by AJ Scudiere
For a moment, she could see the old walls behind where the man now stood, the way the old paper had been greasy and peeling from around the wide double front door. Now everything was smooth and painted a beautiful burgundy color, Pompeii-inspired in the antebellum style. Just the thought of the color brought back Ivy’s arguments. She was a stickler for perfect restoration—no modern advancements, just exactly the way things had been before. She’d suggested they grind the original plaster from the walls, mix it with fresh horse hair, just like in the Civil War days, and reapply it. That had been too much, Reenie wanted low VOC paints with no fumes. She wanted sealed wood that wouldn’t rot. She wanted modern restrooms.
Kayla’s breath caught at the thought of what they had done here. At her pang of worry for Ivy she re-fortified herself. She had to get rid of this man.
Collins spoke again, a slight accent matching his slight smile. “Your lights are on, and this is a big house. You’re clearly using air-conditioning. The way this summer has been going, I’d guess you’ve been using it a lot.”
“Oh yes.” Another attempt at being Reenie with a layer of brick-wall will.
“If that’s the case, we’ve been undercharging you. The meter’s been steadily reading lower. Unless you installed some solar panels or such?”
He looked at her sideways from under his cap, waiting to catch her.
While solar would have been a great answer, it didn’t fly. Any decent installation should have netted them an occasional power gain—which would have fed back onto the grid causing a negative reading. Kayla had read the whole Georgia Power contract when they’d signed up. She always did. And she remembered what it said. They were not allowed to hook a negative system into the Georgia Power grid without express written permission. It was punishable by fines and even jail time. Kayla wasn’t stupid enough to tell him that they had solar panels on the roof.
“No sir. No solar panels.” She almost told him she knew it was illegal, but that didn’t fit with playing dumb.
“Do you have another power source?”
Time for the card.
“Yes. We do have some gas generators going. We invested in some, hoping to reduce the power bill.” Gas didn’t feed back onto the power grid. People used gas barbecues, gas water heaters, gas fireplaces all the time. But these were separate systems. Kayla just wasn’t sure she was ready to say she was running the entire main house and the Overseer’s on gas. That would be expensive and potentially stupid.
“May I see the generator?”
“Oh, I’ll have to call my brother. He’s another owner here.” She plucked her phone from her back pocket and smiled again at the man while she dialed. No one had texted her back. Shit.
Evan’s answer just barely saved her from voicemail. His “Hello?” overlapped with Reenie’s voice as she finally came in through the back door. “Kayla? Did you need something?”
“One minute, Ev.” She was turning to say something to Reenie, as she pushed through the hidden door to the foyer, and Kayla realized her façade had fallen away, and she’d lost her Reenie face. Quickly reinstalling it, she smiled up at Reenie and watched as the other woman frowned. “I’m on the line with Evan now.”
“Evan. There’s a man here from Georgia Power, he wants to see your gas generators.”
Reenie looked at her oddly again, but Kayla had no idea if Reenie was trying to send her a signal. Then again, Reenie knew Kayla couldn’t catch that with a net, and she wouldn’t try. Then Kayla calmed herself a bit. “He wanted to see the generators and I told him that you would have to take care of that.”
“You’re really fine?”
“Yes. Reenie is here now, too. Just come up.”
With Evan on his way, Kayla turned to find the man from Georgia Power looking back and forth. He introduced himself again and reached out to shake Reenie’s hand.
Her actual smile was nowhere to be found so she had also plastered on a fake. “Tom Collins? Like the drink?”
“Yes, ma’am.” His grin was genuine as he glanced back and forth between the two of them. “Are you two sisters?”
Reenie looked shocked. “Oh no!”
“Just old friends.” Kayla stepped up and gave Reenie a hug around the waist.
He probably thought that because she was using Reenie’s expressions. Never mind that their skin tones, builds, and heights gave no hint of kinship, her mimicry skills were supreme. She smiled Reenie’s smile again and wondered how the hell they were going to keep Collins occupied while they waited for Evan to arrive from the barn.
Evan was breathing heavily when he topped the hill, but not from the run. It was from what he’d been doing when he got Kayla’s text. He’d thought she would handle the issue with the power guy the best she could. He guessed she had—faked her way through, handed the torch to him and bought them all some time.
It was all going to shit. He didn’t need the Georgia Power guy on top of everything else he’d found. Now GP had to be convinced their meters were wrong. They had probably sent someone out to fix things and possibly charge them back bills. At this point, Evan would happily pay whatever they wanted.
The Hazelton House budget had been set with exorbitant bills in mind. This place was a power suck, the insulation literally paper. Even Ivy hadn’t balked at upgrading that. Stuffing the walls with old newspaper was realistic to the original era but incredibly foolhardy in this one. And would possibly cost her her job when the building burned to nothing but a clean brick shell. And in the meantime, they were lighting and cooling and running all kinds of power-hungry equipment on the plantation—all split from a single main power input that had been added long before they knew that that, too, was incredibly unsafe.
Even so, Hazelton House had probably been a beacon on the GP grid—a huge power suck and a primary source of income. While Big Oil was slowly cranking prices on all petroleum-based products, electric companies were squeezing out every last penny they could just to stay in business. As he picked his way up the back porch steps he thought about Kayla’s hint at gas and how he was going to play it.
He could pick out Reenie’s voice and that of the man from Georgia Power—the only male voice. No Ivy. And he was pretty sure he heard Kayla doing her best Reenie impression. The two women were laughing like old friends. And Kayla was playing “dumb me.”
“My brother has been fiddling with the generator, trying to see if he can get us off the power grid.”
“We’re sorry,” That was Reenie, and he pushed open the door in the middle of her sentence to find her hand out to the man in uniform. “Should we have notified you that were going to be using less power?”
“No ma’am.” The visitors’ eyes made clear contact with Evan’s. “Sir?”
“Hello.” He held out his hand, “I’m Evan Reeves. I understand you have some concerns about our generators?”
Pleased that he didn’t pick up any bad vibes, but not willing to use that as any kind of yardstick given his recent track records, Evan engaged the man.
The man pushed his hat up. “Can I take a look at the generators? I have to be sure they’re offline from our system and not violating any safety laws.”
About to protest, Evan almost swallowed his tongue when Kayla talked on top of him. “Oh, is that all you wanted? I could have showed you that.” Then she smiled at Reenie. “We could have. Couldn’t we? Come on back. I’ll show you the one right here.”
She led them out the back door, walking strangely. It took Evan a moment to realize the walk wasn’t odd at all, just odd for Kayla. She tiptoed as though she were in heels. He could imagine that in her mind her hair was done and she was in a day dress, her feet in dainty shoes. Instead she was in jeans liberally speckled with dirt and holes, all of it at odds with her Southern Belle demeanor, and all of it spot on. He almost smiled.
Out back, she pointed out the faulty middle step and used it as an excuse to keep them all up on the porch. Go Girl, Evan thought
.
“Here,” she smiled over-brightly. “Evan can you show him the hook-ups from here? I just don’t want anyone to get in trouble on that old step.”
Evan leaned out on the railing, on the sturdy boards he’d already replaced. “You can see the incoming power—yours—is completely unhooked from the insource to the building.”
The angle was bad, the incoming power went to the top corner of the big house, and the GP employee couldn’t not notice that. “Can I go take a closer look?”
He started gingerly down the steps.
It was Kayla who grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Wait! It’s dangerous.” She pulled him along the way she wanted him to go. Who knew she’d get such an education from hanging around with Reenie? “You should go out the front, and we’ll walk around the side. I’d just feel so bad if you hurt yourself.”
He nodded, seeming to buy it. It was the best they had to keep him from walking straight back and seeing what they had. Kayla had tented all the machines. She’d covered two sides on each, giving her access from one open side. But if he so much as glanced inside, the power man would know this was no gas generator.
They took a field trip to the side corner as a group, where Evan once again pointed out the disconnect: that he—actually Kayla—had properly capped the old power line. He showed the split line running to the barn, the only place left drawing any power from the grid. He offered to walk Tom Collins down to the other building to see the connection there. Anything to draw his attention from the Whitney Machine chugging away just beyond a blue two-ply tarp. Even a good wind could ruin everything, but luckily the day was still.
It didn’t work.
“No, sir. I don’t need to see that building. The connection looks secure and the numbers match up for that.” He looked down at his clipboard again, then back up. “Can I see the generator?”
He didn’t know what sounds were going to come out of his mouth, but Evan opened it, hopeful that he would find some words. His heart hammered. He had to say—
“No, sir. Evan!” Kayla looked him in the eyes with reproach. “Evan, you cannot let people see it.”
Startled, he tried his best to play along. She simply couldn’t throw it all under the bus at this point. Not still in Reenie’s voice.
She put an awkward hand on the man’s bare forearm, but he didn’t shrug her off. “I’m sorry sir. But my brother has made a few modifications to his generator. He’s getting an efficiency of almost forty—oh! I’m sorry again. He’s hoping to sell his designs.”
Reenie picked up the thread. Pointing at Evan she said, “That’s my future husband, and he’s banking on getting me a nice ring from the sale of that generator design.”
That earned her a laugh and a questioning look from the power man. He still wasn’t sending off any odd vibes that Evan could pick up, but the feel of the gun in the back of his pants was eating a hole in him. There was just no way to know if he could get to it in time. Evan smiled back, trying for a “that’s my girl” look and having no idea if he succeeded.
But then the joke was over.
Collins straightened. “I’m afraid I need to see the generator. I didn’t see a gas tank for the size you would need. And I have to be sure it’s not hooked into our system.” He turned to make his way toward the blue tarp—to uncover everything they’d worked for. And with what Evan had seen today, that simply couldn’t happen.
He considered threatening the man with his gun. He was contemplating knocking him out with the butt when Kayla’s cold words brought them all up short.
“You cannot look at it. I’m a lawyer, Mr. Collins. I read every inch of that Georgia Power contract. We don’t have solar, haven’t applied for any energy-saving discounts, and aren’t hooked into your grid—as you have clearly seen.” She pointed back at the corner of the house. “That’s my brother’s design, and I cannot let anyone get to it before we get his paperwork filed with the patent office.”
Reenie stepped in. “I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t steal anything, but anyone who saw it could claim the idea as their own. We just aren’t taking chances with anybody.”
This, at last, brought a nod from Collins. The lawyer threat seemed to work. “Yes, ma’am. I understand. Once you get that paperwork filed, I’d love to see it. People have been trying to get better power out of gas generators for years. Hasn’t been much success.”
Reenie led him around the front of the building and before Collins could say anything else, Evan asked, “Can we alter our power intake as needed? I mean, at some point I’m going to have to take my generators offline. That’s why we didn’t change our status. It isn’t permanent.”
Ignoring the sharp look he received from Kayla, and glad that Mr. Power had his back to her, Evan waited.
“If you’ll be hooking back into our line—” He pointed up to the incoming source line-–“You’ll need to be sure to have a pro do it.”
With a small nod, Evan accepted the answer at face value. “We have an electrical engineer come help with that.” Yes, he thought, she’ll come down from the second floor.
“Yeah, it’s good work.” Collins looked up at the cable. They could still see it where all four of them gathered at the front side of the house. “You know, you get that engineer to sign a paper for you, you could have him take a look at that generator of yours. Might help.” Collins went back to hunt-and-pecking notes into the computer pad attached to the back of his clipboard and completely missed Evan’s ironic grin.
It was likely his only smile of the day.
Collins left, thanking them for their help with his mystery and saying they were welcome to draw more power any time they wanted. But they stood and waited while Collins ambled down the long drive. Eventually Evan felt like an idiot and figured they all looked suspicious just standing there, so he ushered them into the house where they continued watching through the windows. But the Georgia Power man got into a car bearing the same logo and simply drove away.
Reenie’s relief was audible as she gushed out a question before anyone could say anything else. “Do you think he was legit?”
“No.” Evan answered as fast as she’d asked. And right on top of Kayla.
“His name was a mixed drink. But his paperwork looked pretty real.”
Both the women had gears turning in their heads and their thought processes were nearly visible. But all Evan could think was that Collins hadn’t really pushed. He’d tried to see the generator, but he’d also given up relatively easily. “That was a good ploy about being a lawyer, Kayla.”
She smiled. “I didn’t have to threaten them about the overbill they did in July either.”
“They overbilled us in July?!” Reenie looked as though this was the biggest sin of the day.
With a shrug, Kayla made a simple statement of fact. “I read the wattages on his printout. It didn’t match the billing rate. You’re the one who pays the bill. Didn’t you notice?”
“No.” Reenie’s shoulders sloped. You just didn’t go up against Kayla and numbers.
But his sister was onto another subject. “I can’t find Ivy anywhere.”
“What?” Attention snagged again, Reenie lost her concern about overbilling. “Nowhere?”
Evan broke in. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.” When he had both women’s attention, he told them what was really important. “I didn’t come up when you texted, Kay, because I was scuttling your machine.”
He waited a beat, his heart breaking at telling her that, and knowing that he needed to tell her more. “Someone was inside the
barn this morning. After you were there, and before me. Or you would have seen the prints. They were all around the machine.”
18
Kayla and Ivy’s Room, Hazelton House
Ivy was gone and Kayla had no idea what to do next. She’d tried Ivy’s phone repeatedly, until they found it on the floor by the bed, a long list of incoming calls from Kayla posted on the screen.
Reenie looked back a
nd forth from Kayla to Evan. Evan was checking out the room.
Neither Reenie nor Evan thought it was a big deal that Ivy was nowhere to be found. They both wanted to go immediately to the barn. And her brother was right: if there had already been tracks around the machine, she would have noticed. Which meant that someone had been there in the very small window of time between when she’d left and Evan arrived. Her brother had been out on the property most of the morning. So the only way a person could have gotten in and back out of the barn without being noticed was to know when people left and how far away the others were. Kayla did have to allow for two other options, though, one—psychic skill and two—incredible luck. Both seemed equally unlikely.
Evan broke into her thoughts, which was probably a good thing. Her famous focus was for crap right now, with her eyes here in the bedroom and her brain in the barn.
“There’s no sign of a struggle.” He waved his hand around. “Nothing obvious anyway.”
Grasping at straws, Kayla blurted out, “She left her phone.”
Reenie even shrugged at that one. “It is odd we can’t find her, but she’s always leaving it lying around. That doesn’t mean anything.”
Evan sighed and Kayla tried again. “Well, then, we know she’s not doing anything illegal. Or she’d guard it and never let us see. And she wouldn’t have told me her password.” In a few clicks the phone was open again. The calls were all to Kayla, Reenie, Evan, the line at the Overseer’s and about three other numbers. One was labeled “Mom” and came with a picture of an older woman wearing too much makeup and hairspray. Kayla cringed. Another several calls came from a Dr. Biernacki. And one to Charles dated from when they’d gone to pick up the batch of gears he’d made. Thrusting the phone to Reenie, Kayla pointed to it. “You might as well search now. You’ll never have a better excuse.”
