by Inara Scott
An opaque white shade blocked the front window into the house.
Leticia’s home looked like it was inhabited by either a) a dedicated gardener or b) a mad scientist. Both of which, Connor had to admit, were more than a little true.
He rang the bell and waited. A disembodied voice came from somewhere above his head. “Who’s there?”
“Mom,” he said patiently. “You can see me.”
“Identify yourself, please!”
Connor closed his eyes. “I’m pretty sure you know who I am.”
“First and last name,” the voice continued primly, “and stare right at the camera over the door.”
He looked up at the tiny circle barely visible over the doorframe. “Retina scan?”
“Maybe.”
“You’ve changed the security system again?”
“I’m hardly going to answer that question.”
“Of course not,” he said drily.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, sweetheart, it’s the people you consort with. You are my son, but you’re also terribly naive. Now, if you just say your name and look up, the door should unlock automatically.”
He should be used to this by now. He knew his mother loved and trusted him, but she mistrusted just about everyone else—especially those in tech or finance. She was pretty sure most of the people Connor worked with were spies and was constantly refining her security systems at her home to keep them out.
He gave a mocking bow to the camera. “Connor Ashton, long-suffering son of Leticia Ashton, here for her regular Saturday scone delivery.”
There was the sound of a door slamming from deep in the house, and then the front door opened and his mother stood there, smiling, a gray welding mask pushed up on top of her white hair. She was a tall woman, straight-backed and lean despite being close to seventy. She wore a thick brown jacket with a high collar and had a pair of heavy elbow-length gloves tucked under her arm. She gave him a quick hug. “Lovely to see you, darling.”
He surveyed her attire as he handed over a brown paper bag that contained the scones he’d made. “This is a new getup. Flame resistant, I assume?”
She rolled the gray-blue eyes that so closely matched his. “I’m retired, not stupid. I’m not going to weld in a T-shirt.”
“I wouldn’t have imagined you would,” he murmured, glancing at the box with the yellow warning sticker.
To be fair, his mother welding was really the least of his worries right now. The presence of Zoe in his house was a worry. The fact that he’d seriously considered kissing her at the hospital was a worry. The fact that he would have to make her dinner and then wake her up at three a.m. was a worry.
Not that he was going to be overcome by some kind of crazy male urge to make a move on her in the middle of the night. But the chance that she was going to pick up on his ill-advised attraction grew exponentially every time he had to touch her, hold her arm, or God forbid help her put on her pants.
He wasn’t going to do anything stupid, but he also wasn’t sure how long his acting skills could hold up.
Mason and Nate had bugged him for years about Zoe. They knew he liked her. They also knew he refused to even consider asking her out. To him, the reasons were fairly straightforward. He was a horrible date. A worse boyfriend. He forgot dinners. Missed anniversaries. Said the wrong thing. Forgot to say the right thing. Never figured out what the right thing was in the first place. Skipped out on parties he’d never wanted to attend. Left events early when they involved small talk and socializing.
He’d tried a couple of times to make things work with a woman, but it was futile. He somehow managed to mishandle every delicate situation he encountered, including relationships—and the ending thereof.
Case in point: number of women he’d dated and then been friends with afterward?
Zero.
That was not going to be Zoe. He was not going to sacrifice their friendship. Even if it killed him.
“Are the ladies already here?” he asked his mother.
She shook her head. “I was just getting in a little work before they arrived.” She gestured toward the interior of the house. “I’ll grab a plate. We better get those arranged before they get here.”
He rolled his eyes. “I come every Saturday. They know you don’t cook. You aren’t fooling them.”
“They don’t know for sure. Life is better with a little mystery, don’t you think?” She spun on her heel and headed into the house. “Hurry up. The door will lock in thirty seconds.”
Connor followed her down the hallway toward the kitchen, wincing only a little as the door slammed shut behind them and latched with a sharp, authoritative click. A few seconds later, a man’s voice sounded from the kitchen. “The front door is secure.”
Leticia removed the giant plastic mask that had covered her head and shook out her cloud of snowy shoulder-length hair. “Thank you, Milton.”
Milton was the name she had given her artificial intelligence assistant. He did a variety of tasks around the house, from locking and unlocking her security system to running complicated card game scenarios to test her bridge strategy.
“You know, he’s not alive. You don’t have to thank him.”
“That’s terribly mean,” Leticia reproved. “Just because his feelings are triggered by code doesn’t make them any less real.”
“Actually, yes, it does.” Connor ran his fingers through his hair, knowing this was a fight he wouldn’t win. “So, what’s with the welding getup? You starting on a new project?”
Leticia set the bag of scones on the countertop. Connor glanced around, looking for any clues as to what his mother was working on now. The kitchen sparkled brightly from a large bay window overlooking the backyard and a series of skylights overhead. Circling the wall just above waist height, a strip of chalkboard paint had been covered with Leticia’s tiny, precise lettering detailing everything from her latest grocery list to Maxwell’s equations. But he didn’t see anything revealing.
She opened a cupboard and pulled out a ceramic platter decorated with bright red and blue flowers. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“You know you actually can but choose not to.” He crossed his arms over his chest as he meandered casually toward the kitchen table, where a stack of oversize pieces of paper with schematic drawings lay in a haphazard pile.
Bingo!
He caught a brief glance of a white outline scribbled with notes and a few random words before his mother noticed the direction he had taken. She sprinted from behind the counter to sweep the pictures into her arms.
“Rookie mistake,” she muttered to herself. “Now I know I’m getting old.” She disappeared into a back room and then emerged a few minutes later still shaking her head and muttering under her breath.
“Did I see the words ‘tungsten’ and ‘deuterium’ on those plans?” he asked.
“Connor,” she warned. She grabbed a mug and basket full of tea bags and set them on the counter, then pushed the switch on a ceramic kettle to heat water. “Don’t be nosy.”
His mind spun through possible projects she might be embarking on. In her early research, she’d been focused on radiation and transfers of thermal energy. Her most recent patent, which she’d filed about fifteen years ago, was related to the use of polymer electrolytes in lithium-ion batteries. That patent had left her enormously wealthy but had also resulted in the loss of half of her home from a fire.
The answer to what she was likely working on was depressingly obvious. “Please tell me you aren’t doing cold fusion experiments in the garage.”
She selected a tea bag and added it to her cup, not meeting his gaze. “Effective cold fusion would solve all the world’s energy needs.”
“Mom.” He closed his eyes, imagining the likely setup in the garage. “You are aware that playing with high-voltage electricity can make you very dead very fast?”
She shrugged. “Teenagers do cold fusion experiments these days. I can’t im
agine why the thought of it would worry you.”
“Because the type of cold fusion experiments kids do for the science fair probably isn’t what you’re doing.”
“That’s sweet, honey.” She started to arrange the scones on the platter. “But who said I’m doing cold fusion at all? Now, why don’t you make us some coffee? You’re much better at it than I am. Minnie always complains when I make it for her.”
“Will Minnie also complain when you electrocute yourself?” he muttered grimly, grabbing a bag of coffee beans and a grinder from the cupboard. Great. Now he’d have to spend the rest of the day researching the latest in cold fusion reactors to see just how dangerous his mother’s latest project might be.
“Guests are approaching the front door.” Milton’s voice came from the wall.
Connor glanced at the small video screen on the door of the refrigerator, which provided a view of the outside of the house and the front porch. “Good grief, what is Minnie riding? That’s not an electric scooter, is it?”
The eldest of the three women approaching the house stood on a Razor-style scooter similar to the one Zoe had been riding that morning. She wore gloves, a skateboard helmet and goggles, and flowered leggings. The other two women were walking together, much more slowly. They waved at the door as they approached, obviously knowing Leticia would be watching them on camera.
“Haven’t you heard that e-scooters are the latest in personal mobility?” his mother replied, sounding surprised. “They’re all over the city, you know.”
“Of course I’ve heard of them. I watched a friend riding one of those things break her wrist and smash her head into a post this morning. Mom, Minnie is almost eighty. You know those things can go close to twenty miles per hour, right?”
Leticia was already heading for the door. “I’m sorry about your friend, but honestly, do you think I can tell Minnie anything?”
Connor set down the coffee and followed behind her, noting with some annoyance that she wasn’t asking them to identify themselves for the camera. “Aren’t you going to make them go through the security screen?”
Leticia laughed. “Good heavens, no.” She swung open the door and hollered, “GPGs reporting for duty!”
The three women solemnly saluted her. “GPGs reporting!” they called back, before dissolving into giggles.
The GPGs—Geriatric Physicist Grannies—was the name Leticia and her friends had given their quartet about three years ago, when they’d been registering for a bridge tournament. It had become something of a rallying cry ever since. Each of the four of them had been a physicist at some point in their careers, and three of the four—Leticia being the exception—had multiple grandchildren or great-grandchildren. They wore their geriatric status proudly, ranging in age from Leticia, who was just a few months shy of seventy, to Shirley, at eighty.
“Oh, Connor, how lovely you’re here!” Minnie pulled off her goggles and gestured toward her scooter. “Can you carry this inside for me? I doubt anyone would take it off the porch, but you never know.”
Minnie Hultzenberg was just under five feet tall and couldn’t have weighed much more than eighty pounds. Her hair was jet black and she had a rigorous exercise regime that included power yoga and spin classes. She and Leticia had worked together on projects throughout their careers, so Connor had known her since he was a young child.
“Of course, Minnie, but honestly, are you sure you should be riding one of these things?” He was relieved to see the scooter had two wheels in front instead of one, making it significantly more stable than the one Zoe had been on. Minnie had always been an athlete—to be honest, she was probably in better shape than Zoe. But now that he’d seen Zoe head face-first into a streetlamp, he wasn’t thrilled about the idea of Minnie racing around Sausalito on a similar device.
“Why wouldn’t I? Can you believe how clever it is?” Minnie’s beaky nose twitched with pleasure.
“Clever, yes,” Connor agreed, “but also dangerous.”
“Don’t worry.” She snorted. “I put it on the geriatric setting.”
Trying to tell Minnie what to do was predictably futile, but he couldn’t quite keep himself from trying. “Minnie—”
She raised her hand to cut him off. “Don’t try to parent me, young man. I’m perfectly safe on my new wheels.”
He gave a silent, inner groan. “At least tell me you didn’t ride all the way from home on it.”
She waved him off. “Gracious, no! Clara drove. We just parked a block away. I thought I’d bring it here to practice.” She elbowed Connor. “Don’t you try to steal it, either. I know the e-scooters are pretty hot right now.”
“I will do my best to restrain myself.”
“What kind of scones did you make us?” Clara asked.
Clara was the boisterous party girl of his mother’s friends, with a penchant for dating men ten years or more her junior. Today, she wore her wavy gray hair up in a loose bun on top of her head, while several crystals on leather cords hung from her neck.
“Who said Connor made anything?” Leticia called back.
Clara snorted. “I guess we can wait and see if anyone develops food poisoning. That will be a good clue as to whether or not Leticia did the cooking.”
“Be nice,” Shirley reproved. She grabbed Connor’s hand and let him accompany her down the hall. She was able to walk on her own, but she didn’t mind having a hand—just in case there was an earthquake, she liked to say. A gentle soul, Shirley had married at a young age and raised five kids before a messy divorce and desperate need for income sent her back to college. Once there, she’d discovered she had an aptitude for nanotechnology—who knew?—and got a job in a high-tech lab making far more than her cheating husband could ever have imagined.
As they entered the kitchen, the ladies headed straight for the plate of scones.
“I have never understood how you got to be so good in the kitchen,” Minnie observed, her mouth full.
“He certainly didn’t inherit his baking ability,” Clara said, diving into her scone with a look of bliss. She finished her first mouthful, then inclined her head toward the coffeepot. “A cup of coffee would go nicely with this.”
Minnie snorted. “Don’t let Leticia near that pot, ladies.”
Shirley patted Connor’s forearm before releasing him. “You go ahead,” she said. “Just don’t make it too strong.”
Connor turned his attention to the coffeepot while the GPGs gathered around the kitchen table. They immediately started chattering about their upcoming bridge tournament, the Bridge Gobble, which took place the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Shirley would have to miss it this year, due to her scheduled cataract surgery.
Leticia bit her lip. “Nancy offered to fill in, but I don’t know.”
“She’s a bit…unruly,” Shirley said.
“You mean she has no idea how to play,” Minnie said.
“Well, she does have her own way of doing things,” Shirley agreed.
“What about Janet?” Clara asked. “She played with us a few times last year when Leticia was sick.”
“And caused me to lose every game,” Shirley sighed.
“You all are hard on substitutes.” Connor started the coffee brewing and leaned against the counter. “Aren’t there like twenty people that go to the open bridge night you all like? Can’t you find someone there?”
Clara looked at him with horror. “Honestly? You expect us to partner with one of them?”
Connor cocked his head. “Um, yes?”
Leticia set her jaw. “They are always plotting against us down there. We’d never be able to trust them.”
Connor’s mouth fell open in surprise. “Seriously? You think they’d put someone up to sabotage you?”
Leticia shook her head. “This is exactly what I’m always saying, son. You’re far too trusting. They’ve never liked us down there because we always win.”
Minnie nodded. “That’s true. This would be a perfect opportunity to i
nfiltrate our group. They’d learn our tactics. Get to know our strategy.”
“It’s not a good idea, Connor,” Clara agreed. She adjusted one of her crystals. “I’ll send a prayer to the Goddess to bring us someone.”
“Someone very smart,” Shirley said.
“Yes, and they have to be a stranger,” Minnie agreed. “They can’t be connected to the club at all, or we’d never trust them.”
“Ideally,” Leticia mused, “someone who wouldn’t mind being bossed around a little.”
Connor watched as the four tucked their heads together and whispered something he couldn’t hear. Then he shook his head and laughed.
With the GPGs, it was the only thing you could do.
Chapter Six
When she heard the key in the door later that afternoon, Zoe gave a guilty start. She was sitting on Connor’s couch staring at her phone, which she had perched on her knee while she scrolled with her good hand. There were thirty unread emails in her in-box, and she had managed to get through only ten of them in the half an hour or so she’d been working.
Having only one arm made holding an oversize smartphone surprisingly difficult. It would also make it difficult to hide the evidence of her crime—emailing while she was supposed to be resting.
She did feel a little bad about checking her email, but the weight of lying in the guest room staring at the ceiling was seriously driving her crazy. It was one thing to take a break and relax for a day. It was another thing entirely to lie in a dark room and do nothing but think about all the things you weren’t doing.
“Seriously?” Connor closed the door behind him. He held a bag of groceries in one hand and his keys in the other. He shook his head in disbelief. “I thought you’d wait until later tonight, at least.”
The phone slipped to the floor with a thud. “Um, hasn’t it been four hours?” She tried an innocent look.
“Try three and a half.” He set the groceries on the counter and walked over to her, holding out his hand. “It’s time to surrender the device. If you want dinner, that is.”