Amaryllis (26 page)

“Look, no one respects a prism's intuition more than I do,” Clementine said. “But, frankly, I think you're going off the deep end here. I'll admit that Unique Prisms may be operating on the shady side of the street, but I doubt that Osterley is actually doing anything illegal.”

“I agree.”

“Got to admit, I wish we had Osterley's client list. From what Gracie says, it includes a nice selection of the movers and shakers in the city. We're lucky Trent didn't go to Unique Prisms in the first place.”

“Lucas told me that he chose Psynergy, Inc. because he wanted to deal with a reputable agency,” Amaryllis said.

“Good for him.” Clementine grinned. “Wonder what he'll say when he finds out that you went to see your old flame today.”

“What do you mean? Lucas knew I intended to speak to Gifford.”

“Men are kind of weird about stuff like that.”

“How would you know?”

“Because women are kind of weird about it, too.”

“You're talking about jealousy,” Amaryllis said quietly. “Trust me, Lucas is highly unlikely to feel that emotion.”

“Yeah?” Clementine pushed herself to her feet. “What makes you think that?”

“He's not the type.”

“Bat-snake shit.”

Amaryllis composed herself. “Furthermore, he's in the middle of a marriage agency registration, just as I am. Neither one of us has any reason to become jealous in a relationship that we both know has no future.”

“You're sure about the no future part?”

Amaryllis wrinkled her nose. “Believe me, even if we weren't high-class talent and full-spectrum prism, we still wouldn't be a good match. Lucas and I have almost nothing in common.”

Clementine looked thoughtful. “Gracie and I said that the first time we met each other. Couldn't imagine why the agency had matched us.”

He had no right to be feeling this way, Lucas thought as he climbed Amaryllis's front steps that evening. Jealousy was not a logical response to the situation. His relationship with Amaryllis was nothing more than a short-term affair. No strings attached. They were both just killing some time in a mutually pleasurable relationship until they were ready to meet their respective agency dates.

He had turned in the completed Synergistic Connections questionnaire this afternoon. Hobart Batt would be calling any day to schedule the next phase of the process.

Lucas determined to play it cool. He was the Iceman. He would not allow his emotions to get in the way of his common sense. He'd done that once before on the occasion of his first marriage, and the results had not been good.

He took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

Amaryllis's footsteps sounded on the tile floor of the hall
as she hurried toward the door. Light, quick, eager. It sounded as if she was flying down the hall to throw herself into his arms.

Without warning, Lucas's mind conjured up an illusion that needed no prism to bring it into focus. It was all too painfully clear. As though he stood in a long gallery lined with endless mirrors, he looked into the future.

He saw a lifetime of greetings from a wife he did not yet know. Simultaneously, he saw Amaryllis hurling herself over and over again into the arms of the stranger who would be her husband. The icy pool inside him grew deeper and colder.

The door in front of him opened.

“Lucas? Is something wrong?”

He came back to the present with a jolt. Amaryllis was smiling at him, her eyes quizzical. The aroma of something delicious cooking on the stove wafted toward him from the kitchen. He would pretend that everything was normal. This was just a short-term thing. No future.

“You went to see Osterley today.” So much for being the Iceman.

“Yes, I did.” Amaryllis stood on tiptoe and brushed her mouth lightly against his. She stepped back before he could respond. “I told you that I had to speak to him about that appointment.”

“So?” Lucas stalked into the hall. “What did he have to say?”

“He claims he knew nothing about it.” Amaryllis took his jacket and hung it in a closet. “He said he would never have made an appointment with Landreth. He pointed out that he and Landreth had not parted on good terms.”

“Why didn't you call me first?”
Think Iceman
, Lucas told himself as he went down the hall toward the kitchen. Cold, calm. No emotion. No jealousy. No future. “I thought we were partners in this thing.”

“Partners?” Amaryllis hurried after him. “I hadn't actually thought of our association as a partnership.”

“Is that right? I figure that under the circumstances the least I deserve is partnership status.” Lucas stalked into the kitchen and started to open cupboards in a methodical
fashion. “We've been through a lot together during the past few days, you and I.”

“That's very true.” She frowned as he yanked open another cupboard door. “Lucas, what are you looking for?”

“Something drinkable.” He got lucky on the fourth cupboard. “I thought I remembered seeing that bottle in here.”

“Help yourself.” Amaryllis came around the edge of the counter and lifted the lid of a pot that was sitting on the stove. “Are you always this moody and difficult when you're annoyed?”

“I am never moody and difficult.” Lucas jerked open a drawer, scanned the contents, and seized a corkscrew. “But I do occasionally get irritated. And I am definitely irritated at the moment.”

“I'm sorry if you feel that I slighted you today, but I honestly thought I could handle Gifford better if I talked to him alone.”

A sinking feeling hit Lucas. “Handle him?”

“I thought I could get the truth from him.”

“Because the two of you have a history?” Lucas snapped the opener into position and began to pull the cork with a rough, efficient twisting movement.

“We were friends once. Colleagues.”

“Not lovers.” Lucas jerked out the cork. “Never lovers.”

“No.” Amaryllis concentrated on stirring the contents of the pot. “He's changed.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Clementine said you might be jealous,” Amaryllis said softly. “I told her she was wrong.”

Lucas stilled, one hand resting on the bottle. He met Amaryllis's eyes. “Jealousy has nothing to do with this.”

“That's what I said.”

“But speaking as your
partner,”
Lucas said very carefully, “and as your lover, I feel that I have some cause for concern. If Gifford Osterley is connected to Landreth's death, he might be tempted to drag you into the mess.”

“I understand,” Amaryllis said in a subdued tone. “But as I told Clementine, I can't bring myself to believe that Gifford is a murderer.”

“Don't rely too much on your prism intuition.”

“Funny you should say that.” She gave him a strangely shuttered look. “I keep giving myself the same advice.”

The evening did not go well after that. Conversation was stilted. The atmosphere was uncomfortably tense. Amaryllis was very polite, but it was obvious, even to a nonintuitive talent, that she was not happy. Lucas had a hunch that she was going to throw him out before bedtime.

He knew that he had only himself to blame. Barring some miracle, he would sleep alone tonight. It no doubt served him right, but the prospect was, nonetheless, deeply depressing.

At ten o'clock, desperate for something to break the lengthening silence between himself and Amaryllis, he picked up the television remote and switched on the evening news.

Nelson Burlton's square-jawed, clear-eyed visage materialized on the screen. The sight did nothing to elevate Lucas's mood. Burlton was covering a political event. Behind him Madison Sheffield could be seen standing at a podium.

Sheffield was speaking to a large crowd of people seated at circular tables. Lucas recognized the setting. It was a meeting of the New Seattle Business Association. He rarely attended the monthly gatherings himself.

Burlton gazed lovingly into the camera. His hair was rakishly windblown, even though he was indoors. He was wearing his trademark Western Islands jacket, although everyone else in the picture wore suits and ties. His teeth were very straight and very white.

“Good evening.” Burlton's expression was devoutly sincere. “Once again the race for the governorship of New Seattle City-state tops the news. This evening Senator Madison Sheffield addressed the New Seattle Business Association. His theme, as usual, was a return to founders' values.”

The camera shifted from Burlton to Madison Sheffield, who was holding forth in front of the audience. Sheffield's teeth were just as white and even as Burlton's, Lucas noticed. His expression was even more sincere.

“We have come a long way in the past two hundred years,” Sheffield intoned. “But even as we reach out to seize the future, we must not forget the bedrock values of our past. We need those values now, as we have always needed them. We face a world that is still largely unexplored. The recent discovery of the alien artifacts reminds us all of just how many unknowns await us. We must be prepared.”

Amaryllis, perched on the sofa beside Lucas, studied the screen. “There's no way Sheffield could be focusing charisma to a whole crowd of people.”

“No,” Lucas agreed. “He could only use the focus in one-on-one situations. The rest of the time he has to make do with his natural political charm.”

“He has his fair share of that, but I don't think I'm going to vote for him, after all.”

Politics was never a safe topic, Lucas reminded himself. Still, any conversation was better than no conversation, and he was very anxious to keep Amaryllis talking. “Mr. Founders' Values? I would have thought he would have been your ideal candidate.”

“He talks a lot about founders' values, but a real First Generation founder would never resort to such underhanded tactics as Sheffield is using to get money for his campaign.”

“Don't kid yourself. I have a hunch that the founders didn't survive by being nice guys.”

Amaryllis whirled to confront him. “What a cynical thing to say. It was the values of the founders that enabled them to survive. Integrity. Justice. Courage. Honor. Determination. Those are the qualities that got the First Generation through the difficult times.”

“You left out expediency,” Lucas said. “Something tells me that our exalted founders were very expedient when necessary.”

“How can you say that?”

“What's more, I'll give you odds that there were just as many Madison Sheffields in politics back in First Generation days as there are today. Some things never change.”

Amaryllis simmered with righteous indignation. “Are you deliberately trying to provoke me?”

“Yes.”

She opened her mouth to utter something that would no doubt have scorched his skin, but at the last minute she apparently changed her mind.

“Why?” she asked.

Lucas punched the button on the remote, blanking the screen. “Because I'm trying to get your attention. I feel like you've been slipping away from me all evening.”

“That's not true.”

“Isn't it? We're supposed to be having an affair, but at the rate things are going, this will be one of the shortest relationships on record.”

“Oh, Lucas.” Amaryllis moved into his arms and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I'm sorry, but this has been a difficult day.”

“You can say that again.” Lucas wrapped her close.

“What we have can't last long. We both know that.”

“I don't want to talk about the future. I just want to enjoy the present.”

“Yes.”

Silence fell. Lucas felt the tension slowly ebb away into the night. Amaryllis was warm and soft and safe in his arms. For now, at least. He wanted to take her to a place where they could be alone together, far away from the rules and conventions of society.

“Link,” Lucas said into Amaryllis's hair.

She said nothing, but he felt the moment of disorientation, and then he became aware of the prism taking shape on the psychic plane. It was powerful, strong, and clear. He eased psychic energy through it and began to shape an illusion.

A grotto formed around the sofa. The television set, desk, and other furnishings disappeared behind banks of lush ferns. Curved stone walls framed a deep jungle pool. The water was a mirrored surface that revealed nothing.

“Is this a real place?” Amaryllis's voice was soft with wonder.

“Yes.”

“A special place in the islands?”

“Yes.” Lucas added moss to the grotto walls and piled
large rocks around the pool. He carpeted the floor with thick grass and draped streamers of brilliant yellow rose-orchids at various locations. He would have used amaryllises, but he had no idea of what a real, Earth-grown amaryllis looked like.

Amaryllis gazed at the scene. “It's beautiful. So peaceful.”

“I found it years ago when I was a kid. I never told anyone else about it, not even Icy Claxby. Sometimes I went into the grotto and sat on the rocks looking down into the pool for hours at a time.”

“What did you do there?”

“Lots of things,” Lucas said. “I practiced controlling my talent. Sometimes I wondered if there were others like me around. I wanted to talk to someone else who understood what it was like to have so much power and to know that you had to keep it a secret.”

Amaryllis snuggled closer. “I had a place like this, too. Not a jungle grotto, naturally. We lived in farm country. My hiding place was located in the barn loft. I remember how the sunlight filtered through the boards in the side walls. I could hear the animals moving about in their stalls. I used to go up there to think and read and just to be by myself.”

“What did you think about?”

“Lots of things.” Amaryllis's smile was fleeting. “When I was very young, I wasted a good deal of time plotting revenge against my grandmother on my father's side, Elizabeth Bailey. As I got older, I put my energies into figuring out how to get out of Lower Bellevue forever.”