Read Krysalis: Krysalis for Free Online

rather a long time.” Her voice sounded artificially bright in his ears, like that of a bereavedwidow preparing to say, “Won’t you come back to the house after the service …?”
    “I’ve been terribly busy,” he confessed. “And—”
    “No apologies. Not today. But June said you’d been working, are you sure I’m not in the way?”
    “Of course not. Relax.”
    “Oh dear. Now you’ll be categorizing my insecurities again.” She surprised him by raising a hand in the solemn gesture of one who intends to take an oath. “Freud said … or are you Jung? I never could remember.”
    “I’m Pisces, actually.”
    “Two fish swimming in opposite directions, how appropriate.”
    And they laughed, glad to find the spell broken, although, yes, of course she knew he was Pisces, and what’s more, Gerhard knew that she knew; his birthday fell on March 3. There were some things Anna would inevitably transfer from one year’s diary to the next, no matter how redundant they might seem to her, and that indisputably was one of them.
    “What’s been happening?” He tried to sound, in his own word of yesterday, concerned.
He had to win back her confidence!
But there were other, less tractable factors at work. He had not been prepared for the reality of her loveliness, her subtle charm; he had forgotten how much he had loved Anna, once. Yet now his duty was to manipulate her, bend her to his will, and he found himself loathing the necessity.
    “When we spoke, I sensed a regression,” he said quickly. “We seem to have lost some ground.”
    “Ah,
we
do, do we?” Anna made a rueful face. “Yes. You’re right. Give me, us, give
we
a drink, will you?”
    “Good idea. Wait a moment …”
    He retreated to a small kitchen at the back of the room, leaving the door ajar. The adrenaline was flowing now. The prospect of imminent action buoyed him up, which was as well, because if he failed, Barzel would ruin him. Nothing,
nothing
short of the prospect of imminent ruin could have induced Kleist to tangle with this woman’s psyche again.
    “What’s the holdup on the galleon?” he heard Anna call. “You’re still stuck on the rigging.”
    “Time. The enemy of everything.”
    Gerhard took three deep breaths in succession, holding the last one as long as he could, then carried in a tray on which stood two flute glasses and a bottle of Laurent-Perrier’s Ultra Brut. He poured two frothy glasses, allowing them to settle a moment before he touched Anna on the shoulder. “Here …”
    “You’re like an elephant, you know that? You never forget.”
    “Of course not.”
    “I hardly ever drink Laurent-Perrier now.”
    Gerhard smiled, raised his glass. She was inclined to be sentimental today, he saw that at once. Well, the champagne would help that. “Here’s to you.”
    “And to you. To your perfect taste. As always.”
    She sat on the special posture chair he used, the one with no back. For a moment he watched her rock to and fro while he read the evidence and tried to analyze it. Then he said, “How far down have you gone?”
    “What do you think?”
    “A long way.”
    “No.” Anna tossed her head, sweeping strands of hair out of her eyes, and knocked back the drink. “Things have been getting on top of me, that’s all.”
    “At work?”
    “At work, yes. And …” She heaved a long sigh. “Juliet’s being tiresome.”
    “In the usual way?”
    “Yes.”
    So Anna had problems. Good!
“How many times do I have to tell you? The fact that someone happens to be your child—”
    “Doesn’t guarantee she’ll turn into a wonderful human being. I know. She’s just so difficult.”
    “Some people are. It’s almost certainly a phase she’s going through.” Yes, he thought, reassure her. Our old roles, nothing has changed.
Trust me, Anna.
Help me to help myself. “Adolescence is such a bore, especially for the adolescent.”
    “Especially for those around her, you mean.”
    “She’ll grow out of