Absolutely, Positively

three in the morning. It didn't take ESP to figure out that Harry had left the bed to go back to the stack of proposals in his study.

    Molly folded her hands behind her head and contemplated what she had learned about Harry. A pattern was emerging.

    He had come to Seattle within a year after the deaths of his parents. She had no doubt but that he had told himself he wanted to make peace between the families in honor of his mother and father. But Molly suspected there was more to the story than that. Perhaps more than even Harry himself knew.

    He'd had every right to turn to the Strattons and the Trevelyans after he'd found himself completely alone in the world. They were his blood kin. They had accepted him, but Molly was learning that the acceptance had come at a high price. Everyone wanted something from Harry.

    Molly sat up abruptly and threw aside the covers. She got out of bed, tugged on her robe, and padded, barefoot, down the hall to Harry's study.

    A shaft of light was visible through the half-opened door. Molly walked quietly into the room.

    She knew that she had not made a sound on her way down the hall, but Harry must have heard her approach. He was seated behind his desk, watching the door, waiting for her. He was wearing a dark gray terry-cloth robe. The pattern of intensely contrasted light and shadow from the halogen lamp etched his stark features. His midnight dark hair was tousled from the pillow. His amber eyes glowed with the anticipation of a raptor that is just about to sink talons into prey.

    Molly knew at once what had happened. “You found the proposal you were looking for?”

    “About three minutes ago. Take a look.”

    Molly crossed the room to the desk and glanced at the papers spread out in front of Harry. “I remember that one.” She craned her head to read the cover page. “Proposal for the Construction of a Device to Measure Paranormal Brain Waves, by Wharton Kendall. I liked it, but you vetoed it, the same way you did all the others.”

    “Paranormal brain waves? Give me a break.” Harry shot her a disgusted look. “Kendall is the kind of inventor who gives other inventors a bad name. A classic crackpot. No solid scientific training. No formal technical background. No originality or true insight. And to top it off, he's into this damn paranormal garbage. I should have remembered this guy right off.”

    “Hmm.” Molly tapped one finger absently on the desk. “What makes you think Kendall's the person who played those nasty pranks on me?”

    Harry turned the proposal document around so that she could see one of the diagrams more clearly. “Take a look at his design for the gearing mechanism that he planned to use on his crazy brain wave gadget.”

    Molly studied the drawing of an elaborate machine composed of myriad wires and an electronic panel mounted on a movable platform. “So?”

    “Phony, pseudoscientific aspects of the project aside, the design is inelegant, unoriginal, and uninspired. Exactly like the designs of the fake gun and the goblin contraptions. The whole device has a jury-rigged look, just as those machines did. And this gear assembly,” he pointed to a small section of the drawing, “is our smoking gun. Kendall's our man, all right.”

    “I'm amazed that you remembered such small details, Harry. This was one of the first proposals I showed you and, as I recall, you glanced at it for all of ten seconds.”

    “That was nine seconds more than it deserved.” Harry's mouth quirked wryly. “But that was early on in our association, and I was still trying to play the polite consultant. I hadn't yet realized that you and I were going to go toe-to-toe over each and every off-the-wall grant proposal the foundation received.”

    “You mean, before I realized how stubborn and picky you were going to be?”

    “Something like that.” Harry lounged back in his chair and surveyed her with a thoughtful expression. “The question now is, what do we do about Kendall? I don't have any hard evidence here. Certainly not enough to take to the police.”

    Molly searched his face curiously. “Are we talking about a conclusion reached on the basis of your famous intuition?”

    “We are talking about one of my insights, which, in turn, was produced by years of experience and trained observation,” Harry said coolly.

    “Have you ever noticed that you get downright snappish whenever there's a reference to intuition or psychic stuff?”

    “I have no