Olivia nodded and tossed another page to the ravenous flames. “We’ll never be able to prove it, but that’s the only scenario that makes sense. No wonder Rollie told me that if anything ever happened to him I was to destroy all of his personal files. He knew there was some potentially lethal stuff in them.”
“Rollie trusted you.” Jasper met her eyes. “He must have known that you’d figure out what to do when you came across the Lancaster information.”
“I wonder why he didn’t tell Todd the whole story before he left on that safari trip?”
“Not enough hard data to make accusations,” Jasper said. “And none of it implicated Eleanor Lancaster, herself, just her campaign manager. But it was enough to make Rollie uneasy about Todd’s involvement with the campaign. He tried to warn him.”
Olivia nodded. “Uncle Rollie may not have been unduly concerned at that point. As far as he knew, Todd was only serving as a temporary consultant to the campaign. He hadn’t realized that the relationship between Eleanor and Todd was getting personal and serious.”
“He would have been a lot more worried if he had known that your brother was getting sucked deeper into Lancaster’s intimate circle. After all, the closer he got to Eleanor, the more a nutcase like Haggard was likely to resent him.”
Olivia shivered. “At some point Dixon’s twisted brain might have concluded that Todd was a rival and a threat. I think he was already heading in that direction.”
“Yes.”
“My God. Dixon might have eventually worked himself up to the notion that Todd had to be removed the same way Eleanor’s husband had been removed. He might have murdered my brother.”
“It’s over now,” Jasper said quietly.
There was a short silence broken only by the crackle of the flames.
“Yes,” Olivia whispered. “It’s over.”
“Jasper.” Olivia came out of the nightmare with his name on her lips. Her pulse pounded. She gasped for breath.
“It’s all right.” Jasper’s warm arms closed tightly around her. “Only a dream.”
“No.” She refused to be comforted. She pried herself out of his arms and sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts. She stared down at his shadowed face. “No, it wasn’t a dream. It really happened. You almost got killed in that locker.”
She trembled as fragments of the nightmare wafted through her mind. She relived the ominous rattle and clatter of padlocks as Dixon made his way through the aisles. Closer and closer until she had realized too late that his search would bring him first to Jasper’s hiding place.
Jasper had known that would happen when he left her in Rollie’s locker.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she whispered.
“Don’t ever do what again?”
“Don’t ever leave me behind while you go off to deal with things the way you did today. We’re supposed to be partners, remember?”
His eyes were enigmatic pools of night. “I made an executive decision. I thought it would be easier to handle Haggard alone.”
“You should have discussed it with me first.”
His mouth quirked, but he said nothing.
Olivia flushed. She was grateful for the shadows that enveloped the bed. “Okay, okay, forget the preplanning discussion idea. Obviously there wasn’t time. But promise me you won’t do anything like that ever again.”
“I promise you that I have absolutely no intention of repeating today’s exercise. In fact, I may never even rent a self-storage locker again.”
She sensed the amusement he was trying to suppress and groaned. “I suppose neither of us could have predicted what would happen when we went to find those files this morning.”
“You’re wrong.” The humor vanished from Jasper’s voice as if it had never existed. It left behind a grim edge. “I should have considered the possibility that whoever else was after those files would follow us.”
“Stop it.” She put her fingers over his mouth to silence him. “It was eight o’clock in the morning in a commercial establishment. We should have been perfectly safe.”
He caught hold of her wrist and dragged her fingers away from his lips. “A commercial establishment in which there had already been another dangerous incident between you and Gill. I was an idiot to take you back to that place.”
“There was no one else who could have gone with you. This affair has involved only the two of us right from the start.”
“I could have gone alone. I should have gone alone.”
She smiled. “What are we going to do, spend the rest of the night telling each other that we should have done things differently? Even a couple of brilliant executives like us can mess up once in a while. The bottom line is that we both got out of it in one piece.”
Jasper curled a strand of her hair around his fingers. “About this affair.”
She stilled. Even without her glasses she could see the intensity of the look in his eyes. She knew that he was no longer talking about blackmail.
“What about it?”
“You keep saying we’re partners.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I do say that a lot.”
“When it comes to Glow, I’m the senior partner.”
“Jasper, this is not a good time to discuss your fifty-one percent.”
“I need to know how you really feel about the fact that I control the company.”
She smiled. “You want the truth? I feel relieved to know that it’s in good hands and that I can concentrate on Light Fantastic. I’ve dreaded the day when I would have to be responsible for Glow. But Uncle Rollie kept reminding me that there wasn’t anyone else in the family who could handle it.”
“You trust me to run Glow?”
She touched the severe line of his jaw. “I trust you with my life.”
He smiled slowly. Then he turned his head just far enough so that he could kiss her fingers. “About the other aspects of this partnership …”
“What about them?”
“I’m aware that any kind of personal arrangement based on mutual business interests makes you uneasy. But I would like to take this opportunity to point out that we’ve got a few other things going for us, too.”
Everything in her went on hold, poised on some invisible ledge, straining to hear his next words.
“Do we?” she prompted gently.
His eyes narrowed. “You want me to list them?”
“Just a couple will do.”
He frowned. “All right, let’s start with the fact that we’ve been through a traumatic, dangerous experience together.”
“A relationship based on that kind of thing is no more secure than one based on business interests. Once the artificially enhanced emotional edge wears off…”
He pushed her back down onto the pillows and rose on one elbow to lean over her. “We were both willing to break into a house, steal some papers, and lie by omission to the cops in order to protect some people who are important to us. I’d say that gives us a hell of a lot in common.”
She curved her hands around his sleek shoulders and looked up into his shadowed face.
“In the event the question ever arises, let’s set the record straight here,” she said. “Melwood was run down and killed by a car. He had no next of kin in Seattle. Acting in our capacity as his concerned employers, we entered his house with a key that he had provided to the company for emergency purposes.”
“Oh, yeah, right. I keep forgetting.”
“Regarding today’s activities,” she continued briskly, “we did our civic duty. We gave the police everything they needed to arrest Dixon Haggard. The stuff we didn’t tell them about had nothing to do with either Melwood’s death or Richard Lancaster’s murder.”
Jasper grinned. “I love it when you talk like a bigtime corporate CEO.”
She clung to the word love and let the rest of it go. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she pulled him down so that she could kiss him.
She wondered why he had brought up
the subject of their relationship in such a roundabout way. She wanted to ask him what his point was, but something told her he’d have to come to it in his own time. If ever.
Jasper was as skittish around the subject of marriage as she was.
Now, what had put marriage into her head?
“I forgot one other thing on my list of stuff we have in common besides our business interests,” Jasper muttered against her mouth.
“What’s that?”
He curved his hand around her hip. “The sex is great.”
“There is that.”
27
“The good news is that Glow and Light Fantastic got some great publicity out of this thing.” Bolivar opened the newspaper and spread it out across the Café Mantra lunch counter. “But the Lancaster people will be doing some very heavy spin work for a while. Wait’ll you see the headlines.”
Olivia leaned over his shoulder to look. Zara, perched on a stool beside him, did the same.
LANCASTER CAMPAIGN REELING
FROM ARREST OF MANAGER
Dixon Haggard, manager of gubernatorial hopeful Eleanor Lancaster’s political campaign, was arrested yesterday and booked on charges of murder and attempted murder.
Jasper Sloan, CEO of Glow, Inc., and Olivia Chantry, proprietor of Light Fantastic, a Seattle event design and production firm, were instrumental in apprehending Haggard. “We were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Mr. Sloan said. “But we got lucky.”
Sloan and Chantry, who share ownership of Glow, Inc., had gone to a south-end self-storage facility to retrieve some documents from lockers rented by the former head of Glow, Roland Chantry, and Melwood Gill, a Glow employee. Both men are recently deceased.
While at the facility, Sloan and Ms. Chantry were surprised by Haggard, who had followed them to the facility.
Police say Haggard believed that Gill had been blackmailing him with information stolen from the files of Roland Chantry. After allegedly murdering Gill in a hit-and-run incident, Haggard conducted a search for the information that Gill had allegedly used in his extortion efforts.
Haggard allegedly followed Gill’s employers to the storage facility, assuming that they would lead him to the information stored in Roland Chantry’s private files.
“We had reason to believe that Gill had taken some files from Mr. Chantry’s locker and stored them in his own locker,” Sloan explained. “We were looking into the situation when Dixon Haggard arrived and threatened to kill us.”
Police state that Haggard has confessed not only to the murder of Melwood Gill, but to the killing six years ago of Richard Lancaster. The effect on the Lancaster campaign is difficult to predict.
Todd Chantry, a spokesperson for the campaign, issued a statement saying that Lancaster is stunned by the news that she had unwittingly hired her husband’s alleged killer.
“We believe Haggard may have been a kind of stalker,” Chantry said. “He apparently developed a sick obsession with Ms. Lancaster and—”
“Whew.” Bolivar shook his head. “Todd’s good, but I’m not sure anyone is good enough to pull Lancaster’s bacon out of the fire this time.”
“But Eleanor Lancaster is just an innocent victim,” Zara protested. “Surely the public will understand. She’s in the same terrible situation Sybil was in when she hired Burt, the gardener, never knowing that he was a stalker. She can’t help it if some sicko murdered her husband and then insinuated himself into her campaign so that he could be near her.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “The woman hired her husband’s murderer. Don’t you see the problem here? It makes Lancaster look something other than brilliant, to say the least. At best, she comes across as a naïve victim.”
“Not exactly leadership material,” Bolivar concluded. He opened the second section of the paper. “Maybe if this had happened earlier in the campaign she could have put it behind her before the primary. But now? Who knows.”
“You can bet that the Stryker people are going to have a field day,” Olivia said.
Bolivar looked up. “What about the fund-raiser?”
Olivia shrugged. “No one has called me yet to cancel it. The only thing we can do is keep going forward with the preparations until we get word to the contrary.”
“We’re scheduled to hang the flag this afternoon,” Bolivar reminded her.
Olivia thought about it. “I’ll give Todd a call and see if he thinks there’s likely to be a last-minute cancellation. If not, we’ll keep to our schedule.”
Zara pursed her lips. “Seems to me Eleanor Lancaster will need a fund-raiser and a big rally more than ever now.”
“Good point,” Bolivar said. “Everyone says she’s a fighter. If she’s determined to overcome this, she’ll want to go ahead with a big, splashy show.”
“So it’s business as usual, folks.” Olivia spun around on her stool and got to her feet. “Let’s get to work.”
Bolivar refolded the paper. “I’ll get the flag ready to take down to the pier. Matty and Bernie can help me.”
“Thanks.” Olivia looked at her aunt. “Zara, I need to discuss something with you.”
Zara gave her a conspiratorial look that was laced with just a touch of melodramatic dread. “Of course, dear.”
They all trooped upstairs together. Olivia led Zara into the office and closed the door.
“Melwood Gill was your blackmailer, Aunt Zara.”
“Melwood?” Zara stared at her, dumbfounded. “But that’s not possible. How could he have known about those films I made?”
“He knew about them because Uncle Rollie knew about them.” Olivia went around behind her desk and sat down. A rush of sympathy went through her. Poor Zara. Bad enough to be the victim of blackmail. To have the extortionist turn out to be someone as unexciting as Melwood Gill was adding insult to injury.
“Rollie knew about my past?” Zara frowned. “But he never said anything.”
“That’s because it didn’t matter to him,” Olivia assured her. “Unfortunately he kept the information in a file. After he was killed, Melwood went through Uncle Rollie’s personal records. He found the folder on you when he discovered the one on Dixon Haggard.”
“Good lord.” Zara absorbed that information. “So it wasn’t one of my old rivals?”
“I’m afraid not. I destroyed the file last night.”
“I see.” Zara paused. “You destroyed the entire file?”
“It wasn’t very big.” Olivia recalled the short document she had fed to the flames. “Only a couple of pages.”
“No, uh, photos?”
“Nope.”
“I see.”
“It’s all gone, Aunt Zara. Just as though it had never existed.”
Zara sighed dolefully. “Very kind of you, dear.”
“There is nothing to worry about now.”
“Wonderful,” Zara said sadly. She raised her chin so that the light from the desk lamp accented her cheekbones the way it had the day Sybil had decided she would survive Nick’s infidelity. “I will be forever grateful.”
Olivia groped for some way to cheer her up. “Of course, there are probably a few copies of your early films still floating around somewhere in the old files of the studio that made them.”
Zara brightened. “Yes, that’s true, isn’t it?”
“One never knows when one of them might fall into the wrong hands.”
“My God, you’re right.” Zara rose to her feet, her hand on her breast. “I shall never be entirely free of the threat of exposure.”
“Probably not.”
“I will live the rest of my days with a sword of Damocles hanging over my head.”
“Yep.” Olivia smiled. “But life must go on. And so must business. Can you finish the sketches for the Simmons-Cameron charity auction for me by three?”
“I’ll get right on it.” Zara opened the door and wafted happily out of the office.
“You saved her life.” Todd shoved his hands into the pockets of his trou
sers. He studied the cloudy sky outside the office window as if he saw arcane runes there. “I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”
“It was my fault that she was in danger.” Jasper lounged back in his chair and contemplated Todd’s intent, serious profile. “You don’t thank someone for screwing up the way I did.”
Todd glanced over his shoulder. Sunlight glinted on the rims of his glasses. “Too bad folks like you don’t run for public office. What this country needs is more people in leadership positions who will take responsibility for their actions.”
“I’m happy here at Glow, thanks. I’d never make it as a politician.”
“Why not?”
Jasper shrugged. “Politics is all about compromise. I’m not good at compromise.”
Todd gave him a knowing look. “You like to be in charge, is that it?”
“Yeah. Speaking of politicians, how are things at Lancaster campaign headquarters?”
Small, troubled furrows appeared on Todd’s intelligent forehead. “Dicey, to say the least. This morning’s polls were not good. People feel sympathy for Eleanor, but they’ve lost respect for her judgment.”
“Any way you cut it, she’s a politician who ran for office on the money she inherited after her husband was killed by one of her most trusted campaign aides.”
“Unfortunately, that’s the way the public sees it.” Todd frowned. “We’re off-message while we try to explain things to the media. It’s too late in the campaign to be off-message. Still, with a little luck, we may survive the primary. If that happens, we’ll have several weeks to regain our position before the election.”
“Good luck. The public has a short attention span. You’ve got that much in your favor.”
Todd grimaced. “True.”
“Still planning to get out of active politics when this election is over?”
“Definitely. I’m only staying on with the Lancaster campaign because I feel I owe Eleanor that much. I can’t abandon her at this juncture. After all, if it hadn’t been for her, I might never have had an opportunity to see some of my theories and policy ideas launched in the real world.”
Flash Page 26