The Sinister Touch
Read The Sinister Touch Online
Authors: Jayne Ann Krentz
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 Sinister Touch
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 SINISTER TOUCH
An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Dell Books edition / October 1986
InterMix eBook edition / August 2012
Copyright © 1986 by Jayne Krentz, Inc.
Excerpt from
The Fatal Fortune
copyright © 1986 by Jayne Ann Krentz.
Crosshairs © ancroft / Shutterstock
Seattle Skyline © Hiep Nguyen / Shutterstock
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: 978-1-101-56977-1
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 third book in my Guinevere Jones series – four novels featuring G. Jones and her PI lover, Zac Justis. These books are pre-Arcane Society and there is no psychic stuff involved – just classic romantic-suspense. I am delighted that my publisher has made them available again.
A lot of you have asked me why I write under three different pen names. I’m not trying to keep secrets, believe me! I use the three names to distinguish my three worlds so that readers will know what sort of fictional landscape they will get when they pick up one of my books.
I use my Amanda Quick name for historical novels. My Jayne Ann Krentz name is for my contemporary novels. But I have always reserved Jayne Castle — which happens to be my birth name — for forays into sub-genres that are “experimental” or a little different — books like the Guinevere Jones series. Currently I use Jayne Castle for my futuristic Harmony/Rainshadow Island novels.
I hope you enjoy Guinevere and Zac.
Chapter One
The night had been a long one. No, that wasn’t strictly accurate. It had been
lonely
.
Guinevere Jones glared at the stylish new coffee machine as it dripped with agonizing slowness. She could have bought a cheaper coffeemaker when she went shopping for one yesterday if she’d been willing to settle for a plain white or beige model. But this little sucker was an exotic import, and with its dashing red-and-black trim it had totally outclassed all the bland models on the shelf next to it at the Bon. Even the glass pot was elegantly different from the ordinary coffeepot. Definitely high-tech style. She hadn’t been able to resist it. It lent such a perfect, snappy note to her vivid yellow kitchen. Unfortunately it was proving to have more style than efficiency. Zac would undoubtedly have a few pithy comments to make when he tried it out.
If he ever got around to trying it out, Guinevere reminded herself resentfully as she stood in front of the coffee machine with a yellow mug dangling uselessly from one finger. Zac had been very busy with a new client lately, a client who seemed to find that the most convenient time to consult with the head of Free Enterprise Security, Inc., was in the evening. The fact that the client was Elizabeth Gallinger wasn’t doing much to mitigate Guinevere’s prickly mood. Guinevere’s own firm, Camelot Services, which specialized in providing temporary office help, had had a short secretarial assignment a few months ago at Gallinger Industries. Guinevere had only seen Queen Elizabeth from afar, and then just briefly, but the memory of that regal blond head, classic profile, and aristocratic posture had returned in all its glory last week when Zac had mentioned the name of his new client.
Elizabeth Gallinger was thirty-two, a couple years older than Guinevere, and already she was running one of the most prestigious corporations in Seattle. Queen Elizabeth, as she was rather affectionately known by her employees, had inherited the position of president when her father had died unexpectedly last summer. Everyone had anticipated that Elizabeth would be only a figurehead, but everyone had underestimated her. Elizabeth Gallinger had very firmly assumed the reins of her family business. Four generations of old Seattle money apparently had not led to serious mental deficiency due to inbreeding.
Guinevere was beginning to wonder if Zac was the one with the mental deficiency. If so, it couldn’t be blamed on inbreeding. Zachariah Justis had a pedigree as ordinary and plebian as Guinevere’s own.
Guinevere frowned at the slowly dripping coffeemaker. It occurred to her that an ambitious entrepreneur with no claim to illustrious predecessors or illustrious family money might find Elizabeth Gallinger a very intriguing proposition. Zac had never been overly impressed by money, but there was always a first time.
Damn it, what was the matter with her? If she didn’t know better, Guinevere decided ruefully, she might think she was actually jealous. Ridiculous. The fact that Zac hadn’t spent a night with her for almost a week was hardly cause for turning green-eyed. She and Zac didn’t live together. The affair they had both finally acknowledged was still at its very early, very fragile stage. Neither wanted to push the other too far, too fast. They were both carefully maintaining their own identities and their own apartments.
Fed up with the slowness of the coffeemaker, Guinevere yanked the half-full glass pot out from under the dripping mechanism and quickly poured the contents into her yellow mug. In the meantime coffee continued to drip with relentless slowness, splashing on the burner. Deciding she’d clean up the mess later, Guinevere hastily put the pot back onto the burner and turned away to sip her coffee.
Through her kitchen window she could see the high, arched window of the second-floor artist’s loft across the street. This morning, as usual, the window was uncovered. Guinevere had never known the artist who lived and worked in the spacious, airy apartment to pull the shades. Artists were very big on light, as she had once explained to Zac when he’d had occasion to notice the tenant across the street. She smiled slightly as she recalled Zac’s annoyance over the small morning ritual she went through with the anonymous man who lived in the loft.
Guinevere had never met the lean, young artist. But she waved good morning to him frequently. He always waved back. When Zac happened to be in the kitchen beside Guinevere, the unknown artist tended to put a little more enthusiasm into the wave. Zac’s invariable response was a low, disgusted growl. Then, just as inevitably, he’d close the mini blinds on Guinevere’s window.
But Zac wasn’t here to express his disapproval of the anonymous friendship this morning. He hadn’t been here to express it for the past several mornings. So Guinevere sipped her coffee and waited for the appearance of her neighbor. Idly she studied the canvas that stood facing her on an easel tilted to catch the northern light. The young man with the slightly overlong hair had been working on that canvas for several days now. Even from here Guinevere could recognize the brilliant colors and dramatic shapes.
But there was something different about the painting this morning. Guinevere’s brows came together in a new kind of frown as she tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. There was a large black mark on the canvas. From her vantage point it appeared to be an uneven square with a jagged slash inside. It didn’t fit at all with the wonderful brilliance and lightness of the painting.
Guinevere went forward, leaning her elbows on the window ledge, the mug cradled between her hands. There was more than just an ugly black mark on the painting. She could see that something was wrong with the canvas itself. It was torn or slashed. Terribly slashed.
Slowly Guinevere began to realize that the huge canvas had been horribly defaced. Her mouth opened in stunned shock just as her unknown neighbor sauntered, yawning, into the brightly lit loft.
He was wearing his usual morning attire, a loosely hitched towel around a lean waist and a substantial amount of chest hair. Guinevere had decided that he always wandered into the loft just before he took his morning shower. Perhaps he had an artist’s need to see how his work looked in the first light of day. He glanced at her window before he looked at his painting.
Across the narrow street his eyes met hers. Even from here she could see the questioning tilt of one brow as he made a small production out of looking for Zac. When she just stared back, her expression appalled, he finally began to realize that something was wrong. The amusement faded as his glance turned to curious.
Guinevere lifted one hand and pointed behind him. The stranger turned and glanced over his shoulder. His gaze fell at last on his ravaged canvas.
His reaction answered Guinevere’s silent question of whether he had done the damage himself. The artist stood staring at the ruined canvas, his back rigid with shock. When at last he turned to meet Guinevere’s eyes again, all traces of amusement had vanished. He just stared at her. Unable to do anything else, consumed with sympathy for him, Guinevere simply stared back.
How long she stood like that, Guinevere wasn’t sure. It was the artist who broke the still, silent watch. Swinging around with an abruptness that underlined his tension, he picked up a huge sketch pad and a piece of chalk. Hastily he scrawled a brief message in fat, charcoal-colored letters.
“Coffee downstairs. Ten Minutes. Please.”
Guinevere nodded at once, then turned away to finish her coffee and find her shoes. She was already dressed for work in a narrow-skirted, gray pin-striped suit and yellow silk blouse. Her coffee-brown hair was in its usual neat, braided coil at the nape of her neck. She slid her stockinged feet into a pair of mid-height gray pumps and slung a leather purse over her shoulder.
Quickly Guinevere made her way through the red, black, and yellow living room with its red-bordered gray rugs and high, vaulting windows. The old brick buildings here in the Pioneer Square section of Seattle had wonderfully high ceilings and beautiful windows. When they had been gutted and refurbished, they made great apartments for the new, upwardly mobile urbanites. The busy harbor of Elliott Bay was only a couple of blocks away, and although Guinevere didn’t actually have a view of the water, just knowing it was close gave her a certain satisfaction. Many mornings she walked along the waterfront on her way to her First Avenue office.
Closing and locking her door behind her, Guinevere hurried down the two short flights of stairs to the security-door entrance of her apartment building and stepped out into the crispness of a pleasantly sunny late-spring morning. On mornings such as this, one knew for certain that summer really was just around the corner. Another sure sign was the fact that several restaurants and taverns in the area had started moving tables and chairs out onto the sidewalks. The rain was due late this afternoon and would probably last for a while, but this morning the air was full of promise.
The missions, which were one of Pioneer Square’s more picturesque features as far as Guinevere was concerned, had already released the crowd of transients, derelicts, and assorted street people that had been sheltered overnight. Without much enthusiasm the ragtag assortment of scruffy mission clients were slowly drifting out onto the sidewalks, blinking awkwardly in the sunlight as they prepared for the day’s work.
Soon, either under their own power or aboard one of the free city buses that plied the short route, they would make their way toward the Pike Place Market where the tourists would be swarming by mid-morning. One particularly ambitious soul decided to practice on Guinevere. She smiled vaguely and shook her head, ignoring his outstretched palm and the request for cash as she hurried toward the restaurant.
As soon as she opened the high doors, the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls assailed her, reminding her that she hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast. A fire burning on the huge hearth on one side of the enormous, old brick room took the chill off the morning.
Guinevere glanced around and, when she didn’t see her neighbor, decided to throw caution to the wind and order some cinnamon rolls. They arrived with butter dripping over the sides. Of course, you couldn’t eat a cinnamon roll without a cup of coffee. Something was required to dilute the butter. She was paying the check when the artist slid into line behind her.
“Hi.” His voice was pleasantly deep, edged with a trace of the East Coast and laced with a certain grimness. “What a way to meet. Thanks for coming. I’m Mason Adair, by the way. I feel as if I already know you.”
Guinevere smiled at him, liking his aquiline features and the large, dark eyes. It struck her that he looked exactly like a struggling young artist should look. He was taller than she had thought, towering over her as she stood in line beside him. His height coupled with his leanness made him appear aesthetically gaunt. He was also younger than she had imagined. Probably about thirty. His paint-stained jeans, plaid shirt, and heavy leather sandals fit the image, too.
“I’m Guinevere Jones. Want a roll?”
“What? Oh, sure. Sounds good. I haven’t had a chance to eat yet.”
“Neither have I.” Guinevere picked up the tray.
“Here, I’ll take that.” Mason Adair scooped the tray out of her hands and started toward a seat in front of the fire. A few drops of the coffee in Guinevere’s cup slopped over the side as he set the tray down on the wooden table. “Sorry. I’m a little clumsy by nature. Finding that canvas slashed this morning isn’t improving my coordination. Shit.”
Guinevere smiled serenely and unobtrusively used a napkin to wipe the cup as she sat down on one of the short wooden benches. The fire felt good even though it was produced by fake logs. Mason Adair dropped down onto the opposite bench and reached for a roll.
“I was shocked when I glanced out my window and saw that huge black square on your beautiful painting. At first I thought maybe you’d gotten disgusted with your work and had deliberately marked it up.” Guinevere stirred her coffee.
“I’ve got a certain amount of artistic temperament, but I’d never do anything like that to one of my own paintings. Hell, I liked that one. Really liked it. I think it might have been inspired by your kitchen, by the way.”
“My kitchen?”
“Yeah, you know. All that yellow. Every morning I look in your window, and it’s like looking into a little box of sunlight.”
Guinevere smiled with pleasure at the unexpected compliment. “I’m flattered.”
“Yeah, well, somebody wasn’t.” Morosely Mason chewed a huge bite of his roll. His appetite was apparently unaffected by his depression. “It isn’t just the vandalism that got me. It was the fact that someone was actually inside my apartment, messing with my stuff. I know now why people who’ve been burgled say they feel as if they’ve been personally violated. It’s a strange sensation. It gets to you.”
Guinevere sighed in sympathy. “I’m terribly sorry, Mason. I know it’s a terrible feeling. Have you any idea who would do a thing like that?”
Adair hesitated. “No, not really. I asked you to meet me here because I wondered if you’d seen anything or anyone. I never pull the shade, and you usually have your kitchen window blinds open. I thought that maybe you’d noticed something out of the ordinary last night. It must have happened last night. I was out all evening, and I didn’t look at the painting before I went to bed.”
“Mason, I’m really very sorry, but I didn’t see a thing. I worked on some papers in my living room. I do remember going into my kitchen around nine o’clock for a snack, but your window was dark.”
“No lights on?”
She shook her head. “Not then.”
“Whoever did that would have needed some light, don’t you think?” he asked broodingly.
“It would depend on what time during the evening he did it. It’s not getting really dark until after eight o’clock now. I suppose someone could have gone into your studio and defaced your painting sometime before then and not needed any light.”
Mason took another huge bite of his roll, dark eyes focusing blankly on her concerned face. Guinevere had the impression that he was trying very hard to sort out some very private thoughts. She let him chew in solitude for a moment, and then she asked, “That square that the vandal drew in black. It looked a little odd. Of course, I couldn’t see it very well from my window, but there was something about the shape of it that looked awkward. Was it a child’s work, do you think? Youngsters into mischief?”