Eye of the Beholder

“Rumors and innuendos, I’m told, in which your name figured prominently.”

  She folded her arms beneath her breasts and angled her chin. “Actually, my name got savaged by a particularly nasty bit of insider gossip in a very influential trade magazine called Twentieth-Century Artifact. The idiot reporter who wrote the piece did so without having all the facts. He managed to imply that I was actively involved in selling the forgeries at McClelland.”

  “What happened to the forger?”

  “McClelland?” Alexa glanced morosely at Dancing Satyr. “Disappeared and left me holding the bag.”

  Trask said nothing for a while, but the calculating look in his eyes told Alexa that he was processing the information she had given him.

  He stirred eventually, sliding one palm along the polished veneer of a lacquered cabinet in an absent caress. “Can any part of your story be verified?”

  It took every ounce of willpower she possessed to produce a careless shrug. “It’s possible that one or two of McClelland’s clients, those who are grateful to me for saving them from buying a lot of very expensive, very fake early-twentieth-century art and antiques, might be willing to talk off the record.”

  “Only one or two?”

  “Only one or two listened when I warned them not to trust McClelland. Edward Vale was among that rather select group. That’s why he—”

  The Valkyrie-like figure of Glenda Blaine bustled up out of the stairwell before Alexa could finish.

  “There you are, sir.” Glenda hurried toward him down the hall. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. One of the Phoenix TV stations sent out a camera crew. I’ve scheduled an interview with you standing in front of those big marble birds at the foot of the lobby staircase in five minutes.”

  Trask did not take his eyes off Alexa. “I’m a little busy at the moment, Glenda.”

  “Sir, I worked very hard to pull in this interview for you.” Glenda gave him a reproachful glare. “You told me you wanted all the media coverage you could get.”

  Trask’s jaw tightened. “I’ll be down in a moment.”

  “I need you to be there now, sir.”

  To Alexa’s astonishment, Trask inclined his head in an acquiescent gesture.

  “All right, Glenda. I’ll come down.”

  Apparently satisfied, Glenda swung around and strode off toward the stairs.

  Trask looked at Alexa. “You and I aren’t finished. When this reception is over, I’ll take you home. I want to talk to you.”

  Without waiting for her to acknowledge the order, Trask turned and walked toward the stairs.

  Alexa waited until she was alone before she responded.

  “I don’t think so,” she whispered into the hushed silence of the empty hall. “I may have taken a few risks lately, but I haven’t lost my mind. I’m not about to start accepting rides from strange men.”

  She whirled around, seized Dancing Satyr in a fierce grip, hauled it into the closet, and slammed the door.

  9

  Alexa was in bed but still wide awake when she heard the heavy growl of an engine in the drive. Outside the window, the twin beams of a pair of headlights sliced through the night. A moment later the vehicle came to a halt. The engine was switched off.

  She had known all along that he would follow her home.

  She tossed aside the covers, stood, and reached for the black and gold satin robe. A dark sense of inevitability settled on her as she thrust her feet into a pair of fluffy gold mules.

  She crossed the room to another one of her handful of treasured Deco-style pieces, a glorious green-glass-and-lacquered-wood dressing table. Designed in 1927 in the sophisticated tradition of Paul Frankl, it was a blatantly sensual thing with its sleek curves and gleaming surfaces. In Alexa’s mind it transformed her bedroom into a fantasy version of a boudoir.

  She switched on a lamp and almost turned if off again when she saw her reflection in the oval mirror.

  She had scrubbed her face before retiring. Without even a vestige of liner to brighten them, her eyes appeared to be sunk deep in shadows. Her hair was wildly tangled from a lot of tossing and turning on the pillow. Tension had tightened her features.

  All in all, not a pretty sight, she decided. On the other hand, there was no point trying to impress Trask. It wasn’t as if he was here to seduce her.

  She scowled at the mirror. Where had the word seduce come from? It had certainly never been a heavily used term in her personal vocabulary.

  An ill omen if ever there was one.

  Three demanding knocks rang out.

  It was like a scene out of a bad fairy tale, Alexa thought. Trask had followed her home from the ball but, as Edward had warned, he was no prince.

  On the other hand, she wasn’t exactly Cinderella.

  Uneasily aware of her pulse, which was beating much too quickly, she left the bedroom and went down the short hall into the darkened living room.

  Another brusque knock echoed. She ignored it long enough to turn on a 1920s-style glass-and-chrome lamp. Then she went to the door and peered cautiously through the peephole.

  Trask stood on the front step. He had obviously driven here with the windows down. His dark hair was roughened from the night breeze. He had discarded the jacket of his black tux. The ends of his bow tie trailed loosely down the front of his crisply pleated white shirt.

  He had removed his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves. Alexa could see the strongly detailed contours of muscle and sinew beneath his skin. Somewhere along the line this man had done something else in his life besides sit behind an executive’s desk.

  He looked as if he were about to pick up a rapier and do battle with an opponent over a point of honor.

  Lucky for him he had not come here to seduce her, Alexa thought. No telling what might have happened.

  She took a deep breath. Think: wild woman. She flung open the door.

  “It’s late,” she announced.

  “I know.” He contemplated her with an unreadable expression. “The party’s over. Offer me a drink.”

  The flames of reckless abandon shriveled a bit when it occurred to Alexa that the harsh glare of the porch light was probably not doing much for the shadows beneath her eyes.

  Not that she cared.

  She stepped back into the subtly lit living room.

  And immediately realized her mistake.

  Trask glided over the threshold before she could think of a way to regain the territory she had just yielded.

  “About that drink,” he said.

  “You just came from a party.”

  “That was business. I never drink when I’m working.” He glanced around at the interior of her snug little house, openly curious. “Looks a little like one of the suites in my hotel. You’re really into this Deco stuff, aren’t you?”

  “I told you, it’s my specialty.”

  He looked at her. “If you won’t offer me a drink, the least you can do under the circumstances is make me a cup of coffee.”

  She turned and walked into the kitchen. “I’ll fix you a cup of tea.”

  “I’ll settle for that.” He followed her as far as the doorway and watched as she filled the kettle. “No one around here seems to know how to make good coffee anyway.”

  “There’s a simple solution to that problem.”

  “I know. I’m going to call my office in Seattle and have someone ship down an emergency supply of coffee via overnight express carrier.”

  “I had in mind an even easier solution,” she said sweetly. “You could just go back to Seattle.”

  “I will.” He propped one shoulder against the door frame and folded his arms. “Eventually.”

  She set the kettle on the burner. “Why did you come here tonight, Trask?”

  “I told you I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I don’t think we have anything left to talk about.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  She gave him a wary glance. Then she opened the cupboard and took down
a teapot decorated with a bright, geometric, Deco design and two matching mugs.

  She decided to ask the question that had been worrying her most since she had left the hotel.

  “Did you confront Edward Vale about my role in putting together your new collection?”

  “You know damn well I didn’t,” Trask said.

  Her hand stilled on the jar of loose green tea. “Why not?”

  His mouth crooked humorlessly. “Because I find myself in the same position as those McClelland clients you told me about. The ones who got defrauded and did not want to admit it publicly.”

  “I see.” She met his eyes. “It would be embarrassing for you and your company if anyone were to question the authenticity of the resort’s new collection, wouldn’t it?”

  “Very.”

  She spooned the tea into the pot. “Want my advice?”

  “Why not? You’re the only expert I can consult, given the situation.”

  She thought about that. “You are in an awkward position, aren’t you? My recommendation is that you continue to keep quiet about your suspicions until the reviews appear. After the so-called experts have declared your collection brilliant and dazzling in print, you’ll be home free.”

  “Yeah?” He did not bother to conceal his skepticism. “How do you figure that?”

  “Don’t worry, the critics aren’t likely to change their minds after they’ve committed their opinions of the collection to print.”

  “In other words, they don’t want to look like fools, either.”

  “You got it.”

  “What about you?”

  She smiled slowly. “With any luck, once those reviews hit, especially the one in Twentieth-Century Artifact, I’ll be home free, too.”

  “Bottom line is that you want me to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Just for a few weeks. A couple of months at the outside.” She was taking yet another risk, she thought. This was not the kind of man who could be threatened or intimidated. He had to be convinced. Mentally she marshaled her arguments.

  “Deal,” he said.

  She nearly dropped one of the mugs. “Do you always make decisions that quickly?”

  A laconic gleam lit his eyes. “I made this particular decision before I left you in that second-floor hallway tonight, Alexa.”

  A sharp frisson of unease went through her. “Why?”

  “Because you’re right. I don’t have much choice. I’ve also got other issues that will require my full attention here in Avalon for the next few weeks. Whether or not I’ve been defrauded with a lot of phony Deco art and antiques is not the most important item on my agenda.”

  “I was afraid of that.” The piercing whistle of the tea kettle made her jump. She turned quickly and seized the kettle. “So the rumors are right. You have come back with some off-the-wall notion of revenge.”

  “I’m here to get some answers.”

  “It’s been twelve years, Trask. How can you possibly find any after all this time?”

  “For the past six months I’ve had a private investigator looking into the backgrounds of the two men who were my father’s partners at the time of his death.”

  “Lloyd and that other man, Dean Guthrie.”

  He nodded. “I’ve got information on Kenyon’s and Guthrie’s financial and personal situations twelve years ago that I did not have access to at the time.”

  “And just what do you plan to do with that information?”

  “Use it to stir the pot until something boils over.”

  “You sound like Machiavelli.” She finished pouring the hot water and set the kettle down with more force than she had intended. “Listen, Trask, I don’t know what information you think you’ve got about the past, but I want you to leave Lloyd alone, do you hear me? I know him as well as I knew my own father. Better in some ways, truth be told. He would never have been part of any conspiracy to murder anyone.”

  “If that’s true, you’ve got nothing to worry about, do you?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “No. It’s a statement of fact.”

  “Damn it, if you think I’ll stand by while you dig up the past in order to hurt innocent people…”

  “I’m not after innocent people.” His voice hardened appreciably. “I want the truth, and I intend to get it.”

  She searched his face, shocked in spite of herself by the relentless determination she saw in him. “You really do believe that someone murdered your father, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But what possible motive could there have been?”

  “A business deal gone sour.”

  “A lot of business deals go bad because the partners have a falling out. People don’t murder other people because of that.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “Sometimes they do.”

  “Not Lloyd Kenyon.” She was startled by her own fierce certainty. “He’s a gentle, good-hearted man. He’s not a killer.”

  “I don’t know yet if Kenyon was involved. Even if he wasn’t, that still leaves another possibility.”

  “Dean Guthrie.”

  Trask watched her closely. “Do you know him?”

  “No,” she admitted. “My mother told me that Lloyd hasn’t done any business with him since that deal with your father.”

  “According to my investigator, she’s right. Kenyon and Guthrie went their separate ways after that partnership was blown apart. Maybe whatever happened the night my father went off Avalon Point made it impossible for either man to trust each other again.”

  “Great.” She threw her hands into the air. “Now you’re weaving conspiracy theories. You’re obsessed with this plot you’ve invented, aren’t you?”

  “So my brother tells me.” He glanced at the pot. “Is that tea ready?”

  She was so focused on trying to figure out how to handle an obsessed conspiracy theorist that for a second or two, she could not figure out what he was talking about. Then she turned her head to stare blankly at the teapot.

  “Yes.” She seized the handle. “Yes, it is.”

  She poured the tea, not because she wanted to be a good hostess but because she needed a moment to collect her thoughts into some logical sequence.

  She met Trask’s eyes when she handed him one of the cups. “Tell me the truth. Have you got any hard evidence against Lloyd or Guthrie?”

  His fingers brushed hers as he took the cup from her hand. She could have sworn she saw sparks, the kind that crackled when she walked across a rug and touched something metallic.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  She allowed herself to relax slightly. “Other than this thing you have about the past, you seem to be an intelligent man.”

  His brows rose. “Gee, do you really think so or are you just saying that?”

  She pressed on grimly. “If nothing else, you’ve got your business reputation to consider. I assume it’s important to you.”

  “I think that goes without saying. Why?”

  “You won’t do anything stupid until you’ve got your facts straight, will you?”

  “Stupid?”

  “Something really dumb.” She paused deliberately. “You know, the kind of thing that might make you and, therefore, Avalon Resorts, Inc., look bad.”

  “I didn’t build Avalon Resorts by doing stupid stuff.”

  “Good.” Picking up her own cup, she stepped around him and led the way back out into the living room. “I’ll cling to that straw, if you don’t mind.”

  “You don’t look like the clinging type, but suit yourself.” He followed her and watched her curl up on the chaise longue. “It won’t make any difference one way or the other.”

  She studied him over the rim of her cup, wishing she could read his mind. “You’ll probably say that I don’t have any right to ask this, but I want you to promise me something.”

  He looked cautiously intrigued. “What’s that?”

  “I want your word of honor that you will talk to me abou
t any so-called evidence you turn up here in Avalon before you leap to any conclusions concerning Lloyd Kenyon’s role in your father’s death.”

  He pondered that for a while. “Why not?”

  Too easy, she thought. She had a feeling he had spotted some loopholes that she had not noticed. She’d better tighten the net. “Or before you make any similar leaps concerning Mr. Guthrie.”

  “What the hell do you care about Guthrie?”

  “Very little. I don’t even know the man. But since he and Lloyd were once partners, I don’t want you putting two and two together and coming up with five.”

  Trask grunted but said nothing.

  “In other words,” she continued very deliberately, “I want you to run any and all your evidence by me before you conclude that the two of them formed a conspiracy to get rid of Harry Trask.”

  “Alexa—”

  “Hear me out.” The unfamiliar adrenaline of recklessness surged through her again. “You don’t know it yet, but when those art critics write their reviews you’re going to find out that I have made Avalon Resorts, Inc., the owner of one of the most distinguished corporate collections of art and antiques in the Art Deco style outside of New York.”

  He was silent for a couple of heartbeats. Then he gave her a quizzical look. “So?”

  “So you owe me.”

  Mocking disbelief flashed in his expression. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I worked for a fraction of the consulting fee I should have charged you through Edward Vale. The least you can do to make up for taking advantage of me is give me your word.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Genuine outrage replaced the cold amusement in his eyes. “I didn’t take advantage of you.”

  “Yes, you did. You just weren’t aware of it at the time. I’m willing to overlook that in exchange for your promise not to move against Lloyd or Guthrie until you’ve talked to me about any facts you uncover.”

  He fell silent again. For a long time. Longer than she could hold her breath, she discovered.

  “All right,” Trask said after an eternity. “I promise.”

  He finished his tea and put down the cup. Then he got up and walked out the front door without once looking back.

  Yes, indeed, Alexa thought as she listened to the sound of the Jeep’s engine recede into the night. Lucky for Trask he hadn’t come here bent on seduction.