CYCLE B  |  Book 3

FOnt of Omens

PREVIEW | Font of Omens

Alan Barrington was becoming aware, yet again, that practising corporate law can be aggravating.  Right now the source of his aggravation was his  headstrong and perplexing client, Dag Tanager.  Just a short while ago, Alan was confident that the problem had been dealt with.  Kari LaMarca had produced an excellent report.  It set forth the little she had learned about Gina Vasari's biography of the explorer Samuel Hearne.  It contained a guess as to why the biography had not been completed.  And, most importantly, it stated that more investigative work could not be justified given the costs.  

To Alan's chagrin, Dag Tanager was about to reject this excellent recommendation.  Alan's very able personal assistant, Cheroxie, had become Kari's good friend, and she told him that Miss LaMarca, encouraged by Dag Tanager, would soon resume her investigation, continuing where she left off.  What was even more concerning, for Alan, was Cheroxie's statement that Ms. LaMarca now had an agenda of her own.  She wanted to solve what she had taken to calling "the Gina mysteries."

Alan's fear was that the young woman would start meddling in police business: she'd try to identify Gina Vasari's killer.  The tabloids enjoyed reporting that the murder had been a case of sadomasochistic sex taken to its ultimate gruesome conclusion.  These tabloid accounts enraged Ms. LaMarca.  She maintained that Dr. Vasari's sex life, at least during the year before her death, she'd been celibate.

Cheroxie, unhelpfully, could not predict Kari's next moves.  However, she did say that Kari's actions were being closely followed by Malory Ballantyne, a man Ms. LaMarca had some sort of relationship with.  Cheroxie said that the relationship was a mystery that she herself would like to solve.

Alan's fears are realized soon enough.  Ms. LaMarca indeed targets a possible killer.  Not only that, she begins to strip way Gina Vasari's cover, one that the woman had deliberately designed so as to hide her past and also her complex psychology.

Where will these disturbing inquires take the tenacious young woman?  Alan cannot say.  He can only try to steer them.