Stand Your Ground Hero

by Paul Duffau

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing to worry about. Just thought I saw something suspicious.”

  The delivery was so bland that Kenzie was pretty sure he had seen something but was not telling her. She shivered as a premonitory chill crept down her neck and across her shoulders. Her mind flashed to Mitch, and the chill reached the necklace and warmed. She tapped her right foot to the rhythm of the music while the feeling spread lower, a tide of contentment in place of the turbulence in the rest of her life.

  Shortly, Jackson had them on the U-Dub campus. Deftly he located a parking place near the Suzzallo Library. Together they exited the car, both scanning around, out of instinct.

  “How long are we going to be here?”

  The question caught Kenzie off guard. “I don’t know.” She raised her eyebrows. “A couple of hours, maybe?”

  Jackson scowled. “If I get a parking ticket, I’ll just charge it back to your father.”

  Shoot! Kenzie jerked her head around and spotted an automated parking pass machine. “I’ll pay for two hours.” She pulled her wallet out and went to it. Her fingers touched the credit card her parents had given her. Bad idea. Better to delay letting them know she came here, and all the nosy questions they’d ask. Cash would keep them in the dark. She stopped short in the middle of the lot. She spun to face her bodyguard. “Do you tell my father everywhere we go?”

  That infuriating half-hidden smile flashed momentarily, and she knew the answer before he spoke.

  “Yes.”

  She stared up at him, gave him a grimace, and went to pay. The machine grudgingly took the cash from her with a grinding sound and spat out a stiff rectangle of paper. Jackson took it from her and placed it in the Audi. Kenzie set a brisk pace to the library.

  “Slow down,” said Jackson. “People in a hurry attract attention.”

  She huffed but did as he instructed. The stroll across the campus actually relaxed some of the stored tension in her. When she rounded the corner into Red Square, the view made her stop and stare. The towering gothic structure of the library stood with its white columns like pickets on a tall fence to protect the knowledge inside.

  “It hit me like that the first time, too,” acknowledged Jackson.

  Kenzie was in mid-nod when it dawned on her. “You didn’t need the GPS.”

  “Did my undergrad work here.” He guided her back into motion. “If you tell me what you’re looking for, I can probably speed up the process for you.”

  Kenzie chewed on the inside of her lip as she considered his offer. She mounted the steps to the entrance and paused by a column draped in a purple pennant with a gold “Welcome” stitched onto the fabric. He’d follow her all over anyway, so it couldn’t hurt. “Old newspapers, from when I was born.”

  She thought he was going to refuse to help by the shake of his head. “We have different definitions of old,” he said. He opened the door for her and followed her into the foyer.

  Kenzie blinked reflexively in the dim interior. From the foyer area, study rooms branched to either side, and in front of her were columns of cut stone and a pair of grand marble stairways winding up to the next floor. The high arch of the stained-glass windows gave the building the air of a cathedral. The breathtaking scale of the library left her paralyzed with indecision. She felt a hand cup her elbow, directing her forward.

  “This way,” murmured Jackson. He guided her to the interior of the building, down a short flight of seven steps, and into a large vaulted space brimming with ivory hues and quiet intensity, lit with indirect lighting. Ahead, to the right, she saw the sign for the circulation desk. Beside her, Jackson relaxed his posture. From the corner of her eye, she watched him transition from bodyguard to associate professor, the ever-alert eyes slowing into a contemplative introspection as he smoothly assumed his role with a skill that would have pleased an acting coach.

  “Act like you belong here,” he whispered, the intensity in his words at odds with his studious demeanor. “When they ask for your student ID, tell them you lost it and play for sympathy.” He moved to create space between them. “I’ll be over at the stacks. Stay in sight, please.” With that, he was gone.

  Her step faltered as she looked up. If the architect intended to inspire awe, she thought, he did a great job. Approaching the desk, she pulled a small notebook from her pocket. A young brunette, hair pulled back into a loose messy ponytail, saw her coming and stood up. Kenzie craned her head up at the woman, who was easily over six feet tall and lanky.

  “Hi, I need to, um, see some newspaper articles?” At the same time that Kenzie spoke, she used her right hand to reinforce her words with the compulsion spell. “I forgot my ID,” she added for good measure.

  According to the name tag, the attendant was Sarah. Her gaze went blank for a second, and then brightened. “Sure. What paper and what dates?”

  Kenzie relayed the information, and the librarian assistant disappeared into the bowels of the archives with a mild limp, emerging after a few minutes with tattered sleeves of paper. She handed them across the countertop to Kenzie, who glanced at them indecisively.

  “I’ve never used these before,” she confessed.

  Sarah bobbed her head. “Not too many places have these anymore. Follow me, I’ll show you how to set up the machine. It’s pretty simple.”

  Kenzie trailed behind her. The paper sleeves felt crackly under her fingers. From the open edge, purple-colored sheets of plastic protruded. Sarah stopped in front of a machine that resembled an early computer monitor without the keyboard.

  “Give me one of those.”

  Kenzie extracted a page that looked like a negative of a photograph with rows and columns of white squares. Sarah took it from her, leaned over the padded chair pushed in at the table, pulled out a tray at the bottom of the viewer, and lifted a glass plate. Deftly, she tucked the page under the pane and reset it. With a snap of a switch, the screen came to light.

  “You move it around like this,” Sarah said, manipulating a knob on the front. “The pages of the newspaper should be sequential, left to right, top to bottom. Easy.”

  Kenzie pulled out the chair. “Thanks.”

  Sarah pivoted, favoring her right leg, and headed back to the circulation desk.

  Æsculapium, thought Kenzie, using only a bare hint of power on the healing spell.

  Three steps away, she heard Sarah stumble to a halt. She peeked from the corner of her eyes to see the willowy woman tentatively testing her right leg. With a confused shoulder shrug, Sarah completed her journey back to her station.

  Kenzie stretched her arms up, found Jackson pretending to peruse a door-stopper of a tome. He gave her a millimetric declination of his chin to let her know he was on duty.

  For the next hour, she chased articles of a house fire across the screen, jumping from image to image, and jotting notes in handwriting that reflected her growing frustration. Twice she went back to Sarah for more flimsy plastic sheets. The first time, she lost track of Jackson, and panicked until she found him at one of the reading tables, within line of sight of her and the main entrance.

  Elowyn Bai, née Graham, perished in a calamitous fire that engulfed her small home in minutes. Early investigators suspected arson, but the fire was eventually ruled accidental, the result of old electrical wiring and tinder-dry wood. The articles mentioned Elowyn as a widow, so Kenzie tracked down the death notice for one Edward Bai.

  She hadn’t been a widow long. Her husband, a physicist, pre-deceased her by less than a month, killed in a laboratory explosion at a private research facility. They were both twenty-seven when they died, married less than a year. Neighbors said they were quiet, but kind and helpful. A shame about him, a shame about her.

  There was no mention of a baby.

  She sat back, stymied, the prickling feeling returning to the nape of her neck. So who erased her existence from the records?

  She stood, rubbed the cricks out of her back, and went to visit Sarah yet again. Bai wa
s a physicist. He should be in professional journals.

  “All done?” asked Sarah.

  Kenzie turned her head back and forth a couple of inches. “I need to track down a physicist by the name of Edward Bai.” She shrugged at her lack of knowledge. “It’s spelled B-A-I,” she added helpfully.

  “That’s easy. Scientists are always publishing something; publish or perish, you know.” A staccato rattle of computer keys accompanied a smile. “Only one listed . . . looks like he actually got his doctorate here.” She scribbled reference notes on a rectangular scrap of paper. “It’s going to be in the stacks on the second floor.”

  Kenzie thanked her and slowly made her way to the grand staircase. Jackson caught her inquiring glance. With her chin, she indicated the exit and twitched a forefinger to show she was going upstairs. With the barest of nods, Jackson rose and returned his tome to the shelves.

  On the second floor, she followed the numbers past the orderly rows until she reached the one Sarah had written down. Anticipation set the ants marching in unison down the nape of her neck to her shoulders and creeping down her back one vertebra at a time. Kenzie shivered and turned left, entering the dim corridor of oak shelves and dusty volumes. Summer light streamed in through stained glass, casting shadows that failed to illuminate the depth between. She ran a finger down the titles to her left, tracking the numbers taped to the lower edge of the book spines, each volume ticking off her fingernail, which slowed like a roulette wheel the closer she got to the volume she needed.

  She swallowed to relieve the tightness in her chest. It’s just a book, she reminded herself, but her skin tingled.

  There.

  She paused before pulling the slender blue-bound work from the shelf, and looked around. Jackson stood on the opposite side of the main aisle, ostensibly lost in thought. She removed Bai’s dissertation and looked at the gold-embossed title, A Mathematical Analysis of 11-Dimensional M-Theory Space on Strong Anthropic Principles.

  Great, she thought, I don’t even understand the title. She flipped the cover open. The pages were printed on thick stock and the first page was blank. Kenzie leafed through. Even the symbols in the equations were arcane.

  An angular silhouette blocked the sun, and Kenzie, heart in her throat, jumped back, dropping the book in the process. A figure stood blocking the far end of the stack, the backlight obscuring the man’s features. Her skin crawled with eagerness, not fear, and she peered at the face as she bent at the knees to pick up the fallen book.

  “Hey, you.” Mitch’s face came into focus as he stepped closer and away from the windows.

  Kenzie’s teeth chattered, and she pressed the hard binding of the book to her abdomen, holding it there with both hands, her right pointer finger pinched between the covers, marking a random page. “What are you doing here?” She meant for the words to be low and accusing; instead, they were enticing. Recovering, she said, “Jackson will see you.”

  “I had to see you.” He approached until he was just a foot away.

  She lifted her chin and looked up into his eyes, saw them glance down, and come back to meet hers.

  He reached out, touched the choker at her throat. An intimate current flowed between them, and Kenzie followed the warmth until her body was pressed against his, his arms wrapped around and holding her at the base of her back, the book a bulwark between them.

  She needed to get him out of here before they got caught. Jackson would absolutely blab to her father about catching her and Mitch together—unless she fixed it so the bodyguard didn’t remember anything. She sighed, and asked, “Are you going to kiss me?”

  His eyes widened in surprised pleasure and he met her upturned face, lightly caressing her lips with his, setting her heart aquiver. His hands pulled her closer, and she pressed back against his lips, slipping hers open to taste him. . . .

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I told you to be careful.”

  Kenzie went rigid, and Mitch relaxed his hands, giving her room to maneuver away. She dropped the book in her haste to confront Jackson, her hands already set to weave—

  Mitch clasped her wrist. “No.” He looked to Jackson. “You need to get Kenzie out of here. Dude in a suit showed up right after you guys left downstairs, then a couple of his buddies. They’re parked by the main entrance.”

  Kenzie stiffened. Who . . . ?

  “Waiting for reinforcements?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  Jackson transferred his stare to Kenzie. “Time to scoot.” He reached for her shoulder.

  Kenzie dodged back and switched from Jackson’s face to Mitch’s. “He never told me to be careful, he told you?” Her confusion made her words rush out so they could trip over each other. She regrouped. “Why should you be careful, and when did he tell you?”

  “Yesterday, when he fired me.” Mitch’s lips twitched at the corners.

  The jerk was enjoying her scrambling for answers. She lifted a fist to thump him in the chest, thought better of it, and said, “You worked for Jackson.”

  “Until yesterday,” confirmed the bodyguard. “Couldn’t keep him on staff once your father retained me, so I cut him loose.”

  “You have the internship at 3rdGen.”

  “I don’t sleep much.”

  Kenzie bent to pick up Bai’s research paper while she composed a suitably crippling response, but felt another shock as a name on the acknowledgement page leapt out to her.

  Harold McCrea.

  Brother of Matthias.

  Her teacher, living in his prison in the Glade.

  Hands clutched at her hips to keep her from falling. “You okay?” asked Mitch, anxiety written across his face. “You aren’t mad at me?”

  “Why did you go to work for Jackson?”

  The muscles in Mitch’s face convulsed through a dozen emotions, and he directed his eyes to the ground. “I don’t think you’re safe yet. I could learn from Jackson, and a friend vouched for him.”

  “And she’s not going to be if we don’t get her out of here.”

  He reached again for her shoulder, again she shrugged away.

  “You hired him.”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time, and the kid’s got some potential except for when he goes off the rails, like now.” Jackson dropped his chin and his voice. “Do I need to carry you out of here?”

  Mutely, Kenzie shook her head.

  “Best bet, boss, is to head out the fancy cube at the back. Nothing happened until Kenzie asked for this book, so I think it triggered an alarm in some system. I can do my stupid routine and distract anyone that comes along in the next couple of minutes.” He faced Kenzie. “Gimme the book and I’ll put it back.”

  “Be careful,” she whispered, handing it to him.

  Mitch smiled with his eyes. “Always.”

  “Let’s go,” she said to Jackson. Mentally, she prepared to mix together a few spells. Anyone getting in their way deserved some unpleasant surprises. And when she got a chance, Harold was in for a surprise of his own. Time for him to ’fess up. Past time, in fact.

  As Jackson sped her away, she heard a camera shutter go schitck. A glance showed Mitch taking a picture of the dissertation’s cover with his phone.

  Of course he wouldn’t be careful. He was never careful.

  They were exiting the library through its modernist addition when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out.

  Text message from Mitch.

  btw, you still owe me a real date

  She fumed and put the phone back, even as she tasted him on her lips.

  Chapter 17

  Mitch jumped and grabbed the rafter cross-bracing in the garage. Smoothly, he did his final set of pull-ups, pushing hard until the last halting effort left his back, shoulders, and biceps exhausted. He dropped to the concrete, landing on the balls of his feet.

  He rolled out the tightness and dropped to do push-ups. Despite the exertions he was subjecting his body to, his mind remained di
stracted by Kenzie. Dumb idea to text her, impulsive, too, but he wanted more than one kiss a month.

  Jackson got her out okay. Mitch had meandered his way past the guys at the doors and out to the parking lot in time to watch them drive away, and then sprinted for his own car. He’d headed to Mercury’s shop, but, uncharacteristically, the door was locked.

  She tasted sweet and felt soft in his arms like that . . .

  Angrily, he forced himself into another push-up, arms quaking from the repeated strain. Another. Finally his arms refused to lift him again and he sagged to his elbows, breath coming in gasps.

  Mitch clambered to his feet and went inside to shower off. The house was silent in the middle of the afternoon. The dim atmosphere in the house hung tired and drab like an old dishrag. He stopped to open curtains and let in light, and wondered what the inside of Hunter’s house looked like. In his imagination, he pictured white marble, and carved wood furnishings. He looked around at the tattered sofa and his uncle’s armchair. With a depressed shrug, he headed to the bathroom. He slipped out of his workout clothes, turned the hot water up, and lathered away the sweat. The stigma of not being rich stuck like glue, so he leaned his forehead against the back wall of the shower and let the near-scalding heat loosen the knots in his back.

  Why had he wasted time making out, or kinda making out, instead of getting her out faster. Dumb, and dangerous if he was supposed to be trying to help her.

  “Are you going to kiss me?”

  Okay, so it wasn’t just him being dumb, he thought, twisting the knob to turn off the flow of water. He toweled himself dry and made a muscle in the mirror. Nope, never going to have huge guns, but a lot of new mass showed on his wiry frame, thanks to the exercises that Jackson had prescribed, all body-weight workouts.

  A shirt covered the cut definition on his torso. A glance at the time on his phone showed it was too early to try Mercury again. He flipped through the apps and opened the gallery, paged through it until he got to the picture of the book. He had to squint to read the title on the four-inch screen. Still didn’t make much sense to him. Quantum field theory stuff?