Flash

Melwood Gill when she walked into the studio a few minutes later and found it deserted except for Zara.
    Olivia's concerns about Melwood were instantly submerged beneath a far more pressing problem.
    Her aunt was perched on the high swivel chair at the drafting table, crying quietly to herself. Olivia knew at once that something gravely serious had occurred. Zara was sobbing just the way her character, Sybil, had on the episode of
Crystal Cove
in which she had learned that she might have to have brain surgery.
    "Zara."
    Olivia rushed across the studio, threading her way through the maze created by Merlin's Cave, five massive silver-foil flower arrangements, several boxes of red, white, and blue banners and a stack of electrical cords.
    Zara straightened quickly and dabbed wildly at her eyes with a tissue. "I didn't hear you come in, dear."
    Olivia halted on the opposite side of the drafting table and surveyed the mascara that ran down Zara's cheeks. "What on earth is wrong?"
    "Nothing, dear." Zara's smile was the same brave smile Sybil had given Nick the day she told him that she might not survive the brain operation.
    "Don't give me that," Olivia said. "You know damn well I won't buy it. Tell me the truth."
    "I'm just feeling a little blue."
    "Zara, please, this is Olivia you're talking to. Tell me what is wrong."
    With her uncanny knack for positioning herself in the most flattering light, Zara raised her chin and tilted her head. The profile she gave Olivia was the one Sybil had turned to the camera on the episode in which she had told Nick that she was leaving him for his own good.
    "There is nothing you can do, my dear." Zara blotted her eyes once more. "There is nothing anyone can do. I am doomed."
    Olivia's stomach clenched. "Oh, God, Zara. Is it a medical problem? A real one" She grasped her aunt by the shoulders. "You have to tell me."
    Zara's eyes widened. "Good grief, no, it's not a medical condition. I'm perfectly healthy."
    "Thank heavens." Olivia's insides untwisted. "Let's have it I'm not going to walk away and pretend I didn't find you sobbing like Sybil in the episode where she discovered that Nick had an affair with her best friend, Alicia."
    Zara tensed. Then she heaved a sigh and slumped in the chair. "I suppose I'll have to tell you everything now. In my heart, I knew that sooner or later, somewhere, someday, it would all come back to haunt me."
    "What would come back?"
    "I knew I wouldn't be able to bury it forever."
    "Bury what?"
    "He only wants a few hundred dollars this time. I can scrape that together." Zara plucked another tissue from the box. "But it will be more next time, won't it? That's always the way it is with this sort of thing. Eventually he'll bleed me dry."
    Olivia stared at her, stunned. "Zara, are you trying to tell me that you've got a drug problem?"
    "Drugs?" Zara looked suitably scandalized. "Of course not"
    "Then what is it?"
    "Didn't I make it clear? I'm being blackmailed."

8
    « ^ »
    O livia walked through Pike Place Market dressed in an oversized denim poet shirt, a pair of old, badly faded jeans, and a shapeless, wide-brimmed hat pulled down very low over her ears and eyes. She entered an espresso bar in Post Alley and purchased a triple-shot latte.
    Cup in hand, she chose a tiny table and hunkered down to wait.
    The windowed walls of the espresso bar were open so that the customers could enjoy the sights and sounds of the colorful alley. From her vantage point, Olivia surveyed the terrain through a pair of darkly tinted sunglasses crafted with her regular prescription.
    She was not completely satisfied with her disguise, but she told herself it would have to do. There had been little time to come up with anything really clever. Less than an hour, in fact. The blackmailer's note had been very specific. A missed payment meant that the price would double next time.
    The Market swarmed with the usual mix of tourists in search of souvenirs and cold-smoked salmon, office workers in search of quick lunches, and street musicians in search of an audience. In addition to the customary assortment of characters, Olivia thought, there was also one extremely amateur sleuth in search of a blackmailer.
    The project seemed simple enough. Optimism rose within her. How hard could it be to keep an eye on the small yellow paper bag Zara had left on the edge of the large planter?
    The planter, itself, was about thirty feet away on the opposite side of a busy courtyard. It stood near the