular juncture.

  “Why isn’t there a file on him?” Al asked. “You’re infamous for your files.”

  “There is one, but it’s in my personal files at home. I made a private arrangement with Chantry.”

  “Private? You mean this was not a Sloan & Associates deal?”

  “No. Just me and Chantry.”

  There was a short pause before Al asked delicately, “Mind if I ask why?”

  “I saw it as an opportunity for a personal, not a company investment.”

  It was as good an explanation as he could come up with. The truth was, Jasper thought, he did not really know what had made him sign that contract with Chantry. It had just seemed the right thing to do at the time. When it came to business, he always followed his instincts.

  Now it looked as if he had unwittingly made an investment that would change his future.

  “I see.” Al thought for a moment. “Glow is a closely held firm, isn’t it?”

  “You can say that again. Chantry owned all of the stock.”

  “What did he use for collateral?”

  “The company, itself, of course,” Jasper said.

  “You did a contract that gave you controlling interest in the event things went sour and he was unable to repay the loan?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What did you take?” Al asked with professional curiosity. “Fifteen or twenty percent ownership and a seat on the board of directors?”

  Al’s assumption was a logical one, Jasper knew. A controlling interest and a voting seat on the board were common enough hedges for a venture capital firm seeking to secure its investment.

  “My arrangement with Glow was a little different than the ones we usually set up with Sloan & Associates clients,” Jasper said. “Chantry needed a very large infusion of capital to carry out his plans. He also wanted to be sure that the future of the company would be protected in the event that something happened to him. He didn’t want it sold off or merged.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Chantry did not want an investor, exactly. He wanted a silent partner. Someone who would care about Glow if he was no longer around.”

  “Silent partner? This is getting downright weird. What’s the bottom line here?”

  Jasper exhaled slowly. “The bottom line is that I now own fifty-one percent of Glow, Inc.”

  There was a short, sharp pause on the other end while Al digested that. “Interesting,” he said cautiously. “And just who, may I ask, owns the other forty-nine percent?”

  “Rollie told me that, although he employs any number of shade tree Chantry relatives, the only other person in the family who has a head for business is his niece. He said he intended to leave the forty-nine percent to her.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Her last name is Chantry, too, but I’m not sure about her first name. I think it begins with an O. Ophelia or Olympia, maybe. It’s in my personal files.”

  Al chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll just bet it is. Kirby told me just the other day that he’s starting to worry about your obsession with files.”

  Jasper decided to ignore that. He was still trying to recall the first name of his new junior partner. It snapped into his head with dazzling clarity. “Olivia. That was it. Olivia Chantry.”

  “Why does that name sound familiar?” Al mused.

  “Rollie told me that she runs her own business there in Seattle. One of those event production companies.”

  “You mean the kind of firm you hire to stage a large function like a fancy charity ball or a political fundraiser?”

  “Yes.” Jasper rummaged around in a few more mental drawers and came up with another name. “Light Fantastic. I think that’s the name of her company.”

  “You’re kidding?” Al whistled softly. “I’ll be damned. It all comes back to me now.”

  “What comes back to you?”

  “We are talking about Olivia Chantry of Light Fantastic, right?”

  “Yes.” Jasper noticed that a small line was forming near the departure gate. “Why?”

  “If you weren’t such a philistine when it comes to art, you’d know who your new partner is.”

  “Rollie never said anything about her being an artist.”

  “She’s not,” Al said patiently. “But she was married to one for a while. Logan Dane, no less. Even you must have heard of him.”

  “Dane.” Jasper watched the gate. It looked like the plane was loading early. He did not want to risk missing the flight. “Sure, I’ve heard of him. Who hasn’t? He’s dead, though, isn’t he? Got killed in an accident in Europe or something a while back?”

  “Three years ago the man ran with the bulls in Pamplona,” Al whispered reverently.

  “Probably drunk.”

  “For God’s sake, Sloan, is there no romance or passion in your soul? Didn’t you ever read Hemingway? Running with the bulls is the ultimate challenge. Man against beast.”

  “I take it the beast came out on top in Logan Dane’s case?”

  “Yeah.” Al’s voice resumed its normal tenor. “Some say it was suicide. Legend has it that his wife, your new partner, was getting set to divorce him. Dane went a little mad at the prospect of losing his wife, his business manager, and his muse all at once and took off for Pamplona.”

  “His wife was all of those things rolled into one?”

  “So they say.”

  “Where did you get all that, Al?”

  “Don’t you remember the article in West Coast Neo magazine last year?” Al asked.

  “Hell, no. West Coast Neo is one of those slick, glossy rags that caters to the arty-literati set, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t have time to read that kind of stuff.”

  “You know, Jasper, some day you really ought to try reading something besides the Wall Street Journal and Hard Currency. You’d be amazed at how much more well-rounded you’d become. People might start inviting you out. You could even develop a social life.”

  “Skip the lecture on how I don’t get out enough. What else do you know about Olivia Chantry?”

  “Just what I read in the West Coast Neo piece. Crawford Lee Wilder called her Logan Dane’s Dark Muse.”

  “Who the hell is Crawford Lee Wilder?”

  “Damn, you are a troglodyte when it comes to culture, aren’t you? Wilder works for West Coast Neo. He’s very big in the journalism world. Got a Pulitzer a while back when he was working for the Seattle Banner-Journal. He did an investigative reporting series on one of those big motivational speaker firms. You know, a company that gives seminars on how to motivate employees.”

  That clicked. “I remember the series. I read it.”

  “Congratulations,” Al said dryly.

  “He did a solid, in-depth analysis. Showed that the company was operating a scam.”

  “The firm he profiled later filed for bankruptcy because of the article.”

  “How come Wilder called Olivia Chantry Dane’s Dark Muse?” Jasper asked.

  “Wilder credited her with being the marketing genius behind Dane’s career. He also hinted strongly that she was Dane’s artistic inspiration. That he could not paint without her. When she threatened to leave him, he went nuts. Ms. Chantry, however, made out like a bandit after Dane’s death.”

>   “What do you mean?”

  “Apparently she inherited all of the Logan Dane paintings that had not been sold. Since the market for Dane’s work has done nothing but explode straight into the stratosphere in the past three years, I think you can assume Ms. Chantry is sitting on a fortune in art.”

  “Interesting.”

  “We may get to see some of her private collection at the end of the month.” Al’s voice was suddenly infused with enthusiasm. “The Kesgrove Museum of Modern Art is putting on a Dane retrospective soon.”

  “That’s nice,” Jasper said absently. He noticed that the line at the departure gate was starting to move. “Look, I’ve got to go, Al. I’ll talk to you when I get back.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to finish out the month there on Pelapili?”

  “Not a chance. I’m suffering serious fax-withdrawal already. No telling what will happen if I stay any longer.”

  Jasper replaced the phone, but he did not take his hand off the receiver. For a moment he contemplated the view through the open walls of the flight lounge. Palm trees shuddered in a sluggish trade wind. The sparkle of sunlight on blue water would have been blinding if not for the dark glasses he wore.

  His entire future had been altered by the deal he had done with Roland Chantry. Fifty-one percent of Glow, Inc., was now his.

  He released the phone and picked up his flight bag. There was something to be said for a tropical vacation after all, he decided. True, until yesterday, the trip had been a crashing bore. But things were finally looking up.

  For the first time in months he had an intriguing project on which to focus his considerable powers of attention and energy. He had a goal.

  He not only owned a new business, he had a new business partner. That meant that a wide assortment of problems awaited him back in Seattle. They were the kind of problems he was good at handling.

  The fleeting thoughts he’d had concerning a second marriage vanished. Just as well, he thought cheerfully. He was not very good at marriage.

  He was, however, downright brilliant when it came to business.

  He was whistling under his breath when he walked on board the plane a few minutes later. When the cabin attendant offered him that day’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, Jasper decided that life was good.

  He immersed himself immediately in a piece on corporate tax strategies. He did not bother to look out the window to watch Pelapili disappear.

  3

  Bolivar waved his hands in exasperation. “Know what your problem is, Olivia? You’ve got no romance in your soul.”

  Hands on her hips, Olivia glared up at her cousin, who was perched on a stepladder. “I’m not looking for romance. I’m after a few cheap thrills. I want chills down the spine. A nice creepy feeling.”

  “This is supposed to be Merlin’s Cave.” Bolivar stabbed a finger at the looming entrance of the life-sized model of a cavern. “You’re dealing with a romantic archetype. The fog will enhance the atmosphere, trust me.”

  Olivia pushed her glasses more firmly into place on her nose and scowled at the mammoth structure that occupied a large portion of the Light Fantastic studio. It was one of her company’s most ambitious projects. The walls of the artificial cave, inside and out, were painted a distinctive, eerie dark turquoise. The same odd color, a sort of futuristic medieval shade, was being applied to every prop scheduled for the Camelot Blue software launch event. It was Camelot Blue’s trademark hue. All of the company’s products were boxed and wrapped in it.

  “You’re supposed to be studying to become a physicist, a hotshot fiber optics type,” she said to Bolivar. “A man who gets turned on by cold light technology and electroluminescence. What the heck do you know about romantic archetypes?”

  “A lot more than you do, apparently.” Bolivar hopped down from the small ladder. There was a soft thump as his running shoes hit the bare wooden floor.

  Bolivar was twenty-one years old. He had the sharp, aquiline features, dark auburn hair, and gray-green eyes common to many in the Chantry family tree.

  He frowned as he absently shoved the trailing tail of his plaid shirt back into the waistband of his faded jeans. “I’m telling you that if you want special effects that will really wow the guests at the Camelot Blue event, you’ll go for a romantic touch with the fake fog.”

  “The guest list is riddled with teckies, bean counters, and high-level corporate execs. I doubt if any of them would recognize a romantic touch if it bit them on the throat.”

  “Just because you’re obsessed with business doesn’t mean everyone else is.”

  Olivia hesitated. The Camelot Blue event was an important contract for Light Fantastic. Alicia and Brian Duffield, cofounders of the company, belonged to Seattle’s new class of young, smart, affluent techno-wizards. They had hired Olivia’s event firm to produce the software launch event because she had convinced them that Light Fantastic could provide the high-tech flash they wanted to promote their products.

  The dazzle-and-glitter part was easy, Olivia thought. Thanks to her family connections, she had access to the state-of-the-art industrial lighting equipment and fixtures produced by Glow, Inc. Her resources had grown even more bountiful recently with the completion of the company’s new research and development lab. She raided it at will whenever she was in search of new special effects.

  She could handle flash, all right, she thought. But the archetypal romantic stuff worried her. Bolivar had a point. She was not very good at that kind of thing.

  “I still can’t figure out why they insisted on naming the company Camelot Blue,” she grumbled. “It doesn’t provide what you’d call a high-tech image.”

  “It’s a teckie thing,” Bolivar explained. “Comes from playing all those fantasy games.”

  Olivia nodded reluctantly. She was well aware that Camelot Blue’s first product had been a software game, a futuristic version of the Arthurian legend. It had sold like gelato in August. The company had been growing in quantum leaps ever since that first trip to market. Now it was set for another big push with a new line of products.

  “Believe me, Olivia, you want to go with the romance of the Arthurian legend on this.” Bolivar’s expression brightened as he looked past her. “Ask Aunt Zara. She’ll tell you I’m right.”

  Olivia glanced over her shoulder and saw her aunt walking toward them across the scarred wooden floors of the old factory loft. Olivia hid an affectionate smile.

  A former soap opera actress, Zara still knew how to make an entrance. Today she was a vision in a silver-studded denim jumpsuit and a pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals. She had put on some weight since her retirement from the long-running daily drama Crystal Cove, but she managed to look voluptuous, not plump.

  Zara wore big shoulders and big hair with an aplomb that awed Olivia.

  Her years in Hollywood had endowed her with a fine eye for flashy design, which had proven invaluable to Light Fantastic.

  Olivia saw that Zara carried two plastic-covered latte cups decorated with the logo of Café Mantra. The tiny, hole-in-the-wall coffee shop and espresso bar occupied premises on the first floor of the building.

  “You’re a life saver, Aunt Zara.” Olivia seized one of the latte cups and ripped off the lid. “I hope you made mine a triple?”

  “Yes, dear, just as you requested.” Zara handed the second cup to Bolivar. “Although I really do think you’re drinking a little too much caffeine these days.”

  “Are you kidding? It’s the only thing that’s keeping me going. You try sorting through Uncle Rollie’s business affairs and keep track of things at Glow while running this operation.”

  Zara frowned in concern. “You’ve been pushing yourself much too hard since Rollie died.”

  “Not like there’s any option.” Olivia took a healthy swallow of the triple-shot espresso-revved latte. “Until my so-called silent partner decides to return from his summer vacation, I’m stuck. Everything is in limbo until he shows up.”

/>   “Be careful what you wish for.” Bolivar gave her a troubled look. “This Sloan guy owns fifty-one percent of Glow now. Who knows what he’ll want to do with it?”

  Zara nodded in somber agreement. “Rose says that everyone at the firm is speculating Sloan will want to sell or merge Glow. That would be a disaster.”

  Olivia had been dealing with her family’s fears about the future of Glow since an hour after the news of Rollie’s death had reached Seattle. Everyone’s first reaction to the prospect of having a stranger at the helm of the family firm had been instant panic. Not without reason, she reminded herself. One way or another, most of the Chantry clan had a strong, personal interest in Glow.

  She took another sip of the latte and prepared to give Zara and Bolivar the same reassuring patter she had given all the other Chantrys who had besieged her lately.

  “Sloan’s a venture capitalist,” she said mildly. “He arranges startup and expansion capital. He doesn’t actually run the companies in which he has a stake. All he’ll care about is getting his money out of Glow. Don’t worry, I’ll arrange a way to pay him off and get rid of him.”

  Zara sighed. “I certainly hope you’re right.”

  “Trust me on this,” Olivia said. “I may not know much about legendary passion and romance, but I do know business.”

  “Speaking of romance and legend,” Bolivar said deliberately. “What are we going to do about the Camelot Blue fog?”

  Zara looked at Olivia. “Bolivar’s absolutely right, dear. You must go with the romance and passion angle here. This is King Arthur. The Round Table. Knights in shining armor. It cries out for a dreamy, atmospheric feeling.”

  Olivia eyed Merlin’s Cave. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” Zara said.

  “Okay, okay,” Olivia said. “When it comes to that kind of thing, you know I rely on your opinion, Aunt Zara. Let’s punch up the romantic angle for the whole event.”

  Bolivar grinned. “Good plan.”

  “I still say we should be going for creepy, not romantic,” Olivia said.

  “Don’t worry,” Bolivar assured her. “The new cold light fibers I’ve installed inside the cave will give you both an eerie and a romantic quality. The whole thing will really pop when we crank up the fog machine.”