Hidden Talents

into the metaphysical realm here. That's a bit out of my field. I'm a business consultant, remember?”
    “One of the best in the Pacific Northwest. Or so you keep telling me.”
    “Damn right. And I prefer to operate on one mathematical plane at a time, if you don't mind. Back to Uncle Franklin.”
    “I'm listening.”
    “As I started to explain before I was interrupted, my theory is that he got hold of those photos and sent them to you first in hopes that you'd realize the game was over and quietly retreat from the scene. If you didn't quit at that point, if you took the risk of telling me about the photos, he assumed I'd end things.”
    “But instead of ditching me and my project, you followed me to Witt's End. You informed me that there was no way out of the contract for either of us because you had your precious business standards to uphold.”
    Caleb raised his brows and took a swallow of coffee. “My theory is that when Uncle Franklin realized that his scheme hadn't worked and that I was still very much involved with you, so involved that I brought you home to meet the family, he panicked and took more drastic action.”
    “He called you and claimed that he was being blackmailed.”
    Caleb nodded. “He told me that I had to stop seeing you because someone had threatened to send your pictures to the Ventress Valley News .”
    “And thereby drag your noble family name through the mud again.” Serenity considered that. “It makes sense up to a point. But there are a couple of things that need an explanation here.”
    “Yes, there are.” Caleb leaned back in his chair and contemplated the door of Witt's End Grocery through the café window. “The first big question is, how did my uncle learn that those photos even existed in the first place?”
    “Exactly. He's a banker, for heaven's sake. Not the sort to hand around with folks from Witt's End. Who could have told him that the pictures were available and that he could buy them from Ambrose Asterley?”
    “Asterley himself, probably,” Caleb said. “I still think he must have started all this. But not because he wanted to control the process of change here in Witt's End. He had a much simpler goal. He wanted money. From everything I've heard about your friend Ambrose, he was always trying to talk people into loaning him cash to buy new photo equipment, right?”
    “Well, yes,” Serenity admitted uneasily. “That's true.”
    “If we assume that he did know about the old scandal because of his newspaper addiction, we could also assume that he sent you to me in the first place with the idea of setting up a lucrative blackmail scheme for himself.”
    “I still find it hard to believe, but I suppose it's possible that Ambrose was so desperate for money that he contacted your uncle after he sent me to see you.”
    “He told Franklin that the Ventress name was once again being threatened by a scandalous affair, and then offered to sell him pictures of the woman involved. Franklin probably took it from there.”
    “He bought the photos for five thousand dollars,” Serenity said, thinking it through. “He used them first to try to frighten me off. When that didn't work, he went to you and claimed he was being blackmailed.”
    “There's a certain logic to it,” Caleb said.
    “The good news is that with your theory, we don't need to worry about the possibility that there's a second blackmailer running around,” Serenity said.
    “Between Asterley's greed and Uncle Franklin's concern for the family name, the whole thing can be explained.”
    “Why the missing negatives?” Serenity persisted. “The sale to Franklin was legitimate. Ambrose documented it as if it were a straightforward business arrangement. Ambrose wasn't blackmailing anyone. He had nothing to hide. He had a right to sell those photos.”
    “Maybe he sold the negatives to Franklin, too. Franklin would certainly have wanted them.”
    “Maybe. So what are you going to do?” Serenity asked.
    Caleb's eyes were as hard to read as a vision pool. “I'm going to go back to Ventress Valley today and verify my theory.”
    Alarm flashed through Serenity. She forced herself to remain outwardly calm. “Uh, just how do you plan to go about discovering whether or not you're right about the connection between Ambrose and your uncle?”
    “I'm going to have a showdown. I intend to get Franklin, Phyllis, and my grandfather in one room together, and then I'm going to confront Franklin. I'm