Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire

by M. J. Lawless

  He nodded, and, slowly, the colour began to drain away from his face. “Yes, you’re right. Things won’t be too tough here, but I sure as hell don’t want to get transferred to San Quentin. Some of the things I’ve heard about that place...” he shook his head. Then, brightening, he gestured to his unisuit and joked: “How do you like my outfit?”

  Kris frowned ever so slightly. “Nice,” she replied, cautiously.

  “It’s for the new guys. I’m a low security risk, or something like that. I’m not sure I especially want to graduate too much as a high flyer from this particular university of life. Mind you, there are some interesting, ah, businessmen inside.”

  His gallows humour cheered her up a little, but at last she returned to some of the other matters that were pressing on her mind. “She came and saw me, the day before yesterday.”

  “Who?”

  “Maria.”

  Now it was Daniel’s turn to frown. “Maria? What the hell is she doing here?”

  “She’s going to testify, against me. Roth has employed her, I guess. She’s going to... she’s going to tell everyone what happened between us. My... mistake.”

  Kris’s voice trailed away and Daniel nodded sagely. “No doubt she’ll also share some of the things that she and I did together, attempt to cast further aspersions on you.”

  “That woman! Why oh why did I ever have anything to do with her—why did you?”

  Daniel sighed, his shoulders moving in deep resignation. “This happened, we can’t change that. She won’t have any choice in this.”

  “And I’m sure she’ll be paid well.”

  His laugh was wry and humourless. “I’m sure she’ll be paid very well, but it will be more than that. She won’t have any choice. Roth will force her to do what he wants. He is... very persuasive.”

  “He couldn’t persuade me.”

  For a while, Daniel looked at her, watching her intently. “He couldn’t buy you, that’s for sure. You’re no ordinary woman, Kristina Avelar, and that, I guess, is why I fell so head over heels in love with you. But don’t underestimate him. He won’t buy you—he may not even try. Max has never been stupid. He will find your pressure points, however. He’ll find out what you can’t live without. That’s what’s worries me now—how he’ll pressurise you, threaten you even.”

  Kris felt her spirits sink as he spoke. At last she said, quietly: “I can’t win this, can I.”

  Daniel did not reply, but for a moment watched her, his jaw clenched. When he did speak, it was not to address her immediate concern.

  “I need to ask you to do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  He took a deep breath. “When you leave here, book a flight back to the UK. To London. Go to Elaine, and tell her ‘Logan sent you’. She’ll know what to do.”

  “Logan?” Kris’s heart jumped inside her at the mention of that name. Before she could say anything else, however, his eyes flashed a warning at her and he quickly glanced towards the guard behind him.

  “I really can’t say anything else, but Elaine will know what to do. I’m sorry, I really can’t explain this—I wish I could, but...” His eyes moved up towards the ceiling, then returned to gaze on her steadily. Not for the first time, she felt herself sinking into those hazel eyes, one dilated and strange, both of them full of concern for her. “Please,” he said again. “I need you to do this for me, as soon as you can.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  When she left the main building of the jail, she could see the security officer waiting for her outside the car. Dressed in his familiar dark jacket and jeans, his white shirt unbuttoned at the neck, his physical build and something about the stiffness of his posture tended to be the only things that gave him away. Those, and the fact he was still wearing sunglasses despite the fact that the fog had not lifted, as well as the wire trailing from his ear.

  He had been bent forward, talking to the driver of the car while waiting for her, and as she began to walk across the car part he turned his head in her direction. He did not smile but instead pursed his lips slightly, as though concentrating on her with greater attention than usual.

  Not that she particularly wished to talk. As he held the door open for her and then slid into the front next to the driver she was glad that he asked her no questions about her visit. Instead, he left the glass partition between her and them closed so that she could mull over her thoughts.

  What was Daniel thinking—what was he planning? Her mind began to revolve around these and other questions repeatedly. “Logan”. That word was like a shock to her. When first she had met Daniel in the Scottish Highlands, he had been Daniel Logan—Logan, not Stone. But also, when first she had encountered Elaine Christiansen she had been warned off that name, and indeed Daniel himself had discouraged any conversation which tended towards that subject.

  She understood why, or, more accurately, she thought she understood why. As far as she was aware virtually no-one other than herself and Elaine knew of Daniel as anything other than the founder of Stone Enterprises. It was a secret he had even kept from those he had known for many years such as Felix Coltraine.

  Even that made sense, increasingly. Her first encounter with Felix had put her in mind of a somewhat avuncular and largely irrelevant man, but she had learned to her cost just how much Felix meant in Daniel’s life. He controlled increasingly significant parts of Stone Enterprises, and it was also clear to her that he intended to push the company’s founder aside completely. Had it not been for her, Kris realised, thinking back to the man who had been Daniel Logan—isolated, misanthropic, and despairing—he would have been able to have achieved his purpose completely by now. That was why he hated her so much, because she had been the cause of his ambitions being thwarted.

  These thoughts and others preoccupied her as they drove along the highway back into San Francisco. The fog was beginning to clear now, and in the distance she could see planes descending to the international airport. Soon she would have to leave from there, return to London. But not yet. One hour with Daniel since his arrest was not enough: she would book tickets then visit him for the next couple of days, be as sure as she could of what he wanted from her.

  Within half an hour, however, she was beginning to frown. The roads, rising and falling in great humpbacks across the hills of the outskirts of the city, did not look at all familiar to her. Here were long avenues, with large Victorian gothic and Italianate houses placed at discrete intervals, buildings impressive enough and far away from the epicentre to have survived the great earthquake.

  Kris tapped on the window. “Where are we?” she asked. “Where are we going?”

  Neither Kurt nor the driver responded.

  Somewhat annoyed, she tried to open the window. It was locked. Fumbling at the door next to her, more as a kind of test than through any real desire to open it, she realised with a shock that it was locked as well.

  Panic began to rise inside her as she knocked the window more vigorously. “Kurt! Where are we going? Answer me, goddamit!” He did not respond, however, and after a few minutes of this she forced herself to calm down, sitting still in the back seat, watching the houses as they rolled by. Her face was pale now with fear, her heart beating more quickly, but she refused to show any other signs of her anxiety.

  At last they pulled onto the drive leading to one of the larger Italian style houses, almost a small mansion, with dark cypresses lining the road. The house itself was built of dark stone, its windows looking surprisingly forbidding as the mist had not entirely cleared. It appeared to be empty.

  When Kurt finally opened the door, standing to one side, she remained in her seat for a moment, glaring at him. His face was utterly impassive now.

  “Where are we?” she asked sullenly. “Why have you brought me here?”

  “There’s someone who wants to see you,” he replied quietly.

  A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Does Willard know you’re here?”

  He nodded.<
br />
  This had not been the response she expected. He could have been lying, of course, but something about his stern, confident attitude led her to believe this was the truth. She already knew the answer to her next question, but still felt compelled to ask: “Who wants to see me?”

  “Maximilian Roth.”

  When she slowly climbed out of the car, refusing to glance at her false security, Kurt said nothing but closed the door behind her. Moving ahead of her, he rang the doorbell and then waited a few moments, Kris keeping her head bowed slightly behind him. As such, she heard rather than saw the door open, and Kurt said quietly: “Please tell Mister Roth she’s here.”

  As Kris entered the hallway, staring at the Hispanic maid who held the door, Kurt did not follow her but instead returned to the car. For that small mercy, at least, Kris was glad. She knew that Maximilian Roth bore no love to her, but the unexpected treachery of her own guards could be far too much to bear.

  The hallway in which she stood was large and ornate, decorated in the slightly fussy style of Victorian elegance with a large candelabra hanging from the ceiling and wooden panelling on the walls. The atmosphere was slightly fusty and even damp, possibly from the fog that had entered when the door had been opened, but also, Kris felt, because it had been empty for some time. This was a house that was impressive but unloved.

  “Mister Roth will see you now,” the maid said. “This way, please.”

  Following the other woman, Kris was led through a dark oak door into a study. Though the shutters at the window were drawn back, little daylight seemed to enter the room, light instead coming from two low lamps near to the desk. Around her were shelves covered with books, and the atmosphere was oppressive in the room. Focussing her attention on the far side of the desk, Kris recognised the man sitting there immediately from their encounter at the Courthouse: Maximilian Roth.

  In the half light of the room, he appeared older than when she had first seen him, his hair white rather than silver, his face lined. She had assumed that he was in his sixties, but now she was not so sure. He was dressed in a dark suit, the collar buttoned and a tie in place despite the increased humidity in the room. When he saw her, he gestured to the chair at the other side of the desk: “Misses Stone,” he said. “Please, sit down.”

  His voice carried a slight hint of a European accent, though one disguised by overtones of east-coast American. It was not particularly harsh or unpleasant, but Kris had the suspicion that he was a man not used to being disobeyed or contradicted. Not feeling inclined to correct his assumption as to her married name, she nonetheless went across the room and sat down across from him.

  While his face still appeared relatively vigorous, the long, bony fingers of his hands, fingertips pressed together beneath his chin, gave away the sense of his real age. His eyes were slightly rheumy in their deep sockets, but glittered as he looked at her, full of a perceptive intelligence.

  “Thank you for coming,” he told her.

  “I didn’t really have a choice.” Despite her attempts to project complete confidence, the trembling in her voice betrayed her slightly and, indeed, she was scared by the circumstances that had brought her here.

  Roth smiled thinly at this. “I would apologise for that,” he said, speaking softly, “but to be honest it seemed to be the easiest way to bring you here. Loyalties are so easily bought.”

  “I take it Willard is working for you now.”

  This made him snort. “I simply offered him three times what Stone was paying him. No doubt it occurred to him to begin some further round of negotiations, but I did make it clear that trebling his not inconsiderable income was my final offer—and once Daniel Stone learned what he had done, he was as likely to be fired as receive a better deal.”

  Kris nodded, uncertain where this left her but not knowing what else to say.

  After gazing across his fingers at her for a while, he continued: “I presume you know why you’re here.”

  “I guess it’s because you want me to drop the rape charge against your son.”

  Once more Roth smiled thinly at this. “Oh, you’ll do that anyway.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that!” Despite herself, her anger flared up momentarily. This made Roth laugh.

  “Well, you have some spirit in you, that’s certain. I’m sure that’s what Daniel appreciates. After all, breaking such spirits was something of a speciality for him, so I understand.”

  Kris wanted to spit at him, to shout that nothing could be further from the truth. She held her tongue, however.

  “Anyway, you have no chance with your foolish accusations against Francis. I’m sure you’re becoming aware of that.”

  Glaring at him, Kris still said nothing.

  “The exuberance of youth. I wish I could offer you some platitudes along the lines that he takes after his father, but from what I understand Francis’s foibles owe more to the tutelage of your husband than any guidance on my part.”

  Now she could not hold her tongue. “That’s not true! Daniel’s no... rapist.” She hissed out the final word. “Your son is not fit to hold a candle to him.”

  Immediately that she had said this, forcing out her words in a fit of anger, she regretted them, wondering what the consequences would be. To her surprise, however, Maximilian Roth looked thoughtful, leaning back slightly in his chair.

  “That may be truer than you realise,” he said with a slightly sad smile. “I’ve known Daniel for nearly ten years now—I gave him a great deal of support when he first came to America, gave him his first openings in New York and Silicon Valley. It had been, what, fifty years before that I had made the same crossing, and I saw a great deal of my own drive, my own fire, in him.”

  He leaned forward now, resting his hands on the table as he stared directly at her. “Daniel was exceptional. I would have been proud to call him my son. But that was then.” He settled back in his seat and a look of vague irritation crossed his features. “As you say, Francis may not be fit to hold a candle to your husband, but he is flesh and blood after all.”

  Thrown slightly by these words, Kris asked: “What makes you think I’ll drop charges against... Francis so easily?”

  “Francis is in prison. Daniel is in prison. This is an utterly foolish state of affairs, and one that has to stop. That damn judge thought she would flex her muscle by refusing bail—to both of them! That must have seemed a good joke to her at the time, but I’ll wipe the smile off her face when it comes to the next round of donations. We may have the wrong man for president at the moment, but the governor remains a close friend.”

  While he was speaking, Kris began to frown. Roth’s voice had become more querulous, and she realised that recent events had disturbed him as much as they had her. For reasons she could not entirely explain, that made her feel slightly more confident than when she had first entered the room.

  “I take it you have met Madame Gosselin,” he said sharply, his eyes upon her. Her grimace was all he needed by way of reply.

  “She had some very... interesting stories to tell about you.” He laughed, a harsh sound in the deadening atmosphere of the room. “I almost feel that I didn’t need to offer her a fee to testify against you. Whatever Daniel did to her last time, it cut deeply, and no doubt marriage to you drove in the knife even further. Hell hath no fury, and all that. And Maria Gosselin is truly a woman scorned.

  “And I hope you’ve been following the news. I must be honest, Maria aside you really are most disappointing, Misses Stone. Quite the nonentity. However, I’ve more than enough tidbits to feed the press, and I must say that all these bloggers that Jane hires have even less scruples than the guttersnipes who run the newspapers and TV channels. It is quite heartening to see what capitalism is capable of in this great country of ours.”

  For a few moments, Kris did not reply, her face twisting with emotion. She cared little about her own reputation, but she knew that it would affect Daniel deeply, as much for the loss of privacy than any assau
lt on his own good name. “Well, a bit of scandal won’t harm me,” she finally said with false bravado.

  Once more the old man seated across from her laughed. “Oh, no doubt you think that as an artist,” the word was a sneer in his mouth, “you will benefit from a little Bohemian tittle tattle. I have no real opinion on that, though it does strike me that you Bohemian types are all the same. I dare say all those modernists thought they’d found the freedom to do what they pleased, but we all know that an artist needs a patron. Long ago it was the Church, and then it was rich bankers like the Medicis. All those romantic notions of freedom were just an interruption, Misses Stone. For the past fifty years, financiers and bankers like me have called all the shots.

  “And that’s why I know this will hurt—because it will hurt your patron. I’ll fucking crush Daniel, don’t misjudge me on that. You’re irrelevant. With a few well-placed stories and witnesses, your opinion in court is utterly unreliable, your testimony worthless. Why, for all I know you led Francis on, inviting him to one of those sick games you and Daniel get up to—“

  “That’s a damn lie!” Suddenly, Kris’s fear and trepidation had evaporated, replaced by fierce anger. “It’s a lie and you know it.”

  Roth looked a little shocked for a moment, evidently unfamiliar with hearing angry voices raised against him. After a few seconds, however, he began to chuckle, a slightly obscene sound that unsettled Kris.

  “You truly are a piece of work. Why, if I were so inclined I might divorce the current Misses Roth and take you on to give Daniel a ride for his money. Marriage!” he spat the word out. “An unfortunate habit, Misses Stone. An itch that demands to be scratched. I think I only remain married to that bitch back in New York because it irritates my eldest daughter more than anything else in the world. No doubt she won’t be the last—just as you won’t be the last for Daniel Stone, mark my words.”