Eye of the Beholder

The doctors say they think she may have ingested something besides the tranquilizers. An hallucinogen of some sort."
    "Some drug Lutton gave her?"
    "Yes. All her vital signs look good now, thank God, but they won't be able to assess her mental state for a while." Webster's hand closed into a fist. "Every time I think about that bastard, Lutton , and what he tried to do to her ..."
    "You were going to tell me what you'd found out about Radstone ," Trask prompted.
    Webster exhaled heavily. "The doctors say he'll make it. The sneaky son-of-a-bitch was bleeding the trust dry."
    He took a sip from the cup and grimaced. Trask could not tell if it was the taste of the coffee or the thought of Foster Radstone that induced the expression.
    "I understand that Lutton was convinced that he'd been charged with some mystical duty to protect the Institute," Trask said. "But as far as I've been able to learn, his only experience in business consisted of drug dealing and running a small cafe. Any idea how he uncovered the work of a sophisticated con man like Radstone ?"
    Webster's brows came together in a thoughtful frown. "I suppose we'll never know for certain. He volunteered a lot at the Institute. Worked in the trust offices for a while."
    "You think he just stumbled into some data that indicated Radstone was skimming from the trust and knew how to interpret it?"
    Webster shrugged. "That's the only way to explain it. Radstone wouldn't have had to go to great lengths to hide his scam from me. Fool that I was I turned over the entire financial operation to him."
    "Even so, you've got accountants, bookkeepers, and the tax folks involved in any business the size of Dimensions. None of them noticed anything wrong, yet some ex-drug dealer figures it all out?"
    Webster eyed him. "You're saying it doesn't feel right?"
    "Yeah, that's what I'm saying."
    Webster studied the view through the open French doors. "Strood says Lutton's note indicates that, with Guthrie, Radstone, and Joanna out of the way, he considered his job finished."
    "But he'd botched at least two out of three of those jobs. Joanna is still alive, and he couldn't be sure that Radstone was dead. The only one he actually got rid of was Guthrie. Why commit suicide now?"
    "Who knows?" Webster's jaw tightened. "He was crazy. Crazy people do crazy things. Maybe he killed himself because he had failed too often."
    Trask walked forward to join Webster in the open doorway. "There are still some loose threads in this thing."
    "Such as?"
    "I'd like to know what happened to Liz Guthrie, for one thing."
    A troubled look passed across Webster's face. "Yes. I'm starting to worry about her myself. Strood still thinks she simply left town for personal reasons. He believes she's safe because there was no mention of her in Lutton's note."
    "I've got someone looking for her. This morning he told me he thought he was getting close. With any luck he'll pick her up today."
    Webster nodded, clearly relieved. "It sounds as if he expects to find her alive, thank God."
    "I've got a question I want to ask her."
    "What's that?"
    Trask glanced at him. "I want to know the name of her personal meditation guide. The one who was with her the morning she suddenly left town."
    Webster's expression tightened. "We don't assign personal guides who make house calls. Must have been part of Radstone's con. He probably pretended to be her guide and used his influence to get her to write checks to that account that he controlled."
    Trask considered that. "Maybe."
    Webster smiled slightly. "I can see you're a long way from satisfied."
    "I'm a hard-to-satisfy kind of guy."
    Webster nodded. "Probably what makes you so successful. Trask, I know this is none of my business, but, like everyone else in town, I'm aware that you came back here to Avalon to look for answers relating to your own past. I'm also aware that you didn't find them."
    "I found them. They just weren't the ones that I expected, that's all."
    "That is often the case in life, isn't it? The end result of the harmonic convergence is rarely what we anticipate. But that does not mean that the energy vortices do not resonate."
    " Bell , if you don't mind, I'd prefer to skip the metaphysical lecture today. I'm not in the mood."
    "I realize you don't hold with a lot of our theories, but I can't help thinking that you were drawn back to this place at this time for a reason."
    "There was a reason, all right. I had a new hotel to open."
    Nathan was right, he