Flash

  Zara paused, one hand on the doorknob. “I’m sure we can trust him to be discreet. After all, Rollie trusted him with the future of Glow.”

  She sailed out through the door. The trailing end of the long fuchsia silk scarf she wore around her throat floated in her wake.

  The towering spires of papers and documents stacked on Olivia’s desk fluttered in the draft created by the closing door.

  Ting, ting, ting. The small, repetitive sound of the ballpoint striking the arm of the chair became irritating after a while. Olivia tossed the pen onto a heap of invoices.

  It was amazing what a plan could do for a person’s attitude, she reflected. Zara’s mood had undergone a sea change this morning after she learned that Jasper had concocted a scheme worthy of a television private eye.

  Olivia had to admit that she was also feeling a lot more confident about resolving the blackmail problem today than she had felt yesterday. Last night’s chat with Jasper had been oddly reassuring, even fortifying.

  There were not many men who would have taken the news that they had been dragged into the middle of an extortion scheme with such stoic aplomb. In fact, she could not think of a single person of her acquaintance, male or female, who would have handled the situation as calmly and matter-of-factly as Jasper had.

  There was steel at the core of Jasper Sloan. She had felt it in his kiss.

  There had been another part of him that had been equally rigid last night, too. She felt a pleasant heat rise in her cheeks at the memory. It had taken her a long time to get to sleep, and it had not been thoughts of a blackmailer that had kept her awake.

  Maybe she should try to get out more. She had been so busy lately she had forgotten what a normal social life looked like.

  She rubbed her hands briskly up and down her arms, gave herself a mental shake, and turned to her computer. She stabbed the on-off switch. She had more important things to do than view mental reruns of the sexy look in Jasper’s eyes when she had gently pushed him out into the corridor.

  Bolivar stuck his head around the corner of her office door.

  “Cindy at the Private Island office is on the phone.” He made a face. “Says she doesn’t want our people on board the boat until two in the afternoon.”

  Olivia glanced up from a preliminary schedule for the Camelot Blue event displayed on her computer screen. “That’s impossible. We need every hour we can get before sailing time. Cindy knows that.”

  “You want to tell her?”

  Olivia picked up the receiver. “Cindy? What’s the problem here? I told you weeks ago that I need to get my crew on board first thing tomorrow morning. It’s going to take all day to get the Private Island ready for the Silver Galaxy Foods Night event.”

  “Sorry about this, Olivia.” On the other end of the line Cindy Meadows sounded frazzled even though it was not yet eight-thirty. “My boss scheduled a last-minute dinner cruise for tonight. The boat won’t return to the dock until two A.M. I can’t get it cleaned up until tomorrow morning.”

  “You have to find a way to get your cleaning people out of there by eight A.M.”

  “How about noon?”

  “How about eight, just like your boss agreed in the contract we signed,” Olivia said grimly.

  Cindy sighed. “Bill’s right here. Why don’t you talk to him?”

  “Fine.” Olivia drummed her fingers on the desk until the manager of Private Island Cruises, Bill Cranshaw, came on the line.

  “Hi, Olivia. Got a problem?”

  “No, you do, Bill. We’ve got a contract that says Light Fantastic can have access to the boat for decorating and preparation purposes by eight o’clock on the sailing date. I need every minute I can get.”

  “I don’t see why you can’t wait until noon.”

  “I can’t stand it when you whine, Bill.”

  “Give me a break. I can’t cancel the dinner cruise.”

  “Don’t cancel it. Pay your cleaning people a little overtime and have them come in late tonight after you finish the cruise.”

  “Have you got any idea what that will cost?”

  “Whatever it is, it won’t cost nearly as much as you’ll lose if Silver Galaxy Foods takes Silver Galaxy Foods Night to another charter boat operator,” Olivia said sweetly.

  Bill groaned. “Okay, you win. Your people can come on board at eight.”

  “Great. See you first thing in the morning.” Olivia hung up the phone and looked for the final version of the Silver Galaxy Foods Night schedule. She knew she had left it on one of the stacks on her desk. Her organizational scheme was a simple one. Hot items were always placed on top.

  When she could not locate the schedule atop any of the towers of papers, she turned to the pile of documents arrayed on the floor behind her desk.

  It was not there, either.

  She got up, went around the desk, and opened the door. “Zara?”

  Zara looked up from her drafting table. “Yes, dear?”

  “Have you got a copy of the Silver Galaxy Foods Night schedule? I can’t find mine.”

  “I saw it on your desk yesterday afternoon.”

  “I know, but it’s gone now. Someone must have borrowed it.”

  Bolivar emerged from the entrance of Merlin’s Cave. Blue vapor drifted out in his wake. “There’s a copy on my desk.”

  “Thanks.”

  Olivia crossed the studio to Bolivar’s realm and retrieved the schedule.

  She walked back into her office, absently closing the door behind herself. The papers on her desk rustled softly as the small draft caught them. A fax containing a price quote from a catering company wafted off the top of a pile and floated gently to the floor.

  Olivia bent down to pick up the wayward fax. When she reached for it, she saw the corner of another sheet of paper lying on the floor beneath the computer station. The words Silver Galaxy were clearly visible.

  There was also a small page that had been ripped off a telephone message pad. A note in Bernie’s flowing handwriting was scrawled across it.

  Your cousin Nina called again. She wants you to call her back.

  Olivia sighed. Uncle Rollie had been right. One of these days she was going to have to get organized.

  It was when she crawled beneath the computer station to pick up the stray schedule that she saw the outline of a dried, muddy footprint on the floor. It was only a partial impression, but she could see enough of it to make out the outline of a man’s shoe.

  The print was in the precise spot that one would expect to find it if a person had sat down in her chair to use her computer.

  “Bolivar.”

  The door opened a few seconds later. Bolivar put his head inside the office. “Now what?”

  “Did you use my computer last night?”

  “No, I went home at five, remember? Besides, you know I wouldn’t touch that relic unless I was absolutely desperate. Why?”

  “I think someone touched it. There’s a muddy footprint on the floor.”

  “How do you know it’s from last night?”

  Olivia thought of the damp gust of wind that had interrupted the scorching scene on her balcony. “It didn’t start raining until sometime after eight last night.”

  “Oh, yeah. I guess that’s right.”

  Olivia crawled out from under the computer station. “Think the janitors changed their schedule without telling us?”

  “Doubt it. Far as I know they’re still coming in twice a week. That means they would have skipped last night.”

  Olivia glanced at her wastebasket. It was overflowing. No one had emptied it last night. “I wonder who used my computer?”

  Bolivar shrugged. “I’ll check with Bernie and Matty, but I don’t think either of them would have used it without checking with you.”

  “No.” Olivia sat down. “Don’t worry about it. No big deal. I just don’t like the thought that someone might have come into my office and used my computer without my knowing about it.”

  “Don?
??t blame you,” Bolivar said. “But why would anyone do that?”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  Olivia automatically flattened a palm on a stack of papers to hold them steady when Bolivar closed the door behind himself.

  If she had not been coping with a blackmailer, she thought, she probably would not have thought twice about the muddy print under her desk. But extortion threats, she discovered, had a way of making someone a little paranoid.

  The good news was that if a blackmailer had accessed her computer with a view to finding damning information, he had wasted his time. She used the machine only for Light Fantastic business data and correspondence. She could not imagine any of it being of much use to an extortionist.

  She glanced at her overstuffed file cabinets. It would be impossible to tell whether or not someone had rummaged around in them last night.

  Take it easy. Don’t go off the deep end here.

  There was only one real secret in her past, Olivia reminded herself. And she had destroyed the evidence of it three years ago on the night of Logan’s funeral.

  She glanced down at the partial print of a man’s foot and tried to marshal some logic. She had a couple of pieces of information to work with, she thought. First, whoever had entered her office had done so after the rain had started to fall.

  Second, the person who had left the print must have known that she was not working late as she often did during a busy period.

  It occurred to her that there was at least one man of her acquaintance who would have been aware of the fact that she was occupied at home last night.

  Jasper Sloan.

  She had sent him off in a cab to catch the ferry. He could easily have stopped off at the Light Fantastic studio first.

  She had spent a lot of time wondering if she could trust him. She hadn’t considered the possibility that he did not trust her.

  13

  Jasper walked out of the busy, brightly lit test lab through the swinging doors at the far end. He had a copy of the engineers’ revised report on Glow’s latest electroluminescent technology applications in his hand.

  He scanned the highlighted sections as he went down the hall to his office. Rollie had done a fine job when it came to hiring innovative thinkers in the applications area, he concluded. The atmosphere in the engineering labs was open and freewheeling. No one wore suits.

  The people who worked at Glow brainstormed readily and easily without fear of being shot down by an old-fashioned management style. Above all, Jasper thought, he wanted to retain that essential element of the Glow corporate culture.

  As he went through his office doorway he was studying a paragraph describing the way in which thread-fine fibers of light powered by very tiny batteries could be woven into wallpaper or fabric.

  Rose looked up, excitement bubbling in her face. “Oh, there you are, Mr. Sloan. I was just going to page you. Andy Andrews is on line one.”

  Jasper frowned. “Andy Andrews?”

  “You know, the editor of Hard Currency,” Rose said breathlessly. “It’s a very influential business newsletter.”

  “I’m familiar with it.”

  Hard Currency was a hot regional investment newsletter. It was faxed two or three times a week to a subscription list that included CEOs, board members, stockbrokers, and bond traders throughout the Northwest. Jasper occasionally found it useful, although in his opinion Andy Andrews frequently walked the fine line between breaking financial news and wild rumor.

  Unfortunately, Hard Currency was the first thing most local executives read when they arrived in their offices in the mornings.

  “Rollie had a subscription,” Rose confided. “But he never got called for an interview.”

  That was because in Rollie’s day nothing even remotely resembling gossip of the kind that would be of interest to the business community had ever occurred at Glow, Jasper thought. Glow’s image had always been on the staid side.

  But things had changed.

  He rapidly assessed the situation. Talking to journalists, especially Andrews, was not one of his favorite activities. In his previous career as a venture capitalist, it had been relatively simple to avoid the media.

  But he was operating in a different sphere now, one in which rumors were tools that had to be well managed. The wrong sort of speculation could be extremely damaging to a company in Glow’s position.

  The fact that the editor of the region’s most influential investment newsletter was on the phone meant that gossip was already swirling in the Northwest business community.

  “I’ll take the call in my office, Rose. When I’m through, send Morrison in, will you?”

  “Yes, Mr. Sloan.” Rose gave him an expectant look. “Does this mean that Glow will be featured in Hard Currency?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Ignoring Rose’s obvious disappointment, Jasper walked into the inner suite and closed the door. He reached across the desk to pick up the phone.

  “Sloan here.” He lounged on the edge of the neat, polished surface.

  “Andy Andrews with Hard Currency.” The voice was artificially warm and hearty, the voice of a journalist who made his living on the phone. “We met a year ago when I stopped by Sloan & Associates to get a quote from you regarding the Hatcher merger.”

  “I remember. What can I do for you, Andrews?”

  “I’m putting together a short feature on the recent changes there at Glow. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may.”

  “What questions?”

  “A lot of my readers have heard about you, of course. Sloan & Associates has backed some of the most successful young entrepreneurs in the region as well as a lot of expansions like the one at Glow. But it’s my understanding that you don’t generally get involved in the management of your clients’ firms.”

  “Glow is no longer one of my clients. I own it.”

  “Fifty-one percent, according to my information.”

  “Fifty-one percent is enough.”

  “I’ll cut to the chase. Why did you take control of the company?”

  “Glow is a change of direction for me,” Jasper said evenly. “I’ve been looking for a situation that would allow me to take on the challenge of dealing with all aspects of a growing and diversified business.”

  Andy cleared his throat. “There is some speculation that you took it over because the recent death of Glow’s owner and CEO may have put the company in jeopardy.”

  “That speculation is absolutely false.”

  “The firm is, after all, at a very delicate point in its expansion process, isn’t it? Is that why you felt you had to step in and take command at this juncture?”

  Time to squelch that rumor, Jasper thought. “Glow has always been a well-run company. In keeping with his usual far-sighted management philosophy, Rollie Chantry made appropriate provision for the present scenario.”

  “Uh-huh.” Andy did not sound convinced. “I’m told that forty-nine percent of the company is now owned by Rollie Chantry’s niece, Olivia Chantry.”

  “Right.”

  “Ms. Chantry obviously represents the interests of the rest of the Chantry family. How would you describe your relationship with her?”

  “Close,” Jasper said. “Very close.”

  “That’s not what I’ve heard,” Andy said with the deliberately vague air of someone who’s a little uncertain of his facts and a little slow to put those facts together.

  Oh, shit. Jasper allowed only the most casual curiosity into his own voice. “What have you heard, Andy?”

  “There’s a rumor in certain circles that the Chantrys don’t like having an outsider at the helm. Care to comment?”

  “I don’t know what you’ve heard. I can, however, assure you that I have Olivia Chantry’s complete trust and cooperation. We’ve both got the long-term interests of Glow at heart.”

  There was a short, heavy pause. “Are you officially denying that you’re there to fatten up Glow for a possible sale
or merger?”

  “Categorically,” Jasper said. “Glow is my company, and it will stay that way.”

  He brought the interview to a close five minutes later and immediately hit the Light Fantastic office number on his phone.

  “This is Olivia.” She sounded distracted.

  “I just had a call from Andy Andrews of Hard Currency,” Jasper said without preamble.

  “Congratulations,” she said dryly. There was a short silence during which Jasper heard a small slurping sound. It sounded like Olivia was taking a sip of coffee. “Andy Andrews must think you’re interesting. He never pays any attention to us small-time entrepreneurs.”

  “That,” Jasper said, “is about to change.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Andrews called me because he wanted information about our relationship.”

  There was a half-strangled exclamation followed by a gasp, a choking sound, and a couple of small coughs.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh. Coffee went down the wrong way,” she wheezed. “What about our relationship?”

  “Our business relationship.”

  “Oh.” There was another pause. Another slurp. “Well? What did you tell him?”

  “That the two owners of Glow enjoy a very close working partnership.”

  “I see.” Her voice was elaborately neutral.

  “That we share an identical vision for Glow’s future.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And that you,” Jasper said very deliberately, “as the representative of the Chantry family, had absolute confidence in my ability to manage the growth and expansion of Glow, Inc.”

  “Absolute confidence?”

  “Yes. Absolute confidence.” Jasper carried the phone to his office window and looked down at the street six floors below. “Andrews said he’d heard rumors, Olivia.”

  “What sort of rumors?”

  “The kind that could spell trouble.” He hesitated. “Someone is either feeding him gossip or else he’s just fishing. Either way, we’ve got to squelch this before it blows up in our faces.”

  “How do you suggest we do that?”

  “Andrews will probably call you next to get your side of the story. Remember what I said about presenting a united front.”