The Shadow Constant

by AJ Scudiere

  Around the rectangular table, the five of them were each eating breakfast, Ivy a little slower than the others because she was eating one-handed. Reenie was perched in a pulled-up chair at the end of the booth, ostensibly because she was the smallest, but really because Standish was hemmed into the corner, stuck safely between Evan and the wall.

  Kayla couldn’t imagine the older man making a break for it. Though he might have, something in his posture said he was willing to sit at the wrong end of the barrel for the chance to say his piece. He also understood where they were and that he would need to put on a good front—as though he were at breakfast with his family rather than out at gunpoint.

  Another nod in his favor was his demeanor. He seemed to have Reenie’s bred-in feel for propriety. Kayla knew tons of etiquette; she could recite reams of “isms” and old family sayings. She just didn’t ever seem to know when they applied. Standish applied them all. He wouldn’t bolt, because that would be unseemly. One simply did not cause a scene in a low-end diner in a backwater town.

  Standish was speaking, looking like a combination of a grandfather and an aged knight, not at all like someone who ordered listening devices and kidnappings. He’d started with his history—the Standish family coming to America on the Mayflower, traceable lineage, the firstborn son always named Reginald for fifteen generations. He startled Reenie by mentioning that he’d known her grandfather, flirted momentarily with the older waitress who brought them their food, then seamlessly transitioned back to the conversation at hand, never once acknowledging the gun on him.

  “You’re this generation’s Charlene. I remember some family discord about your mother giving you the name. Your grandfather never had an issue with it though. He adored you.”

  Reenie’s eyebrows went up, and Kayla thought to herself “Tell us something we don’t already know.”

  Standish proceeded to do just that. “I helped him with the Whitney Device. He made it work.”

  Kayla almost spit her eggs. “He did!?”

  Evan looked at her and gave a tiny shake of his head. But she didn’t stand down. If Standish knew of someone else with a working Whitney Device, she wanted to know, too.

  Reginald nodded slowly. “He and I made a business deal for that machine. I funded his research into it.”

  Shock skittered across Reenie’s face. Standish had shocked them all.

  But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. As Kayla considered the pieces she’d found, the ones that had just happened to fit the Whitney Device, she realized it hadn’t been coincidence. They were from his machine. He must have scuttled it.

  Her eyes darted one way then another while she thought, eventually landing for a moment on the butt of the gun Ivy held. Her new best friend had been quiet the whole meal, carefully keeping Standish locked in place. Later Kayla would ask her if she was okay, but she couldn’t now. All she could do was offer a look as a slight smile fell on Ivy’s mouth. Her free hand moved over to rest on Kayla’s thigh, under the table and just as hidden as the gun. Kayla didn’t react on the outside, but knew Ivy was okay.

  With her foundation in place, Kayla’s attention lasered back to Standish, to ask him about the late grandpa Hazelton, but the older man was still talking, still having a neat conversation in his classy slacks and pressed button-down shirt that even Kayla could see was inappropriate for the diner. He looked like he was visiting poor relations, and the image wasn’t too far from the truth. His words reined in her scattered thoughts.

  “Edwin got paranoid. Told me he was being followed. That he’d been the victim of vandalism and a few sketchy car accidents.” At Reenie’s confused expression, Standish elaborated. “He went into a ditch once and into the guardrail another time. He walked away from both, but he thought someone was sending a message. I told him he was a poor driver and needlessly paranoid.” Deep regret passed through his features leaving a wake of sadness, “Then he disappeared. They found him later, an apparent heart attack.”

  For a moment the old man looked back to Reenie, “That’s probably what you remember. That was the official cause of death. And no matter what I said, they wouldn’t do an autopsy. I offered to pay for it, but your grandmother refused . . . I think she just had too much to deal with at the time.” The way he softened the blow of grandmother Hazelton refusing the investigation made Kayla think there was something more behind it. Like maybe grandma had gotten tired of grandpa’s get-rich-quick schemes or just wanted to put it behind her.

  Kayla looked up at Standish, more and more convinced that this man was not part of the group that kidnapped her and Reenie. But also aware that her ability to read people leaned very much to the overtrusting side. Until she had proof, she’d leave that decision to the others, and so far Ivy’s gun never wavered. Kayla swung her thoughts back to the issue at hand. “Do you think he destroyed the machine?”

  Standish nodded at her. As best she could tell, the look was sincere. “After the funeral, I looked around. I found parts—gears, a chain, something I didn’t recognize—in the carriage house, but no machine.”

  “You said he made it work?”

  Another nod. “I saw it. But he hadn’t figured out how to hook in into the electrical system. The machine kept slowing and eventually stopping when he tried. The sixty-cycle problem plagued him.” Looking around the table, Standish acknowledged the rest of them, but kept the conversation on Kayla. “I didn’t know what he meant at the time. I didn’t pay enough attention; he was the engineer with the big idea and I was the businessman. But after he died and I realized it was a goldmine, I figured I needed to learn.”

  “I solved the 60 Hertz problem.” Kayla volunteered. She’d been thinking that, but had no idea it would pop out of her mouth, true or not. “There was a constant—never mind.”

  Too late. Standish smiled. “I know. I watched you.”

  Kayla shuddered. This was going to get ugly; he was going to explain how he’d kidnapped her and why—though she had a pretty good idea of that already. But just then the waitress came back and the way the chatter suddenly stalled was a good indicator that they were talking about something they didn’t want overheard, which was stupid in a local, open café like Stiltson’s. But once the next round of coffee had been poured and they looked like any family nursing their beverages and clinging to a table for a while to talk, the conversation started up again.

  Kayla opened with an accusation. “It’s illegal to bug someone’s private property.”

  He frowned, clearly not feeling her wrath. “I didn’t . . . listening devices?”

  Duh. Unable to think of the proper words, she just raised her eyebrows.

  “They were all over the place.” Evan leaned closer to the old man, reminding him that Evan was younger and stronger. That he could rip Standish apart for his role in their problems.

  “No. I just sent a few guys with cameras to document your progress. It’s your machine.”

  Evan, storms in his eyes, nearly growled the next words. “That’s still invasive.” There was a subtle beat, a pause in his own internal conversation that showed in his glare. “And how do we know that you didn’t ask for anything more than cameras? You had my sister photographed. You sent people onto our property, which is trespassing. And you had my sister kidnapped!”

  His voice had risen steadily throughout the clenched-teeth tirade, and Kayla was waving her hand at him across the table. The waitress stopped abruptly a few feet away and would have spilled her round carafe of coffee had she not already dosed half of it out to other customers. The two men at the table behind Evan and Mr. Standish frowned, looking over their shoulders at the odd group.

  Kayla smiled at the waitress and motioned for some coffee that she wasn’t going to drink. She also pulled Ivy’s cup closer and had that refilled as well, since Ivy’s hands were busy holding a gun that was likely getting heavy. Ivy had suffered the most in all this, and it wasn’t even her plantation, her family memories or her money involved. Kayla
leaned against Ivy in a show of solidarity as she smiled and thanked the waitress. She wasn’t sure if she got all that right, but the waitress turned and went to the next table. So she pushed another smile to her face and said to the table at large. “I believe it is time to move this conference to another venue.”

  Reenie, stuck in the fifth seat pulled up at the edge of the booth, tucked her chair in yet again for a customer passing to the back of the small restaurant and sighed. “The plantation?”

  Shaking her head, Kayla struck that one down. “Being here, and . . . coercing Mr. Standish is one thing. Moving him to our property would break Georgia and federal laws.”

  Standish spoke again. “We can go there. I’m certainly not going to press charges.”

  “You’ll understand if your credibility is not at an all-time high.” Evan raised an eyebrow as he grabbed Standish by the arm and pulled him out of the booth. “We passed a park on the way in.”

  This time it was Reenie who objected. “There are kids there. And we have to pay the bill.” She patted herself down. “No money.”

  There was a brief flurry as Standish offered to pay, Kayla refused him, and Evan gave Kayla cash so that he and Ivy could flank the old man out the door. It would have been funny if she hadn’t been stuck away from home. She wanted to go curl up in her bed, next to Ivy, not talk to the old man about what he had and hadn’t orchestrated. But they couldn’t just chain Standish in the basement while they napped. They didn’t have a basement.

  They pressed into Evan’s sedan, which hadn’t looked so old until she’d ridden in the Mercedes Standish drove. After a small amount of quiet arguing, which Kayla didn’t think fooled anyone from the looks they were getting, Reenie slid into the driver’s seat. Ivy released the gun and the jacket to Evan, who only managed to look ever so slightly less like he was concealing a gun. Then she fell, nearly bonelessly into the front passenger spot. The consistent rolling of her shoulder was the only clue that she’d been tense.

  Reenie was just backing out of the spot when Kayla yelled, “Wait!” and before the car even came to a full stop, she had thrown open the door and was dashing for the Mercedes. Only as she turned to demand the keys did she realize that she’d left Standish unprotected, unblocked, leaving an open space for him to make a break for it.

  But he hadn’t even scooted over just a little to keep from being pressed into Evan. Sure, her brother had a gun on the older man, but he seemed almost . . . glad, glad to be squished into the back of a car he probably wouldn’t normally be caught dead in. He smiled, held his hands up in the old magician’s nothing-up-my-sleeve gesture, and then only after a nod from Evan did he reach into his pocket and produce the keys.

  In a moment, Kayla was back in, the fabric-wrapped bundle sprung from the trunk and cradled in her arms. Her baby, back with her at last.

  Evan’s curious “What’s that?” made her smile, and for a moment she was shocked by the matching grin on Standish’s face.

  “It’s the original Whitney diagram. We found it at the house where we were . . . kept.”

  “What?!” Evan glared at Standish. “You were involved in that?”

  “I’ll explain.”

  But Reenie held off all conversation until she located an empty grocery store lot. She pulled into the farthest spot and locked the doors before twisting around and glaring at Standish. “You kidnapped my almost sister and my friend. So tell me how you are going to explain this.”

  For just a moment, Kayla saw a flash of pit bull on Reenie’s face and it made her proud.

  The old man took in a deep breath and braced his weathered hands on his knees. “My men did kidnap them but not at my bequest. I only asked for simple, visual reconnaissance.”

  He pointed to the rolled oilcloth that Kayla was lovingly unwrapping as he spoke. “I’ve been missing that for several weeks, so I knew something was wrong. But I didn’t know how wrong until they stopped reporting in together like they were supposed to. For the past several days one was always absent.” Reenie looked like she wanted to interrupt, but Standish didn’t let her. He just kept going. “I figured out pretty quickly that Ivy had gone missing at the same time my men started acting odd. Putting two and two together, I got on the case. Hired a P.I. and about 3 a.m. this morning I got the info about the house where they were trading shifts. I hurried right over, gun in hand, hoping the girls were there. They were coming out the walk in their stocking feet as I walked up.”

  “What?” Evan looked at her pointedly. His vocabulary was severely lacking this morning. Then again, he may not have slept well in about five days, so Kayla excused his inability to put the pieces together.

  “Yup. Ivy convinced them that I was autistic, so I got catered to. Well, as much as a kidnap victim can be. I basically dicked around and threw the occasional temper tantrum until we gathered what we needed to escape.”

  Still slumped into her seat and looking like she was ready to sleep through the whole explanation, Ivy unexpectedly rolled her head back. She really only turned around enough to look at Reenie. “Kayla was amazing. We electrocuted our watcher with a fork and a bottle of water.” When she registered the shocked look on the other woman’s face, she waved her hand. “He’s fine, though probably still vibrating a little bit. He’s tied to a pipe in the basement. Shit!” She sat up straight and fully turned, staring at Kayla. “It’s after eight. They’ve had shift change. If number two found him, they could be out looking for us.” Ivy’s eyes darted between them all. “We have to get back to Hazelton House before they do.”

  Evan shook his head. “What about Standish? We can’t take him to our home.”

  “Wait.” Kayla held up her hand. Looking the old man in the eye, she asked, “If you took this from us, how did you do it?”

  “I waited twenty years. I visited Edwin’s widow periodically, asking her if she’d come across anything new on the property, remembered anything significant he might have said, maybe found the diagram. She never did. So when the house sold, I watched you all. I kept my eyes on the preservation shop and the Historical Register. The shop employee panned out. The guy I bribed at the Register yielded nothing.”

  Kayla let him keep going, because so far he matched up. He had details he shouldn’t have known unless he was the one to do it.

  “When the diagram showed up for preservation, my guy took the original and created the fake as per my instructions.”

  Kayla nodded, then tapped Reenie on the shoulder. “We can go back to the house.”

  Even as Evan looked back and forth, Reenie started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. Ironically, it was now Reenie who had more faith in her than her brother.

  That came as a huge shock, as did Ivy’s tired smile over her shoulder as they exited. It was Ivy who said, “Go back to the café, Reenie? So Mr. Standish can get his car. He’ll follow us to Hazelton House.”

  Although Ivy couldn’t see it, Standish nodded. And Evan just looked more perplexed.

  Kayla filled them all in on what the old man knew and she’d figured out. “Standish watched us, wanted to see the progress on the machine. But he didn’t bug the place nor have Ivy and me kidnapped. He’s been helping us.”

  Resigned, Evan dropped the gun from its propped position and finally turned off the safety. He, too, seemed tired of holding it, and Kayla realized he’d been carefully aiming it to hit only Mr. Standish should the need to pull the trigger arise. There were too many collateral targets in the car for Evan to have relaxed even an inch.

  Reaching out, Kayla took his hand and squeezed it. He’d been having a really bad week. He looked frayed and battered, which was unusual for Evan. With all he’d dealt with in his life, he kept it remarkably together. So she gave him something good. Something in addition to her and Ivy being safe and home and finally wearing shoes.

  “He put the extra lines in the fake diagram. He gave us the answer.”

  25

  Hazelton House

  Evan had his doubts
about Standish. There were too many possible ulterior motives in returning the fake diagram with hints about how to make the Whitney Device work.

  Though Kayla seemed to think it was proof of his loyalty to the machine and thus to them, Evan thought the old man might not have any thoughts beyond filing a primary patent under his own name. He certainly had the money to be first to the drawing board. And they most certainly did not.

  Still Kayla pointed out more that did seem to indicate Standish was on their side, but Evan’s trust had been completely broken, one piece at a time. The death of his trust should have come earlier, faster, but he’d fought it. Evan had been late to the game, only really starting to question their safety after Georgia Power employee Tom Collins was found in a ditch after being beaten, Evan nearly the last to see him alive.

  So his sister’s insistence that none of the bad things they’d endured, including her own kidnapping, were the fault of the man who had climbed in his nice Mercedes and followed them to their home, didn’t quite convince Evan. Didn’t move him to invest in the same man she’d opened all the doors to and welcomed wholeheartedly. She pointed out that Standish wouldn’t have mentioned patenting the machine if he was trying to beat them to it. Standish was offering to cover the costs.

  Kayla thanked him, then helped Reenie set up a spare bedroom in the main house. Evan then had Reenie help him set up yet another room for the two of them—a room situated between his naïve sister and the old man who, thankfully, couldn’t move too fast and easily let Evan search him. Though he’d found nothing, neither had he found anything to trust.

  The worst part was that Standish did nothing to violate Kayla’s trust. Had he done that, the decision could be made, the man could be forced out, and they could once again close their doors to the outside world that kept trying to burrow past their meager defenses.

  Instead Kayla and Ivy had gone to sleep, closing and locking the door to their bedroom. He’d heard not a single peep from them and guessed that they were just happy to be home. They were probably sleeping off a twenty-four-hour tension bender. As they told it, they’d spent yesterday as “normal” kidnappees, then laid awake most of the night waiting for the right moment. After that they’d escaped, captured Reginald Standish as it were, and then spent a long morning at the diner. They’d simply crashed.