Eye of the Beholder

PROLOGUE

    Avalon, Arizona, twelve years earlier. . .

    He swept into the house out of the hot desert night, an avenging warlock from the dark canyons carrying thunder and lighting in his fists.
    Alexa froze at the top of the stairs when she heard his voice in the hall. Her sudden stillness was instinctive, the immediate, elemental reaction of any creature to the presence of a potential predator.
    "I don't know whether it was you or Guthrie who killed my father, Kenyon," he said. "Hell, for all I know, the two of you planned it together."
    The night was warm, but Alexa shivered in the shadows above the hall. John Laird Trask was young, somewhere in his early twenties, but the taut control he exerted over his icy rage would have done credit to a man twice his age.
    "You listen to me, son, and you listen good ." Lloyd Kenyon spoke with a calm authority that reverberated with an underlying sympathy. "No one murdered your father. Once you've had a chance to cool down and think about it, you'll accept the facts. It was a tragic accident."
    "Bullshit. Dad was a good driver, and he knew that road. He didn't go off Avalon Point by accident. One of you forced him over the edge."
    Alexa felt suddenly lightheaded. A strange, unfamiliar panic left her fighting for breath. Trask was threatening Lloyd. He was not only a much younger man, he was even bigger than Lloyd, who still had plenty of bulk and muscle left over from the days when he had run construction crews.
    Her anxiety for Lloyd's safety took her by surprise. Until tonight she would have sworn that she had no strong personal attachment to him. She and her mother had moved in with him eighteen months ago following her parents' divorce. She had been careful to keep a cool distance between herself and this very large, unexciting, rock-steady businessman Vivien had married; careful to make sure Lloyd understood that he could never take the place of the charismatic hero who had been her real father.
    It had been a year since Crawford Chambers had been killed by a sniper's bullet. He had been halfway around the world at the time, photographing the latest in the long list of small, brutal civil wars that had made him a legend in journalism circles.
    Crawford had been everything that Lloyd was not, a rakish, dashing, larger-than-life figure who lived life on the edge.
    Her father would have been able to deal with Trask, Alexa thought. But staid, steady, unflappable Lloyd probably didn't stand a chance.
    Trask's accusations were nothing but crazy talk, she told herself. Lloyd would never harm anyone.
    She had to get to the phone.
    The nearest instrument was at the foot of the stairs. With an enormous effort of will, she fought through the temporary paralysis. She went silently, cautiously, down the steps.
    "It was raining that night." Lloyd's voice was calm, infused with reason. "This is what we call our monsoon season. Downpours are common. That stretch of the road is treacherous. Everyone around here knows that. I've always said that portion of
Cliff Drive
    should be closed during a storm."
    "The rain had passed by the time Dad got into the car," Trask said. "I checked with the cops."
    "The roads were still wet. Even the best driver can make a mistake."
    "This was no mistake," Trask said. "I know all about the partnership between the three of you. And I know about the offer from that hotel chain. Dad was murdered because someone wanted him out of the way."
    Alexa realized he believed every word he said. She knew that he was wrong, at least about Lloyd, but Trask was clearly convinced that his father had been murdered.
    She sensed her mother's presence on the steps behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. Vivien's fine-boned, ascetic face was taut with anxiety as she listened to the two men quarrel.
    "You think I was involved in some kind of bizarre conspiracy to kill your father?" Lloyd's voice rose in disbelief. "That's outrageous."
    "I looked through some of Dad's papers this afternoon. I heard about the quarrel at the country club the night he died. It didn't take me long to put it all together."
    "Business partners sometimes disagree. It's a fact of life, son."
    "That argument was more than a disagreement. I talked to the bartender at the club. He said the three of you nearly came to blows."
    "Guthrie gets a little hotheaded when he drinks," Lloyd admitted. "But I restrained him. There was no physical stuff."
    "Maybe not then. But you and Guthrie knew that Dad would never