Absolutely, Positively

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “You don’t think she might be right?”

  “Heck, no.” Molly smiled. “You’re different, Harry. Definitely one of a kind. But you’re going to make a terrific husband and father.”

  Harry was silent for a moment. “Maybe you have a thing for clinically significant abnormalities,” he suggested.

  “Maybe I do. Who was that on the phone?”

  “Fergus Rice, the private investigator I hired to keep tabs on Kendall.”

  “Did he discover something?” Molly asked.

  “Two hours ago Wharton Kendall drove a blue Ford over a cliff somewhere along Highway One in Oregon. He was apparently heading for California. Kendall was killed in the crash.”

  It took a few seconds for the significance of that simple statement to sink in. When it did, Molly leaped off the sofa and raced across the room to Harry.

  “It’s over,” she whispered as she threw herself into his arms. Harry’s arms tightened around her. “That’s what Rice said.”

  17

  “All right, that’s it. I’ve had it.” Molly sat straight up in bed and turned to glower at Harry. “Enough is enough. What’s wrong? Why aren’t you asleep?”

  Harry slanted her a surprised glance from beneath his lashes. The sheet was crushed to his waist. His arms were folded behind his head. The expression on his savage features was one of intent concentration.

  “I’m thinking,” he said.

  “Your thinking is giving me a severe case of insomnia.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize I was keeping you awake.”

  “How am I supposed to sleep when you’re lying there staring at the ceiling?”

  “Why should it bother you if I stare at the ceiling?” he asked with what appeared to be genuine curiosity.

  “Darned if I know, but it does. It’s as if you’re humming in my brain or something. It’s keeping me awake.”

  “I can’t help it. When I think, I think.”

  “Nope. This definitely isn’t the sort of humming I hear when you’re just thinking. I can sleep through that. This humming is more like a seriously-concerned-that-we-may-have-a-very-big-problem-on-our-hands kind of humming.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What the hell is this stuff about me humming in your head?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t explain it. It’s just sort of a sensation I’ve been getting lately. Don’t you feel it?”

  “No.” Harry seized the edge of the sheet and started to shove it aside. “Look, if I’m keeping you awake, I’ll go into the front room.”

  “No, you won’t.” Molly caught him by his bare shoulder and pulled him down onto the pillow. “Stay right where you are.”

  He relaxed against the pillow without protest, one brow raised in polite inquiry.

  Molly punched her own pillow a few times and adjusted it against the headboard behind her. “Now, then, tell me what the problem is.”

  He hesitated for only a couple of seconds before he seemed to come to a decision. “It’s Kendall’s notebook.”

  “You’re still worrying about that? But I thought we had decided that our problems are over now that Kendall is dead.”

  “There’s something wrong with that notebook.” Harry levered himself up to a sitting position beside her and arranged his own pillow behind his back. “I just wish I could put my finger on it.”

  “You said that you didn’t think the drawings of the gun and goblin mechanisms conveyed a sense of extreme rage.”

  “Yes, but that’s not what’s bothering me now.”

  Molly studied him in the shadows. “What, exactly, is bothering you?”

  “It’s the way the intruder went after you the other day in your house. There was something about the way he did it that doesn’t fit with the designs in Kendall’s notebook.”

  Molly shivered. “It all seemed very efficient to me.”

  “That’s just it,” Harry said softly. “It was efficient. Straightforward. Simple. Not very creative. Or personal.”

  “I guess that depends on your definition of creativity. And I can assure you that I took the attempt very personally.” Molly blinked as realization struck her. “Uh-oh. I think I see where you’re going with this.”

  Harry drummed the long, lean fingers of his right hand absently against the sheet beside him. “If a man such as Kendall was bent on murder, he would be inclined to use a gadget of his own design to kill his victim.”

  “Harry, maybe you’re carrying your deductive insights a little too far here.”

  “He used gadgets to try to terrorize you,” Harry said, oblivious to the interruption. “It’s logical that he would have come up with something in the same vein if he went so far as to try to murder you.”

  “Uh, Harry…”

  “A mechanism that he had designed and built, himself. A device of his own invention, one that would have given him satisfaction when it worked properly. The same logic applies to his use of a car to try to run us off the road. It doesn’t fit.”

  Molly reached out to touch his arm. “Now, hold on here. The blue Ford belonged to Kendall. You said your investigator, Mr. Rice, verified that it was registered to him.”

  “Yes.”

  “So it’s only logical to assume that it was Kendall at the wheel the other day when that same Ford tried to run us off the road.”

  “Someone else could have used Kendall’s car to try to kill us.”

  “But no one else has any reason to kill us.”

  “So far as we know.” Harry looked out into the darkness beyond the windows. “I’ve been lying here wondering if someone else is involved in this.”

  Molly pulled the bedclothes up to her throat. “All right, let’s assume for the moment that there is another person involved. What’s his or her motive? We decided Kendall was out for revenge because I turned down his grant proposal.”

  “It was a logical assumption.” Harry pushed aside the covers and got out of bed. “But what if there was another person with another motive?”

  Molly watched him as he started to pace the room in front of the bank of windows. She could feel the intensity pooling within him as he focused on the problem at hand. Harry was nude except for a pair of white briefs that hugged his strongly muscled flanks. There was an eerie, spectral quality about him as he moved in and out of the moonlight.

  “What other person?” she asked gently. “And what other motive could there possibly be? I’ve turned down approximately a hundred grant proposals. I suppose we could be dealing with more than one disgruntled grant applicant. But it seems a little unlikely that we’d have two homicidal inventors in the batch.”

  “Who knows?” Harry paced through a shaft of cold, silver light and on into the deep shadow at the far end of the room.

  “It would also imply,” Molly continued, thinking through the obvious logic, “that at some point Kendall and this other mystery inventor worked together on their little terrorist project.”

  “Or it could mean that someone else knew about Kendall’s desire for revenge and used it as camouflage for himself.”

  “Good lord.” Molly drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Are you saying that another, more vicious individual who actually wants to kill me knew that Kendall was angry? And set him up to take the rap once I was dead?”

  “There’s a certain logic to it.” Harry reached the bookcase, turned, and retraced his path toward the opposite end of the room. The force of his concentration was so powerful that it seemed to charge the atmosphere around him.

  “I don’t know,” Molly said doubtfully. “It’s awfully farfetched. Chances are that, with Kendall dead, the whole thing really is finished, just as Fergus Rice said.”

  Harry came to a halt in front of the windows. “It doesn’t feel finished, Molly.”

  She smiled slightly. “Then you’ll
have to do something about it, won’t you? If you don’t, neither of us will ever get any sleep.”

  He looked at her, his eyes bleak. “It’s beginning to look that way.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “It might help if I could examine something else that belonged to Kendall,” Harry said slowly. “It might give me a fix on whether or not I’m right about his preference for inventing his own weapons.”

  “It occurs to me that, if there is someone else involved in this mess, Kendall’s recent demise might not have been an accident.”

  “Hell.” Icy moonlight turned Harry’s face to stone. “You’re right. I’ve been concentrating so much on the possibility that there are two people involved that I didn’t consider all the implications. If Kendall had a partner, or if he was being used as a fall guy by someone else, that second person might have gotten rid of him because he had become a liability.”

  “This is getting very complicated, not to mention nasty.”

  Harry swung away from the window. “I need to get a look at that blue Ford. Rice can find out where it was taken after the crash.”

  “It’s after one in the morning. Fergus Rice will be sound asleep. He won’t be able to do anything at this hour.” Molly yawned. “Why don’t you come back to bed?”

  “I’m in no mood to sleep.”

  She gave him a smugly angelic smile. “In that case, perhaps we could discuss a few of your significant clinical abnormalities.”

  Harry, who was halfway across the room, en route to the telephone, spun around. There was a strange glitter in his eyes. “What did you say?”

  “Don’t you like it when I talk dirty?”

  “Molly…”

  “Come back to bed, Harry.” She patted the sheet beside her. “There’s absolutely nothing you can do until after breakfast. If you can’t sleep, we’ll find some way to fill the time.”

  He hesitated. Then the taut lines of his face relaxed slightly. He walked to the side of the bed and looked down at her with a thoughtful expression that was belied by the extraordinarily brilliant gleam in his eyes.

  “Significant clinical abnormalities?” he murmured.

  “What can I say? I’m a sucker for ‘em. Yes, sir, give me those hours of boredom followed by moments of stark terror, and I’m a happy camper.”

  Harry’s teeth flashed in a lethally sexy grin. He put one knee on the bed and leaned down, trapping her between his arms. “I eat happy campers for bedtime snacks.”

  “Can’t wait.” She put her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her.

  He came to her in a rush of sensual, startlingly playful energy. He seized hold of her and rolled over and over with her until the sheets were tangled and Molly was laughing helplessly.

  He finally brought the tumbling game to a halt near the foot of the bed and braced himself on his elbows above her.

  Flushed and breathless, Molly looked up and saw the uninhibited joy in him.

  “There is nothing quite like the taste of a happy camper,” Harry murmured. His eyes gleamed in the shadows as he slid slowly down the length of her body. He settled himself between her legs.

  Molly felt his teeth on the inside of her thigh. She gasped and dug her fingers into his shoulders. He parted her gently with his fingers.

  “Harry?”

  And then she felt his mouth on her in an unbearably intimate kiss.

  The world came apart.

  Molly shut the refrigerator door and set the box of fresh raspberries down on the counter next to the sink. “You know, Harry, I’ve been thinking. This condo of yours is nice enough and the view is terrific, but it’s not very functional.”

  “Functional?” Harry echoed absently. He held the kitchen phone in one hand as he prepared to punch in Fergus Rice’s phone number.

  “You know, efficient. I miss my housekeeping machines. The dusting robots, the dishwasher, and the kitchen clean-up devices. The Abberwick Food Storage and Preparation Machine. Honestly, I don’t know how you get along with these old-fashioned appliances. They’re straight out of the Dark Ages.”

  “I’ve got a housekeeper, remember?” Harry listened impatiently as the phone rang on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, I know, but still, it all seems so primitive.”

  Harry scowled as the phone rang for the third time. “Put that knife down.”

  “I was just going to slice some English muffins to go with the raspberries.”

  “I’ll slice the muffins when I get off the phone.”

  “Sheesh. Are you always this grumpy in the mornings?”

  “Only when I see you with a knife in your hand.” The phone continued to ring.

  Molly set the knife aside and propped her elbows on the counter. “How do you feel about moving into my house after we’re married?”

  “The Abberwick mansion?” Harry glanced at the clock. It was nearly eight. Fergus usually went into his office early. “You want to stay in that crazy old house?”

  “It’s a great place for kids. They’d have Kelsey’s and my old toys to play with. And you’d have plenty of room for your books. You could have one whole wing for your offices and library. The kids would be underfoot all the time, of course, but I think you’d like that.”

  Harry stopped listening to the phone, his full attention suddenly riveted on Molly. “Kids?”

  “Sure. How many do you want? I know we’re going to have at least two.”

  “Uh—” Harry broke off at the sound of Fergus’s voice.

  “Rice here.”

  “Fergus, it’s Harry.”

  “For crying out loud, Harry, it’s two minutes to eight. I just walked in the door. Haven’t even had my second cup of coffee.”

  “I’m calling about the Kendall situation.”

  “What situation? I thought the accident down in Oregon took care of the problem. The man’s dead, Harry.”

  “I know. But I want to examine his car. Where did the authorities take it?”

  “It’ll probably be hauled off to a wrecking yard sometime today. Something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Have the authorities finished the accident investigation?”

  “Sure. Finished it yesterday. It was all very straightforward. Nothing of a suspicious nature. The Ford was totaled, though. That kind of thing can happen to a car when it goes straight over a sheer cliff”

  “Can you arrange for me to get a look at it?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Fergus paused to make some notes. “I’ll contact the owner of the wrecking yard this morning and set it up.”

  “Thanks, Fergus. Call me as soon as you’ve cleared it. I’ll fly down to Portland and rent a car to drive to the coast.”

  “Right.”

  Harry replaced the receiver and looked at Molly. “He’s going to arrange for me to examine the Ford.”

  “What do you think you’ll be able to tell by looking at it?”

  “I don’t know.” Harry watched Molly rinse the raspberries. “Maybe nothing.”

  She gave him a knowing look. “Or maybe something?”

  “Rice says the authorities have already completed their investigation, but since they had no reason to suspect that Kendall was killed, they could have overlooked something.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know. Sabotaged brakes. Evidence of an encounter with another car.”

  Molly nibbled thoughtfully on her lower lip. “You think maybe someone sideswiped Kendall?”

  “The idea has a familiar ring to it, doesn’t it?” The lobby intercom buzzed, breaking into Harry’s chain of thought. “Who the hell could that be at this hour?”

  “I’ll give you two guesses.” Molly gently piled the fragile raspberries into a bowl.

  “Two guesses?”

  “It’s ei
ther a Stratton or a Trevelyan. Take your pick.”

  Harry raised his brows as he depressed the intercom button. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Trevelyan, this is George downstairs in the lobby. There is a Mr. Hughes here to see you.”

  Harry groaned. “At this hour?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him this is important,” Brandon said in the background. There was a hard, determined edge to his voice. “Tell him it’s a family matter.”

  “Send him up, George,” Harry said. He released the intercom button.

  “Want me to get lost?” Molly asked.

  “No.” Harry thought about his conversation with Olivia the previous evening. “Stay right where you are.”

  A few minutes later the front doorbell chimed discreetly. Harry reluctantly went to answer it. He was not feeling enthusiastic about the prospect of dealing with any of his relatives this morning. He had other things on his mind.

  He opened the door. Brandon, dressed in a lightweight sweater and slacks, stood glowering in the hall.

  “Good morning,” Harry said mildly.

  Brandon strode into the hall without a greeting. His expression was thunderous.

  “Want a cup of coffee?” Harry asked as he closed the door. Brandon ignored the polite inquiry. He swung around to confront Harry. “Olivia came here to see you last night.”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn it, I told her I didn’t want her getting involved in this. I told my mother the same thing. Why the hell won’t they stay out of it?”

  “Probably because they’re worried about you.”

  “I don’t need anyone worrying about me. I can handle this thing just fine all by myself.” Brandon stalked into the front room. He came to an abrupt halt when he saw Molly behind the kitchen counter. “Who are you? A new housekeeper?”

  “No,” Molly said. “I’m Harry’s fiancée.”

  “His fiancée?” Brandon stared at her. “Olivia said something about Harry getting engaged to the trustee of the Abberwick Foundation. I didn’t believe it.”