The Chilling Deception
Read The Chilling Deception Online
Authors: Jayne Castle
Titles by Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Jayne Castle
The Lost Night
Canyons of Night
Midnight Crystal
Obsidian Prey
Dark Light
Silver Master
Ghost Hunter
After Glow
Harmony
After Dark
Amaryllis
Zinnia
Orchid
The Guinevere Jones Novels
The Desperate Game
The Chilling Deception
The Sinister Touch
The Fatal Fortune
Titles by Jayne Ann Krentz writing as Amanda Quick
Crystal Gardens
Quicksilver
Burning Lamp
The Perfect Poison
The Third Circle
The River Knows
Second Sight
Lie By Moonlight
The Paid Companion
Wait Until Midnight
Late for the Wedding
Don’t Look Back
Slightly Shady
Wicked Widow
I Thee Wed
With This Ring
Affair
Mischief
Mystique
Mistress
Deception
Desire
Dangerous
Reckless
Ravished
Rendezvous
Scandal
Surrender
Seduction
Other titles by Jayne Ann Krentz
Copper Beach
In Too Deep
Fired Up
Running Hot
Sizzle and Burn
White Lies
All Night Long
Falling Awake
Truth or Dare
Light in Shadow
Summer in Eclipse Bay
Together in Eclipse Bay
Smoke in Mirrors
Lost & Found
Dawn in Eclipse Bay
Soft Focus
Eclipse Bay
Eye of the Beholder
Flash
Sharp Edges
Deep Waters
Absolutely, Positively
Trust Me
Grand Passion
Hidden Talents
Wildest Hearts
Family Man
Perfect Partners
Sweet Fortune
Silver Linings
The Golden Chance
eSpecials
The Scargill Cove Case Files
Anthologies
Charmed
(with Julie Beard, Lori Foster, and Eileen Wilks)
Titles written by Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle
No Going Back
A
G
UINEVERE
J
ONES
N
OVEL
The Chilling Deception
Jayne Castle
InterMix Books, New York
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
THE CHILLING DECEPTION
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Dell Books edition / August 1986
InterMix eBook edition / July 2012
Copyright © 1986 by Jayne Krentz, Inc.
Excerpt from
The Sinister Touch
copyright © 1986 by Jayne Krentz, Inc.
Bullet hole in glass © PRILL Mediendesign und Fotografie / Shutterstock
Fireworks over Seattle skyline © neelsky
Photo of couple © Shirley Green
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-56976-4
INTERMIX
InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Dear Reader:
Welcome to the second book in the Guinevere Jones series, four novels of romantic-suspense featuring Guinevere Jones and her lover, private investigator Zachariah Justis. I wrote these books a while back and they have been out of print for some time. I am delighted that my publisher has made them available again. No psychic talents involved here – these books are pre-Arcane Society. But it’s obvious that I have been attracted to the name of Jones for some time!
This series also demonstrates that I have been attracted to Pacific Northwest settings for a while as well. THE CHILLING DECEPTION is set in the San Juan Islands. Those of you who have read me for a while know that I have used the San Juans on several occasions, including COPPER BEACH, which I wrote under my Jayne Ann Krentz name. What can I say, I love islands!
Chapter One
Guinevere Jones discovered the gold-plated pistol in the men’s executive washroom on the third day of her employment at 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—Guinevere told herself she ought to have anticipated it.
“What the hell were you doing in the men’s executive washroom?” he exploded.
“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 hard enough to make the 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 arranged for calls to be transferred to another secretary’s office, pulled the paper bag containing her new Nike running 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.
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 gray wool suit she was wearing, but that was of course the whole point.
Guinevere serenely joined several other women wearing suits and expensive running 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 felt these days when she thought of Zac Justis curved the corners of her mouth. She was growing familiar with the irrepressible flare of pleasure and anticipation that came to life within her whenever she saw him, even though she couldn’t fully explain the sensation.
The first time she had seen him she had thought him ugly. A frog, she had called him, and although she had kissed him more than once since that first eventful meeting, Zac Justis hadn’t yet turned into a prince.
He wasn’t really ugly, but there was something fundamentally different about Zac, Guinevere reflected as she approached him. Standing in the lobby of the office building he seemed separate, 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 his ghost-gray eyes, he would never truly fit in anywhere. Even his dark hair was different. It was cut short, not styled and blown dry. He was a man apart.
In that instant he saw Guinevere, and the remoteness in his eyes disappeared. It was replaced by a disconcertingly direct possessive expression that Guinevere found unsettling. She had been telling herself lately that she ought to discourage that look but she wasn’t at all sure how to go about doing it. 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.
He stood waiting for her, his eyes assessing her neatly coiled coffee-brown hair, wide hazel 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 making her appear bustier than she actually was, and the gray skirt. She knew the very second he saw the new Nikes. Long dark lashes, the only softness in his hard face, lowered deliberately. Then he raised his eyes to meet her faintly smiling gaze.
“Something morbid happen to your shoes?”
“Wearing running 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 the revolving door and guided Guinevere through and 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.
“You’re so good for my ego.” He took her arm as they started 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 complained.
“Probably comes from hanging around people who conduct investigations for a living,” Guinevere agreed 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 held the door open for Guinevere. “I think it’s in the bag. Talked to one of the vice presidents this morning, and 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 shrugged one shoulder fatalistically. “It’ll have to.”
“This isn’t a ploy to make me feel anxious about 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 came forward and showed them to a table for two. “We’ll go dutch today,” Guinevere announced as she picked up her menu.
“You’re a hard-hearted woman.” Zac bent his dark head to study his menu. “Okay, tell me what in hell you were doing in the executive john.”
Guinevere chuckled in spite of herself. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“A john?”
“An executive john. Big league, 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, to fill in for absent clerks. Executive secretaries generally have other executive secretaries in the same firm lined up to sub for them.”
“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. She seems to be enjoying running my office lately anyway.”
Zac’s heavy brows were drawn together in a severe line. “So you raced out to take the job to see what life was like at the top?”
“Zac, we may both be at the top ourselves someday. 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 offhandedly. “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 their 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 and began grilling 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 people out of the bathroom. His visitors find it amusing. The washroom entrance is a private one 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 and marble with gold running through it, and mauve.”
“Mauve what?”
“Mauve everything. Mauve toilet, mauve washbasin, mauve towels. It’s unbelievable. Marble everywhere—walls and floors and countertops. Which was why I happened to notice the gun.”
“It contrasted with the marble?”
“No, no, it wasn’t on anything marble. It was in the drawer by the sink.”
Zac closed his eyes, clearly biting back 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 his taunting. Mouth firm, she went on severely. “I noticed one of the drawers was partly open. 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. 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 lights a cigarette when you pull the trigger. Typical executive toy. Your imagination was no doubt in high gear.”
“It looked awfully real, Zac.” Guinevere became very serious. “And it worries me. Vandyke seems to be under a tremendous amount of pressure.”
“You’ve only been working for the guy for 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 worried and he’s stressed.”
He shook his head. “You feel sorry for people, you empathize with them. People 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. His 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 stealing the 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, looking slightly interested 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 me already having established a foothold in the company 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 admitted.
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 raised eyebrow out of Zac. “What kind of job?”
Guinevere took her time 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 suddenly ceased his 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 his too quiet tone faze her, but it was easier 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 let Zachariah Justis affect her this way. “Good grief,” she managed dryly. “You’d think I had just announced I intended to run off for a quickie weekend fling with the boss.”
