Eye of the Beholder

satisfy both Trask and Strood. Get them off your back. Why did you send Stewart to kill Joanna, anyway?"
    Dylan's hand tightened on the gun. "In her efforts to keep the past buried, she was doing great harm. She was starting to ask her own questions. She and Liz are close, you see. They began to talk about the similarities between the deaths of Guthrie and Harry Trask. I couldn't allow that. I appointed Stewart to get rid of her."
    "What's in her journal? Why do you want it?"
    "I don't know," Dylan said harshly. "But that idiot, Liz, contacted her after she went into hiding. She was warned not to talk to anyone, but when I called her, she admitted that she was so scared the day she left Avalon that she called her closest friend."
    "Joanna."
    "Yes."
    "And now you're afraid that Joanna might have written something in her journal that implicates you."
    "Looking back," Dylan muttered, "I think she'd had her suspicions all along."
    "But she kept quiet," Webster said in a great rolling voice that filled the little stock room to the brim, "because deep down she was afraid that I was the killer."
    Everyone's head snapped around to stare at Webster, who stood in the alley doorway.
    Dylan jerked as though one of the energy vortices had delivered a high-voltage shock. " Webster. No. You're not supposed to be here. You're not supposed to be involved in this."
    "Put the gun down," Webster said in a commanding voice. "It's all over."
    "Don't come any closer or I'll kill her." Dylan edged closer to Alexa as he spoke. "I swear I will."
    "Give me the gun," Webster said quietly.
    "But, Webster, I'm your Guardian Knight. Don't you see? I live to serve the
Dimensions Way
    . You must trust me to handle this."
    "Put down the gun, Dylan."
    Harriet shot to her feet with a high, keening shriek. "My heart. My heart." She clawed wildly at her throat and toppled sideways into a tower of cartons. The boxes cascaded around her.
    Dylan's face worked in fury. "You stupid old woman." He aimed the gun at Harriet.
    "Don't hurt her." Alexa seized the first thing at hand, a box of medieval maps. She raised it high over her head and flung it at Dylan.
    Dylan sidestepped the box. He swung the gun back toward Alexa, hand tightening on the grip, "You've ruined everything. It wasn't supposed to end like this—"
    A sickening thud cut off his shrill words.
    He collapsed to the floor with such suddenness that Alexa did not even realize what had happened until she saw that his gun had fallen to the floor.
    Dylan lay unmoving. He was neatly pinned between a carton emblazoned with a picture of Stonehenge and the words Some Assembly Required , and a three-foot-tall sculpture of Sir Lancelot.
    "Alexa." Trask vaulted over a recumbent dragon and seized her. "Are you all right?"
    "Yes." She leaned into his big, strong body. She was definitely not the clinging type, she thought. But right now Trask felt awfully good. "Yes, I'm all right."
    "You scared the hell out of me. When I realized that Dylan ..."
    "What did you do to him, anyway?" She raised her head from his chest and saw the small, fist-sized stone gargoyle lying on the floor beside Dylan's head. "Good grief. No wonder he went down. Nice shot."
    "I told you that I used to play a little ball." He moved his right shoulder in an absent way, as if remembering an old ache.
    Alexa gave him a tremulous smile. "I remember. Your father dreamed that you might turn pro someday."
    Trask nodded. He said nothing.
    "I think that your father's crazy dream just helped save my life," Alexa whispered.
    Trask refocused on her face. "Dad always was a little ahead of his time." He pulled her hard against him, crushing her. "Christ, Alexa. You scared the living daylights out of me."
    "I was a little nervous, myself," she mumbled into his shirt. "Maybe I've pushed the envelope on this wild woman stuff far enough."
    "You can say that again," he muttered into her hair.
    She turned her head against his chest to watch as Webster gallantly assisted Harriet to her feet.
    "Are you sure you're all right, ma'am?" Webster studied her with grave concern. "Maybe I should call 911."
    Harriet smiled beatifically. "No need for that. I'm as fit as a fiddle." She looked expectantly at Alexa. "Aren't you going to introduce me, dear?"
    Alexa sighed. "Webster Bell, Trask, allow me to introduce Harriet McClelland, my former employer. The woman who taught me everything I know about early-twentieth-century art and then some."
    "A pleasure," Webster said