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Chapter 27

THE TREK THROUGH THE RAIN FOREST TO THE NEAREST official Guild-sanctioned gate took several hours because of the rough terrain. Fontana knew that he could have made it in half the time, but Sierra was a novice in the jungle. She was healthy and in excellent condition, but she lacked training and experience.

"You know, this would have been a lot easier and faster if we could have used the sled," she said at one point. "Maybe the Guild should consider putting some roads in down here."

"That was tried." He used the heavy steel blade to hack through a maze of vines. "Lasted about three days."

"What happened to it?"

"The jungle reclaimed it. Most of it was gone within twenty-four hours. By the third day you couldn't even tell where the construction crew had cleared the path, let alone see any signs of pavement. The only way we can keep the clearings around the official gates is by maintaining them every day."

"You mean stuff down here grows that quickly?"

"Yes, but only under certain conditions. The vegetation recovers fast when you try to destroy some portion of the landscape, but otherwise everything down here remains in balance."

He heard a muffled thud.

"Ooomph," Sierra said.

He turned and saw her sprawled facedown on a mass of vines. Elvis scuttled around her, cooing anxiously.

She looked up with a mournful expression. "Remind me to cross jungle exploration off my list of possible future career paths."

He walked back a few steps and helped her to her feet. "You've got a list of career paths?"

"When you come from an overachieving family, you're expected to have a career path early on. Like from about age ten. I'm still looking for mine."

"Ten is a little young to be making that kind of decision isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said sweetly. "When did you decide to join the Guild?"

He scooped up Elvis, stepped over a fallen log, and moved forward again. "At the age of eight on my first day as a Hunter Scout."

She laughed. "And now you're running the Crystal organization. See? You've been focused for years, just like the others in my family. Me, I'm still trying to decide what I want to do with my life."

"What have you tried besides journalism?"

"Well, there was a stint as a sales consultant in an art gallery. I enjoyed that quite a lot for a while."

"What happened?"

"Turns out I don't have a keen eye for modern art. Ever heard of Adam Bollinger?"

"Sounds vaguely familiar."

"He's famous for his life-sized sculptures of what he calls contemporary artifacts. His work forces us to confront the intrinsic shallowness of reality."

"And?"

"And when I arrived at the gallery one day, his new sculpture of a city garbage can had just been delivered and uncrated. It was still sitting on the sidewalk out front. I mistook it for a real garbage can and threw an empty coffee cup and a used tissue into it. Unfortunately, Adam Bollinger happened to be standing just inside the gallery doorway, supervising the unpacking of his piece. He saw me abuse his sculpture. The next thing I knew, I was looking for another position."

He hid a smile. "What was that?"

"I became a hotel concierge for a while."

"I take it that came to a bad end, too?"

"Let's just say that I learned a valuable lesson. When the CEO of a major corporation checks in and asks to have a private anniversary celebration arranged in his suite, it is not a good idea to assume that it is the anniversary of his Covenant Marriage with his wife that he intends to celebrate."

"The anniversary was with the mistress?"

"Uh-huh."

"What happened?"

"The real wife showed up with the private investigator she had hired to tail her husband. There was a dreadful scene. The CEO was furious with me because he believed I'd tipped off his wife. The upshot was that the wife filed for divorce."

He whistled softly. "Was it granted?"

Divorce was rare, and it could be ruinously expensive, but adultery was one of the few grounds available to a couple that wanted to separate legally. Those grounds were allowed, however, only if all of the offspring of the union were eighteen years of age or older.

"The divorce was granted, yes, but it was very messy," Sierra said.

"Aren't they all?"

"Yes, but in this case the husband owned a high-flying computer company. The wife went after half the business. In the course of the trial it turned out that the firm was in bad shape financially. In the end, it went bankrupt."

He shoved aside a massive leaf. Something resonated somewhere in his brain. He had to fight not to grin.

"Are you talking about the Rensenbrier divorce?" he asked.

"You know about it?"

"It was in the papers for weeks. Not just the tabloids, either. The business papers carried it as front-page news. I dumped my shares as soon as I heard the rumors, but I still took a hell of a hit."

There was an odd silence behind him. His amusement vanished. Grimly he tightened his grip on the emergency kit. He knew what was coming.

"You owned shares in Rensenbrier, Inc.?" she finally asked neutrally.

"Probably comes as a shock to find out that a Guild man occasionally thinks about things like long-term investments," he said.

"Don't you dare imply that I was questioning your financial sophistication." Temper crackled in her voice. "That's not what I meant. I was just a little surprised to hear that you owned shares in Rensenbrier, that's all."

"Why?"

She sighed. "Because most people who owned the stock get mad at me when they find out that I was sort of involved in the downfall of the company. You weren't the only one who lost money."

He stopped and turned around again. She looked miserable. Sexy as hell with his shirt falling off her shoulders and her nipples forming interesting little bumps in the fabric, but miserable. His irritation evaporated.

"You weren't involved," he said. "You were an innocent bystander. The company didn't crash because of the divorce. It was doomed when it came out in open court that Rensenbrier had been cooking the firm's books."

"Some people feel that if the divorce had never happened, the company's problems would not have been exposed, and they might have been able to bail before things went sour. Rensenbrier himself still insists that he could have saved the business if his reputation hadn't been smeared in court."

"Ghost shit. Rensenbrier was a house of cards just waiting to fall down. It was only a matter of time."

"That's what Dad said. The thing is, a lot of investors back in Resonance got the impression that I'd had a hand in the disaster. Gossip travels fast in business circles."

He searched her face. "Is that the reason you decided to move to Crystal?"

"Yes. I wanted to start over in a place where nobody knew me."

"So you came to a strange town where no one knows anything about you, and you proceed to do a series of exposés on the local Guild. You drag the corrupt chief right onto the front page of a tabloid newspaper. After he's out of the way, you marry the new Guild boss." He nodded. "That's the way to stay anonymous, all right."

She flushed. "Okay, so my plan didn't work out exactly as I'd intended. The thing is, after I met Jake and some of the other hunters in the Quarter and heard about the missing men, I had to do something. I couldn't ignore them. I felt like I'd found my calling at last."

He pushed through a heavy mass of leaves. "I knew it. A natural-born do-gooder."

"Hey, I resent that—"

He stopped. "Hush," he said quietly.

"Don't you hush me, Fontana." Then she, too, heard the voices in the distance. "The gate?"

"Almost there," he said.

He climbed up onto some exposed tree roots that were as thick as a man's body, pushed aside a monstrous, cup-shaped leaf, and saw the gate. It was wide open, revealing the glowing green quartz catacombs beyond. A large number of people were clustered around the entrance. They didn't look like the usual gaggle of explorers, archaeologists, biologists, and researchers that accompanied routine expeditions.

Most of the entire membership of the Guild appeared to be present in the clearing. The hunters were all dressed in jungle gear. Some milled about, waiting. Others unloaded equipment from two large sleds.

The man in charge turned to one of the hunters.

"Tell those damn reporters to get out of the way, or I'm going to let the next sled run right over them," Ray said in a voice that was meant to carry across the clearing.

"Yes, sir," the man replied.

Sierra clambered up onto the low mound of roots and surveyed the scene. "What's going on?"

"I think we'll be on the front page again tomorrow morning."

"What in the world?" Understanding lit her eyes. "They're getting ready to send out a search-and-rescue team. For us?"

"Touching, isn't it?" He jumped down from the roots and reached up to give her a hand. "Let's go tell them that they really don't need to go to all that trouble."

He gave Elvis to her, took her hand, and started toward the busy gate. One of the hunters unloading a sled saw them first. A shout went up. Then the reporters and photographers realized what was happening. They poured through the gate in a wave.

"Sierra," Matt Delaney yelled. "Are you okay?"

Kay waved madly. "Don't say a word until we get back to the newsroom," she shouted. "This is a Curtain exclusive."

"The hell it is," a man in a sports coat and a very bad tie surged out of the pack. "When the Guild boss and his wife go missing, it's everybody's story."

"That's what you think," Kay shot back. She seized his coattails as he went past. "The wife in this case is a Curtain reporter. Get out of my way."

Somehow Kay's oversized tote connected with the other journalist's midsection. He grunted, staggered, and fell back a couple of steps. Kay rushed forward.

"Over here, Sierra," she yelled. "It's me, Kay."

Phil separated himself from the crowd. He bounded over a stack of supplies and equipment, camera aimed. "Do me a favor, Sierra. Undo another couple of buttons."

"Look," Sierra said. Her smile was a little misty. "Even Mr. Runtley is here. That is so sweet."

A moment later they were surrounded by the reporters. Leaving Sierra to fend for herself, Fontana pushed through the mob, delivering only a few clipped comments en route. Eventually he fought his way to where Ray stood, lounging against the side of a sled.

Ray folded his arms and grinned. "Should have known you'd pull off another chapter to add to the Fontana legend. You two okay?"

"We're fine. I'll be right back."

He walked to where the small army of hunters stood watching him and talking among themselves. They quieted when he approached.

"Thanks for coming out today, gentlemen," he said, shaking each hand in turn. "My wife and I appreciate it. Sorry to put you to the trouble."

The men grinned.

"Fontana's First Rule, sir," one of them said. "Never leave a man behind for ghost bait."

He stood and talked with them for a few minutes, and then he went back to Ray.

"What made you and everyone else think we'd disappeared into the jungle?" he asked.

"Your frequency didn't show up on the locaters. Figured the only other place you could be was in the rain forest." Ray paused. "I assume you know about the fire?"

"Yes. Anything left?"

"Not much. But the antiquities in the gallery are fine. Nothing can damage quartz and dreamstone. I've got a few men on guard at the scene to make sure nothing gets stolen until the relics can be recovered. The ashes are still too hot to search. The cops said someone used one hell of an accelerant."

"How did you know we went underground?"

"The authorities assume they'll be looking for two bodies in the ashes. But I figured that if you'd had any warning at all, you would have used your hole-in-the-wall. I asked for volunteers." He angled his head toward the group of hunters. "Every damn Guild man showed up. You're a popular guy. The ones you don't see here are either on assignment and didn't get the word or keeping watch over what's left of the mansion. What the hell happened?"

"Almost got abducted by aliens." Ray nodded. "Knew it would be a good story."