what the hell I can do about it, but I'll think of something.'
Zinnia smiled wryly. 'Thanks, Clementine, but I really don't think there's any need to worry about Mr. Chastain. My biggest problem at the moment is my family.'
'Hey, everybody's biggest problem is family,' Byron said cheerfully.
Chapter 6
'Zin? Are you there? It's me, Leo, I just saw the papers. Talk to me, big sister. What's going on? Are you really seeing that Chastain guy? Aunt Willy and Uncle Stanley are having fits and cousin Maribeth is making an appointment with a therapist. She says she can't take this kind of stress.'
Zinnia put down the letter she had been about to open and picked up the phone. 'Leo? I'm here. Hang on a second.' She stabbed various buttons in a random manner until the answering machine clicked off with a last beep of protest. 'Sorry about that. I've been screening my calls.'
'I don't blame you. Unfortunately when no one in the family could get hold of you, they all decided to call me. I had to go out and buy a paper to see what was happening with my own sister. What's this about you and the owner of Chastain's Palace finding a murdered man last night? I assume the reporters got everything screwed up, as usual?'
'Not entirely.' Zinnia leaned back in her chair and stared at the stack of mail that she had just started to open.
It was good to hear her brother's voice. Leo was the one person she could depend on to remain calm and rational in the face of a family crisis. He was in his senior year at the University of New Seattle. A class-nine psychometric-talent with an intuitive feel for the age and past history of old objects, he was majoring in Synergistic Historical Analysis.
As far as Zinnia was concerned, Leo was destined for a career in academia. He had a passion for his studies and she was certain that he would leave his mark on his field. The rest of the family was already starting to fret about that very possibility.
For four generations, the Spring fortunes had been firmly founded in the world of business. The bankruptcy which had followed the death of Edward Spring had stunned the family. Everyone except Zinnia was obsessed with the notion that Leo should assume the responsibility of rebuilding Spring Industries. Zinnia was determined to protect him from the mounting pressure.
'One of my focus clients was killed yesterday,' she explained. 'I found the body late last night. Mr. Chastain happened to be with me at the time. We both had to give statements to the police.'
'Chastain just happened to be there, huh? Somehow, I don't think that's going to wash with the family. This is your brother speaking, Zin. Tell me what's going on.'
'It's complicated. Mr. Chastain was involved in negotiations with my client, Morris Fenwick.' She gave Leo a quick summary of events. 'So, you see,' she concluded. 'We had a mutual interest in poor Morris.'
'Hmm.'
'What's that supposed to mean?'
'I'm not sure,' Leo admitted. 'But I think I understand why Aunt Willy and the others are in hysterics. Especially after what happened eighteen months ago when that bastard, Eaton, set you up to take the fall as his mistress.'
'I assure you, Nick Chastain and Rexford Eaton have absolutely nothing in common.'
That was nothing less than the truth, she thought. Rexford Eaton, patron of the arts, major contributor to the Founders' Values political party and all-around very-important person, had hired her to design new interiors for the Eaton estate.
At the time, she had been fervently grateful for the lucrative commission. The death of her parents, followed by the downfall of Spring Industries had put her and Leo in bad financial straits. The fortunes of the rest of the extended Spring family had gone down with the business so there was no one she could turn to for help.
She had poured all of her energy into building Zinnia Spring Interiors into a viable design firm. She had been thrilled when she had secured the Eaton project, not just because it paid well, but because it gave her an entree into the closed world of the high-end design market. She knew that if she satisfied the Batons, they would tell others in their exclusive circle.
But less than two weeks after she had begun work on the Eaton estate, she had found herself on the front page of Synsation as well as several other tabloids. When she saw the photo of herself emerging from a bedroom of the Eaton estate into a garden with Rexford Eaton at her side, she realized that she had been set up. No one believed that she and Eaton had been examining wallpaper samples inside that bedroom.
It had taken her a while to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together.
Rexford and his elegant wife, Bethany, had conspired to use her as a cover for the menage-a-trois affair that they had been conducting with Daria Gardener, a powerful politician in the Founders' Values political party.
Following the trail of rumors deliberately leaked by one of Gardener's political rivals, reporters had begun asking pointed questions. The Eatons and Daria Gardener had crafted a scheme to throw a chunk of raw meat to the wolf-dogs of the press in an effort to put them off the scent. Zinnia was the dish they had served up on a silver platter.
It had all gone off like clockwork. Bethany Eaton had staged a tastefully tearful scene as the wronged spouse when the tabloids portrayed Zinnia as her husband's mistress.
On the surface, it appeared to be just one more unfortunate tale of a philandering husband caught with his passing fancy who just happened to be the daughter of a once-prominent city-state family. No one suspected the three-way arrangement with Daria Gardener.
An affair was regrettable but survivable. A threesome involving one of the most prominent couples in society and an important politician, on the other hand, would have done serious damage to both the Eatons and Gardener. None of the three lovers would have made it through such a scandal unscathed.
In the end Zinnia was the only one who had been hurt. Daria Gardener was never once mentioned in the press. There was quiet sympathy for Bethany Eaton who bore up nobly. As for Rexford, most people just shook their heads when they read about his affair.
Straying husbands were not all that uncommon, especially among the elite where people were not always matched by an agency. It was an open secret that the very wealthy sometimes entered into marriages for reasons of property and money rather than with the goal of a happy, stable relationship. With divorce an impossibility, there had been no question but that the Eaton marriage would make it through the unpleasantness.
The whole thing had been forgotten by the press within three days.
But three days of sensationalistic journalism, it turned out, was long enough to cost Zinnia much of the design business that she had labored so hard to build after the fall of Spring Industries.
Three days had also been long enough to shred her own personal reputation. When she had finally accepted that she could not outrun the label of the 'Scarlet Lady,' she had defiantly adopted the color as her business trademark.
To her family's horror and chagrin, she now had a closet full of red. Coats, suits, pants, jackets, skirts, dresses, the garments spanned the red spectrum from bright vermilion to deep dark cherry-berry. There were some obvious limitations, Zinnia conceded, but on the positive side, accessorizing was a snap.
She had lost her shot at the exclusive high-end market after the scandal, but during the past eighteen months she had slowly begun to attract the attention of the up-and-coming entrepreneurial crowd. She was determined to hang on to her new market niche.
'Aunt Willy and cousin Maribeth are frothing at the mouth,' Leo said. 'I think their biggest fear is that Luttrell will cancel his next date with you.'
'Between you and me, it wouldn't break my heart. Duncan's a nice man and I enjoy his company but that's about as far as it goes.'
'You're forgetting the very high F factor here, Zin.'
'F factor?'
'Family factor,' Leo explained. 'Duncan Luttrell doubled his net worth overnight when he pulled off the recent
