SECRET IDENTITY Read Online Free PDF Page B

escapades. They had persevered through the trials and tribulations of
grade school and junior high, boyfriends, girlfriends, break-ups, proms, final
exams, and graduation. As they grew up and filled out, and Luke went off to
college, they began to hang out less and less. Brenda went to seek her fame and
fortune a year ahead of Lorne. Lee, the baby, took a football scholarship to
help with the financial burden.
    Boom, boom, boom, boom. Four years in a row one of the
Fullerton Four, as they called themselves, left the nest. The Palmer boys
remained in town, returning once they’d gotten their degrees. But Brenda was on
her way up and up, getting hired at Dobbling Enterprises as a clerk fresh out
of college. From there, she worked her way up to assistant director. And now
here she was, within the span of a year, suddenly thrust into the position of director
and given charge of finding new locations and clearing the way for Dobbling to
expand. Naturally, her first instinct had been to help bring prosperity back to
Fullerton, and to her delight, the board of directors had okayed her plan to
build in her hometown.
    Funny how circumstances had brought her full circle. That
was when she realized how long she’d been gone, and how much she’d missed her
hometown. Now with the factory gone, and Michael McKay’s sudden death, the
brightness surrounding her homecoming was covered in a black pall.
    “Hungry?”
    “When am I not hungry?” she challenged, pulling back to look
him in the face.
    Lorne grinned. “Guess some things never change. Come on. I’ll
treat, but you drive.”
    “Don’t you have a car?” They uncurled themselves from each
other and got to their feet. Brenda went inside to get her purse.
    “Luke has the car tonight,” he said.
    “One car, three brothers. The math doesn’t add up, Lorne,”
she teased, locking and closing the front door behind her.
    “Hey, I can walk to work in ten minutes, and Lee rides the
bus.” He followed her into the garage and waited for her to unlock the
passenger door with her remote.
    “All right, smart guy. Where am I going?” she asked as they
both hopped into her car.
    “Where else?” he smiled.
    “Pooches!”
    They laughed in unison.
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
    Pooches
     
    Pooches had not lost its feel for nostalgia since the day it
opened back in 1954. When Lorne escorted Brenda into the soda and burger shop,
memories of yesterday seemed to rise up and greet them. The results made them
feel as if, once again, they were naive teenagers filled with hope, ambition,
and dreams. Brenda, with her desire to go to the big city and create a stir in
the art world. And he with his predetermined destiny.
    At that time he had been waiting for his powers to show.
Luke had already found out he had been blessed with tremendous mental
abilities. Very little was beyond his reach—telepathy, clairvoyance, mental
projection, telekinesis. By the time he’d graduated high school, Luke was
already helping the police, FBI, and Interpol with their cases, but he was
doing it very hush-hush. Very much incognito. No one knew him as anything other
than Mr. Mental, and no one outside of law enforcement was even aware that he
existed. If there came a time when he had to “appear” before a group, he did so
as a disembodied face, a floating head like a pale, ghostly mask, with
ink-black eyes.
    As for Lee, the first time he had disappeared into thin air
it had shocked all of them, including himself. But when little brother managed
to fold himself into a two-dimensional image no bigger than a business card,
and slip between the cracks in doors, he had gone on to help the government.
Hence he took the name Espionage.
    But Lorne had been a late bloomer, and nearly twenty-one
before he got his first inkling of what he was capable of doing. First came the
power of flight, followed by his exponentially increasing strength. When he had
discovered he could project that strength as a nearly