Zinnia

'Luck has nothing to do with it.'

'Of course.' She managed a bright professional smile. 'Well, this is supposed to be a business dinner, so let's do some business, partner. I wanted to ask you how you knew for certain that the journal Polly and Omar sold you was a fraud.'

He eyed her thoughtfully for a long moment. 'I'll show you after we eat.' He walked to the picnic hamper and opened it.

She watched curiously as he spread a blanket on the floor and began to unpack a variety of tempting packages. He arranged a pate, a cold pasta salad, tiny sandwiches, fruit, and a tart on top of the hamper.

'I'm impressed.' She walked to the blanket and sat down, curling her legs beneath her gauzy dress. 'Did you make all this?'

'What do you think?' Nick lit the two jelly-ice candles that he had taken from the hamper.

Zinnia sampled a tiny sandwich and grinned. 'I think you hired an excellent chef.'

'The best. Rathbone. Formerly of the Founders' Club. He supervises the dining rooms at the Palace.'

'Lucky you.'

Nick looked up from pouring the wine. 'I keep telling you, luck is not a factor.'

'Spoken like a true matrix.'

Zinnia was amazed at how quickly the next hour slipped past. By the time she and Nick had polished off the outrageously expensive bottle of blue wine and eaten the last bit of the flaky pear-berry pastry, night had descended. The twin moons, Yakima and Chelan, rose above the horizon and cast a golden glow over the bay. The light of the two jelly-ice candles flickered warmly.

'Now I'll show you how I knew the journal was a fraud.' Nick pulled another package out of the hamper.

Zinnia recognized it. 'That's the fake that Polly and Omar sold to you.'

'Yes.' He unwrapped the brown paper and put the volume down on the blanket. Then he reached back into the hamper and removed a faded envelope.

'What's that?'

'The letter my father wrote to my mother the night before the Third Expedition left for uncharted territory.'

She stared at him with mingled disbelief and excitement. 'You've got a letter?'

'Yes. After Andy died I went through his old storeroom and found it. My mother must have hidden it there all those years ago before she left for Serendipity. I think she may have sensed that it was valuable. It refers to the fact that the expedition was preparing to leave on schedule. My father was looking forward to it. He was focused on the future. He was not talking of suicide.'

'My God, Nick. No wonder you've been so sure that the expedition actually took place. Why didn't you tell anyone?'

He looked up, his eyes very cold. 'Because someone went to a hell of a lot of trouble to make it appear that it didn't take place. Until I know why, I'm not going to reveal the existence of this letter. It's the only hard evidence I've got.'

She watched as Nick carefully, reverently unfolded the letter. It occurred to her that the handwritten note was probably the only link he had with his mother and father. Another wave of empathy went through her.

'I take it you did a handwriting analysis?' she asked, struggling to sound businesslike. Nick would not appreciate it if she started crying, she thought.

'Yes. With the aid of my talent. I have some control over it when I use it in short bursts.' He opened the journal and placed it next to the letter. 'Take a look.'

She peered at the bold firm handwriting on the first page of the journal and then glanced at the letter. 'It looks identical to me.'

'It's a very good forgery. But give me a prism and then take another look.'

Zinnia hesitated, remembering the strong sense of intimacy she experienced whenever she held the focus for him. But she'd heard that one of the side effects of focusing with a strong talent was that a prism could observe a small portion of what the talent sensed. She was just curious enough now to risk the connection.

'All right.' She braced herself.

She didn't have long to wait. Waves of power surged toward the prism she projected onto the metaphysical plane. They crashed through the glittering lens and emerged as controlled energy on the other side.

A feeling of intense intimacy swept through her. But it did not jolt her this time. It was becoming familiar, she thought. Comfortable. Right.

Not good.

'Ready?' Nick watched her face.

'Sure. Go ahead. Show me.' It annoyed her that he seemed oblivious to the personal nature of their link. Perhaps he felt nothing.

'Look at the handwriting on the letter,' Nick instructed.

She looked down at the note. The candlelight created intricate patterns of shadows as it illuminated the single sheet of paper.

My dearest Sally:

I'm writing this from Serendipity, our jumping-off point. The six of us leave at dawn. This is the last time I'll have a means of sending a letter until we return in three months. It's late but I can't sleep. I should be going over the details of our plans but I'm thinking of you, instead. I'll miss your laughter and your warmth and all that we have found together. You cannot know how important you are to me. When I'm with you, I am no longer alone. And now that I know you're carrying my baby, I feel as if I've finally found my future.

I wish you had not waited until the morning I left Port LaConner to tell me that you were pregnant. If you had let me know earlier we could have been married before this expedition. But in the end, it won't matter. I'll be back in three months and then we'll make it official.

You gave me more than you will ever know when you agreed to marry me. Spend the next three months planning the wedding. This will be my last expedition. When I return I want to settle down in the islands with my new family. In the meantime, know that you are my true love. I will keep you in my heart forever.

All my love, Bart

P.S.: Why do I get the feeling it will be a boy?

Zinnia blinked back tears.

'See the pattern of the words?' Nick said. 'The shapes of the letters?'

She forced herself to concentrate on the handwriting, not the poignant message of love. There was, indeed, a pattern to the words. A kind of internal rhythm that seemed quite clear now that she viewed it with the assistance of a matrix-talent. Each letter was a tiny work of art with unique nuances and characteristics. She would never have detected the subtle differences with normal vision.

'Yes,' she whispered. 'I see what you mean.'

'Now look at the journal.'

She read a few sentences.

. . . I have instructed Sanderford to keep his eye on the jelly-ice fuel capsules but I no longer trust him. He's careless. I'm starting to wonder if he's got a drug problem . . .

'See the differences?' Nick asked.

Zinnia studied the words more closely. 'Yes. There's a slight alteration in the rhythm or something.'

'The design is wrong. It's out of sync. Unbalanced. The connections aren't right.'

She could not see all those fine distinctions, but she did not doubt that Nick did. 'The differences could be explained by the fact that this is a journal entry, not a personal letter.'

Nick gave a decisive shake of his head. 'The individual letters would still look the same. Handwriting doesn't change.'

'No.' She took a closer look. The seepage of matrix-talent that she picked up through the focus link was sufficient to allow her to see the tiny differences between the writing in the journal and that in the letter. 'Something about the loops is off and the angle of the slant is not quite the same.'

'Exactly.' Without warning, Nick cut off the flow of talent. 'Without a prism to help me focus, it took me a lot longer to be certain that I was looking at a forgery. But there's no doubt about it.'