“Would you try as hard if I told you I thought I could handle Rowle?”
“Of course I would. I’m not going to pull punches just because you’re winning. That’s for suckers. I say hit them hard and fast and get the hell back out.”
I laughed cheerfully. “An admirable technique in most battles, one I should have paid more attention to over the years. I’ll put some thought into it and see if I can come up with something that will improve our chances.”
“You don’t have a lot of time to think something up,” Tess said.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” I quoted somebody or the other.
“Yeah? Well, you’d better be Nikola Tesla.”
I nodded. For a moment, I thought I had a flash of insight, but then it was gone before I could get a full grasp of it. Nikola Tesla, eh? I’d have to give some consideration to the man.
“Where’s this aunt of yours live?”
“Aunt Emily gave me her address. I haven’t mapped it yet.”
“Mapped it?” I asked. “Oh, yes, you mentioned that before. Show me how it works.”
Tess pulled out her phone, tapped the screen a few times, and then showed it to me. The screen displayed a map of Colorado Springs, centered on our location.
“Well, how ‘bout that? Maybe these phones will be of some use after all.”
She tapped the screen and then typed with her thumbs. I leaned over her shoulder and watched as she typed in an address. The display changed and showed a route from where we stood to Jend Lane. An annotation in the corner of the screen read 23 minutes, 9.1 miles.
“And all of these phones have that capability?” I asked.
“Yep, it’s a basic feature of all smartphones,” Tess replied. “Do you know the town well enough to get us there?”
I studied the location for a second. Jend Lane was a short street off North Chelton near Palmer Park, another of Colorado Springs larger parks. I nodded. “No, problem, it’ll be pretty easy to get to.”
“Can we go now?”
“I don’t see why not. I need to do some thinking and riding helps clear my head.”
“Really? In the city?” Tess sound incredulous.
“You forget that I can let Beast do the driving. I don’t have to pay much attention to what he’s doing.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s cool. Can Maia do that too?”
“She wouldn’t be much use if she couldn’t do her own navigation. You saw the map, just tell her where you want to turn or let her follow Beast.”
We mounted our rides and pulled back onto Juniper Way, heading toward the park’s east entrance. I let Beast drive, only telling him which turns to make while I considered Tesla and his inventions. The big one that I could remember was transmitting electrical power through the air. Was there some way I could use that? Maybe I should see what else the genius had thought up.
The map application had been pretty close. Except for some weird modifications to the Fillmore interchange over I-25, the drive was uneventful. The interchange snapped me out of my thoughts as the traffic pattern took us into what I considered the westbound side of the bridge before directing us back into the eastbound lanes. That was different.
Fillmore became North Circle at Union and a mile or so later, I had Beast turn left onto Holiday. Holiday dead ended at Chelton, and we turned right for a couple of blocks before reaching Jend Lane, a short street that dead-ended against the ramparts of Palmer Park. There were only a half-dozen homes on Jend and Tess’s aunt had one that backed up to the rocky ledges of the park.
There were no cars in the driveway, but we parked in the street near the mailbox. It was a nice house, what I thought of as mid-century modern. The ranch home featured large west-facing windows that would provide a magnificent view of Pikes Peak and the rest of the front range mountains. We dismounted, and I studied the area around us. Tess’s aunt had to be doing well for herself. The lot looked to be nearly an acre, and the house would have to be worth upwards of a half-million.
“I thought you said your aunt was in the military,” I said as I stripped off my gloves. I stowed them in a pants’ pocket as Tess copied my actions.
“She is.”
“Nice digs on a soldier’s pay,” I commented.
“Yeah, it does look nice.”
Tess was studying the house but was making no move to approach it.
“Cold feet?” I asked.
“What?”
“Are you getting cold feet about seeing your aunt? I thought you were eager to see her and let her know that you hadn’t been kidnapped out of the hospital.”
“Well, yeah, sure, but how do I tell her?”
“I think when you show up with two legs and two hands, she’s going to figure something strange happened. After seeing you, the conversation should evolve without much thought.”
Tess glanced down at her legs and then looked back at me. “You’re right. I just have to walk up to her door and knock.”
I chuckled and placed my right arm around her shoulders. I started forward, pulling her with me. “It’ll be okay, Tess. I’m here, and there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Then why am I worried? What if I scare her?”
“She’s family, Tess. Family has to accept you the way you are. I think it’s a rule.”
“Yes, but…wait a minute. You said you didn’t have any family.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t, until you became my apprentice and, of course, now I have a son.”
“That’s right, but you didn’t tell him that. If family has to accept you, why didn’t you tell him?”
We’d reached the wide steps that led upwards to a wide deck that made up the front deck. A few chairs were clustered in a sitting area to our left. I put my foot on the first step, and Tess resisted. I dropped my arm, took
