A Small Gray Dot

“All right. I understand your urgency in this matter. But it all eventually ties in, you know. However, I’ll get to that later. Henderson wants to hold young Ms. Effingham hostage. Now, of course he didn’t tell me that but I’ve made that deduction because I happen to know he’s not happy with her sister.”

Morgan, looking mystified, said, “Huh?”

That was my first reaction, too, only she beat me to the “huh”. What I said was, “What does Semptor Labs have to do with Madison Effingham… oh, wait.” It struck me. “This has to do with Effingham Shipping, doesn’t it? Only, how?”

Morgan said, “Wait a minute. Maddy likes to work personally with a company on the big deals, which is why we came to Charlotte. She brought along a couple of our company’s lawyers to negotiate some kind of shipping contract.” She shrugged. “I don’t pay too much attention to that kind of thing though Maddy keeps saying I need to. I just came along because I wanted to see a couple of old friends who moved to Charlotte.”

She looked thoughtful for minute. “I guess Maddy’s right and I ought to start paying more attention because I didn’t even know it was Semptor Labs she was trying to cut a deal with, but she told me Thursday morning that things weren’t going well and that we were leaving Monday, whether she got a contract or not.

“She said the company’s negotiator is being an ass— oh, pardon, Dr. Bennett — he’s being stubborn, and she said she wanted the deal but not under their terms. Hey, it’s not as though we’re hurting for business, you know. We’re doing all right with other companies since everything on the mainland ships by truck and we have the largest fleet around. Heck, we even have ships for river and overseas transport, and Maddy is thinking about investing in one of the new sailing ship companies since ship engines seem to be—”

I cut her off because the part of her rambling statement about Semptor’s negotiator being stubborn raised my hackles. I had no idea what type of terms would be involved, but if they would kidnap Morgan to use as a bargaining chip, what else might they do? Especially once they learned she had escaped. I pointed to the phone next to the monitor. “Doctor, I need to use your phone.”

He stared at me. Then his eyes widened as it hit him, too, and he said while getting up, “You don’t want to use that one. Come with me. You, too, Ms. Effingham,” he added when she shot him a questioning look.

He moved fast for an old man. Morgan and I hurried after him down a hall – with Morgan protesting that the doctor didn’t have to keep calling her “Ms. Effingham, just Morgan will do” – where we came to a door that opened into a room that held bedroom furniture. I glanced at the phone on a nightstand but he shook his head and strode over to a door that turned out to be a walk-in closet.

He shoved aside clothing on a rack and behind it was a panel. He pushed what looked like a painted over nail-head and the panel slid aside. It opened into a room wider than it was long and held a lot of electronic devices including another, bigger, surveillance monitor that showed a three-eighty of the outside including an overhead view of Blue Heaven’s occluded skies. It also looked out into various places in the house. There was one of the livingroom indicating where the doctor might’ve been when he overheard Talbert. There was also a row of computers, some equipment mounted on a wall that I didn’t recognize, and several phones.

Damn.

I glanced at Morgan. Her eyes were big and her mouth had dropped open.

I swallowed my own amazement and asked, “All the phones work?”

“Yes. Hurry and make your call and I’ll explain.”

When she saw the phones, Morgan, who still hadn’t caught on, said, “Oh! May I call my sister?”

“Wait.” By then I’d already lifted the nearest receiver and was keying in the number to Madison’s hotel suite. “Don’t worry. I’m calling her now,” I said to her baffled expression.

Madison picked up after only one ring. Her voice sounded tense. “Yes?”

“Madison, Tennessee. Morgan’s fine. She’s here and wants to talk to you, but first, I want you to put your guards on alert. Do it now, then come back to the phone.”

Smart woman. She didn’t hesitate. She laid the phone down and I heard a door open and voices. A minute later she came back.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“Someone at Semptor Labs had Morgan kidnapped. I think they were going to try and force you into whatever deal they wanted using your sister as collateral. There is a chance that since they’ve failed to keep her, they might decide to send someone around to hassle you and your company.” By that, I meant violently. She knew it, too. I took a breath. “I’m not trying to dip into your company business, Madison, but what type of arrangement is Semptor trying to work with you that would make them do this?”