Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

"What's on your mind, Kane?" Serena asked after the waitress left. Ordinarily she would have let him get around to it in his own time, but she wanted to hurry home and see if Merlin had returned.

Kane sipped his coffee for a moment, pale blue eyes fixed on her face. He wasn't a bad-looking man, but the wear and tear of nearly twenty years of a downhill slide was stamped into his. features, lending them an oddly blurred, indistinct appearance that was a bit unsettling.

"Did you take me back to my apartment Friday night, Serena? After our dance?" he asked finally in a very casual tone.

As she assumed an expression of surprise, her mind worked very swiftly, examining the question and recalling every one of her own actions. Of course she knew why he was asking: because he had most likely found the draft of the announcement in his pocket and, obviously remembering she'd been with him before he passed out, had concluded that she was somehow responsible. The most logical answer, naturally, was that she had accompanied or followed him home and had, for some reason, left the paper in his pocket for him to find.

"Why would I have done something like that?" she asked in a puzzled voice.

"Never answer a question with a question."

"No, I didn't take you back to your apartment. I repeat, why would I? A dance is one thing, Kane, but we certainly don't know each other that well."

He didn't lose his smile. "Why did you ask me to dance, by the way? I'm hardly your type."

Gently, Serena said, "Somebody dared me to, Kane. Sorry about that, but I've never been able to resist a dare."

"And did this somebody also dare you to ask me what my address was while we danced?"

So he remembered that, too, dammit. "Your address," she replied, "is in the phone book. I looked it up months ago when I was chairing that committee and needed a speaker. Don't you remember?"

Judging by his tightened lips and narrowed eyes, it appeared he had forgotten that. So had she, as a matter of fact, until just now.

Going on the offensive, Serena shook her head and said, "I don't know what you're after, Kane, but if this is the way you react after a woman asks you to dance, it's no wonder you don't get invited very often."

He ignored the latter part of her statement. "What I'm after? Answers, Serena. I'm a very curious man. I'd like to know, for instance, just who you are. You certainly weren't born Serena Smyth- that much I've found out. I believe you took the name, legally, at sixteen. That was after you came to Seattle, of course, and moved in with Richard Merlin."

She allowed one of her eyebrows to climb in mild amusement. "You make a perfectly innocent and commonplace act sound criminal, Kane. So I changed my name-big deal. If you must know, after my drunken father wrapped his car around a telephone pole when I was six and made me an orphan, I was passed from relative to relative for ten years. That was when I ran away."

"To Merlin," he said in a silky tone.

Serena ignored the tone. "To Richard. I decided to change my name, since I was old enough and since I wanted nothing further to do with any of my other relatives."

"Other relatives? So you still claim he's an uncle?"

She smiled. "No, he's actually some kind of third cousin. But calling him an uncle simplifies matters. Are you planning a story for the tabloids, Kane? One of those juicy headlines like, 'Uncle and Niece in Incestuous Relationship'? Why don't you just write that I'm going to have Elvis's baby? Or an alien's, maybe."

He flushed an ugly red. "I think the society page would be interested in the story," he said tightly. "Wouldn't all your tight-assed friends just love to know the real relationship between you and Merlin?"

Serena couldn't help it; she giggled. "Sorry, Kane, but you seem to have lost track of what really matters to people these days. Do you think you're the first to suspect Richard and I are lovers? Don't be ridiculous; those rumors pop up about once every year or so, as regular as clockwork, until something else comes along to stir up interest." Because she made very sure to distract anyone who suspected the relationship was in any way unusual.

"Can you deny it?" he snapped.

She looked him straight in the eye and replied with a calmness that was far more convincing than histrionics would have been. "Of course I deny it. Richard has been a lot of things to me, but never my lover."

"Maybe not," Kane insisted, "but there's something screwy in your relationship. What name were you born with, Serena? The court documents are sealed, oddly enough."

"Oddly? You know, for an investigative reporter, you seem to have a blind spot regarding facts. I was a minor; of course the court documents are sealed. The name I was born with is no longer mine, and is certainly none of your business. As for my screwy relationships-with Richard or anybody else-they also are none of your business."

"I'll find out what I want to know," he warned her softly. "Sooner or later I'll find a way through all the walls I keep hitting in Merlin's background. And it's just a matter of time until I figure out all your secrets. There's a story here somewhere, Serena. I can smell it."

Serena slid out of the booth and smiled pleasantly at him. She had kept her cool easily until he mentioned a search into Merlin's background, and then she had felt a surge of anger mixed with worry. That was all she needed, to have unintentionally put this story-hungry reporter onto Merlin's trail.

"The only story here concerns a desperate search for lost glory, Kane," she said. "And it's a bit pathetic, you know. If you can't find something a hell of a lot more important than us, then it's no wonder you've fallen so far. Thanks for the coffee, and don't get up."

She walked away without a backward glance, which was a pity. If she had looked back, she might have seen the look of obstinacy on his face. And it might have warned her.

Serena got home to find that Merlin had not yet returned. She changed out of her business suit and into slacks and a sweater, went into the kitchen long enough to say hello to Rachel and fix herself a glass of iced tea, then wandered back to the entrance hall. Merlin's study opened into this foyer, and Serena headed toward it, intending to look for another of the books on her reading list.

Two feet from the door she suddenly stopped as though she'd run into a wall.

The study was always locked except when he was in it, but Merlin had never barred the room to his Apprentice. The lock was easy for her to undo, since it was intended only to keep out Rachel and any visitor to the house who might find the contents of the room a bit odd. But the door was blocked now by something a great deal stronger than the impotent man-made lock. And no Apprentice wizard could breach that barrier.

After several moments Serena retreated to the stairs and sat down on the third tread, staring toward that solid oak portal and feeling more than a little shaken. How long had he been doing this? Certainly not always; several times she had entered his study while he was away, looking for a book or scroll or something else she needed. When had she last gone into the room when he was absent?

Months ago, she remembered. She had undone the lock easily and automatically, and there had been nothing else to keep her out of the room.

She set her half-finished glass of tea beside her and hugged her upraised knees as she continued gazing at the forbidden door. Why? Why had he shut her out? Was this just another sign of his withdrawal from her, or was there something else going on, something he hadn't told her about? Something he didn't trust her to know?

No matter what the answers were, the questions had sown even more seeds of anxiety and fear in Serena. Coupled with the pain and fury of what she had discovered in the night, this new sign of trouble between her and Merlin made her emotional state so turbulent, she couldn't even think straight. She could only sit there on the stairs and wait, the confused emotions simmering, until he came home.