by AJ Scudiere
Reenie turned and pointed. “They ran off that way.”
Evan and Kayla already knew it because they’d seen it, but Reenie was pointing to obvious damage caused by someone, or two someones, leaving in a hurry.
Kayla spoke up. “Those are the same tracks from earlier. The smaller ones.”
Evan and Reenie looked at each other, but Kayla didn’t. She just kept talking. “That means that our guy came and talked to us in his suit, planted at least one listening device, and then come back several times to case the place.”
Kayla looked around. “Here. This is probably our best bet.”
It made perfect sense why they shouldn’t talk in the barn, but she had no clue why Reenie and Evan didn’t want to head back to the big house, or the Overseer’s. Or why they clearly didn’t want to include Ivy.
Evan looked back, scanning the woods, tipping his head as though he could see farther that way, as though the trees might part and give him a better view if he held his head just right. “We’re in the open. I don’t like it.”
“Then we can go over the hill and sit down.” Kayla suggested.
Reenie gave a tight shake of her head. “Here is good.”
“Why can’t we—”
Evan put his hand on her arm, effectively cutting her off. It had taken her a long time to learn that one. But her parents had used it often—hand-on-arm meant Kayla, be quiet. Now. “Just wait. We have some things to tell you.”
“Things you can’t say with Ivy around?” It just didn’t sound right or good. And as she looked up the hill again she realized why Reenie didn’t want to go over to the other side. To the side away from the men who had carried guns . . . because then they would be in sight of the big house. Especially if Ivy had gone up to the third floor or even the roof to keep a lookout. She was probably there now, gun in hand, while they sat here and talked about her.
“I don’t like this.” Kayla protested.
“I know.” Evan seemed sad about it at least, but she couldn’t figure if he was sad about what he was going to say or just unhappy that he had to be the one to break the news.
“Sit.” Reenie ordered, then proceeded to gracefully smooth her knee-length jeans and drop to the ground like an Indian princess. She twisted in a series of yoga-like movements that took Kayla a moment to identify as prying her gun free. Reenie cradled it in her lap like a puppy. “There’s more that you don’t know yet, Evan. Things we found this afternoon. Things I found.”
As her brother sat, too, he left Kayla to be the last too look around and find a space in the tall grass. Her ears, which hand finally stopped ringing, were now assaulted by the swish and rasp of the grass surrounding her. Evan’s voice broke the strange sound shield as he pushed down the grass between them, creating a small cocoon. “That’s not good.”
“No.” Reenie sighed. “I checked the old family bible against the dates in the ledgers and I found a letter in between some of the pages. I think I’ve pretty much put it all together.”
Kayla put her hand on Reenie’s arm to soften what she said. Lord knew her tone would convey that she thought Reenie was an idiot. Reenie just looked at it, but Kayla spoke anyway. “I think it’s cool that you’re finding out about your past, but we have men with guns here—”
“Hear me out.” Reenie interrupted, “Eli Whitney was here, more than once. He worked with his business partner at Mulberry Grove, not very far away, and he visited Hazelton House quite a bit. He apparently had affairs with both Lena and the housegirl and maybe a few others in the years before that.”
Kayla had a fleeting thought that Whitney had gotten around.
Reenie kept talking with a low constant tone that Kayla appreciated. “He was also friends with Martin Hazelton, man of the house and husband of the woman—or one of the women—that Eli was sleeping with. When the cotton gin bankrupted Whitney, he got into guns. But he also tried at least one other way out of debt.”
Evan was paying rapt attention, so Kayla kept her focus on Reenie’s words although she didn’t yet follow the importance.
“Martin Hazelton was also in severe financial trouble, but one of the things he wasn’t able to sell off was a handful of coal mines in Kentucky. So, instead of selling them, he and Whitney cooked up an idea to get them both out of debt and make the coal more valuable. They convinced all of Hazelton’s plantation owner friends to invest in the mines and in Whitney. Eli was supposed to deliver a machine that ran on coal, and thus increase demand, but Whitney didn’t give them the coal engine they wanted. He gave them your machine, Kayla.” This time Reenie was looking right at her.
But it wasn’t really Kayla’s machine, was it?
She didn’t get to pose the question. Reenie let her gun rest in her lap, and she began plucking at a blade of grass. Kayla had noticed that Reenie fidgeted with nearby objects when she was unhappy. But she kept talking. “This is where the family bible came in. I was checking the dates of the baby who died against the accounts of births and deaths in the front of the bible and there was a letter tucked in the pages. Carlee—Martin and Lena’s oldest—wrote it and put it there. It’s a letter to God, asking that he forgive her sins.”
“What?” Evan frowned.
“Yeah. It seems Carlee was up late eavesdropping and heard her father accuse Whitney of stealing his last penny—I assume the investment in the machine—and the two men argued. When Lena came in to break it up, it came out that the baby who had died was Whitney’s and so Martin grabbed a gun and shot Whitney right there in the house.” Reenie paused and for a moment Kayla was hit by a vision of the two men, one bleeding badly and near death.
“Wow.” Kayla hadn’t been able to stop that, and she was geared up to ask what she wanted to say, when Reenie spoke again.
“What this means, Kayla, is that someone was already killed over that machine. It didn’t use coal like it was supposed to. It would put Martin Hazelton and all his cronies out of business rather than helping them. And they funded its invention. Carlee says she stayed quiet, but over the next few days, Hazelton called the other investors in and explained Whitney’s betrayal—the investment one, not with Lena—and they created a story, disposed of the body, and covered the whole thing up, even putting the diagram into the hearth, so Hazelton would always be able to keep a lid on it.”
“That’s nuts.”
“Years later, Carlee hid her father’s bloody clothes and the evidence in the wall when she and her husband remodeled. She’d didn’t want that past to come back on her family. Her younger brothers had died by then and she knew she was the only one to survive to the next generation. But she lived with it all her life.”
Honestly, it was a great story to put into the museum. But? Kayla wondered, “What does that have to do with now? And why can’t Ivy hear this?”
“Ivy has been taking photos of things in the house and getting bids on them.”
“What?” For a moment Kayla’s brain folded the words and Reenie made no sense. Kayla turned to Evan, only to find that he was not shocked by this. He’d known.
Evan blinked before he spoke. “Kay, it looks like she’s been trying to sell off some of the antiques online. She could do it, she has connections in the antebellum antique world.”
“The Antebellum Antique World?” Evan was being stupid. “You make it sound like an underground mafia organization.”
“It may be.” Reenie frowned. “We’re concerned she’s involved with the people who keep coming here.”
“What!?” Kayla couldn’t look back and forth between the two of them fast enough. When had they completely lost it? “You cannot be serious. Ivy risked falling and breaking a limb in order to hide in the icehouse. All while making the whole thing more dangerous because she was carrying a heavy gear to save the machine.”
“That doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved.”
“It sure as hell lessens the possibility.” Kayla shot back. “And she’s the one who heard the
noises and told me they were coming. If it wasn’t for Ivy, they would have walked right into the blacksmith’s and right in on me working with the machine. So I don’t know where you get this idea that she’s doing anything other than just taking some pictures.”
Reenie looked to Evan and Kayla could not interpret what passed between the two of them, only that she had missed something of importance.
“She was texting with someone and getting prices.”
Kayla sniffed once. “Then why isn’t she gone? Why hasn’t she just taken the most valuable pieces and left?” Then she had a fast thought. “Nothing’s missing, is it?”
“Only what’s been missing all along.” Another look passed from Reenie to Evan, and she seemed to say the next part directly to Kayla. “We never recovered the original plans. Someone out there has the Eli Whitney diagram for this machine.”
“So?” Kayla refused to believe that Ivy had done something wrong. “Then if she’s involved with these people, she would have what she needs. Why is she still here?” But Kayla knew she had a tendency toward absolute loyalty. That was the Aspergers; she formed strong but variable bonds and she only chose to be friends with people she could believe in faithfully. She’d chosen Ivy.
Evan finally entered the conversation. “Maybe she’s trying to learn the modifications you used to make it work. Think about it logically.”
The snort escaped her, disbelief in audible form. “I only think logically. I’m not capable of much else, so please don’t go insulting the one good thought process I have. I’m telling you it’s not logical for Ivy to be stealing from us.”
Reenie put her hand on Kayla’s arm, a tactic she was coming to easily recognize and just as easily dislike.
Kayla shook off the hand and stood up, dusting off her butt and her bruised emotions. Evan and Reenie didn’t understand and didn’t really seem to be listening. “We’re sitting in the grass accusing someone who isn’t here to defend herself. And if she was cheating us out of our money and museum pieces by way of her cell phone she wouldn’t go losing the damn thing so much.”
Angry and irritated, Kayla started to walk away, but Evan was on his feet, hands going to his gun and it took her a second to realize he was handing hers to her. Somehow it felt heavier in her hand this time. Technically it would be lighter, the clinging smell of cordite letting her know she was one round shy of a full clip, reminding her that she’d fired it.
But it wasn’t just the gun Evan wanted to give her, it was advice. “We’re sitting in the grass because there were people spying on us. People who had to be shot at to get them off our property. We’re in the grass because there are listening devices around our home and because one of us has photos and bid prices on our museum pieces. . . . Kayla, if she takes or sells those pieces, the quality of our museum goes down. As does our chance to earn a living here.”
Kayla was liking the idea of earning a living here at Hazelton House less and less. But her options weren’t rosy. She’d been fired again. It was now definitely a pattern and would haunt her hiring options. The machine was her one true love right now and it seemed everyone was trying to take it away from her.
She traipsed back toward the barn, trailed by a sigh and Reenie’s words.
“Kayla, they killed Whitney over that machine. And that was back when the country ran on coal. Now, if you can reduce the need for power, you’re going up against Big Oil, and that’s scary. Very scary.”
It was exactly what Ivy had told her.
Kayla didn’t say that though. She just walked away, back to the barn where Evan trailed her and helped her dismantle anything obvious. Helped her pack a few of the parts onto a dolly. Since she’d made the machines bigger, she was no longer able to transport what she needed in her backpack. She’d become a larger operation.
Quiet all throughout dinner that night, she spoke only to assure Ivy that she was fine. Just getting the words out was a challenge. She was anything but fine and she hadn’t fooled anyone. Clearly she was worried, tangled in something. She wouldn’t have been able to utter the lie at all except that Reenie had convinced her that the words were often code for “don’t ask” and she used them that way now.
Until she could find a way to ask Ivy what was really going on, she would stay silent.
Sleep was hard fought and hard won and didn’t seem to accomplish much. When she woke up the next morning she was convinced she’d shut her eyes only a moment before. The light filtering in around the drapes called her an idiot. But she got dressed and went out to start her day.
She’d been in the barn for several hours, when she decided to take a break. The morning had been uneventful, but in her tied-up state of mind, she’d forgotten to eat breakfast. Abandoning the third machine she went back up to the big house.
It was ten a.m. when she realized two things.
One—the man standing at her front door was wearing the gray shirt with red stripes that indicated he was with Georgia Power. His presence meant she had screwed up big time.
Two—Ivy was missing.
17
Hazelton House
Kayla focused on the symmetry of the steps as she descended the right-hand staircase. Telling herself that next time she would take the left, she hoped for a little balance in her life.
But the thought didn’t right the tilt of her world.
The knock came again at the door and she yelled out to it, trying to keep her voice steady while her thoughts scrambled and her breathing went erratic. “I’m coming.”
There was no one else in the main house. Evan had gone to the barn to work, and he would have his saw on, his earplugs in, and his goggles narrowing out any part of the world that was not directly in front of him. But he should have his phone set to vibrate. . .
Reenie was supposed to be in the attic at the Overseer’s house; she, too, should have her phone on. Kayla texted them both. She quickly added Ivy to the group, wondering where her friend was and hoping the text would bring her back. Kayla didn’t believe that to be the case, for a number of reasons.
“Ma’am?”
As the voice came again through the door, Kayla reached to the back of her jeans and gripped the handle of the gun. Just touching it, grabbing it, brought a small measure of calm, though it should have done the opposite. For a second, she thought about switching the safety, but she knew she should not answer the door with a loaded gun in hand. So she had protection at hand, but not at the ready, her heart pattering in her chest as she faced the unknown alone.
“Coming.”
She had to get the door. She had to play dumb. Because she had been dumb. Very dumb.
The man was from Georgia Power, a fact she had sent out in her text. And though she would pretend she didn’t know what he was here for, she did know. And it made her heart twist slowly. Her brain tried to fold in on itself, take the easy way and tap her out of the situation, which did sometimes happen to her when things got to be too much. Kayla fought to hold it together. Even if both Reenie and Evan ran over, they wouldn’t know what to say to the man in the gray shirt. Kayla stood the only chance of bluffing him out.
Gas.
She would try gas.
“Hello?” Using Reenie’s company voice, she swung the door wide and gave her best smile, knowing full well that it was often considered fake looking. It was the best she had.
“Ma’am, I’m Tom Collins with Georgia Power.” He touched the brim of his baseball-style logo hat, a gesture she had never understood the use of in modern times.
Kayla, still nervous as hell, smiled again and nodded, opting not to say anything. She’d known who he was with.
“Are you the owner here?” He said it as though he expected her to say no. And she wanted to say no.
If she went to fetch Reenie or Evan it would buy her some time; instead, she felt she had to stand on her own and save that time-out for when it would be best played. It was a wild card and she was going to need it. “I’m one of the owners. What can I
help you with?”
Kayla had appropriated Reenie’s voice before, but right now it grated. So she used it as little as possible, instead waiting for what he was going to say.
“Ma’am, it’s not our usual time to—”
Interrupting she tried to gain an upper hand. “Are you here to read the meter? I thought you usually didn’t need to check in for that.”
She knew what the meter would say. And that was exactly the problem.
“No, ma’am.”
He smiled at her again and she wondered if he was getting frustrated with her. She couldn’t tell.
“What I was saying is that it’s not our usual time to read the meter. But I am here about your meter reading just the same.”
Deliberately misunderstanding, Kayla gave her best fake smile again and said, “Oh, well feel free to go ahead and check it.”
“Ma’am, we think the issue is with the meter itself. We’re pretty sure it’s not reading correctly.”
Shit. “How so?”
He proceeded to tell her what she already knew. “The ‘wattage used’ reading has been declining steadily for about a month or so, and now it’s down to almost nothing.”
“Oh. Good for us.” A split-second thought passed that she should clap her hands together with some kind of odd glee, but she passed on that idea and waited.
“I’m afraid not, ma’am.” He looked up and around, finally tucking his clipboard/computer pad under his arm as he did.
It allowed her the first, momentary glance she’d gotten of the info he carried with him, but a second’s sight was all she needed, the numbers were now embedded in her head. The printout he was using had gray highlighting on it, delineating dates and meter readings. It went back almost a year, starting with a small string of zeros while the place had rotted before it came into Reenie’s possession. Then there was a note of the exact date they’d had the power turned back on. Kayla had been part of that, it had been after they’d all traveled here and toured the grounds and decided to rebuild.
