“You never asked.”
She threw up her hands. “How was I supposed to know that you were Far Seas?”
“The degree of clarity of the water makes no difference if one does not ask the right questions about the image that is reflected on the surface.”
She gave him a fulminating look. “Skip the mumbo-jumbo and get to the point. If you are who you say you are, then tell me the truth. What do you intend to do about the pier leases?”
“Renew them at the present rates when they come due in September.”
Charity’s mouth fell open, revealing neat, small white teeth. She closed it swiftly. “Why would you do that now that I’ve told you about the town council’s plans to use Crazy Otis Landing as the centerpiece for the new, improved Whispering Waters Cove?”
“I don’t know.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Elias shrugged. “I don’t have an answer to your question. That’s one of the reasons I came here to Whispering Waters Cove. To get some answers.”
To get a clear answer, a man had to ask a clear question. And he was not able to do that. Every time he looked into the water to see his own true face, he caught only glimpses of a badly distorted reflection.
Elias rolled smoothly out of the last of the series of ancient exercises Hayden Stone had taught him. The deceptively effortless movements formed a pattern known as Tal Kek Chara. They represented the physical expression of the ancient philosophy in which Hayden had been a master. Tal Kek Chara was a state in which mind and body were balanced in a flow of energy for which water was a metaphor.
The coiled length of leather anchored to Elias’s wrist represented the philosophy, and it was named for it. Tal Kek Chara was a weapon as well as a way of living.
As Elias ended the pattern, the leather thong unfurled as if it were an extension of his arm. It whipped around the branch of a nearby tree with enough force to chain the limb but not enough to snap it in two. Control was everything in Tal Kek Chara.
Elias straightened and retrieved the supple strip of leather. He took a few seconds to assess the effects of the routine he had just completed. He was breathing deeply but not hard. The light breeze off the waters of the cove was already drying the perspiration on his bare shoulders. It had been a solid workout, but he had not exhausted himself. That was as it should be. Excess in anything, including exercise, was a violation of the basic principle of Tal Kek Chara.
Automatically, he snugged the leather back into place around his waist. He wore it outside the loops of his jeans. A weapon that could not be accessed in a hurry was useless.
He turned and walked back along the cliff toward the spare little cottage that Hayden Stone had lived in during the last three years of his life. When he reached the garden gate he opened it and stepped into the serene, miniature landscape Hayden had created. The focal point of the garden was a calm reflecting pool.
Elias went up the porch steps and opened the front door of his new home. He paused, as Hayden had taught him, to allow his senses to absorb the essence of the small dwelling. All was well.
He padded barefoot across the hardwood floor. There were no chairs in Hayden Stone’s house. There wasn’t much else in the way of furniture, either. Two cushions, a low table, and a sisal mat completed the living room decor. A wide, clear, heavy glass dish that was partially filled with water sat in the center of the table. The walls were bare.
The only touch of color in the room was Crazy Otis. It was enough. The parrot’s brilliant plumage was spectacular against the simple surroundings.
Otis, perched on top of his open cage, bobbed his head in greeting and stretched his wings.
“I’m going to take a shower, and then I’ll fix us both some dinner, Otis.”
“Heh, heh, heh.”
Elias went into the single bedroom, which contained only a futon-style bed and a low, heavily carved wooden chest. The kitchen and bath were outfitted with the basic necessities of modern life, but basic was the operative word.
Bicoastal interior designers and architects talked effusively about minimalist design, but Hayden Stone had created the real thing here in this small, spare house. Its simple lines held layers of complexity that only one skilled in the ways of Tal Kek Chara could detect.
Elias’s house in Seattle had been similar to this one. It had been located on the edge of Lake Washington. He had sold it shortly after the interview with Garrick Keyworth. He did not miss it. Tal Kek Chara had taught him not to become too attached to things. Or to people. Since his sixteenth year, Hayden had been the one exception. And now Hayden was gone.
Elias went into the bathroom, stripped off his jeans, and stepped into the stall shower. Memories of Hayden flickered in his mind. For some reason he saw a scene from his sixteenth year, a scene that had occurred several months after his father had died.
“Why do we have to sit on the floor when we eat our meals?” Elias asked as he folded his legs on the cushion in front of the low table.
“To remind us that we don’t need chairs.” Hayden ate soba noodles with a strange, handmade implement that was part fork, part knife. It was both a sophisticated eating utensil and an equally useful weapon. “A man who learns that he can be comfortable without a chair will learn that he can be comfortable without a lot of other things, as well.”
“Did they teach you that in that monastery where you stayed after you got shot up?”
“Among other things.”
Elias knew the story well. Hayden had been a mercenary until his thirty-fifth year, a man of violence who had sold his unique talents and pieces of his soul to anyone with the money to pay the price. In a world where small brushfire conflicts simmered in many regions of the globe, there was never a lack of buyers for the commodities that Hayden offered for sale.
He had been badly wounded in the course of one such campaign, a small civil war that had been waged in a forgotten corner of the Pacific. He had been left for dead by his companions.
Hayden had told Elias that he had fully expected to die there in the jungle. Not relishing the prospect of being gnawed on by some of the local wildlife while still alive, he’d readied a bullet for himself. He’d figured that he had just enough strength left to pull the trigger one last time.
But he kept making excuses for putting off the inevitable.
Hayden had told himself he would wait until nightfall or until the pain became unbearable or until the first hungry scavenger appeared. His instinct for survival had been stronger than he had expected, however. Night came, the pain got worse, and he could hear the tell-tale rustle in the bushes. But still he could not bring himself to put a bullet in his brain. Something stilled his hand.
The monks found him shortly after dawn.
“How long were you at the monastery?” Elias asked as he fiddled with his noodles. He was getting the hang of the eating tool, but he still fumbled a bit with it.
“I lived in the House of Tal Kek Chara for five years. Now the House lives inside me.” Hayden deftly dipped noodles into a clear broth and transferred them to his mouth. He chewed in silence for a while. “You did well in your training this afternoon.”
“It felt better. Smoother, somehow.” Elias plunged noodles into his own bowl. He grimaced when broth splattered on the table. Until he had come to live with Hayden, he’d been addicted to hamburgers and pizza. Now the thought of eating meat made him queasy for some reason. “Do you think I’ll ever be as good at Tal Kek Chara as you are?”
“Yes. Better, probably. You’ve started your training at a younger age than I did, and your body responds well to the discipline. You have a natural talent, I think. And it helps that you’re not walking around with an old bullet in your gut.”
Elias stared at him. Hayden made few references to his former life as a professional mercenary. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“But learning the exercises of Tal Kek Chara will not teach you what you need to know in order to be able to look into the pool and see truths.?
??
“If this is going to be another lecture on the subject of giving up my plans to get Dad’s killer, you might as well forget it, Hayden. Someday I’m going to find out who sabotaged the Cessna. And when I do, I’ll make sure the bastard pays.”
“A man cannot see truth clearly in water that is clouded with strong emotions. One day you will have to decide whether revenge is more important to you than owning your own soul.”
“I don’t see why I can’t have my revenge and still own my own soul.”
Hayden looked at him with ancient eyes. “I have great faith in you, Elias. You’re smart, and you have power. You will eventually see clearly enough to find your true inner flow.”
He had finally seen the truth about revenge, Elias thought as he toweled off and reached for a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. But he could not yet see the truth about himself.
He went into the kitchen to prepare his dinner. The routine brought back more memories of Hayden. This time he gently pushed them aside and lost himself in the creative process of cooking.
Half an hour later he sat down on a cushion in front of the table. He surveyed the bowl of steamed rice, seaweed-flavored soup, and vegetable curry and realized that, for the first time in a long while, some part of him was not plotting vengeance or business strategy. No, for the first time since the funeral, he had a new goal.
He wanted to go to bed with Charity Truitt.
“It won’t be simple or easy, Otis. I have a gut feeling that Charity is one of those very expensive women Hayden used to warn me about. He said that to lure one, a man had to be prepared to pay a very high price.”
“Heh, heh, heh.”
He’d have to get her attention with something costly, Elias thought. A piece of himself, no doubt.
An expectant hush fell on the small crowd gathered at the end of the pier just as Charity set her herbed couscous and green lentil salad down on the picnic table. She tried without any success to squelch the tingle of anticipation that went through her. She didn’t need the low, speculative mutters of those around her to know who had arrived.
If someone hadn’t chanced to look in his direction, though, no one would have heard Elias approach. His low, soft, well-worn boots made no sound on the pier timber. When he moved through the shadowed areas created by the walls of the various shops, it was difficult to make out his gliding form.
Charity was intrigued by the sight of a covered bowl in his hands. His eyes met hers as if he had been waiting for her to notice him. He inclined his head a scarce fraction of an inch in greeting. Charity heard a small gasp. She was chagrined to realize that the person sucking in air in such an inelegant manner was none other than herself.
“There he is,” Radiance Barker whispered in her high, sweet, breathy tones.
Radiance, who in a former life had been named Rhonda, cultivated the feathery voice. It went with the rest of her, which Charity privately thought of as neo-hippie. Much to Radiance’s everlasting regret, she was too young to have been a genuine flower child of the fabled sixties. She considered herself a spiritual descendent of the era, however, and dressed accordingly. Long loops of beads decorated the flowing, multipatterned dress she wore this evening. Her waist-length hair was trimmed with a flower-studded headband.
“Something fishy about this whole thing, if you ask me,” Roy Yapton, better known as Yappy, declared. “Hayden Stone was weird, but at least he played straight with us. I ain’t so sure about this guy.”
“He owns the whole shooting match,” Bea Hatfield said, “so you’d best watch what you say, you old coot.”
Roy and Bea were both on the far side of sixty. They’d been operating their respective pier enterprises for over twenty years. Their affair had been going on for as long as anyone could recall. No one knew why they had never married or why they bothered to pretend that they were just good friends.
“Wonder what he brought to eat.” Ted Jenner absently scratched his stomach, which was barely concealed by an extra-extra-large T-shirt. “I’m starving.”
The shirt was from his own shop, Ted’s Instant Philosophy T-Shirts. Charity glanced at the slogan on the one he was modeling this afternoon. It read, I May Be Dysfunctional, But You Are Definitely Crazy.
“That’s not exactly news.” Radiance scanned Ted’s portly figure with an amused expression. “You’re always starving. I keep telling you that if you switched to vegetarian, you’d lose weight.”
“Dropping a few pounds ain’t worth havin’ to eat nothin’ but nuts and berries for the rest of my life,” Ted said cheerfully. “Even if Charity can cook that bunny rabbit food better than anyone I ever met.”
It was a long-running argument. No one paid much attention. Everyone was too busy watching Elias, and no one seemed quite certain how to greet him. Last week he had been one of them, albeit a newcomer, Charity thought. This week he was their landlord.
The new leases had not yet been signed. Elias had nearly two months to change his mind about extending the old contracts, and everyone present knew it.
Charity decided that, as president of the shopkeepers association, it was her duty to take charge. She smiled very brightly at Elias when he reached the little group.
“You can put your dish down on that table over there,” she said, deliberately infusing her voice with authority. It was an old trick, one she’d had to learn quickly when she’d faced a roomful of creditors all bent on salvaging what they could from the failing Truitt department store chain. It was her intuition that had gotten her through those early days of overwhelming responsibility. She would use it to deal with Elias. “Have you met everyone?”
Elias glanced around as he set the covered pan down next to Bea’s potato salad. “No.”
Charity hastily ran through the introductions. “Roy Yapton. He owns the carousel. Bea Hatfield. She owns the Whispering Waters café. Radiance Barker, owner of Nails by Radiance. Ted Jenner. He operates the T-shirt shop. And you’ve already met Newlin Odell. Newlin works for me.”
“Hi.” Newlin peered at Elias through his small, round glasses. “Otis doing okay?”
“He’s fine.” Elias nodded politely at the small circle of faces. Then he leaned back against the pier railing, crossed one booted foot over the other, and folded his arms.
Charity lifted her chin and prepared to pin him down. “I’ve explained to the other shopkeepers that you’ve committed to renew the leases at the old rates.”
Elias nodded, as if the subject held little interest. Yappy scowled. “That true, Winters?”
“Yes,” Elias said quietly.
“Whew.” Bea fanned herself with a napkin. “I don’t mind telling you, it’s a relief to hear you say it. Charity told us that you know all about the town council’s plans to turn Whispering Waters Cove into a sort of Northwest Carmel.”
Elias glanced out over the cove, his gaze thoughtful. “Somehow, I don’t see that happening.”
Ted frowned. “Don’t be too sure about that. Phyllis Dartmoor, our illustrious mayor, says the council’s already come up with a couple of possible new names for Crazy Otis Landing. They want something that sounds more up-market, she says. Indigo Landing or Sunset Landing.”
Charity groaned. “They sound so generic. No character at all.”
“Charity has been doing battle with Mayor Dartmoor and the council on a regular basis since the spring,” Radiance told Elias. “We all go to the monthly council meetings, but we let Charity do the talking. She’s good at that kind of thing.”
“I see.” Elias rested his gaze on Charity. “Crazy Otis Landing suits the pier. I don’t see any reason to change it.”
“I’m glad you agree with the rest of us,” Charity said. “But I warn you, you’re going to get a lot of pressure to change not only the name of the pier but everything else about it as well.”
“I think I can handle it,” Elias said softly.
Charity was not sure how to deal with that simple statement. She looked around at the others
. “Well, what do you say we eat first and then talk business?”
“Good idea,” Ted said. “What did you bring, Winters?”
“Chilled green-tea noodles with a peanut dipping sauce,” Elias said. “There’s some wasabi on the side for those who like it hot.”
Charity stared at him in astonishment.
“Figures,” Ted muttered. “Another fancy gourmet vegetarian from Seattle. May have to put a ban on you folks moving here to the cove. You’re ruining our regional cuisine.”
Radiance raised her brows. “You mean those old hallowed recipes such as hamburger casserole and mushroom soup gravy are in danger of going extinct? Groovy.”
Bea laughed. “Better look to your laurels, Charity.”
Radiance giggled. “Charity is a fantastic cook,” she explained to Elias. “Ted grumbles a lot, but even he likes her food.”
“Best bunny food in the Northwest,” Ted agreed as he ambled over to the picnic table.
“You can say that again.” Yappy crossed to the table and removed the cover from Elias’s dish. He smiled with satisfaction at the sight of the green noodles. “But I think we may have some real serious competition here, folks.”
Charity heard the universal relief in the good-natured laughter that followed Yappy’s comment. She felt the tension seep out of the group as everyone trooped toward the buffet table.
A few minutes later she sat down on a bench, a plate of Elias’s green noodle concoction in her hand. The late summer twilight settled softly over the cove. The last rays of the setting sun turned the sky to molten gold.
Elias sat down near Charity. She glanced covertly at his plate and noticed that it was laden with her couscous and lentil salad. For some obscure reason, that pleased her.
The sound of chanting voices drifted across the cove. It was accompanied by the lilting tones of a badly played flute and the throb of a drum.
“What the hell is that?” Elias asked.
“The Voyagers,” Radiance answered. “They chant the sun down every evening. You probably can’t hear them from your house on the bluff, but the prevailing wind sometimes carries the sound across the cove to the pier.”