expansion of his company. When he releases his new generation of software, he'll probably triple his bottom line. I have a feeling that Aunt Willy, Uncle Stanley, and the others will soon start hinting that it's as easy to fall in love with a wealthy man as it is a poor one.'
'So what?' Zinnia flipped through some bills and a couple of catalogs. 'If they get pushy, I'll play my ace card.'
'Yeah, yeah, I know.' Leo's voice took on a comically pathetic, melodramatic whine. 'You would never dream of contracting an unmatched marriage and the best agency in town, Synergistic Connections, declared you to be unmatchable.'
'You got it,' she retorted cheerfully. 'Statistically improbable, but it does happen. Hey, what can you do?'
'Take it from me, Zin, your unmatchable status won't stop Aunt Willy and the gang.'
'How could the members of my very own family even dream of asking me to risk an unmatched marriage?' Zinnia smiled to herself as she reached for the letter opener. 'Besides, what decent, sensible man would want to marry a woman who has been declared unmatchable?'
'You know what I think?' Leo retorted. 'I think you secretly like the fact that the agency said it couldn't find you a match.'
'How can you possibly suggest such a thing?' Zinnia slit open an envelope and found another bill inside. 'Being declared unmatchable is a fate worse than death. Everyone knows that.'
'Except you, apparently.'
Zinnia smiled to herself. Four years earlier, shortly before her parents had been lost at sea, she had thought she might be falling in love. His name had been Sterling Dean, He had been a handsome vice-president at Spring Industries and it had seemed to Zinnia that they had a lot in common. They had both registered at Synergistic Connections to confirm that their mutual choice was a good one.
To everyone's amazement and the acute dismay of the syn-psych counselor, Zinnia had emerged from the testing process with the dubious distinction of being one of an extremely small number of people declared to be unmatchable. Something to do with her paranormal psychological profile, the experts said. She was different in some subtle ways that made it impossible to successfully match her with Sterling Dean or anyone else who was listed on the registry at that time.
Zinnia had not even begun to adjust to the shock of being told that she might never marry when the news of her parents' deaths had arrived. After that, she'd been too busy dealing with grief, the crumbling Spring empire and the family's future to worry about her official status as an eternal spinster.
Family and friends who had learned about her agency results viewed her with mingled shock, fascination, and pity. But lately Zinnia had begun to see distinct advantages in her situation. In a society where enormous pressure was applied to everyone to marry, she had a free pass.
The conventional wisdom was that what she actually possessed was a ticket to loneliness, but she did not spend much time thinking about it these days. She was too busy trying to make a living.
'Aunt Willy says you told her that you enjoy Luttrell's company and that he's got a nice sense of humor,' Leo pointed out.
'I do and he does.' She did not add that a week ago Duncan had gone so far as to hint that he might be open to the notion of a non-agency marriage.
Duncan was the president of Synlce, a high-profile computer firm. He had introduced himself to Zinnia six weeks ago at an art exhibition. They had fallen into conversation when they had found themselves standing, equally baffled, in front of a painting from the Neo-Second Generation school. They had each taken a long look at the meaningless blobs of paint, caught each other's eye, and immediately succumbed to laughter.
They had promptly adjourned to the museum cafe to share a cup of coff-tea and a conversation about art.
When Duncan had phoned a few days later to invite her to the theater, she had accepted. Aunt Willy had gone into ecstasy. Zinnia was well aware that visions of recouping the family fortunes through marriage were dancing in the heads of her nearest and dearest.
'You're always saying how important a sense of humor is in a man,' Leo reminded her.
'Absolutely crucial,' she assured him. 'After growing up with Dad, how could I live with anyone who didn't know how to laugh?'
'I know. As a businessman, Dad was a complete washout, but he was a great father. I still miss him and Mom, Zin.'
'Me, too.' A pang of wistfulness went through Zinnia as she recalled her father's robust zest for life.
Edward Spring had been a great-hearted man of huge enthusiasms. His wife, Genevieve, had shared her husband's boundless optimism and gentle nature. Zinnia and Leo had grown up in a home that had been filled with warmth and laughter. Unfortunately, neither of their parents had had a head for business. Under Edward and Genevieve's management, Spring Industries had been driven straight into the ground.
'I guess it's just as well that you're not carrying a torch for Luttrell,' Leo said. 'The tabloids as good as implied that you're Nick Chastain's mistress.'
'It will be old news by tomorrow,' Zinnia assured him. She picked up a pen and fiddled with it. 'The Spring name doesn't have the interest level that it did a year and a half ago.'
'Maybe not, but Chastain's name will sure sell newspapers.'
She tossed aside the pen and sat forward. 'You know what's really maddening about this whole situation?'
'Yeah. The fact that the papers are trying to slice and dice your reputation again.'
'No, it's that everyone seems to have forgotten that poor Morris Fenwick was murdered last night.'
'Unfortunately, Chastain is a lot more interesting than Morris Fenwick,' Leo said. 'And so are you, for that matter.'
'It's not right. The newspapers and everyone else should be focused on finding Fenwick's killer.'
'The cops will get him,' Leo said off-handedly. 'Whoever it was will probably be picked up in a drug bust sooner or later.'
'Maybe.' Zinnia hesitated. 'Leo, if I wanted to consult an expert in the Western Seas expeditions, especially one that was conducted about thirty-five years ago, who would I see?'
'Any particular expedition?'
'Yes. Don't laugh, but I'd like to find out more about the Third Chastain Expedition.'
'The Third?' Leo laughed. 'You're kidding. That's just an old fairy tale. It never even took place. The university that sponsored it had to cancel the venture at the last minute. Seems the expedition master walked off into a jungle and committed suicide a few days before the team was scheduled to set out.'
'Was his body ever found?'
'No. We're talking about a jungle, Zinnia. You don't usually find bodies in jungles unless you know exactly where to look. And I guess no one did in this case.'
'There's the DeForest theory about the fate of the Third,' Zinnia reminded him tentatively. 'It came out several years ago.'
Leo gave a snort of laughter. 'Yeah. And the only place that it got published was in the tabloids. No real scholar would even give it the time of day. Demented DeForest's crackpot story about aliens abducting an expedition team was a tremendous embarrassment to the University of New Seattle. It cost him tenure and his job.'
'Demented DeForest?' Zinnia repeated.
'That's what they call him in serious academic circles. I think his first name is Newton or something. He was a professor in the Department of Synergistic Historical Analysis until he went off the deep end and started writing about aliens and lost expeditions.'
'Are you telling me that there are no experts on the Third Chastain Expedition that I can contact?'
'None. Like I said, there was no Third.'
'But what about Bartholomew Chastain? He existed. He supposedly kept a journal. Morris thought he'd discovered it.'
'Oh, sure, Chastain was for real and his first two expeditions were highly successful. He probably did leave some journals of his early trips. Professional explorers always keep diaries of some kind. But there couldn't have
