Hidden Talents Read online

  “Do you know that?” Caleb looked skeptical. “For certain?”

  Serenity clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “Of course I do. I've known Jessie all of my life. She's family.”

  “Serenity, we don't know anything for sure about this mess.” Caleb closed the iron door of the stove. “Including how Asterley died.”

  “What?” Serenity was stunned. “But that's not true. Ambrose got drunk, tripped and fell down his basement stairs.”

  “Did he?”

  “Caleb, what are you saying? That someone might have pushed him?” Serenity was aghast. “But who would have done such a thing?”

  “The second blackmailer. The one who wanted to use the photos for more lucrative purposes.”

  “Oh, no.” Serenity shook her head wildly. “No, no, no. Murder? Here in Witt's End? Impossible. You've been spending too much time with Blade. This is starting to sound like one of his conspiracy theories.”

  “Some people might say Blade was a likely suspect as both blackmailer and murderer.”

  Serenity flinched. “Absolutely not. I refuse to believe it. Besides, he couldn't have known about your family's past.”

  “Asterley might have told him. Damn it, Serenity, you're too close to this situation to think logically. You're too emotionally involved.”

  “And you're not emotionally involved?” she asked, incredulous.

  “No. At least not the way you are. I'm in control. I can view this situation much more objectively than you can.”

  Serenity leaped to her feet. “How can you say that after what happened between us last night?”

  He glanced at her, surprised. “That has nothing to do with this.”

  “Nothing to do with it? It has everything to do with it. I can't believe I'm hearing this.” She pointed toward the bedroom. “I was not alone in there last night.”

  “I'm aware of that.”

  “And it's your family that's being blackmailed.” Serenity folded her arms beneath her breasts and regarded him with grim triumph. “Don't try to tell me you're not emotionally involved right up to your eyebrows.”

  “Damn it, I'm trying to take an intelligent, logical, pragmatic approach to this problem.”

  “So take it. But don't try to tell me you're not emotionally involved. And don't try to tell me that one of my friends is a murderer or a blackmailer. Because I refuse to believe it.”

  Caleb's mouth twisted derisively. “Have you ever met a blackmailer?”

  “Well, no,” Serenity admitted, annoyed by his condescending tone. “But somehow I think I'd know one if I saw one.”

  “Yeah? What would he look like?”

  “Well, for starters, he'd be a weasely looking character with shifty eyes and very low self-esteem.”

  “This isn't a joke,” Caleb said through set teeth. “Someone is deliberately trying to rake up my past, and that person is using you to do it. He or she may have killed Asterley in order to do it. I want to know what's going on here in quaint, picturesque Witt's End.”

  Serenity sighed. “I know you want answers. I want them, too.”

  “We're going to get them.”

  “How?”

  “I think the first step is to take another look through Asterley's files,” Caleb said. “Jessie hasn't moved them out of the cabin yet, has she?”

  “No. She told me yesterday that she got the photo equipment out, but not the file cabinets. She doesn't have a place to store them. But what would we be looking for in those old files?”

  “I'm not sure.” The sound of a car in the drive made Caleb glance toward the window. “Who the hell is that at this hour of the morning?”

  “I have no idea.” Serenity turned and started for the door.

  “Hold it.” Caleb glowered at her. “What do you think you're doing? You're in your bathrobe.”

  Serenity glanced down at her attire. “For heaven's sake, I'm perfectly decent.”

  “No, you're not.” His gaze raked her from the top of her tousled head to the toes of her slippered feet. For an instant the icy control vanished from his eyes. In its place was a searing glimpse of remembered passion. “You look like you just got out of bed.”

  Serenity burned beneath his gaze. She was suddenly breathless. “Not emotionally involved, huh?”

  “Go get dressed,” he growled. “I'll see who's at the door.”

  Serenity threw her hands up in the air. “Okay, okay. I'll go get dressed. Are you always like this in the mornings?”

  “Only on days when I wake up to discover that someone's trying to blackmail a member of my family and that the lady I'm sleeping with has a habit of answering her front door dressed in her bathrobe.”

  “You know what your problem is, Caleb?”

  “Yeah. I'm old-fashioned, straitlaced, boring, and conventional.”

  “Wrong on one count,” Serenity said. “You're not boring. You're never boring.” She hurried down the hall to the bedroom before he could respond.

  Outside in the drive a car door slammed. The visitor knocked on the front door of the cottage just as Serenity pulled on a close-fitting purple turtleneck and a pair of green leggings. Caleb's low-voiced greeting held a note of challenge.

  “Can I help you?” The words were civil but his tone did not convey any great desire to be of assistance.

  “Who the hell are you?” Lloyd Radburn asked, sounding startled.

  Just what she needed this morning, Serenity thought as she hastily fastened a tie-dyed, jagged-hemmed skirt around her waist.

  “Lloyd?” Serenity yelled down the hall. “Is that you?”

  “Sure is, Serenity love,” Lloyd called back. “Just thought I'd drop by and see how things were going. Wanted to go over a few of the details of my project with you.”

  Serenity groaned silently as she walked back down the hall to the living room. She took one look at Caleb's face and knew that things were going to be a bit dicey for the next few minutes. She turned to confront her uninvited guest.

  “Hello, Lloyd. This is a surprise. I wasn't expecting you.”

  “Hey, hey, hey. Great to see you again, Serenity love.” Lloyd smiled his engaging grin.

  Serenity smiled back, albeit ruefully. Lloyd could be irritating, but it was difficult to get genuinely angry at him for long. He was self-absorbed and no doubt ambitious, but he wasn't cruel or malicious.

  There was no denying that he had a certain rugged charm, which would probably stand him in good stead with generations of female undergraduates. He looked more like a dashing foreign correspondent than a professor of sociology. The leather jacket he wore over his khaki shirt had a well-worn look that had been induced by the designer, not by actual hard use in the field. It went well with his low, leather boots and artfully faded jeans. His light brown hair was cut in a windswept style that guaranteed that his forelock would fall rakishly over one dark eye. The hat he had tossed onto a brass hook in the hall was a suede and leather creation that looked as though it had been designed for adventuring in the Outback.

  “You're looking terrific, Serenity love.” Without any warning, Lloyd swooped down on her, grabbed her around the waist and swung her in a wide arc. “Know something? I've missed you.”

  “Please put me down, Lloyd.”

  “It's so damn good to see you again, love. How's my fairy princess?”

  “Put her down.” Caleb's voice was sharpened steel.

  “Sure, sure, in a minute.” Lloyd tried to plant a kiss somewhere in the vicinity of Serenity's mouth. He chuckled when she ducked. “Serenity and I are old friends. Isn't that right, love? Haven't seen each other in months.”

  “For heaven's sake, Lloyd, that's enough.” Serenity braced her hands against his shoulders and shoved. “Let me go before I get airsick.”

  Lloyd roared with laughter and started to whirl her around in another circle.

  Caleb's hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Put her down or you're going to swallow every tooth you own.”

  Lloyd
came to an abrupt halt and set Serenity on her feet. He turned to Caleb with a belligerent scowl. “Who's this, Serenity? Some guy who thinks he's your big brother?”

  “No,” Caleb said very evenly. “I am not her brother.”

  “He's my consultant,” Serenity said hastily. She reached up to refasten one of her hair clips which had come loose.

  “Consultant?” Lloyd looked blank. He turned back to Serenity. “What kind of consultant?”

  Serenity lifted her chin with grave dignity. “A business consultant. His name is Caleb Ventress. Caleb, this is Lloyd Radburn. He's a professor at Bullington College. I believe I mentioned him to you the other night when he phoned.”

  “You mentioned him.” Caleb eyed Lloyd as if sizing him up for lunch.

  Lloyd gave Serenity a disbelieving grin. “Hey, hey, hey, love. Who are you kidding? What the hell do you need with a business consultant? Having trouble counting beans down at the grocery store?”

  “If you'll excuse me, I'm going to fix some tea.”

  “Got any coffee?” Lloyd asked irrepressibly. “I hate tea.” He followed Serenity into the kitchen.

  “Sorry, no. I don't drink coffee.”

  “Yeah, that's right. I forgot. Guess I'll settle for tea.” Lloyd selected one of the small chairs at the table. He twirled it around, straddled it and rested his arms on the curved wooden back.

  Caleb came to stand in the doorway. “Was there something specific you wanted, Radburn?”

  Lloyd chuckled. “I just wanted to talk to Serenity.”

  Serenity filled the teakettle. “If it's about that idiotic idea you had to do a study of Witt's End, forget it, Lloyd. I told you, I'm not going to help you do it.”

  “Come on, hon. Give me a break.” Lloyd's easy-going grin faded. “I told you the other night on the phone, this is important to me. I can get a great paper out of this. Witt's End is pure time warp. The newest incarnation of the classic American frontier town.”

  “Not quite,” Serenity said.

  “Sure it is. What's more, it's a perfect subject for me,” Lloyd argued. “By rights this town shouldn't have been able to survive this long. Hell, it was founded by social misfits and outcasts and it's been populated with them ever since. You've got everything from ex-cultists to certifiable paranoids living here.”

  “You are talking about my friends and family,” Serenity snapped. “Kindly watch your language.”

  “Come on, love. You studied this kind of stuff once. You know what I'm talking about. The social dynamics of this place are fascinating. Based on my initial observations six months ago, I've created a theory. Now I want to test that theory.”

  “What theory?”

  “It has to do with the role of legends in small communities, especially small frontier communities. I think local myths are one of the forces that give the social structure substance and make the whole thing work. They unify a community. In a nutshell, my theory states that communities that don't have a few local myths have to invent them in order to survive.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Serenity admitted.

  “Sometimes the myths seem mundane, especially to outsiders,” Lloyd said. “Just gossip about the neighbors in many cases. Who's sleeping with who. In the old days some of the local legends of a frontier community probably revolved around gunslingers and gamblers and gold strikes. The point is, the community needs those tales in one form or another to help give it cohesion.”

  Serenity nodded. “I see what you mean.”

  “Look, I promise I'll tell you all about it later. The thing is, I need your help. I can't do good fieldwork here without you. You know I won't be able to get decent interviews or participant observer responses unless you convince the natives to cooperate.”

  “Forget it,” Serenity said.

  “I can't forget it.” Some of the upbeat tone went out of Lloyd's voice. It was replaced with grim determination. “I told you the other night, I need this project. I've got a lot riding on this, careerwise.”

  “Choose some other small town,” Serenity said.

  “But, Serenity love, Witt's End is unique. And as far as I can tell from the literature search that I did, no one else in the field has even discovered this place, let alone studied it.”

  Caleb raised one brow. “I think the natives, as you call them, like it that way.”

  “I'm not going to disturb their precious lifestyle,” Lloyd insisted. “Hell, that's the last thing I want to do. But I need to get into the social circle, so to speak. This place functions almost like a tribe, as far as I can tell. That's what gave me the idea about the importance of the local legends.”

  Serenity glanced at him warily. “Just what local legends are you trying to analyze, Lloyd?”

  “The one about the vision pools, or whatever you call them.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Serenity asked coolly.

  “Come on, Serenity, don't play dumb with me. This is your old friend, Lloyd, remember?” He grinned. “You told me yourself about the hot springs that are hidden in a cave somewhere around here.”

  “I may have mentioned them. It's no secret that there are hot springs in this part of the mountains,” Serenity said casually. “They've never been commercially developed, however. They're not easily accessible.”

  “But they're the stuff of local mysticism and legend, aren't they?” Lloyd insisted. “People claim to see visions in them.”

  “That's nonsense,” Serenity said firmly. “I don't know anyone who's ever seen a real vision in the hot springs.”

  “Hell, I know that no one has ever seen a real vision.” Lloyd waved that aside. “There is no such thing. The point is, the myth about the pools exists, and that makes them a very interesting element in the local social dynamic.”

  “Those pools don't have any impact at all on our social structure.” Serenity opened a cupboard and took out three mugs. “Lloyd, please try to get this through your thick skull. I'm not going to help you turn Witt's End into a research subject.”

  “We can talk about it later,” Lloyd said easily. He slanted a glance at Caleb and then frowned intently at Serenity. “Tell me again why you need a business consultant? I didn't catch it the first time.”

  “Probably because I didn't say.” Serenity poured hot water over the leaves in the pot. “I'm going to expand my grocery into a mail order business. I think it will be very good for Witt's End. A lot of people here in town have something to market but no practical way of reaching consumers except through craft fairs. When Witt's End by Mail gets going, they'll be able to sell their products through my catalog.”

  “Are you serious?” Lloyd was clearly horrified. “You're going to expand Witt's End Grocery into a catalog operation?”

  Serenity looked at him. “Yes. That's why I hired Caleb. He specializes in consulting start-up operations.”

  “Shit.” Lloyd stared at her. “It's absolutely out of the question. You can't do it, Serenity.”

  “I don't see why not,” Caleb said from the doorway. “I'm going to help her, and I'm very good at what I do.”

  Lloyd threw him a disgusted glare. “She can't do it until I've finished my fieldwork here. Don't you understand? If Serenity introduces a major change into the local economy, it will significantly alter the existing social structure. All the basic institutions will change or be modified in some way. It's bound to happen.”

  “So what?” Caleb said. “It's called progress.”

  “So, I don't want anything changing here in Witt's End until I've finished my research,” Lloyd howled. “How far have these plans gone?”

  “We're almost through the initial planning and product evaluation stages.” Caleb looked thoughtful. “I've selected the mailing lists. Catalog's going to press next month. I think you could say we're well on our way.”

  “Christ, you've got to stop right now.” Lloyd shot to his feet and turned on Serenity. “You're going to ruin everything.”

  Serenity finish
ed pouring tea and leaned back against the counter. “Lloyd, let's get something straight here. I've got plans, and I don't intend to put them on hold so that you can study my hometown like a bug on a pin. It would take you weeks, maybe months, to do your interviews and observations. And that's assuming you'd get cooperation from the residents, which you won't.”

  “I will if you help me,” Lloyd said quickly. “They'll listen to you, Serenity. You're the key. I realized that six months ago. If you ask them to cooperate with me, they'll do it.”

  “But she isn't going to ask them to cooperate,” Caleb said. “Are you, Serenity?”

  “Nope. I've got more important things to do.”

  “Your mail order business project can't be more important than my research,” Lloyd shouted. “I've got a career riding on this.”

  “And the financial security and well-being of a lot of people here in Witt's End is riding on my business plans,” Serenity retorted. “Go find some other town to study, Lloyd.”

  “How can you act like this after all we meant to each other?”

  Serenity eyed him, exasperated. “I think it's time for a reality check here, Lloyd. We weren't exactly close. You tried to turn me into one of your dippy research projects, and when I realized what you were doing, I told you to get lost. Now you've expanded your scope to include my entire hometown. I'm telling you the same thing now that I told you last time. Get lost.”

  “Damn it, I'm going to do this study, Serenity.”

  “Fine. Go ahead and do it. But don't expect me to help.”

  “I don't believe it. You can't do this to me. I'm going to find a way to get this paper written.” Lloyd swung around on his heel and stalked toward the kitchen door.

  Caleb politely got out of his way and stood watching impassively as Lloyd grabbed his Outback hat and slammed out of the cottage.

  Serenity sipped her tea and listened to the car engine roar to life in the drive. She met Caleb's eyes. “Before we were so rudely interrupted, I believe you were saying something about going through Ambrose's files?”