Absolutely, Positively

think so.” Harry wrapped himself in the armor of his willpower and gingerly touched the brake pedal. Experimentally he depressed it.

    …and simultaneously sharpened his concentration.

    It was so damn tricky. This matter of trying to think with this degree of utter clarity was so useful and yet so dangerous.

    “What is it?” Molly asked. “What do you feel?”

    “I don'tfeel anything,” Harry muttered. “The brakes are all right.”

    “Are you sure?”

    “As sure as I can be under the circumstances.” He was almost positive that no one had cut the brake lines. There was still plenty of resistance in the system.

    “I guess discovering something as dramatic as severed brake lines would have been a little too obvious.”

    Harry glanced sharply at her. “You sound disappointed.”

    She shrugged. “I've seen my share of old movies.”

    “That kind of sabotage only works well on film,” Harry said absently. “It's too unpredictable in real life. The problem is that the person who cuts the lines has no way of knowing for certain just when the last of the fluid will bleed out.”

    “You mean there would be no way to time it so that the brakes would fail on the right curve?”

    “Exactly.” Harry thought about it. “It's a very uncertain way to kill. And our man, assuming there is someone other than Kendall involved in this, prefers more straightforward, predictable methods.”

    “What makes you say that?”

    “Think about it, Molly. The guy tried to run us off a road, and he attempted to kill you with a gun.”

    “I see what you mean.” Her brow furrowed delicately. “He takes the blunt approach.”

    “Only when it comes to the actual murder attempt,” Harry said slowly. “He's certainly been extremely subtle when it comes to setting his scene and choosing his fall guy. In fact, he's a lot better at that end of the business than he is at closing the deal.”

    “What do you think that means?”

    Harry looked at her as his mind tore into the problem. “It may mean that whoever's behind this has had a lot more experience with setting the stage than he's had with murder. Killing people may be new to him.”

    Molly shivered visibly. “But why would he have had more experience with establishing his camouflage?”

    “Maybe,” Harry said, “because that's all he's had to do until now in order to accomplish his objectives. When it comes to the backdrop of his operation, he thinks like a con man with a lot of experience.”

    “A con man?”

    “It's possible that he's got a background in fraud or embezzlement or some other nonlethal crime.”

    “So he's clever with that part but not so skilled when it comes to murder.” Molly closed her eyes briefly. “Thank God.”

    “Yes.”

    “Well, now that we know this definitely wasn't an accident, it would be very interesting to discover exactly how Kendall's car was sabotaged,” Molly said thoughtfully.

    “We don't know for certain that it wasn't an accident. We're making an assumption.”

    “Your assumptions are more in the nature of inspired guesses, Harry. You know it and I know it.”

    Harry heard something click and realized it was the sound of his back teeth coming together. He was irritated by Molly's certainty that Kendall had been murdered. He knew that she was picking up on his own sense of the situation and that she trusted his instincts.

    The knowledge that Molly had developed such unquestioning faith in his insights worried him. It was as though her belief in his abilities rendered those abilities even more suspect. It made it seem all the more probable that there really was something abnormal involved.

    Harry got out of the car and cautiously put a hand on the front fender. The wrongness hit him again, more insistent this time. He bent down to take a closer look at the crushed metal.

    The impact of the crash had scraped and scarred the blue paint all the way to bare metal in places. Harry moved his fingers along the huge gouges that had been left in the fender. He stopped abruptly when his fingertips touched a deep dent near an empty hole that had once been occupied by a headlight. He stilled.

    Molly hurried over to where he stood. “What did you find?”

    “Blue paint.”

    “What's so strange about blue paint? The Ford is painted blue.”

    “I'm aware of that.” He fingered a small fragment of paint. Something about it bothered him.

    Harry took a deep breath and centered himself mentally as best