Eye of the Beholder

as this are a little hard to swallow. Liz Guthrie was home earlier this morning. I told you, I talked to her on the phone. She agreed to see me. I was supposed to wait for an hour because she wanted to do her meditation exercises first. She said her—" Alexa broke off.
    Trask lowered himself into a chair. He did not take his eyes off her face. "What is it?"
    "In all the excitement I almost forgot. Liz told me that she was going to meditate with her Dimensions guide this morning. When we spoke on the phone she said he had just arrived."
    "He?"
    "I think... No, wait." Alexa tapped one finger on the side of the mug. "She didn't specify. She just said that her guide was there."
    "Okay, so he or she could have left with Liz before you got there."
    "But, why?"
    "A million reasons, just like Strood said."
    Alexa wrinkled her nose. "You're starting to sound a little too reasonable. This is not the Trask I know and—" She stopped very quickly and smiled coolly. "The Trask I know and whom I consider a world-class conspiracy theorist."
    Trask studied the flags of pink in her cheeks. He wondered why she was so embarrassed about having almost said, " the Trask I know and love." It would have passed easily enough as a flippant, off-the-cuff crack. No one would have taken her seriously, least of all him.
    "I'm trying to be reasonable," he said, "because I'm not so sure it's a good idea for both of us to go off the deep end. At least, not simultaneously."
    "You're probably right. Obviously this conspiracy thinking stuff is contagious." Alexa took another sip of tea. "I'd sure like to know where Liz went and how long she intends to stay gone."
    Trask settled deeper into his chair and eyed the toes of his shoes. "Assuming she stays gone, we can probably get the answers to those questions."
    "Think so?"
    "I told you, I've had a private investigator on this project for months. Finding people is bread-and-butter work for him. I'll give Phil a call this afternoon and add Liz Guthrie to his to-do list."
    "Could be a little embarrassing, not to say expensive for you, if it turns out she just went to the library or the grocery store."
    "Embarrassing, yes. Financially speaking, it'll only be a drop in the bucket compared to what I've already spent on this thing."
    "I see."
    Absently he contemplated the set of orangy -green plastic bookends that framed a set of volumes on a nearby shelf. The sweeping, molded curves told him he was looking at more Deco. He remembered Edward Vale telling him that old Bakelite plastic was very collectible.
    "Something wrong?" Alexa prompted.
    "Maybe." He looked away from the bookends. "There's one other angle we should probably consider."
    "What's that?"
    "Someone tried to terrorize you today. Could have been an angry burglar. Could have been person or persons unknown. Hell, it could have been Liz Guthrie herself, dressed in a robe."
    Alexa frowned. "That's a weird thought."
    "But there is one other remote possibility. And I stress remote."
    "Which is?"
    Trask paused. "There could be a link between those late night phone calls you've been receiving and the creep who chased you today."
    She stared at him. "Why would someone go to all the effort to scare me?"
    "I don't know. But it occurs to me that whoever he is, he might not like the idea of the two of us forming a ..." He groped for another word; could not find it. "A partnership."
    She watched him with brooding eyes. "This is getting murkier by the minute."
    "Better get used to it. We conspiracy theory buffs thrive on murk."

23

    Trask was out on the balcony of his suite when he heard the fax machine hum to life again shortly before five that afternoon. This time he did not rush back through the open French doors to check out the data that was being sent to him.
    He'd had enough of hovering over the fax as if it were some pagan oracle that could give him answers to his questions. He'd spent most of the day standing in front of the machine's receiving tray, snatching up each new page as it appeared. When he hadn't been obsessed with the fax, he'd been on the phone.
    He had a mountain of information on the investments of Guthrie Enterprises, past and present, piled high on his desk. Thus far, however, none of it looked useful.
    Unless, of course, you wanted to prove that there was no conspiracy.
    He lounged in his chair, heels propped on the railing, and gazed out at the rust-colored monoliths.
    After a while he opened the door in his mind and looked at the