Flash

the same buttery shade of yellow-gold as the art glass bowl that sat in the center of the coffee table.
    Olivia sank down in the chair across from him and tucked one leg under her thigh. She took a sip of wine and then nodded toward an envelope that lay on the mosaic table.
    "Take a look at that," she said quietly.
    "I'm not really into the mysterious approach." He did not pick up the envelope. Instead he took a swallow of the chardonnay. It was good, just as he'd anticipated. Lush and mouth-filling. It made him wonder what it would be like to kiss Olivia. "I like to do things in a logical progression."
    "All right, we'll do it your way. Where do you want to start?"
    "Why don't you begin by telling me why you were trying to hide behind an old hat and a pair of shades at the Market this afternoon? Then I'll open the envelope."
    She shrugged. "I was trying to identify the person who is blackmailing my aunt."
    Jasper stilled. He realized he had been braced for a completely different kind of admission. He had expected to be told that she had gone to the Market to meet someone, a married lover, perhaps, who had been scared off by Jasper's appearance on the scene.
    The relief that surged through him was totally inappropriate to the situation, he told himself. But it sure felt good.
    He did not take his eyes off Olivia's face. "Explain."
    "When I returned from your office this morning I found Zara, in tears. She told me she'd found a blackmail note on the front seat of her car that morning. The instructions ordered her to leave five hundred dollars in a paper bag on a planter in the Pike Place Market"
    "This is for real?"
    "You think I'd make up something as nasty as this?"
    Jasper went cold to the bone as he put the rest of the tale together. "You went to the Market to see if you could spot the blackmailer when he picked up the money." He shut his eyes. "Shit."
    "It seemed like a perfectly reasonable move to me." She sounded offended.
    He opened his eyes and stared at her. "You and I obviously have two different definitions of the word
reasonable
. Let's go back to the beginning. Why is your aunt being blackmailed?"
    Olivia's mouth tightened. "It's a personal matter."
    "Of course it is." He forced himself to exert some patience. "Blackmail is always a personal matter. If it wasn't personal, there would be no threat. I need to know why your aunt was willing to pay for someone's silence."
    She frowned warily. "Why do you need to know the details?"
    "I always gather as much information as possible before I act. It's the way I work"
    "You sound just like Uncle Rollie," she muttered. "I suppose your basement is full of file cabinets, too?"
    He had a brief, mental image of the row of black metal cabinets that lined one wall of his Bainbridge Island basement. He told himself he would rise above the goad.
    "Olivia, the fact that you've gone so far as to say the word
blackmail
means that, for some reason, you now consider me to be involved in this."
    She groaned. "Unfortunately, you are. Sort of."
    "If I'm in it, I have a right to all the details."
    She contemplated him for a moment. He thought at first that she would continue to be stubborn for a while longer. But she proved to be as smart as he had believed she was.
    "Okay." She exhaled slowly. "I guess you've got a point."
    "I'm listening."
    "What I'm about to tell you was news to me, too. I was aware of Aunt Zara's long career in television soaps, of course. But today I found out for the first time that before she got the role of Sybil on
Crystal Cove
, she, uh, had another job in the industry."
    "X-rated films?"
    Olivia's eyes widened. "How on earth did you know that?"
    "It seemed sort of obvious, given the direction you were already going."
    "I see." She frowned. "You're right. Given her career and the blackmail threat, the conclusion is rather obvious, isn't it? I'll cut to the chase. Someone has learned about Zara's past and has threatened to expose it."
    "Why the hell does she care? She's retired."
    Olivia glared at him. "You don't understand. Zara is very proud of her career in the soaps. In her day, she was quite popular. She still gets fan mail asking for autographs. The tabloids call once in a while to interview her for their what-are-they-doing-now columns."
    Jasper put down his glass. "Let me get this straight. Your aunt, the ex-soap queen, is afraid she'll be humiliated if word gets out that she once did porno flicks?"
    "She's very conscious of the fact that her old