Disclaimers in part 1. Maya called early the next morning. Joe struggled out of his exhausted sleep to answer the phone. He did remember to leave off his last name, on the chance that it might be her. Tommy was no early riser. "Joe." "This is Maya," reported a brittle female voice. "Hi Maya. Good to hear from you. Can you talk?" Maya wasn't in deep cover, but her situation with a cult could still be awkward. "Yeah, I've got some time." *I'm in the clear.* "But our connection's not good." *The line's not secure.* Yeah, yeah. Joe knew the rules. But generally the higher-ups were more paranoid about e-mail, these days. This was going to be hard in free cryptic. "It's okay. I just want to talk." "Where?" she asked, expecting, Joe knew, that he would give her a coded location and time. "I don't need to take up your time. Can you just tell me some things?" "Something to do with your pansies?" Joe winced. That's right. The whole damned Watcher network knew his assignment was missing. Well, she was pretty professional. She'd kept up with her briefings. "Well, actually, I'm into petunias, right now." "Oh really? Bjorn likes petunias. Does he know?" "Yeah. But he's not around, so I thought I'd ask you some stuff." "Okay, but you know my garden's all tulips." "Yeah, are your tulips okay? I mean, no bugs or blight or anything?" She paused. "Well, they have been changing color. They were a nice peaceful blue, but a lot of them are turning red. Some cross-pollination thing, or something." "Kind of a blood red?" "Yeah, warlike, you know? Also I'm expecting, if everything holds true to form, that they'll all die soon." "Yeah, I heard about that. Then come back next season, right? Any idea why?" "Not really. They just seem to have a mind of their own. You know, my garden's getting a lot of attention these days." No kidding, Joe thought. But she was leading and Joe should follow through so she could get across whatever it was she wanted to tell. "Oh really? Who's interested?" "Well, some guy selling petunias was here yesterday. Sounds like that ought to interest you. He didn't tramp on my tulips, but it was a near thing." "Your tulips are pretty tough." "Tougher than they look, that's for sure. Also ..." Joe waited while she thought about how she would phrase her next bit of information. "There was a guy with a cat." What? A cat? Joe's mind whirled. Someone had ... tried to seduce Kirin? Or her? Or ... what?! "What did he want?" "He really admired the tulips. Praised them and praised them. Wanted to get close to them. It was really weird. He got thrown out of the garden." "Because of the cat?" "Well, maybe. You see ... I thought maybe he had a flower of his own to sell, you know? But all he had was the cat." "This was a man?" Joe was having a little trouble making his seduction interpretation fit. "Yes." "And he was interested in your tulips; not you." "Right." "What did he look like?" "Tall, thin, short dark hair, broad shoulders." "Big nose?" "Umm ... kind of." Jesus Christ! Methos had *tried to seduce Kirin?*! What the hell?! "Well, uh, is everything all right?" "I guess so. He hasn't come back." "Maya, in all the excitement, is your nephew sick?" "No, he's fine. But thanks for asking." "Okay. You've got my number. Thanks for calling." Joe hung up and rubbed his gritty eyes. *We're just a bunch of friendly horticulturalists.* What on earth was Methos doing? Joe couldn't believe it. Could he have misunderstood her? Cat, cat ... no, "cat" meant seduction. Maybe it wasn't Methos. The description was fairly common, and she hadn't volunteered the big nose. It's Methos, some little voice said. Maya had even intuited that the visitor was an immortal, probably from Kirin's reaction. The damnable thing was, Joe didn't know where the man was staying. They had parted on fairly hostile terms, and had not exchanged room numbers. Joe couldn't even be sure that Methos was still in town. Short of sleep and grouchy, Joe muddled through the day. He stayed in his own hotel, dawdling over brunch. He considered playing some poker, but feared his concentration would be off. *Methos had tried to seduce Kirin.* Joe struggled to get his imagination wrapped around the concept. In the grand power struggle which was the Game, the Watcher chronicles showed that sex was not often a useful weapon. Seduction of another immortal required trust and intimacy on a scale which most immortals rarely risked. Duncan MacLeod being a glaring exception, Joe thought, bracing for the inevitable wash of fear and grief which the thought of the man always brought him. Not to mention - Joe squirmed mentally, irritated at himself - he just never thought that "Adam" ... well, damn. Joe had no illusions that he was the most broad minded person around, when it came to sexuality other than what he was used to, but he didn't think he was either naive or bigoted. It was just that he'd known the man for a long time and never thought ... *never thought a lot of things about him which turned out to be true.* Joe was a little disappointed in himself. Methos was five thousand years old. He'd undoubtedly learned to use whatever worked. Still ... Joe sighed. And what was Methos trying to accomplish, anyway? Joe couldn't make it out. What did Methos do, walk into the revival tent and say "Hail fellow immortal, well met. Want to go to bed?" It was ludicrous. Of course, maybe Methos knew Kirin from before. Joe would have no way of knowing. This thinking was going nowhere. He shoved these thoughts aside, and went to see if Tommy wanted to join him early at The Blues Lagoon.