Deep Waters

lies." A dark flush rose in Garrick's jowly cheeks. "You can't prove any of that."
    "I don't have to prove it. I know what happened. Dad's old mechanic saw you leaving the hangar the morning that the problem with the fuel lines was discovered. You wanted to take over my father's new freight contracts, and the easiest way to do it was to make it impossible for him to meet his delivery deadlines."
    "Austin should never have taken off that day." Garrick's hands clenched into broad fists. "His own mechanic told him the plane wasn't fit to fly."
    "Dad patched up the fuel line and took his chances because he had everything riding on those contracts. He knew he stood to lose his entire business if he failed to make the deliveries. But the fuel line cracked open when the Cessna was a hundred miles from land. My father never had a chance."
    "It wasn't my fault, Winters. No one held a gun to Austin's head and made him climb into that old beat-up Cessna that day."
    "Have you ever studied the nature of water, Keyworth?"
    "What's water got to do with any of this?"
    "It's a very unusual substance. Sometimes it's in credibly clear, magnifying everything viewed through it. I am looking through that kind of water now. I can see you sitting on a pyramid built on the ruins of my father's Cessna that lie on the floor of the sea."
    Garrick's eyes widened. "You're crazy."
    "The broken pieces of the plane are beginning to disintegrate, aren't they? The whole structure will eventually crumble beneath you. And when it does, your pyramid will collapse and you will fall into the sea, just as my father did."
    "The rumors are right. You're really out there in the ether, aren't you?"
    "But I see now that there's no need for me to rush the process. It will all happen in good time. I wonder why it took me this long to understand that."
    Garrick looked torn between fury and incredulity. "I don't have any use for this nonsense. Or for you. Get the hell out of my office, Winters."
    "When you read those papers you're holding, Keyworth, you'll realize how close you just came to disaster. I've decided not to sabotage your Pacific operations the way you sabotaged my father's plane. It will be interesting to see what you do with your reprieve. Will you tell yourself that I was weak? That I didn't have the guts to carry out my plans? Or will you look down into the water and see the rot on which you've built your empire?"
    "Get out of here before I call security."
    Elias let himself out of the plush office and closed the door behind him.
    He took the elevator down to the lobby, walked outside, and came to a halt on
Fourth Avenue
. It was the last week of July, and it was raining in Seattle.
    He turned and started down the sidewalk. His reflection watched him from the windows of the street-front shops.
    He could see the past clearly through the painfully transparent water that covered it. But the gray seas that hid his own future were murky and opaque. It was possible that there was no longer anything left of value to seek in that uncharted ocean.
    But he had to start the search. He no longer had a choice. Today he had finally realized that the alternative was oblivion.
    Without conscious thought, he turned at the corner and started walking down
Madison Street
toward the waterfront. As he gazed out over ElliottBay, he made a decision.
    He would begin his new life by accepting the legacy that Hayden Stone had left to him: a pier known as Crazy Otis Landing and a small curiosity shop called Charms & Virtues, both in the northern part of the state in a little town named Whispering Waters Cove.

1

    Only the most discerning observer can sense the deep, hidden places in the seas of another's life. And only the unwary or the truly brave dare to look into those secret depths.

    - "On the Way of Wafer," from the journal of Hayden Stone

    He waited deep in the shadows at the back of the poorly lit shop, a patient spider crouched motionless in his web. There was something about the very stillness emanating from him that made Charity be lieve he would wait as long as necessary for his prey to venture too close.
    "Mr. Winters?" Charity hesitated in the open door way, clipboard in hand, and peered into the gloom-filled interior of Charms & Virtues.
    "Ms. Truitt." Elias Winters's voice came out of the darkness behind the cash register counter. "Please come in. I had a feeling you might show up sooner or later."
    He had spoken softly from the far end of the cavernous old