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ANN
KRENTZ
SWEET FORTUNE
PERFECT PARTNERS
FAMILY MAN
WILDEST HEARTS
HIDDEN TALENTS
TRUST ME
DEEP WATERS
SHARP EDGES
FLASH
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
ENJOY TWO SPLENDID COLLECTIONS OF HER BELOVED NOVELS
GRAND PASSION and ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY
THE GOLDEN CHANCE and SILVER LININGS
AND BY JAYNE ANN KRENTZ WRITING AS JAYNE CASTLE
AMARYLLIS
ZINNIA
ORCHID
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Praise for
Jayne Ann Krentz
and her marvelous bestsellers
FLASH
“ROMANTIC SUSPENSE OF THE HIGHEST ORDER… [told with] wit and intelligence…. As always, Krentz pairs two equally strong people, endowing them with just enough quirks to make them real, and provides plenty of plot twists to keep her story humming.”
—Amazon.com
“FLASH GLITTERS AND GLOWS with all of Jayne Ann Krentz’s patented humor and spice.”
—Romantic Times
“ANOTHER WINNER…. The sparks fly…. Krentz entertains us with her own brand of magic.”
—Rendezvous
“KRENTZ DELIVERS… a compelling plot with equal parts romance and suspense, and a surprise denouement.”
—Publishers Weekly
“With superb style and skill, Krentz creates a series of false trails that cloak the identity of the threat…. Th[e] element of suspense, plus Krentz’s trademark family squabbles and strong characters, will thrill her fans.”
—Booklist
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
“[A] well-paced thriller fraught with tension—both sexual and suspenseful….”
—Publishers Weekly
“Krentz weaves her magic in this exciting and passionate tale. She leads us into a maze of puzzles and adventures, which we don’t want to end. Read, absorb, and enjoy.”
—Rendezvous
TRUST ME
“Her characters are colorful, unique individuals who draw the reader into the story immediately…. Great fun to read.”
—Rendezvous
“The pace is brisk and the high-tech gloss fun.”
—Publishers Weekly
ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY
“[A] cheerful escapist package combining sex and mystery….”
—Cosmopolitan
“Jayne Ann Krentz outdoes herself…. Absolutely, Positively is Krentz at her most insightful and entertaining best.”
—Affaire de Coeur
GRAND PASSION
“Filled with the kind of intelligent, offbeat characters … [who] are so fun to get to know that it’s hard to close the book on them…. [Krentz] is one of the hottest writers in romance today.”
—USA Today
“Charming, suspenseful, and downright steamy…. Pure and unabashed fun.”
—West Coast Review of Books
WILDEST HEARTS
“The phenomenal Jayne Ann Krentz once again delivers one of her patented storytelling gems…. Another guaranteed top-notch read!”
—Romantic Times
SILVER LININGS
“Jayne Ann Krentz entertains to the hilt…. The excitement and adventure don’t stop.”
—Catherine Coulter
THE GOLDEN CHANCE
“Irresistible romance and high-powered corporate intrigue…. Splendid.”
—Romantic Times
Also by Jayne Ann Krentz
Absolutely, Postively
Deep Waters
Eye of the Beholder
Family Man
Flash
The Golden Chance
Grand Passion
Hidden Talents
Perfect Partners
Sharp Edges
Silver Linings
Sweet Fortune
Trust Me
Wildest Hearts
Written under the name Jayne Castle
Amaryllis
Orchid
Zinnia
Published by POCKET BOOKS
The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 1998 by Jayne Ann Krentz
Originally published in hardcover in 1998 by Pocket Books
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN: 0-671-52309-0
eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-2013-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-6715-2309-1
First Pocket Books paperback printing March 1999
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Printed in the U.S.A.
First Prologue
Eight years earlier …
Jasper Sloan sat in front of the fire, a half-finished glass of whiskey on the arm of the chair beside him, a thick file of papers in his hand. Page by page he fed the incriminating contents of the folder to the ravenous flames.
It was midnight. Outside a steady Northwest rain fell, cloaking the woods in a melancholy mist. The lights of Seattle were a distant blur across the waters of Puget Sound.
In the past his Bainbridge Island home had been a retreat and a refuge for Jasper. Tonight it was a place to bury the past.
“Watcha doin’, Uncle Jasper?”
Jasper tossed another sheet to the flames. Then he looked at the ten-year-old pajama-clad boy in the doorway. He smiled slightly.
“I’m cleaning out some old files,” he said. “What’s the matter, Kirby? Couldn’t you get to sleep?”
“I had another bad dream.” There were shadows in Kirby’s intelligent, too-somber eyes.
“It will fade in a few minutes.” Jasper closed the half-empty file and set it on the wide arm of the chair. “I’ll get you a cup of warm milk.”
The dozen books on parenting that Jasper had consulted during the past several months had given conflicting advice on the subject of warm milk. But the stuff seemed to be effective on Kirby’s bad dreams. At least there had been fewer of them lately.
“Okay.” Kirby padded, barefoot, across the oak floor and sat down on the thick wool rug in front of the hearth. “It’s still raining.”
“Yes.” Jasper walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. He took out the carton of milk. “Probably stop by morning, though.”
“If it does, can we set up the targets and do some more archery practice?”
“Sure.” Jasper poured milk into a cup and stuck it into the microwave. He punched a couple of buttons. “We can do a little fishing, too. Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch dinner.”
Paul appeared in the doorway, yawning hugely. He glance
d at the file on the chair. “What’s goin’ on our here?”
“Uncle Jasper’s getting rid of some old papers he doesn’t want anymore,” Kirby explained.
Jasper looked at his other nephew. Paul was a year and a half older than Kirby. Instead of the overly serious expression that was Kirby’s trademark, Paul’s young gaze mirrored a hint of his father’s reckless, aggressive approach to life.
Fletcher Sloan had bequeathed his deep, engaging blue eyes and his light brown hair to both of his sons. In the years ahead, when the softness of youth would give way to the harsher planes and angles of manhood, Jasper knew that Paul and Kirby would become living images of the dashing, charismatic man who had fathered them.
He also had a hunch that, given the strong forces of their two very different personalities, there would be problems as both boys entered their teens. He could only hope that the parenting books he was buying by the pallet-load these days would guide him through the tricky years.
Jasper was relying on the books because he was only too well aware of his inadequacies in the field of parenting. His own father, Harry Sloan, had not been what anyone could call a strong role model.
Harry had been a devout workaholic all of his life who had had very little time for his sons or anyone else. Although ostensibly retired, he still went into the office every day. Jasper sensed that the day Harry stopped working would be the day he died.
Jasper poured a second cup of milk for Paul. He would have to take things as they came and do the best he could. It wasn’t like there was much choice, he reminded himself. Fortunately, there were a lot of books on parenting.
He watched the digital readout on the microwave as it ticked off the time. For a disorienting moment, the numbers on the clock wavered and became years. He counted backward to the day, two decades earlier, when Fletcher had entered his life.
Flamboyant, charming, and slightly larger-than-life, Fletcher had become Jasper’s stepbrother when Jasper’s widowed father had remarried.
Jasper had few memories of his mother, who had died in a car crash when he was four. But his stepmother, Caroline, had been kind enough in a reserved fashion. Her great talent lay in managing the social side of Harry’s life. She was very good at hosting dinner parties at the country club for Harry’s business associates.
It had always seemed to Jasper that his father and stepmother lived in two separate universes. Harry lived for his work. Caroline lived for her country club activities. There did not appear to be any great bond of love between them, but both seemed content.
Caroline’s only real fault was that she had doted on Fletcher. In her eyes her son could do no wrong. Instead of helping him learn to curtail his tendencies toward reckless irresponsibility and careless arrogance, she had indulged and encouraged them.
Caroline was not the only one who had turned a blind eye to Fletcher’s less admirable traits. Six years younger than his new brother and eager for a hero to take the place of a father who was always at work, Jasper had been willing to overlook a lot, also.
Too much, as it turned out.
Fletcher was gone now. He and his wife, Brenda, had been killed nearly a year ago in a skiing disaster in the Alps.
Caroline had been stunned by the news of her son’s death. But she had quickly, tearfully explained to Jasper and everyone else involved that she could not possibly be expected to assume the task of raising Paul and Kirby.
Her age and the social demands of her busy life made it impossible to start all over again as a mother to her grandsons. The boys needed someone younger, she said. Someone who had the patience and energy to handle children.
Jasper had taken Paul and Kirby to live with him. There had been no one else. He had committed himself to the role of substitute father with the same focused, well-organized, highly disciplined determination that he applied to every other aspect of his life.
The past eleven months had not been easy.
The first casualty had been his marriage. The divorce had become final six months ago. He did not blame Andrea for leaving him. After all, the job of playing mother to two young boys who were not even related to her had not been part of the business arrangement that had constituted the foundation of their marriage.
The microwave pinged. Jasper snapped back to the present. He opened the door and took out the mugs.
“Did you have a nightmare, too, Paul?” he asked.
“No.” Paul wandered over to the fire and sat down, tailor-fashion, beside Kirby. “I woke up when I heard you guys talking out here.”
“Uncle Jasper says we can do some more archery and maybe go fishing tomorrow,” Kirby announced.
“Cool.”
Jasper carried the two cups to where the boys sat in front of the fire. “That’s assuming the rain stops.”
“If it doesn’t, we can always play Acid Man on the computer,” Kirby said cheerfully.
Jasper winced at the thought of being cooped up in the house all weekend while his nephews entertained themselves with the loud sound effects of the new game.
“I’m pretty sure the rain will stop,” he said, mentally crossing his fingers.
Paul looked at the closed file on the arm of the chair. “How come you’re burning those papers?”
Jasper sat down and picked up the folder. “Old business. Just some stuff that’s no longer important.”
Paul nodded, satisfied. “Too bad you don’t have a shredder here, huh?”
Jasper opened the file and resumed feeding the contents to the eager flames. “The fire works just as well.”
In his opinion, the blaze worked even better than a mechanical shredder. Nothing was as effective as fire when it came to destroying damning evidence.
Second Prologue
Five years later …
Olivia Chantry poured herself a glass of dark red zinfandel wine and carried it down the hall toward the bedroom that had been converted into an office. She still had on the high-necked, long-sleeved black dress she had worn to her husband’s funeral that afternoon.
Logan would have been her ex-husband if he had lived. She had been preparing to file for a divorce when he had suddenly jetted off to Pamplona, Spain. There he had gotten very drunk and had run with the bulls. The bulls won. Logan had been trampled to death.
Trust him to go out in a blaze of glory, Olivia thought. And to think she had once believed that a marriage based on friendship and mutual business interests would have a solid, enduring foundation. Uncle Rollie had been right, she decided. Logan had needed her, but he had not loved her.
Halfway down the hall she paused briefly at the thermostat to adjust the temperature. She had been feeling cold all day. The accusing expressions on the faces of the Dane family, especially the look in the eyes of Logan’s younger brother, Sean, had done nothing to warm her. They knew she had seen a lawyer. They blamed her for Logan’s spectacular demise.
Her cousin Nina’s anguished, tearful eyes had only deepened the chill inside Olivia.
Uncle Rollie, the one member of Olivia’s family who understood her best, had leaned close to whisper beneath the cover of the organ music.
“Give ’em time,” Rollie said with the wisdom of eighty years. “They’re all hurting now, but they’ll get past it eventually.”
Olivia was not so certain of that. In her heart she knew that her relationships with the Danes and with Nina would never be the same again.
When she reached the small, cluttered office, she took a sip of the zinfandel to fortify herself. Then she put down the glass and went to the black metal file cabinet in the corner. She spun the combination lock and pulled open a drawer. A row of folders appeared, most crammed to overflowing with business correspondence, tax forms, and assorted papers. One of these days she really would have to get serious about her filing.
She reached inside the drawer and removed the journal. For a moment she gazed at the leather-bound volume and considered the damning contents.
After a while she sat down at
her cluttered desk, kicked off her black, low-heeled pumps, and switched on the small shredder. The machine whirred and hummed to life, a mechanical shark eager for prey.
The small bedroom-cum-office with its narrow windows was oppressive, she thought as she opened the journal. In fact, she hated the place where she and Logan had lived since their marriage six months ago.
She promised herself that first thing in the morning she would start looking for a bigger apartment. Her business was starting to take off. She could afford to buy herself a condo. A place with lots of windows.
One by one, Olivia ripped the pages from the journal and fed them into the steel jaws. She would have preferred to burn the incriminating evidence, but she did not have a fireplace.
The zinfandel was gone by the time the last entry in the journal had been rendered into tiny scraps. Olivia sealed the plastic shredder bag and carried it downstairs to the basement of the apartment building. There she dumped the contents into the large bin marked Clean Paper Only.
When the blizzard of shredded journal pages finally ceased, Olivia closed the lid of the bin. In the morning a large truck would come to haul away the contents. The discarded paper, including the shredded pages of the journal, would soon be transformed into something useful. Newsprint, maybe. Or toilet tissue.
Like almost everyone else who lived in Seattle, Olivia was a great believer in recycling.
1
The present …
Jasper knew that he was in trouble because he had reached the point where he was giving serious consideration to the idea of getting married again.
His attention was deflected from the dangerous subject less than a moment later when he realized that someone was trying very hard to kill him.
At least, he thought someone was attempting to murder him.
Either way, as a distraction, the prospect was dazzlingly effective. Jasper immediately stopped thinking about finding a wife.
It was the blinding glare of hot, tropical sunlight on metal reflected in the rearview mirror that got Jasper’s attention. He glanced up. The battered green Ford that had followed him from the tiny village on the island’s north shore was suddenly much closer. In another few seconds the vehicle would be right on top of the Jeep’s bumper.