Twin Speex: Time Traitors Book II (29 page)

The collective gasp from the group was a satisfying reaction to this calm, matter-of-fact statement, and she grinned again.

“Jimmy, I think its best that you get this communication to Doctor Franklin. Hopefully, before they realize it has fallen into enemy hands.”

She gave him the letter and reached for the map only to find it missing from the desk. Evelyn was holding it, a look of worried concentration on her face.

“What is it?” Fancy asked.

“This map… it… well it has a mistake,” she replied, looking up. Evelyn turned the map to face her audience and pointed at a corner lot labeled “Harper’s Garden.”

Fancy raised her eyebrows expectantly. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Harper’s garden is a local landmark, but it is never labeled on a map.” She looked at them, breathing a little heavily with the significance of her find. “Except on a map I made for Mister Thornton that had the movements of some of the loyalists.”

Evelyn remembered something else and looked again at the map. “And here is Bangle Court.” She pointed to a dead-end street and said, “That street doesn’t exist. I made it up. It’s a trap street, a technique used by cartographers to catch anyone copying their maps.” She looked at them urgently. “Don’t you see? Someone copied my map and used it to plot out the loyalist ammunition caches. Mister Thornton is the only person who knows the map contains these traps. Now, if they are showing up in a map for loyalists—”

“Someone within our network must have given your map to them,” Jimmy finished for her. “And they copied it for their own use, thinking the only thing remarkable about it was the information regarding their movements.”

“Exactly!” she exclaimed.

“Oh my,” Cara muttered almost to herself, “it looks like we have a traitor in our midst.”

*

Evelyn walked with Cara up Walnut Street, having left the others back at the Black Swan Inn. It was dark, and the early evening chill was finding its way in between the thick folds of her woolen cloak. She shivered and looked up as the first stars twinkled in the night sky.

So different than London was Philadelphia, much smaller and without the constant bustle and jostle of a disinterested humanity. It had a precise neatness that Evelyn had always found very appealing. It could be busy, and often was. Even now, farmers were harnessing horses to carts empty of wares; taverns and coffeehouses were doing a brisk business; hackneys and carriages were still numerous enough to create a fair amount of traffic.

It was the port, however, that was the primary hub of commerce and trade, as well as the point of entry for most immigrants. Evelyn remembered well their arrival in Philadelphia. The bells had rung in honor of Doctor Franklin’s homecoming. She had clung tightly to her mother’s hand as they made their way through the jubilant crowd. Her father had arranged for a carriage to take them and their luggage to Mrs. Lynch’s tidy little inn.

That first night at the inn, she had walked out into the small courtyard and seen stars overhead. City stars, she had thought, were a rarity in London. Her mother had followed her out and thrown one end of her own cloak around Evelyn’s shoulders. They had stood there wrapped in the shared cloak while her mother pointed out the constellations.

Evelyn’s chest tightened and her heart hurt. Her mother, the time traveler, the spy, the keeper of secrets… where was she?

“Evelyn, darling,” Cara interrupted her thoughts, “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that no one outside our immediate group knows about the whole time travel business. Verity is really quite brilliant, and Jimmy is a dear, but I fear they would look at our little endeavors askew if they knew.”

Evelyn laughed at Cara’s practiced understatement, but sobered remembering her father’s grim countenance when she and Hugh confessed to eavesdropping on their conversation the night of the tavern fire. The story that her father related was certifiably insane, but in some strange way it explained a lot about her mother and her own life. Her Uncle Odell’s appearance made a whole lot more sense as well; if time travel could make sense, which it didn’t.

“You needn’t worry, Aunt Cara.” She shook her head with conviction. “I don’t want to sound like a lunatic.”

“Yes, well, there’s that too. But mostly, we don’t want them endangered further. This ‘syndicate’ and ‘Godfather’ have Odell worried. These are terms that are apparently used to refer to criminal behavior in the distant future. And the unidentified murder victim…” her voice trailed off, and Evelyn nodded with uneasy concurrence.

The news of the murdered woman had traveled quickly through the city and nearly everyone had a theory or opinion on who she might be and why she was found tortured and tied-up in the Schuylkill. The brutality of the murder and the fact that it remained unsolved put an extra edge on a city already tense with political intrigue.

They had arrived at her house, and Cara came in with her, saying, “Just a quick cup of tea and chat with your father before I head home.”

“He wouldn’t want you going home unescorted anyway, Aunt Cara,” Evelyn replied, and they both entered the foyer to the sound of laughter emanating from the back of the house. She could distinguish in the jumble of voices those of her father and Hugh.

“It sounds like they’re in the kitchen.”

They entered that room and were treated to a picture of social jocularity that would not have been out of place in one of the city’s more riotous taverns. Odell and Ava had been trying to delicately remove hot roasted potatoes from a spit onto the heavy wooden tabletop, when one had rolled off and been caught by an unthinking Odell. He had yelped and thrown the potato up into the air, unwittingly initiating a game of quite literally “hot potato.” It had made several rounds of the laughing group before landing at Cara’s feet just as they crossed the threshold.

She looked down at the squashed potato and then back up with raised eyebrows. “Now, you couldn’t possibly have thought I would attempt to catch that?” she declared to the group in general, a hint of laughter in her voice.

Since the last throw of the potato had come from her very own husband, Hershel cleared his throat and replied, “Certainly not, my dear, it was an extremely inaccurate throw. I was actually aiming for Odell.”

Odell’s position being far removed from the doorway, this statement resulted in renewed laughter among the group.

Evelyn looked at them suspiciously. “Have you been drinking?”

This produced even more laughter while Gabriel wiped his eyes to say seriously, “Just some ale, my dear. Nothing of a stronger nature, I assure you. I think we are all feeling a bit lighthearted, because Ben has agreed to Odell’s plan.”

Evelyn and Cara were both quick to express their relief.

“How?” Evelyn asked. “You weren’t very hopeful just this morning.”

Gabriel shook his head uncertainly. “I’m not entirely sure. He left the meeting very indecisive, but came by the house not an hour past to say he was in and start planning for the trip north.”

While the trip to Quebec would no longer take place, what Odell had proposed would still require a journey, but only to New York. The man Franklin would meet was Joseph Louis Cook who was already a supporter of the cause of independence and was the colonists’ best chance at convincing the Six Nations to side with the revolutionaries.

“When will he leave?” Cara asked.

“That is yet to be determined,” Odell responded, looking up from buttering and salting the potatoes. “He needs to speak to various committee chairs. The shift in focus is abrupt, but we can make a good argument for abandoning the Canadian venture. It never was a viable option, even without our knowledge of history.”

“I think the biggest hurdle will be convincing the others of broadening the coalition to include the native population,” Ava added without looking up from grinding the pepper. She and Odell stood close and their movements were in perfect sync, him with the salt and butter and her with the pepper. Cara, an astute reader of body language, was intrigued.

“It may be the biggest hurdle to this part of the plan,” Hugh asserted, “but it is not the biggest impediment by far.”

They all knew what he was talking about. Through the incessant prodding of Odette and Gabriel, as well as his own conscience, Benjamin Franklin had freed his slaves several years earlier. But there was still a part of him that clung to a tribal-racial worldview, a part of him who feared the black man. So Odell’s plan of using their underground network to supply weapons and tactical information for the purpose of fomenting slave rebellion in the southern colonies was met with vehement protest on Franklin’s part.

“Yes,” Gabriel agreed. He had been conscientiously cutting equal pieces of Mrs. Daniels singular egg and cheese pie and placing them on small plates. “Ben’s initial reaction was not promising, but he did appear calm at the end.”

Spooning helpings of roasted potatoes onto the plates, Odell said, his brow furrowed with doubt, “Calm, but not entirely acquiescent.”

“I think it comes from the enormity of the task before him,” Hugh replied with understated perception. “He is the only one who knows what slavery will do to this country and must convince the others without revealing his foreknowledge. He must ask them to accept a breach between men like themselves and agree to an alliance with those many of them deem inferior. I don’t envy him the task.”

Gabriel looked at his young protégée with respect. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”

Hugh smiled shyly with pleasure at the compliment and assisted Evelyn with laying the silverware and napkins. They had all gathered around the kitchen table, and the business of passing plates and filling glasses overrode conversation. Once everyone was settled in their chairs with full plates, Cara cleared her throat and announced, “We have some news as well.”

Of the group, only Gabriel and Hershel were aware of the spy ring commissioned by Franklin. Odell, Ava, and Hugh sat in astonished silence as they were initiated into the secret.

Cara had barely finished when Odell exclaimed, “Doctor Franklin commissioned this? Unbelievable! That old man is everywhere!”

“Ben recruited Odette,” Gabriel explained. “And she, in turn, brought in Cara and Verity Turner. While Ben has the greatest admiration for your sister’s abilities, I think even he was surprised at how adept both Cara and Miss Turner proved at spy craft, even after Odette’s dis—departure.”

During Cara’s recital, Gabriel had kept a tight rein on his emotions. After establishing the legitimacy of Mister Thornton’s operation, Gabriel had agreed to allow Evelyn to keep working for the butcher, but only if her tasks were confined to trailing suspected loyalists and mapmaking. This unexpected turn of events was making him entirely too uneasy. His mind churned over the possibilities. Evelyn was smart and clearheaded, but this latest incident showed plainly what poor training could lead to. Perhaps it was better she be supervised by Cara and Verity, and now Fancy. Nevertheless, he felt keenly the lack of his wife’s council and fought down the frustration and longing that never failed to bubble up inside him when he thought of her.

“I believe your astonishment at Doctor Franklin’s involvement in this venture has somewhat overridden the most important aspect of my wife’s report,” Hershel admonished.

“Oh yeah, the traitor,” Odell recalled, and then added with a touch of pride in his niece, “Nice going with the trap streets, Odellia.”

Evelyn blushed and they all laughed.

“We’ll have to inform the butcher and Ben—,” Gabriel began.

“If you could wait on that,” Cara interrupted, “I think it best that you leave it to us to flush out the spy.”

Gabriel looked at her questioningly.

“We really have no idea who this person is,” she told him. “Mister Thornton I don’t doubt, but he could be entrusting the wrong person or persons with vital information. Give us a few days to sort through this before you go to them with our suspicions.”

He saw the wisdom of her plan and nodded reluctantly. “A few days, after which I’ll have to let Ben know.”

She smiled her thanks.

Ava got up to retrieve a plate of sugar and almond jumbals from the counter, and Odell followed suit with the platter of sliced and dried fruit. They put them down among the clutter of empty plates and set to clearing the table.

Evelyn picked up a slice of dried apple and contemplatively plucked at a hard seed casings still clinging to the meat. “How do they choose?” she mumbled half to herself.

“Choose what?” Hugh bit into a sugar nut jumbal.

“Drop sites,” she replied. “Why the churchyard? A grave?”

“Someplace out of the way, yet still visited,” Cara surmised. “And one is always reluctant to disturb a visitor at a gravesite.”

“It was sad.” Evelyn sighed.

“What was sad?” Ava asked.

“The boy… Sewal Brandon. He was only four when he died.”

Several heads snapped in her direction

“Who?” they said as one.

She looked up, surprised and puzzled at this reaction. “Sewal Brandon, the boy in the grave where I found the packet.”

“It could be a coincidence,” Cara said in a shaky voice to no one in particular. “After all, is Brandon so unusual a surname?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Odell replied grimly.

“But he is dead,” Cara insisted. “We all saw the body. People cannot come back from the dead. Not even time travel can do that. Can it, Odell?

Twenty-Two

CHARLES DRAKE STOOD on a precipice hundreds of feet above the city. He had never believed himself afraid of heights—until now. The 3-D holographic map sent to Ettie’s palmavox had not done their dizzyingly terrifying route justice. Crossing narrow catwalks, ascending rickety fire escapes and ladders, swaying sickeningly across suspension bridges, and traversing narrow ledges had all combined to stretch his muscles and nerves as tight as a bowstring. Worse still were the masked faces of the grim guardians of each seemingly random barrier they encountered.