The Desperate Game: (InterMix) (18 page)

“Yes, you are.” She reached down and caught his hand. He rose reluctantly under the impetus and followed her tamely to the door where she found her jacket. “There’s a little place just around the corner where we can get some good pasta. Tequila has its uses, but there aren’t a lot of vitamins in it.”

Downstairs and down the street she orderd the cheese ravioli for both of them, and after it had arrived, she stared pointedly at Zac until he began to eat. Once he’d started, she was relieved to see, he kept going. When the check came, she automatically picked it up. That finally got his attention. He gave her a small, quirking smile.

“What gives?”

“This is your lucky night.” She paid the bill and took his arm to walk him back toward the apartment. At the door he came to a halt and looked down at her, frowning.

“I should probably go home,” he said.

“Yes,” Guinevere said. The rain had hit while they were at dinner, and its steady beat surrounded them as they stood under the shelter of the doorway.

“Gwen, I’m—well, thanks.”

“For dinner?”

He shook his head. “For everything. For listening this afternoon. For being patient while I worked it through.”

She smiled. “I thought maybe you were going to thank me for acting as your backup team last night.”

Something flickered in his gaze. “And almost getting yourself killed? Forget it. Be grateful you’re no longer working for me. Otherwise, I would have ignored all those management articles on how to criticize employees in a positive and constructive fashion.” He paused, considering the matter. “I probably should go ahead and tear a strip off you anyway. You scared the living hell out of me last night when I found out I hadn’t tackled Elfstrom after all.”

“You were expecting the Elf to show up?”

Zac nodded. “You and he were the only ones who knew I was heading for the warehouse at ten o’clock. I phoned him after I had put you into the car in front of Larry’s house.”

“I was afraid you might have notified him. At nine thirty I knew that Elfstrom was probably behind everything that had happened. There was no reason for Cal to have rewritten the game program leaving out the principal character unless that character was in a new role.”

“Behind the scenes, pulling strings.” Zac nodded again. “It didn’t make any sense that the real menace was Hampton Starr. He could have been ripping off his own company for some reason, and he does like intrigues, but frankly, the guy’s pure management.”

Guinevere chuckled. “Exactly. He doesn’t know a damn thing about computers. Besides, he enjoys his role as king of the empire. He prefers to rule in style. And he’s terribly conscious of the image. It wouldn’t have fitted the image for him to be running a black-market scam on the side.”

“Right. And Cal and Larry were too wrapped up in their plans to make a fortune by selling Elf Hunt. Besides, just as Starr is pure management, they were pure programmers. And they were young. They came straight out of college into StarrTech. The odds were against their having the kind of contacts it would take to sell those shipments of equipment.”

Guinevere went still. “And then there was me.”

“Yes. And then there was you.”

“Admit it, Zac. For a while you had your doubts about me. Did Elfstrom help plant them?”

“He worked on it.” Zac lifted his hand to rub his thumb along the line of her jaw. In the overhead light his eyes seemed to have regained their brooding quality again. “But I didn’t want it to be you, Gwen. Above all I didn’t want it to be you.”

“You put me through the third degree out at Larry’s house.”

He shook his head. “I barely touched you.”

“Are you kidding? I felt as if I’d been put through the wringer!” Then Guinevere tipped her head to one side, studying him. It occurred to her that she had gotten off lightly after all. A real inquisition conducted by this man would have been endless and brutal. She knew that with a certainty that sent a small shiver through her, and she took a moment to thank her lucky stars.

“I didn’t want it to be you, Gwen,” he repeated.

“But you didn’t want it to be your old friend either.”

“No, but in the end I knew it had to be Russ. Like you, I realized that there was a reason the game had been totally rearranged with the major character left out entirely. Cal had, in typical computer nerd fashion, left the clues in Elf Hunt as he uncovered them.”

“He probably wanted to make a grand announcement when he had everything pieced together. Cal would have enjoyed pulling the rug out from under the Elf. He disliked Elfstrom intensely. But Elfstrom moved in on him before he could finish the project.”

They absorbed the implications of that, and then Zac made another halfhearted effort to leave. “I owe you, Gwen. I’d still be flogging this case if it hadn’t been for your help. Shall I call you tomorrow with an update?”

“I’ll be at the office.”

He looked momentarily relieved, as though he’d been expecting her to tell him she didn’t want a call. “Okay.” He stepped back, his fingers falling reluctantly away from the side of her face.

Without giving herself time to think, Guinevere caught his hand. She took a deep breath. “I’m glad you didn’t want it to be me, Zac.”

“Gwen, I—”

She hushed him with her fingertips on his mouth. “Would you like to come back upstairs? Just nod if the answer’s yes.” She smiled tremulously.

Mutely he nodded. Mutely he followed her up the stairs. Inside the door of her apartment Guinevere put her arms around his neck. “I’m willing to try again.”

“To turn me into a prince?” The gray eyes gleamed.

“Yes.”

“Frogs are a bit slow at times,” he said warningly, folding his arms around her waist.

“Sometimes slow is exactly the right way to do things.” She lifted her face for his kiss.

***

Guinevere received two calls at the office the following afternoon. The first was from Larry Hixon. When she said his name with pleasure, Carla looked up expectantly from across the room, where she had several file drawers torn apart.

“Larry! You’re home from the hospital already?” Guinevere smiled.

“I had to get home. Had to finish Elf Hunt. You were right, Gwen. Guess what you find if you go out the second exit of the treasure chamber?”

“The elf?”

“Yup. He’s in there sitting at a computer console. The power behind the throne, I guess. He pulls all the strings in the game. Actually it’s a brilliant twist to the ending. I think I’ll keep it in the final version of Elf Hunt. I’m going to add a new character, though.”

“A frog?”

“How’d you guess? Is Carla there?”

“Yes, she’s here.” With a smile Guinevere handed the phone over to her sister, who took it eagerly.

Guinevere had bought a paper earlier, and she reread the brief article while Carla chatted with Larry. When Carla hung up eventually, Guinevere sighed and tossed the paper back down onto the desk. “I can’t believe it.”

Carla grinned. “You’re just mad because the reporter got your name wrong.”

“Miss Smith.
Miss Smith
.” Guinevere groaned.

“You know how it is. Smith, Jones, who can remember? There are so many Smiths and Joneses in the world.”

“You’re awfully philosophical about it,” Guinevere said.

“Frankly,” said Carla, “it might be for the best that your right name and Camelot Services didn’t get mentioned.”

“You’ve got a point. Actually anyone reading that article is going to come away with the distinct impression that Hampton Starr stopped the Elf single-handedly.”

Half an hour later the phone rang again.

“Gwen? It’s Zac. The bank just called. It’s approved a charge card for Free Enterprise Security, Incorporated.” Triumph echoed in his voice.

“Congratulations. You can take me to dinner to celebrate.”

“Uh, yeah. I could. But aren’t you supposed to offer to take
me
to dinner to celebrate?”

“No, Zac. That’s not the way it’s done. You’re the one who just got the card approved. Therefore, you’re the one who uses it to pay for the appropriate celebration. This sort of thing generally calls for champagne instead of cheap tequila, by the way. You have a lot to learn about running a small business.”

“I see. Well, in that case we’ll make it a genuine business dinner, so I won’t be questioned by my accountant when I charge it off as an expense.”

“A business dinner?” For the first time Guinevere felt wary.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking. You know, there are times when it’s very useful to be able to put someone into a situation the way I had you in at StarrTech. I mean, with the cover of your firm as a background, you could go into all sorts of environments. Whoever questions a temporary clerk or secretary or receptionist? Especially one named Jones. I see a great potential for us working together in the future, Gwen. We can discuss it tonight over dinner.”

“Not a chance!” she shouted into the phone. “Zachariah Justis, you listen to me. Camelot Services is not about to get mixed up in any of your future investigations. Do you hear me? We will not—”

But Zac had already hung up.

Keep reading for a special excerpt from the next

Guinevere Jones novel by Jayne Castle

THE CHILLING DECEPTION

Available now from InterMix

Guinevere Jones discovered the gold-plated pistol in the men’s executive washroom on the third day of her employment at the Vandyke Development Company.

She went back to her desk in Edward Vandyke’s outer office and sat brooding about her find for several minutes before she picked up the high-tech stainless steel phone and dialed the number of Free Enterprise Security, Inc. Zachariah Justis’s response to the information about the gold pistol was predictable enough. Guinevere told herself she should have anticipated it.

“What the hell were you doing in the men’s executive washroom?” he said angrily.

“I’ll tell you at lunch.”

Offended by Zac’s failure to perceive the significance of the gun in the bathroom, Guinevere replaced the receiver crisply enough to make her listener wince on the other end of the line. The trouble with Justis was that he could be awfully one-track, a slow-moving freight train that, once started, was generally unstoppable.

Guinevere smiled fleetingly to herself as she fed paper into the electronic typewriter. She was looking forward to lunch even if she would have to spend fifteen minutes of the precious hour trying to explain what she had been doing in the executive washroom.

Half an hour later she transferred her calls to another secretary’s office, pulled the paper bag containing her new Nike sport shoes out of the bottom drawer of the desk, and picked up her purse. Vandyke had still not returned from his strategy session with his managers, but it was twelve-thirty, and he had told her to be sure to take her lunch hour on time. A very thoughtful employer.

After darting into the ladies’ room halfway down the hall, Guinevere slipped out of her elegant high-heeled gray pumps and quickly stepped into the Nikes. Instantly she felt capable of jogging from the Kingdome to the Space Needle. She breathed a pleased sigh of relief and satisfaction. True, the shoes didn’t particularly match the trim, skirted gray wool suit she was wearing, but that was, of course, the whole point.

Guinevere serenely joined several other women wearing suits and expensive sport shoes in the elevator and jauntily made her way to the Fifth Avenue entrance of the high-rise building. She spotted Zac’s solid, compact form before he noticed her approaching. The tiny secret smile she often got these days when she thought of Zac Justis curved the corner of her mouth. There was something fundamentally different about Zac, Guinevere reflected as she went toward him. Standing in the lobby of the business building, he seemed separate and removed from the polished males in suits and ties around him. He was wearing the uniform—a dark, well-tailored jacket and trousers, crisp white shirt, and subdued striped tie—but he didn’t blend into the herd. Perhaps, given the rough, unforgiving contours of his face and the remotely watchful quality of the ghost gray eyes, he never would truly fit in anywhere. Even his night-dark hair was different. It was razored short, not blown-dry. He was a man apart.

In that instant he turned his head and saw Guinevere, and the remoteness in his eyes disappeared. It was immediately replaced by a disconcertingly direct, possessive expression that Guinevere found strangely unsettling. She had been telling herself lately that she ought to discourage that look in his eyes, but she wasn’t at all sure how to go about doing it. And deep down she wasn’t certain she really wanted to destroy it anyway. It did something to her when Zac regarded her in that way, something quietly satisfying.

He stood waiting for her, his eyes flicking assessingly over her neatly coiled coffee brown hair, wide green eyes, and slender figure. She watched his gaze take in the chicly padded shoulders of her jacket, the nipped-in waist that didn’t succeed in creating an illusion of any more of a bustline than she actually had, and the gray skirt. She knew the very second he saw the new Nikes. Long dark lashes, the only softness in his hard face, descended in a slow blink. Then he raised his head to meet her faintly smiling gaze.

“Something morbid happen to your shoes?”

“Wearing sport shoes outside the office is very fashionable, Zac. It shows a concern for fitness, it’s practical for running up and down Seattle’s hills during one’s lunch hour, and it’s subtly, chicly amusing. Besides, they’ve been doing it in New York for a couple of years.”

“That’s no excuse. Everybody knows New Yorkers are weird.” He shoved on the revolving door, overcoming its inertia so that all Guinevere had to do was step between the glass panels and saunter out onto the sidewalk.

“You can be very useful to have around,” she told him blithely as she buttoned her red coat against the perpetual Seattle mist. The mid-December chill was unrelieved by any sunlight. The cloud cover today appeared to be eternal.

“You’re so good for my ego.” He took her arm and started her across the plaza toward the sidewalk. “Hungry?”

“Always.”

“I thought we could flip a coin to see who buys lunch.”

“The last two times we did that you won. If we do it again, we use my coin.”

“You’ve got a suspicious nature,” he said plaintively.

“Probably comes from hanging around people who conduct investigations for a living,” Guinevere answered cheerfully. “My mother warned me about bad company. How’s business? Get that contract to do the security consulting work for that computer firm?”

They had reached the restaurant, and Zac leaned on another door, holding it open for Guinevere. “I think it’s in the bag. Talked to one of the vice presidents this morning. He wants me to start the project in January. Says his budget can accommodate my consulting fees after the first of the year.”

Guinevere shot him a sidelong glance. “Can your budget accommodate the delay in income?”

Zac lifted one shoulder fatalistically. “It’ll have to.”

“This isn’t a ploy to make me feel sorry for the state of your finances and thus induce me to pay for lunch, is it?”

“Honey, you really have grown more suspicious lately. I’m worried about you.”

Before Guinevere could respond, the hostess had come forward to show them to a table for two.

“We’ll go dutch today,” Guinevere announced as she picked up her menu.

“You’re a hardhearted woman.” Zac bent his dark head to study the prices on his menu. “Okay, tell me what in hell you were doing in the executive john.”

Involuntarily Guinevere chuckled. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“A john?”

“An Executive John. Capital letters, Zac. This is the first time my company has gotten a contract for a short-term secretary to fill in at such a high level. Usually temps are used at lower levels in a firm to fill in for absent clerks. Executive secretaries generally have other executive secretaries in the same firm lined up to sub for them when they get sick or have to stay away from work. Rarely does a temporary help firm get called.”

“Why did you take the job? Didn’t you have anyone you could send out on the assignment?”

“This was the first time Vandyke Development has called Camelot Services for a temp, and I wanted to make a terrific impression. I didn’t have anyone I could send who had ever worked as an executive secretary except my sister, Carla. I decided to take the job myself and have Carla baby-sit Camelot Services.”

Zac gave her an up from under glance, his heavy brows drawn together in a severe line. “So you raced out to take the job so you could see what life was like at the top?”

“Zac, we both may be at the top someday ourselves. I, for one, am going to know what to expect.”

“Which was why you checked out the executive head.” Zac nodded, satisfied with the interrogation. He put down his menu. “You’re lucky you weren’t caught.”

Guinevere set down her own menu with an offhand motion. “Mr. Vandyke was tied up in a meeting with his managers. He’s been pushing to get a proposal ready, and I knew he wouldn’t be back in the office until after lunch.” She halted as the waitress came by to take the orders. “I’ll have the black bean soup and the spicy noodle salad.”

“Same for me,” Zac murmured. “And coffee. Plain coffee. None of that fancy espresso stuff.” He waited with vast patience until the waitress had disappeared. Then he pinned Guinevere again. “Go on. Was it locked?”

“The washroom? Yes. A big gold key on a chain. Mr. Vandyke keeps it beside the door. It’s more of a conversation piece than a real attempt to keep someone out of the bathroom. His visitors find it amusing. The washroom entrance is a private one that is just down a small corridor from his office. In fact, you have to go through his office to get to it.” She leaned forward, aware of the amused enthusiasm in her own voice. “You should see it, Zac, all black marble with gold running through it and mauve.”

“Mauve what?”

“Mauve everything. Mauve toilet, mauve washbasin, mauve towels. It’s unbelievable. The marble is on the walls and the floors and the countertops. Which was why I happened to notice the gun.”

“It contrasted with the marble?”

“No, no, it wasn’t lying on the marble. It was in the drawer by the sink.”

Zac closed his eyes, clearly tamping down another lecture. “Jesus, Gwen, you went through Vandyke’s bathroom drawers? I knew you were a little light-fingered at times. I found that out during the StarrTech affair, but I never thought—”

“I am not light-fingered!” Incensed, Guinevere straightened in her chair, glaring at him. “Zac, this is important. If you can’t listen without interrupting, then I’ll—” She broke off abruptly.

He appeared interested. “You’ll what?”

“Never mind.” She decided to rise above the taunting. Mouth firming, she went on in a severe tone. “I noticed one of the drawers was partially opened. I happened to glance inside, and I could see something gold. So I just sort of eased the drawer out a bit more, and there it was.”

“The gun?”

“Yes, and I don’t mind telling you, Zac, it gave me a start.”

“Maybe it will teach you to stay out of other people’s private johns.”

The black bean soup arrived complete with a dollop of sour cream in the center, and Guinevere discovered she was too hungry to continue the argument. She spooned up the thick soup with gusto. “Can you imagine, Zac? A gold gun?”

“Probably chosen by the same designer who did the head. He undoubtedly couldn’t find one in mauve.”

“Zac, this is not a joke.”

“Honey, my guess is that it wasn’t a real pistol. I’ll bet it was one of those gadgets that light a cigarette when you pull the trigger. Typical executive toy. Your imagination was probably in high gear.”

“It looked awfully real, Zac.” Guinevere became very serious. “And it worries me. Vandyke has been under a tremendous amount of pressure lately.”

“You’ve been working for the guy for only three days. How would you know what kind of pressure he’s capable of tolerating?”

She lifted her chin with unconscious arrogance. “I know people, Zac. He’s hurting. He’s worried and he’s stressed.”

He shook his head. “You feel sorry for people, you empathize with them fairly easily, people tend to confide in you because you’re a good listener, and you can get along with a wide variety of personality types. That does not mean you ‘know’ people. Take it from me, Vandyke wouldn’t be where he is today if he weren’t capable of handling a fair amount of pressure.”

“You’ve never even met the man!”

“Anyone who has a private marble and mauve washroom, let alone a private executive secretary, is basically made of sturdy stuff. Wimps don’t get far in the business world.”

Guinevere sighed. “You don’t understand, Zac. I’ve been working very closely with him for the past three days. I had to take a phone call from his wife the first morning I was on the job. That call alone was enough to tell me he’s on the edge. Vandyke was very upset afterward. And he’s been upset every time she’s called since.”

“He’s having marital problems?”

Guinevere nodded. “I’m sure of it. I think she’s left him. And I’m sure he’s still in love with her. I tell you, Zac, he was in bad shape after those calls.”

“So you think he might be planning to kill himself in the executive washroom, using a gold-plated pistol. The wife must be something else to warrant that kind of reaction.”

Grimly Guinevere pursued her line of logic. “It isn’t just the trouble with his wife. I happen to know that the proposal he’s working on is a crucial one for the company. He’s been wearing himself out getting everything in order for the big presentation to the client next weekend. I think he’s afraid of someone trying to steal the proposal documents. He’s instituted very strict security in the office. In fact, I think it was security reasons that made him hire an outside secretary instead of borrowing one of the vice presidents’ secretaries.”

Zac cocked an eyebrow, showing vague interest at last. “He figured he was safer with an outsider who wouldn’t know what she was typing?”

“Or who wouldn’t have any contacts in the company. The selection of Camelot Services was probably a deliberately random choice. Vandyke doesn’t have to worry about my already having been established as an industrial spy. I don’t know anyone in the firm, and no one knows me.”

“Your mind is a fascinating thing, Gwen,” Zac said admiringly.

“You’re not going to take this seriously, are you?”

“Not until I find out what all this is leading up to,” he answered.

Guinevere decided to play her ace. “It could be leading up to a job for Free Enterprise Security,” she announced sweetly. “A little something, perhaps, to tide you over until that consulting assignment in January.”

That got another slow blink out of Zac. “What kind of job?”

Guinevere took her time about answering. “Well, I’m not exactly sure what you would call it. I haven’t discussed this with Vandyke yet either. But I’ve been thinking—”

“Lord have mercy.”

She ignored him. “Vandyke is supposed to go to a resort in the San Juan Islands this weekend to make the presentation to his client. I’m going to go with him.”

Zac’s spoon suddenly ceased its methodical attack on the soup. There was an unexpected bleakness in his gray gaze when he looked up. “You’re what?”

Guinevere decided not to let the too-quiet tone faze her. It was more easily said than done. Her throat seemed to need clearing, and her appetite threatened to evaporate. This was idiotic, she lectured herself. Damned if she was going to allow Zachariah Justis to affect her this way. But she had rarely had him turn his full attention to intimidating her, and the effects, she belatedly remembered, were decidedly stress-enducing.