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the keyboard in front of him.
    "He hasn't got a mother," Larry muttered, hunching over his own keyboard.
    "That's an interesting notion." Guinevere grinned across the room at Liz. "Are they hatching programmers directly out of computers these days?"
    Larry glared at her. "You know what I mean. His folks are dead. He hasn't got any close relatives."
    Liz made a notation on the printout she was studying. "Unless you count the rather unnatural relationship he has with his home computer."
    "For Christ's sake, Liz, will you stop making a joke out of it?"
    Liz tossed Guinevere a meaningful glance.
    Jackson made a valiant effort to change the topic. "Looks like the snow in the mountains is going to be late this year. Here I am sitting on a new pair of skis, and the resorts are saying they won't be able to open until December."
    Everyone took the hint and stopped discussing Cal Bender.
    It was difficult to concentrate on the detailed work of data entry while mulling over her own problems, and Guinevere didn't make much progress on the latter. The shock of finding herself blackmailed back into StarrTech had faded, and with her customary forthrightness she was facing reality.
    Several major problems loomed on the horizon. The first was her concern over whether the Frog would keep his end of the deal. He had promised her absolute silence on the matter of her computer tampering. For some odd reason she was inclined to think he'd stick by the bargain. Her short acquaintance with Zachariah Justis had left her with a strange conviction that he would keep his word. There was something about the man that seemed solid and dependable.
    But what about Russ Elfstrom? What sort of relationship did the Elf have with Zachariah Justis? Apparently Zac was sure enough of the friendship to guarantee his friend's silence in addition to his own. And Elfstrom had said nothing about the $2,000 drain on the benefits program this morning when she'd reported to work. That had surprised Guinevere. It made her realize that there must be an unusually strong bond between Elfstrom and Zac. She wondered what lay at the bottom of the association.
    For some reason she didn't quite see the Frog and the Elf as lifelong friends.
    The other factor that had her really worried was the problem of what would happen when Zac learned that Guinevere was probably going to be useless as a spy. She was certain that even if there was something highly illegal going on in this department, she wasn't likely to discover what it was.
    After that her list of problems went downhill rapidly. There was the issue of how to handle Carla, keeping the Camelot Services office staffed while the boss was working at StarrTech, and, last but not least, dealing with Zac Justis.
    She had been startled when he'd informed her that he was going to pose as her "significant relationship" during the course of her investigation.
    "What's that mean?" she'd demanded warily.
    "Guess."
    "Oh, hell," Guinevere remembered saying. That had been last night, when he'd briefed her on the assignment. Today she had to admit the cover did make it easy to meet with him whenever it was required.
    What she didn't like was the uneasy feeling it gave her to think of Zac Justis in terms of a lover even when the entire scene was a sham. There was something infinitely disturbing about the thought of kissing a frog.
    In certain historical instances women had been shocked to learn there was no prince beneath the froggy exterior. Guinevere didn't like surprises.
     

Chapter Three
     
    The small tavern just off First Avenue had been designed to appeal to the crowd that worked in the neighboring government offices and financial institutions. It styled itself a pub, offered an interesting selection of locally brewed ales as well as the imported kind, and featured a great deal of furniture that appeared to have been rescued from a 1930s yard sale. It was the younger, lower-level, but still upwardly mobile types who came in here after