by Gina Cresse
“That would be great. It’s not what you’re used to, so I’ll have to give you some pointers.”
Craig and I exchanged glances. “It’s not a dragster, is it?” he asked.
Ronnie laughed. “No. I’ve developed my own engine. It’s very simple. I’ll just give you the rundown on how to start it. You won’t have any problems. You may want to take along a couple of batteries. It’s been sitting for a few days and I meant to replace them before I left for the trip.”
“Batteries? Is it electric?” I asked.
“No. You’ll just need two double A batteries for the startup fan.”
My curiosity was piqued and I could tell Craig’s was too. We’d probably have to arm wrestle to decide which one of us got to drive this innovation home.
Sam scowled at me, irritated that his questioning was being interrupted by my conversation. “Great. Now that we have that settled, can we get back to business?”
“Sorry,” Ronnie apologized. “Go ahead.”
“The first thing we should do is get in touch with your brother. Any idea where the boat should be now?” Sam asked.
“I’m guessing somewhere around Cabo. The boat was called The Dream Catcher.”
Sam jotted it down. “Okay. I’ll get on the horn and see if we can find it. We need to know how the rest of the team found out about the time change. In the mean time, I wouldn’t suggest you go home. You have any other relatives you can stay with?”
“You mentioned someone named Jake last night. Do you want us to call him?“ I asked.
Ronnie shook her head. “He’s too far away.”
I glanced around our large living room. “She can stay here,” I offered. “It’s the safest place. No one will look for her here.”
Ronnie opened her mouth to protest.
“We insist,” Craig said. “Devonie’s right. Your face was plastered all over the news when they reported your rescue. Whoever tried to kill you may try again.”
Ronnie frowned. “I just can’t believe this is happening. I don’t have any enemies.”
Sam finished up his questioning and left to begin his search for Lance Oakhurst and The Dream Catcher.
Craig fashioned a makeshift kennel for the puppy so we could leave him outside while we were away. He stood on the other side of the wire fence and stared up at us with his sad brown eyes. I gave him a little pout. “We’ll be right back—puppy.” I shot a guilty look at Craig. “We have to give him a name. I know. Trigger.”
Craig chuckled. “He doesn’t look like a Trigger to me.”
“No? How about Silver? Bullet? Secretariat?”
Craig put his arm around my shoulder. “What are you implying?”
“That we need to give him a name he’s going to grow into.”
“I see. And those are the only famous horse names you could come up with?”
“At the moment, yes,” I answered.
We turned and headed toward the house. “How about Mr. Ed?” Craig said, winking at me.
I laughed and shook my head. “No, but keep trying.”
Craig and I drove to the San Pedro harbor and cruised the parking area. We searched for Ronnie’s car, a white Lexus SC400—at least that’s what it was on the outside. Craig pulled in next to it and cut the engine. We both gazed at the sleek lines of the sporty coupe. He grinned at me. “I’ll flip you for it,” he said, pulling a quarter from his pocket.
“Okay. Heads,” I called.
Craig flipped the coin and slapped it on his wrist. He slowly raised his hand. I watched his face grimace. “Want to go the best of three?” he begged.
“Sorry, honey. See you at home.”
Ronnie had warned me the car would be quiet, but I wasn’t expecting total silence. Craig and I debated on what kind of technology she’d used. I forgot to ask her if it needed gas or oil or water. She said it wasn’t electric, but she never told us what kind of fuel it required. Craig followed me home, just in case I had problems. The car handled perfectly, and it had more power than I expected. In fact, except for the lack of engine noise, I couldn’t tell that it wasn’t a stock Lexus.
I coasted into the driveway and Craig followed. Ronnie met us at the garage.
I was beaming as I climbed out. “This car is amazing. It’s so quiet, and boy does it have some get-up-and-go.”
Craig walked all around it, studying every detail. He made two laps before he could no longer contain himself. “Okay. Where’s the fuel cap?”
Ronnie laughed. “There isn’t one.”
Craig scratched his head. “And it’s not electric?”
“Nope.”
“Well, it must need fuel. What powers it?”
“Heat,” she answered.
“Heat? Is it steam?” he asked.
She laughed again. “No. Heat from the atmosphere. It doesn’t require any other fuel.”
Craig and I gawked at her.
“No fuel?” I said.
“That’s right. No fuel. Basically, it’s free to run.”
Chapter Three
I thought of every imaginable response Sam would throw at me when I told him I was taking Ronnie back to her house so she could pick up a few necessities. That’s why, in the end, I decided not to tell him.
Craig stayed home on puppy-watch duty. I told him we were just going to pick up a few things for Ronnie. I didn’t tell him where we were going to pick them up. That’s not really lying. I see it more as saving him from unnecessary worry.
We waited until after dark so we wouldn’t be seen carousing around in broad daylight. We took my Explorer in case the would-be murderer was watching the place, waiting for Ronnie’s car to show up. She owned a house on a couple of acres in the country just outside of Ramona. I drove and she gave directions. The first thing I noticed was the lack of lights on at any of the homes we passed. It wasn’t that late. I would have expected some streetlights or porch lights to be glowing.
“Is it always this dark?” I asked.
Ronnie studied the scene through the windows. “No. I wonder if it’s one of those rolling blackouts. They’ve been threatening us with those for a while.”
“Maybe. Or it could be a normal power outage. Isn’t that sort of common out here in the country?” I asked.
“Power used to go out a lot. I don’t know if it’s still a problem.”
I glanced at her with curiosity. She does live here. Why wouldn’t she know if the power was frequently out?
Ronnie noticed the look of curiosity on my face. “I didn’t like being at the mercy of the electric company. I also didn’t like the bills,” she explained.
“Tell me about it,” I concurred.
“Anyhow, the power went out one night while I was hustling to get some last-minute work done on Lance’s engine. We had a big race the next day. I couldn’t get the work done, so we didn’t even finish in the top three. I was so frustrated, I decided to take care of the problem myself.”
“Take care of the problem? How’d you do that?”
“I have my own generator now.”
I nodded with understanding. I used to work for a company that had backup generators that would kick in when the power went out. They ran on diesel, as I recalled.
A floodlight, triggered by a motion sensor, turned on as we pulled into Ronnie’s driveway and parked in front of her house. She started to open the passenger door, but I stopped her by placing a hand on her arm.
“Wait a minute. Let’s just take a look around to make sure no one’s watching,” I cautioned.
We both scanned the grounds from our positions inside the safety of the Explorer. It seemed deserted, but there were enough shrubs and trees for a potential attacker to hide behind that I felt a little uneasy.
“You’re really a black belt?”
Ronnie smiled and nodded. “I am. Stick close. We’ll be okay,” she assured me.
“Count on it,” I said, letting myself out of the driver’s side door and quietly closing it behind me.
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br /> Another motion-sensor-activated porch light came on as soon as we reached the front door. I listened for the sound of a generator—obnoxiously loud contraptions as I recalled from past experience—but the night was still and quiet. I glanced across the grounds at another house in the distance. It was pitch black. Ronnie crouched down and overturned a dozen rocks in the flowerbed adjacent to the porch. When she found the correct one, she flipped open a small cover and retrieved a key from inside the phony rock. “I knew this would come in handy someday,” she said, replacing the rock in its inconspicuous position.
Ronnie unlocked the door and I followed her inside. She turned a small dial on the wall that gradually illuminated the room—a room that spoke volumes about the woman who lived there. The light source came from the ceiling, but it wasn’t like any recessed lighting systems I’d ever seen before. Cylindrical tubes protruded vertically from the ceiling about four inches. Each tube was about six inches in diameter and gave off ample light to illuminate its section of the room. The floor was hardwood—neutral tones so any color scheme would work, and easier to clean up grease spots than carpet, I imagined. The leather furniture was a dark neutral color. From what I could tell, Ronnie was not only a problem solver, but also a problem avoider.
A large black-and-white portrait of Albert Einstein hung over the mantle. Posters of brightly colored racecars hung on one wall. I counted a dozen photos of men in racing gear, posing with Ronnie. They all beamed huge smiles, with their arms wrapped around Ronnie’s shoulders. Each had a message of sincere well wishes and “thanks for all the help” scrawled across the bottom.
Ronnie pressed a button on her answering machine. A man’s voice casually asked her to pick up the phone, hoping she was just screening her calls. A second message from the same man sounded a little concerned. “I guess you decided to go to Cabo with the team,” he speculated. “I’ll be out of town when you get home, but I’ll call you as soon as I get back,” he continued. Ronnie frowned at the machine. I wondered if the message was from Jake, the name she’d mentioned in the hospital.
She walked to the other end of the room and paused in the doorway. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll just throw a few things in a bag and be right back.” She disappeared through a door.
I was immediately drawn to a table in the corner with some sort of toy railroad setup on it. It wasn’t an ordinary train set. The track had a monorail design. Rather than two narrow rails, it had a single, wide rail down the center. The train didn’t sit on the rail at all— it hovered over it. Floated may be a more accurate description. I touched the train and it slipped forward, effortlessly. I gave it a little nudge from behind and it traveled twice around the table before it finally stopped. I was fascinated. I’d never seen anything like it. It must have been built along the design of the bullet trains in Japan. I sent it around the track once more, then backed away to search for other fascinating discoveries. This was like a visit to the Exploratorium.
A shiny black dome-shaped contraption moved slowly across the floor at the other end of the room. When it bumped into the wall, it turned and proceeded in another direction, like the toy trucks I’ve seen racers and their kids play with around the track. It made a quiet humming sound. I watched it with curiosity for a couple of minutes. I had no idea what it was. It looked like an oversized Darth Vader helmet.
I strolled around the room, reading the autographs and studying the faces in the pictures. A familiar name caught my eye—Toby O’Brien—the racer who had a crush on Ronnie. His big-toothed grin spread across a boyishly good-looking face would be irresistible to most young women—women who’d be willing to take second place in the heart of a man whose number one passion would always be the thrill of racing. Ronnie didn’t strike me as that type.
Several photos were segregated away from the racing ones. They appeared to be more family-type pictures. Ronnie, together with Lance, whom I’d recognized from some of the racing pictures, sitting around picnic tables, laughing and enjoying who-knows-what. A toddler, identified as Lance by the embroidered name on his jacket, popping a wheelie on his tricycle. A slightly older Lance on a mini-bike, covered with mud from head to toe.
Ronnie came back in the room and caught me staring at a picture of a tall, good-looking man with a curly-haired little girl sitting on his knee. “That’s me and my dad,” she said. “Just a couple weeks before he died.”
I tried to imagine how it would feel to lose someone close at that young age. “It must have been horrible for you, being so little,” I said.
She forced a smile and nodded. “It was bad, especially since I saw it happen.”
I looked at her closer. “You saw it happen?”
“Yes. He was killed in an explosion in his shop. I saw it from the house,” she explained.
“How awful. Were you hurt?”
She looked at me as if I’d asked her if the sky is blue. “I was far enough away,” she said, touching the photo with a gentle finger. “But the fear of that pain, that loss, has stayed with me. Then I lost my mother shortly after. I just couldn’t take it again. I learned to not let anyone close to me.” She let out a tired breath and glanced around her lonely living room like it was more of a prison than a home. “I’m living proof that time doesn’t heal all wounds.”
I forced a smile and nodded with understanding. Sometimes the sky isn’t blue. Sometimes it’s dark and gray and gloomy.
A shiny plaque caught my eye and I quickly tried to change the subject. “What’s this?” I asked, pointing toward the brass plate with the words, “The United States of America – The Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks,” engraved across the top. Ronnie’s mood brightened and she smiled, seeming relieved to move on to another subject.
“That’s my dad’s patent on the fuel-cell engine he developed. My mom had the plaque made for him for his birthday.”
I studied the plaque. “Whatever happened with the engine?”
“Nothing. After the explosion, everyone said it was too dangerous to pursue.”
“It caused the explosion?” I asked, wary of bringing up the subject again, but wanting to know the answer.
Ronnie frowned. “Depends on who you ask,” she said. She turned and walked away. She switched on another light on a desk in the corner.
I peered out a window and still could not see any lights from other houses. “The electricity seems to be on. Your neighbors must be away.”
“Not necessarily. I told you, I have a generator,” she said.
“All the time?”
“Yes. It’s more reliable than the sun and moon.”
“But I don’t hear it.”
Ronnie smiled. “You didn’t hear the engine in my car, either. It’s the same technology.”
“But…you can…how in the world does it work?” I stammered. This just didn’t make sense.
“Have you ever heard of entropy?” she asked.
My blank expression was all the answer she needed.
“Thermodynamics? Heat exchange?”
I shook my head. Computer science majors rarely delved deep enough into physics to understand such abstract terms.
Ronnie pulled a drawer out and extracted an armful of papers. She laid them out across the desk, spreading the bundles until she found what she was looking for. “Here. This is the patent. There’s a diagram. I don’t know if I can explain it so it makes sense to you, but I’ll try.” She pointed to a spot on the paper. “Basically, the engine is like a heat sponge. It absorbs heat from the atmosphere and converts it to power.”
“How?”
“It uses a piston. Whenever you can create a difference in temperature on either side of the piston, you can cause it to move. The trick is to get heat from the atmosphere into the chamber, then cool it down.”
I tried to look like I understood, but I still don’t know why airplanes fly, so this wasn’t going to be a no-brainer for me. “But what if it’s cold outside?” I asked. “Would it still work?”
&nb
sp; Ronnie nodded. “It will work as long as the temperature outside is above minus two hundred seventy-three degrees Celsius. That’s absolute zero.”
What I remember about the metric system is that zero is freezing and one hundred is boiling. I tried to comprehend absolute zero as opposed to regular zero. Ronnie could see me struggling with this.
“Basically, no matter how cold it is outside, it can always get colder. Right?”
I nodded.
“As long as it can get colder, then there can be a heat differential. That’s the long and the short of it. I wasn’t the first to come up with the idea, but I was able to overcome the friction restrictions, so I could produce more than two or three horsepower. It’s as close to perpetual motion as anyone has come up with yet. I was also able to reduce the size so it didn’t require an engine as big as a bus to power a small sedan.”
“You’re a genius,” I said.
“Not really. I just like to play. You saw my magnet train?”
I nodded. My eyes widened as I recalled the excitement of my discovery. “I did. It’s great. You made it?”
“Yes. It was a project for school. The rail has a positive magnetic charge, and so does the train, so they repel. It’s the basis for my answer to the friction problem. You’ve seen those tacky Eskimo kissing dolls? The ones that will never touch their lips? That’s what gave me the idea.”
I’d seen those dolls a hundred times, but I never thought to build a railroad on the concept. Ronnie didn’t give herself credit. Hers was a truly unique mind—a brilliant mind. “I hope you got an A,” I said.
She nodded. “And a few job offers, but I’m happy working for Lance.”
The little black machine inched its way toward us. Ronnie walked over and bumped it with her foot, causing it to retreat in another direction. “What is that thing?” I asked.
“It’s a bright idea I had that I’m sort of rethinking. It’s a vacuum cleaner. I call it my ‘Ugly Little Sucker.’ It travels around the house all day, continuously picking up dust and dirt.”