Zinnia

'What?'

'My father's letter clearly says that six men were due to leave in the morning, remember?'

'Yes.' Zinnia drew a deep breath. 'But DeForest said there were only five.'

'I know. I've been assuming that DeForest got the number wrong just like he got so much else wrong. I figured he took a guess. My father's previous two teams had each consisted of five men including himself. But what if old Demented was right for once in his life? What if only five men were scheduled to be on the team but at the last minute a sixth was added?'

'That would mean that whoever murdered Bartholomew Chastain and the other four men was a member of the expedition,' Zinnia whispered.

'Yes. And when the killer returned, he tried to rewrite history. Anyone who can destroy records so thoroughly is capable of planting a few false ones.'

'Why would your father have accepted a last-minute addition to the team?' Zinnia asked. 'You said he always insisted on experienced jungle men. If he only wanted five and he had those five, why take on a sixth?'

Nick's smile was slow and infinitely cold. 'I don't know. But I can take a guess. He may have had to accept the sixth man if that man was the one who had underwritten the entire expedition.'

'But the university officials would have known about the sixth man. They would have known that he went out on the expedition.' Zinnia waved her hands, exasperated with circles within circles. 'Good lord, if that was the case, their records would show that there was an expedition. Instead, they show that it was canceled.'

Nick shook his head. 'If the sixth man was a paranoid matrix-talent who never told the university officials that he intended to join the team, it would all fit.'

Zinnia breathed deeply. 'A paranoid matrix?'

'I agree with you. This entire affair has the fingerprints of a matrix all over it,' Nick said softly. 'A matrix who undoubtedly knew or suspected that my father was also a matrix.'

'And didn't trust him?'

'Right.'

Zinnia thought that through. 'Talk about conspiracy theories. If what you're saying is correct, then whoever funded the Third Expedition was also part of it.'

'He was there when my father made his discovery, whatever it was. He understood the significance of it. After he killed my father and the other four men, he took the journal. When he returned, he concealed the records of his own involvement so that there was no way he could be traced to the expedition. And then he systematically erased all documents relating to the venture.'

'Nick, hang on here. You're going too fast for me. If the killer has had the journal safely hidden for the past thirty-five years, why would the rumors about it have suddenly started up in the past few months?'

'From what I know of the rare-book trade,' Nick said, 'I'd guess that the journal may have been lost or stolen recently. It was resold to that collector in New Portland who then died.'

'And poor Morris Fenwick came across it in the estate sale.'

'I told you that whoever searched Morris's shop the other night was not actually looking for anything,' Nick said. 'There was no pattern to the way the place had been torn apart.'

'Which meant that the killer knew the journal was not there. He just wanted the police to think Morris had been murdered for drug money.'

Nick nodded slowly. 'The murderer had already commissioned a fake journal from Alfred Wilkes. He planted it so that Polly and Omar would find it and sell it to me. He wanted to put me off the scent.'

Zinnia wrapped her hands around her damp iced coff-tea glass. 'Whoever he is, he must not have realized that you're a high-class matrix.'

'Maybe he thought he could fool me, even if I was a matrix.'

'Very arrogant of him. But, then, this entire plan is breathtakingly arrogant.'

'Yes.'

'Nick, are you sure about all these conclusions? This is a very heavy-duty conspiracy theory, even for a matrix-talent like you.'

'I'm as certain as I can be without hard proof. I have to find out who financed my father's last expedition.'

'Thirty-five years have gone by,' Zinnia said gently. 'And the records have been destroyed.'

Nick's eyes burned with a fierce light. 'Even a matrix-talent would have a hard time getting rid of every single clerk, accountant, and secretary who worked in the budget offices of a large university thirty-five years ago.'

Zinnia frowned. 'I see what you mean. There must be a few left who would recall the source of the funds for the Third Expedition. Probably retired by now, though.'

'We can trace them through their pensions. I'll have Feather make some calls this afternoon.'

Zinnia smiled. 'You're incredible.'

'Is that a compliment or an accusation?'

'Never mind. What do I get to contribute to this new plan?'

'You've made your contribution.' Nick picked up her hand and brushed his lips across her palm. 'You are my inspiration. If it weren't for you, I would never have been able to put it all together so clearly and quickly.'

She thought he was teasing her, but when she met his eyes she realized that he was deadly serious.

'Thanks,' she muttered, 'but I have higher aspirations. Being your inspiration just isn't enough for an overachiever like me.'

'What do you want to do?'

Zinnia leaned back in her chair. 'Why don't I talk to Professor DeForest again? Maybe he'll have some other interesting tidbits that you've discounted.'

'Waste of time. The guy's got more than one screw loose.' Nick reached for the phone that sat on a small table near a lounger.

'What are you going to do now?'

'Tell Feather to start looking for retirees from the University of New Portland's budget office.'

'And when you've finished that?'

He gave her a sidelong glance that held a new kind of speculation. 'I thought we could go for a swim.'

'I don't have a suit.'

'There's one in the cabana. Red. You can change while I'm giving instructions to Feather.'

Chapter 19

The hot red swimsuit fit perfectly.

Naturally.

One of the really annoying things about matrix-talents was that they had a knack for estimating the distance, length, height, or width of just about anything. Show them a diagram of a complex multidimensional mathematical figure and they could quickly tell you the approximate angles of every intersecting line and the volumes of each defined space. Show them a woman and they could estimate her bra size.

Zinnia figured Nick probably had the coordinates of her measurements plotted on a matrix that he had stored somewhere in his very different brain. She wondered wistfully if he studied it occasionally when he was alone at night. Matrix masturbation was no doubt an interesting phenomena.

It was too bad that matrix-talents were not as good at personal relationships as they were with the spatial kind, she thought.

She walked to the edge of the pool and sat down.

For a few minutes she watched Nick do laps. She marveled that he did not cause the water to boil as he sliced through it. The energy he was radiating was palpable.

The sleek muscles of his shoulders glistened wetly. His powerful strokes propelled him forward with the lethal grace of a marauding shark-cuda. He had been raised in the Western Islands, Zinnia reminded herself. He had learned to swim in treacherous seas, not in a safe backyard swimming pool.

Midway through a lap Nick changed course and swam to meet her. When he reached the side, he braced