Diane Byington

EXCERPT: CHAPTER 1

“Time of the Season” 

Struggling to keep her teeth from chattering, Kaley pushed on one of the back windows of the dilapidated Victorian home where Nikola Tesla had once lived. The hinge let out a loud squeak, and she froze. The houses were close together in that part of Colorado Springs, and a neighbor might call the police.

As the seconds ticked by, she considered what she should do if a police officer appeared around the corner of the old house. She was a fast runner, but no one could outrun a bullet. Fear flooded her chest, and her heart hammered, but uppermost in her mind was how embarrassed she would be if she had to call one of her friends to post bail for her. 

After another long moment with no sign that she’d been caught, Kaley’s heartbeat returned to normal. She’d come too far to stop. She placed a concrete block beneath the window, grabbed her flashlight and other tools, and hoisted herself over the sill. 

A thrill ran up her spine. She’d never done anything illegal before, but she couldn’t miss the opportunity to possibly discover something of Tesla’s that no one else had found. She’d waited months for the previous tenant to move out, and the landlord had shown her the house that morning. 

After looking around for a bit, she’d said, “Three thousand seems a little steep for this old neighborhood. Would you consider twenty-three hundred?” Even at that rate, she’d have to get roommates, which she was reluctant to do. She liked her privacy. Still, she would do it if she had to. 

He laughed. “I just put up the sign yesterday, and five other people have already called to see it. I’m showing it to someone else in an hour if you don’t want it.” 

She took a breath. “Has anybody found any Tesla artifacts here?” 

“Not in the ten years that I’ve owned the house. If he’d left anything, it would have been snatched up years ago. Every single tenant asks about it, and I tell them all the same thing, but they think they’ll discover something no one else has found.” He shrugged. “Everybody’s got a fantasy, you know?” 

Kaley started to tell him she wasn’t a dreamer but a historian, and she needed the artifacts for the Tesla museum she hoped to open, not for her own personal glory. Ultimately, she decided not to give him any more information about herself. 

Tesla was known for hiding his inventions in places where his enemies, real or imagined, couldn’t find them. Also, he preferred numbers that were divisible by three. Since his house number was 1533, it seemed like the perfect place to start her search.  

Walking through the house with the landlord, she’d noticed that the window over the kitchen sink was open an inch, and a different plan started to form. “I’ll have to think about it and call you back.”  

He shrugged. “Don’t think too long.” 

When she called the landlord back in the afternoon, the house had been rented. The new tenant was planning to move in the next day, so she decided she had to break in that night. 

She’d called Kevin, her boyfriend. They’d planned to drive up to Vail later that evening, spend the night in a fancy hotel, and ski their hearts out the next day—the last day of the ski season. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t go with you tonight. I need to do something for work.” 

“Tonight? What could be that important? We’ve had this trip planned for weeks.”

“See, I need to break into Tesla’s old house and—”

“Whoa! You need to break into a house? For God’s sake, why would you do that?” 

She took a breath. “I know it sounds crazy, and I would never do something like this if it weren’t necessary. The previous tenant moved out yesterday, and the new one will move in tomorrow, so it’s my only chance to get in and search the house.” 

“It doesn’t sound crazy—it is crazy. What are you looking for, anyway? I know it has to do with Tesla, but what, specifically?” He was starting to sound more than mildly annoyed.

“I-I’m not sure. Probably something to do with an undiscovered invention.” 

He was quiet for a long moment. She knew to give him time. He was lightning fast when doing karate, but he always chose his words carefully. It was one of her favorite things about him. He truly meant what he said.  

“So you’re telling me you want to break into this house and steal whatever you find. Is that right?” 

“Not exactly.” 

“What, exactly?” 

“I’d ask the owner if I could put it in the museum. It would bring in lots of visitors, and I’d get to—” 

“Keep your job. Yeah, I know how that goes.” He exhaled sharply. “I’m not going to get into an argument about this. You’ll do what you want. But I’ve really been looking forward to this trip with you. There won’t be another time to ski this season.” 

He was making things harder than necessary. Yes, skiing was fun, and she always enjoyed being with him. But the opportunity was too important to miss. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I just can’t. Maybe I could come up tomorrow around lunchtime, after I get some sleep.” 

“No. That won’t work. You’d miss most of the day and I’d hang around waiting for you instead of skiing.” Annoyance filled his tone. “Suit yourself, but I’m going without you. And don’t call me if you get arrested.” He ended the call. 

She knew he got irritated when she put work above their plans, but she didn’t do it often. She was willing to bet that he would be proud of her if—no, when—she found a new Tesla artifact, a treasure to share with the world.  “I’m sorry, Kevin. I’ll make it up to you,” she’d said to the dead line.

Standing in the ancient kitchen, Kaley stood up and turned on her flashlight. She imagined Tesla walking through the rooms as he pondered an experiment with electricity or went to heat a kettle on the stove. 

She started her search by methodically knocking on every wall to listen for any odd hollow places. When that didn’t net anything, she paced every room on both floors, measuring from the walls in increments of three feet and tapping her foot to check for trapdoors. 

Sometime in the middle of the night, she happened upon a loose floorboard in a second-floor bedroom that was fifteen feet from the east wall and three feet from the south. Using her crowbar, she pried it up. Inside a small recess was a leather satchel like the ones doctors had used in the nineteenth century, with handles on top and a strap with a clasp. Holding her breath, she lifted it out, opened it, and shined her flashlight inside. The bag was filled with dusty newspapers. She gently removed them and lay them out on the floor.

The papers were all editions of the Colorado Springs Gazette, dated 1899 and 1900, which were the years Tesla had lived in the house. She took a deep breath and grinned. The landlord had been wrong. The previous tenants hadn’t found everything. Moving carefully so as not to cause the old paper to crumble, she unfolded the earliest one. On the front page was an article titled “Mr. Tesla to Build Lab in Town.”  

She scanned the dozen newspapers and found that all of them had articles featuring Tesla in some way. The most intriguing article was “Tesla Fails to Appear for Speech at Inventors’ Club.” Apparently, Mr. Tesla had been missing for about a week at that time. He’d eventually turned up, so it hadn’t become a major news story. 

The only unusual thing she discovered was a few handwritten letters in the margin of one of the newspapers. They didn’t spell anything, though, even when she tried to treat them as an anagram.  

Sitting back on her heels, she considered what she’d found. As exciting as it was to come across something new, the newspapers were not a major discovery. The articles were accessible to anyone who cared to check the Gazette’s archives. There was no way to know how the papers had gotten into the satchel or whether they had been put there by Tesla or someone else. She decided to take them with her and display them in the museum when it opened, even though they wouldn’t be much of a draw.Figuring that if previous tenants had overlooked one thing, there might be more, she hammered the floorboard back down and continued searching. When she heard birds announcing the approaching dawn, she had to admit defeat. She had wasted a perfectly good ski trip for very little gain.  

Holding the satchel and her tools, she climbed out the kitchen window and gently closed it behind her. She would have to consider whether it was worth telling the landlord about the newspapers. Probably not. Many old houses contained vintage newspapers, and nobody cared. 

***

The next evening, after a long nap and a good workout, she called Kevin. To her surprise, he answered on the first ring. He even seemed happy to hear from her. 

She did her best to sound upbeat. “How was the skiing?”  

He sighed. “It was okay. It would’ve been better with you, though. How was the breaking and entering?” 

“Not great. I didn’t find anything worthwhile, just some old newspapers.” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I’m really sorry I didn’t go with you. The whole thing was a bust. I missed spending the time with you.”  

A long moment later, he said, “Well, that’s good, I guess.” 

In spite of his hesitation, the call was going better than she could have hoped. “Would you like to come over tonight? I could give you a nice massage.” 

“No.” After a pause, he said, “But you could come over here. I’m showered and ready for bed, and you could snuggle with me.” 

“Sure. I’ll be right there.” She breathed a sigh of relief. She had pulled that one out, apparently.