“Aha,” she said.
Harry glanced at her from the other side of the small room, where he was going through a desk. “Aha, what?”
“I see something.” Molly scrambled off the couch and tried to shove the massive relic away from the wall. It didn’t budge. “This sucker is heavy.”
“Hang on, I’ll give you a hand with that.” Harry crossed the room and took a firm grip on one arm of the couch. He shoved it away from the wall as easily as though it were made of cardboard.
Molly sidled into the opening and plucked the notebook off the floor. “It’s probably nothing at all. But my father used to keep his notes in three-ring binders like this.”
Harry stood behind her and watched as she flipped open the notebook. He frowned at the crude drawings inside. “Looks like more of his wild designs for paranormal instrumentation. The guy is really out there on the fringe. And you were ready to give him ten grand to finance his loony project.”
“That is very unfair. You know perfectly well that I did not argue with you when you turned down his proposal. I was still at the point in our association where I was trying to show due respect for your technical expertise.”
“That stage didn’t last long,” Harry said absently. “Wait, turn the page back.”
Molly obediently flipped back to the previous sheet of paper. She studied the sketch that had caught his eye. “Well?”
“Don’t you recognize it?”
“No. Should I? It looks like a box with a jumble of mechanical stuff inside.”
“It’s the box that housed the fake gun assembly,” Harry said with soft certainty. “This is it. This is our proof that Kendall was behind the pranks.”
Half an hour later Molly experienced a quiet surge of relief as the unfriendly town of Icy Crest vanished behind a curve in the road. She adjusted her seat belt, settled back, and picked up Wharton Kendall’s notebook. She began to turn the pages with casual interest.
“Do you still think it’s necessary to track Kendall down?” she asked as she studied one of the sketches.
“Definitely. I want him to know that we’re on to him and that we’ve got enough evidence to call in the police, if necessary.” Harry accelerated smoothly out of a tight curve. “But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that you’re right. It’s going to be tough to convince the cops to get involved in this.”
“There’s been no real violence, and he’s apparently left the state. I can’t see anyone getting too worked up about Kendall except you and me.”
“With any luck, Kendall has abandoned his revenge in favor of trying to find some fresh funding in California.”
“Think he’ll convince someone down there to back him?”
“We’re talking about California.” Harry glanced in his rearview mirror. He frowned slightly and then returned his attention to the road. “No shortage of nuts down there who will be more than willing to finance one of his flaky paranormal inventions.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Molly heaved a small sigh. “Well, since the dynamic duo of Abberwick and Trevelyan seems to have solved the mystery of the malicious pranks, I guess I’ll be able to move back home.”
“I’ve got plenty of room.”
“Yes, I know, but if I stay at your place much longer I will cross that invisible line that separates houseguest from roommate.”
“Feel free to cross it.”
“I can’t stay with you indefinitely,” she said gently.
“Why not?”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Because I can’t, that’s why not. Our arrangement was that I would stay with you until we located Kendall.”
“Which we have not yet done.”
“Harry, I have a home of my own.”
“I don’t see—” Harry broke off abruptly.
“What’s wrong?” Molly asked without glancing up from the notebook.
“Nothing. Why?”
“I don’t know. I just had a feeling that something was bothering you.” She turned another page and paused to examine a sketch of what appeared to be a helmet with wires attached to it. “This is interesting. Harry, maybe we shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss Kendall’s research.”
“What research? There’s no research behind his crackpot ideas. Just fantasy.” Harry eased his foot down on the pedal. The car picked up speed.
Molly closed the notebook with a snap. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Some fool in a blue Ford is coming up behind us too fast for this road.”
Molly turned in the seat and glanced through the rear window. She saw a late-model blue car emerge from the last curve. It was moving swiftly. Too swiftly for the winding road. The Ford’s tinted windows made it impossible to see the driver’s face.
“Looks like the impatient type. Better let him pass, Harry.”
“There’s no passing lane and nothing but a series of curves for the next ten miles.”
“You could pull over to the side.” A sense of urgency gripped Molly as the Ford drew closer. “Do it, Harry. The guy may be drunk.”
Harry did not argue. He started to downshift.
The Ford leaped ahead, moving out to pass.
“He’s going to go around us,” Molly said, relieved at this evidence of the Ford’s obvious intentions.
The Ford was abreast of them now. It made no move to shoot past them. Instead, as Molly watched in horror, it edged closer to the front fender of Harry’s sleek sports car. She suddenly realized that the driver of the Ford intended to force them off the road.
There was no place to go. A sharp, tree-studded incline waited on the other side of the all-too-fragile guard rail.
“Harry.”
“Hang on,” Harry said softly.
Molly held her breath. Some part of her knew that they could not possibly escape the Ford now. It was too close. And the next wicked curve loomed ahead. Close. Much too close. She waited for the impact.
What happened next was a blur to Molly. Braced for the crash, she was unprepared for the sudden, violent deceleration of the sports car as Harry braked abruptly. Molly heard the tires scream in protest. The Sneath went into a slide.
She was dimly aware of the blue Ford flashing past as it overshot its target. It swerved frantically as the driver fought to recover control before he entered the next curve.
And then it was gone.
Molly waited for the sliding Sneath to crash through the guard rail.
12
Harry ended the controlled slide and brought the Sneath to a clean stop in the right-hand lane. He automatically checked the rearview mirror to make certain there was no one coming out of the curve behind him. Then he surveyed Molly. She was safe within the cocoon of her seat belt and shoulder harness. Her face was strained, but she appeared astonishingly calm.
“Are you all right?” Even to his own ears his voice sounded as rough as a lava field. He couldn’t help it. The impact of the realization that Molly could have been killed would take a while to wear off. Maybe a lifetime.
“I’m fine, thanks to you.” She turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were enormous. “That was an incredible piece of driving. I thought we were going over the side.”
“Good car.”
Molly shook her head. “Good driver. Anyone else would have lost control. Josh was right. You do have terrific reflexes.”
Harry dredged up a smile that he knew very probably resembled the skeletal grin of a Halloween mask. “We all have our little talents.”
“Your little talent just saved both our lives,” she said with great depth of feeling. “If I weren’t so terrified of unfastening my seat belt while we’re sitting in the middle of this road, I’d give you a big, wet, squishy kiss.”
“I’ll take you up on that later.” Harry checked the mirror once more and then put the en
gine in gear.
He could have caught up with the blue Ford, he thought with fleeting regret. He would have liked very much to do just that. And if he had been alone, he would have done it. There was little doubt but that he had a distinct advantage on a road full of curves such as this one. His reflexes and the handling characteristics of the Sneath guaranteed it. But it would have been a risky chase, and he was not about to put Molly in further danger.
“Do you think we should report that car to the highway patrol?” Molly asked after a minute.
Harry shrugged. “Sure. But I doubt that anything will come of it. Near misses aren’t uncommon. Especially on back roads like this.”
“We can describe the car. It was a late-model blue Ford.”
“Yes, but there were no plates.”
“No license plates?” Molly stared at him. “I guess that in all the excitement I didn’t even notice. I hate to ask, but do you think it was a deliberate attempt to run us off the road? Or do you think the driver was under the influence, and we happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said honestly. “But I don’t like coincidences.”
“The guy was probably drunk.”
“Maybe.”
Molly slanted him an assessing look. “You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you?”
“That the driver of the Ford was Wharton Kendall?”
She sighed. “I knew it. You’re thinking the same thing. It’s highly unlikely, isn’t it? I mean, Kendall is supposed to be in California by now.”
“That’s where he’s supposed to be. But there seems to be a general consensus that the bastard is nuttier than a fruitcake. Who knows where he is.”
“Why would he sneak around Icy Crest waiting to see if someone came looking for him? It doesn’t make sense. He moved out of Shorty’s cabin. Where would he sleep?”
“In his car.”
“Where would he eat?”
“He could have a supply of junk food stashed in the trunk of the Ford.”
“How would he know when and where to watch for us?”
Harry thought about that one for a couple of seconds. “He could have hidden in the woods in order to keep an eye on the cabin. Waited to see if anyone came looking for evidence. Or someone in Icy Crest might have done the legwork for him. Maybe good old Pete or Shorty or one of the men standing around out in front of the grocery store called Kendall and let him know someone was in town looking for him.”
Molly looked thoughtful. “That implies he had a phone available.”
“Cellular car phones aren’t exactly a novelty these days.”
She made a face. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you? The thing is, the good folk of Icy Crest all seemed to dismiss Kendall as a weird kook. I don’t think they liked him very much.”
“Even weird kooks have money. Someone in town might have been willing to take his cash in exchange for providing information.”
Molly frowned. “Wharton Kendall doesn’t have a lot of money. If he did, he wouldn’t have had to apply for funding from the Abberwick Foundation.”
“I don’t think it would take more than fifty bucks to tempt any of those men who were hanging around Pete’s store. Hell, Pete himself would probably turn in his own mother for twenty-five dollars and a shirt that was a couple of sizes larger.”
“You could be right. Damn. This mess is getting more and more complicated, isn’t it? Things could go on like this for a very long time.” Molly became very quiet.
Harry understood quiet. He was accustomed to sinking into his own personal pools of deep silence for hours on end. He had been around Molly long enough to know that she was quite capable of occupying herself with her own thoughts. But the remote expression on her face now made him uneasy. There was an important issue he wanted settled before they reached Seattle.
“Molly?”
“Hmm?”
Harry flexed his hands on the wheel. He had to handle this carefully. “This incident today settles one matter. You’re definitely going to stay with me until we get this thing sorted out.”
She looked slightly startled. “How did you know that I was thinking about moving back into my own house?”
“Because I can read your mind,” he shot back, irritated by her stubbornness.
“Read my mind?” She flashed him one of her brilliant, laughing smiles. “Ah, yes, the infamous Trevelyan Second Sight.”
“It was a joke, Molly.”
“I know.” Her smile vanished. She touched his arm briefly. “I was just teasing you.”
He opted for the logical, well-reasoned approach. It was what he did best. “You would feel safer, and I would worry a whole lot less, if you stayed with me until I’ve located Kendall.”
“That could take a while. And what happens if you can’t find him? What if he’s just vanished?”
The implications of the question took Harry’s breath away. It ignited a fantasy that had been smoldering deep inside him. What if Molly came to live with him for good?
He would eventually find Kendall, of course. The man was too sloppy and too disorganized to disappear without a trace. Harry would locate him and take steps to make certain that he never bothered Molly again.
But what if Molly did not move out?
“Would that be a problem?” he asked softly.
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and focused intently on the road. “As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted by the blue Ford, I can’t stay with you indefinitely.”
“Why not?”
“You have to ask me that? Harry, at the beginning of our relationship, you’re the one who took great pains to point out to me just how many things we do not have in common.”
“You added a couple of things to the list,” he reminded her. “Something about tomatoes. Look, maybe we both overestimated the number of areas of disagreement. We seem to be able to deal with the ones that do arise.”
She turned her head quickly to look at him. Harry could feel the intense curiosity and the sensual awareness emanating from her. He struggled to find the logical, reasoned words that would convince her that moving in with him for good was the right decision. But his excellent brain failed him in his hour of need. He could not pressure her. He could only ask.
Ask. Plead. Hope. That was not his way. He knew better than to risk asking others for what he needed. What the hell was happening to him?
A shock of recognition went through him. What he was experiencing now as he waited for Molly’s answer was all too familiar. It was akin to what he had felt the other night when he had been caught up in the vortex of intense concentration and she had come to him dressed in bridal white. He was vulnerable in a way he did not understand. It was a terrifying sensation.
“Staying with you for a few days is one thing,” Molly said gently. “Staying indefinitely means we’re living together.”
Yes, it does, he thought. You’d be in my bed every night. You’d be sitting across from me at the breakfast table every morning.
“Well…”
“Just until we find Wharton Kendall and deal with him,” he said.
She tensed. Then she gave him another brief, searching glance. “All right. If you’re sure this is what you want.”
It’s what I need, he thought, still numbed by the shock of realization. “It’s the only logical way to go,” he said aloud.
“Right. Logical.”
The following morning Harry got off the elevator on the thirty-first floor of the downtown high-rise office tower. The massive, gleaming brass letters on the wall across from the bank of elevators spelled out the name of the company that had made the Strattons a family of movers and shakers in Seattle.
STRATTON PROPERTIES, INC.
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE
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AND PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT
Harry turned to the right and went down the plushly carpeted corridor to the reception desk. An attractive, neatly suited woman in her twenties looked up with a smile of immediate recognition. Harry did not appear in the offices of Stratton Properties very often, but the staff knew him on sight. His visits tended to be memorable.
“Good morning, Mr. Trevelyan. What can I do for you today?”
“Good morning, Verna. Would you please tell my grandfather that I want to see him for a few minutes?”
“Certainly.” Verna pressed the intercom button on her desk. “Mr. Stratton?”
“What is it, Verna?” Parker Stratton’s voice was gravelly with age, but it had lost none of its authority.
“Mr. Trevelyan is here to see you.”
There was a brief pause. Then Parker’s voice came back through the intercom in a low growl. “Tell him I’m busy. Give him an appointment for next week.”
Harry nodded pleasantly to the receptionist and started past her desk. “Thanks, Verna. Hold all his calls until I leave.”
“But, Mr. Trevelyan,” Verna called anxiously. “Mr. Stratton says he’s busy at the moment.”
“He can’t be busy. He’s officially retired.” Harry went around the corner, past the tasteful display of art glass that occupied one wall. He opened the door of Parker’s office without bothering to knock.
Parker was seated behind his desk. He had a gold pen in one gnarled hand. He still had a finger on the intercom button. He glowered at Harry. “You’ve got the manners of a damned Trevelyan.”
“I am a Trevelyan.” Harry closed the door and took a chair. “Unfortunately for you, I’m also a Stratton.”
“I assume you didn’t barge into my office to discuss genealogy. What do you want?”
“I’m here to talk about Brandon’s plans to go into business for himself.”
“Damn it to hell.” Parker tossed aside the gold pen. “I knew sooner or later you’d interfere in this fiasco. Did Danielle go crying to you? Or was it Olivia?”
“I’ve talked to both of them. I’ve also talked to Brandon.”