Flash (15 page)

“Well…”

“I can't deny that I recognize how much he contributes to my campaign.” Eleanor put down her cup. “But I want you to know that I'm smart enough not to get my personal emotions mixed up with what I know is good for my future in politics.”

“I see.”

“I was very fortunate,” Eleanor said softly. “My marriage to Richard was based on love and commitment. Because of Richard, I understand those feelings. I want to assure you that those emotions are at the heart of what I feel for Todd.”

“I appreciate your telling me that, Eleanor.”

Holy cow. One day she might find herself dining in the White House.

It was a delightful fantasy, Olivia thought. But it didn't change anything. She still did not want Todd to marry Eleanor Lancaster.

“Mr. Sloan is going to hire a real private eye to check out a list of the people I knew in the early days of my career?” Zara's eyes lit up with excitement. “What a brilliant idea.”

“I'm glad you approve,” Olivia said.

“Approve? I don't know why I didn't think of it, myself. It's just the sort of thing Sybil would have done. I'll get started on my list of names immediately.” Zara paused. “It will take a while. I had so many friends and rivals in those days.”

Olivia's chair squeaked as she leaned back in it. She tapped the tip of a cheap ballpoint pen on the arm. Todd had once given her an outrageously expensive
fountain pen, but she did not dare use it here at the office. She knew it would get lost amid the clutter.

“You're not upset because I told Sloan about the situation?” she asked.

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.

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.