Excerpt of Expect Trouble by JoAnn Smith Ainsworth

"Chapter One Philadelphia, PA, 1943

U.S. WAVES Lieutenant Olivia “Livvy” Delacourt abhorred being late. “And it’s my new superior who is waiting.”

Tension pressured the nape of her neck. Armed with one week of driver’s training, she gripped the Super Deluxe ‘42 Ford’s steering wheel like she was doing battle with Old Man Winter himself. March had come in like a lion to a country enveloped in a world war and gave no hint of going out like a lamb. A relentless wind whipped up dirty snow from Germantown Avenue’s icy cobblestones to mix with moist flurries that stuck to the windshield. Ice coated the tree branches and hid on snow-blanketed sidewalks. Clutching the steering wheel, Livvy sent a prayer heavenward that she’d get this metal behemoth and herself safely to headquarters.

This morning—without warning—the Navy Department jerked her from a challenging Cryptology assignment transcribing enemy phone conversations and reassigned her, of all things, as driver to a naval commander overseeing the formation of the top secret Joint U.S. and Allied Intelligence Project. Livvy hoped there’d be something “intelligent” about her assignment. She preferred working her brain, not her foot on a pedal.

Clank, clank, clank. The snow chains attacked the metal fenders, making her head ache. She scrunched her eyes and wrinkled her forehead to concentrate. She was looking for an estate with a wrought iron gate and a Pennsylvania flagstone fence around its five acres of land. There. She guided the heavy ‘42 Ford through the opened gate and onto the unplowed driveway stretching toward the three-story mansion known as Hamilton House. At one time, her family could’ve afforded a place like this—before the Crash of ‘29. No smoke rose from the chimneys. No lights beckoned. The grounds under a blanket of snow and ice looked abandoned.

What a welcome.

Livvy followed the tire ruts made by a single car with a lower belly that had scraped off the top layer of snow. When the tracks veered off toward the garages, Livvy stayed on the main drive. She pulled to a stop next to broad steps leading to the multi-columned porch of her new—and impressive—headquarters. She took the car out of gear, set the brake and turned off the engine.

Before pulling on her navy blue wool gloves, Livvy glanced at her wristwatch and her stomach tightened. Fifteen minutes late. She’d get chewed out. Oh, well, there was nothing she could do about that. The expected blast of bitterly cold air hit her when she stepped out into ankle-deep snow. She leaned into the driven snow to mount the steps to the front door. From the corner of her eye, she saw that her bobbed, brunette hair—where it escaped from under her cover— had curled tightly from the damp. Her glasses and wool overcoat were acquiring a covering of snow while crossing the driveway. Bedraggled. What a first impression.

Inhaling a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and pushed the doorbell. No sound. She pushed the bell again. Nothing. “I’ll have to get that fixed.”

She knocked loudly.

The door opened with an alacrity that startled her. The rigidity of the uniformed man towering above her made her feel she should click her rubber-booted heels. She tried to see his face, but snowflakes got in her eyes. She blinked and saluted. “Lieutenant Delacourt reporting for duty, sir.”

A disembodied voice growled from the darkened doorway. “You’re late!”

Livvy’s jaw dropped. She recognized that voice, one she hadn’t heard in almost ten years. The voice belonged to her colossal high school crush—Barrington Drew, III—Trey to his friends. Sadly, she wasn’t one of them.

In all the morning’s haste—saying good-byes, moving her things out of her desk in Cryptology and packing her belongings in the barracks— she’d never asked about her new commander. Besides, a war was on. She was trained to accept without question whomever the Navy threw at her and to do her duty as required. Who would’ve guessed the new boss would turn out to be her teenage heart- throb?

Her heart pounded with the remembered agony of unrequited feelings for the handsome and wealthy senior, youthful daydreams not based on reality. It wasn’t as if he’d spare a glance for a plump, impoverished and bespectacled freshman when he was already dating Livvy’s first cousin, the ultra glamorous Gwen. Peeping through snowy lashes, she could see that the thin- as-a-rail high school playboy had added muscle. An engineering slide rule and two drafting pencils lodged in his left breast pocket. Wavy black hair—now cut military style above the ears—framed a wide forehead and laughing eyes that, in the past, seemed continually amused. Right now they didn’t look amused.

“Wait here while I get my overcoat.” He turned abruptly and walked away.

Livvy flushed beet red, humiliated. No inkling of recognition. True, she’d lost some weight since her teen years and a uniform might act as a disguise, but come on. There should be some glimmer of recognition.

She’d barely regained her emotional balance when he reappeared with a briefcase clutched tightly in his gloved hand. He brushed past her and out the still-open front door. “Let’s get going or I’ll be late.” He rushed down snow-covered steps, leaving it to his lieutenant to close and lock the front door. Locking it against what, she didn’t know. The place looked barren of furnishings.

Darn. She’d expected more courtesy from a man of Trey’s social standing. Then she gave herself a mental slap. Commonplace courtesies weren’t part of a wartime society. Courtesy was extended by rank, not gender or social standing. Her duties as a lowly WAVES lieutenant included opening doors for the male officers, not vice versa.

She pushed at the bridge of her horn-rimmed glasses to settle them more comfortably on her nose before pulling shut the mansion door and listening until the lock clicked into place. When she turned around, Trey was climbing into the back of the sedan already layered by snowflakes. He slammed the door closed before she could make her way down the slippery steps. She needed to be quicker in the future. Her former heartthrob hadn’t recognize her. While wondering how to act, her hand lingered overly long on the car handle after opening the driver’s side door. She heard, “What are you waiting for, Lieutenant? You’re letting the warm air out.”

Good grief. Just like her mother.

“We need to get going or I’ll be late for my first assignment.”

She could sympathize with that problem.

Livvy climbed behind the wheel, thankful the Ford still held the heat generated on the trip to Hamilton House. She turned the key, depressed the clutch, got the car into first gear and inched down the snowy driveway toward the street. There were no tire tracks for her to follow on the way out.

“Where to, sir?”

“We’re headed for NAMU.”

“Where?”

“The Naval Aircraft Modification Unit north of Philadelphia in Warminster. It’s the former Brewster Aircraft Factory.”

Livvy had her map out and ready on the front seat. She stopped the car at the gate to study the map.

“Never mind that.” His tone was curt. “I have my own map. I’ll give directions.”

She pursed her lips. How long would he continue to snap at her? She heard him unlock his leather briefcase. In the rearview mirror, she watched as he spread a map across his lap and put a finger on their position.

“Left or right?”

“Right. Keep your eyes on the road. I’ll watch for street signs.” She pulled out onto Germantown Avenue and headed back toward Johnson Street in the direction she’d come.

Livvy glanced in the rearview mirror. Trey wore a disgruntled expression as if she were the source of every setback he’d ever experienced. Great. Make her more nervous than she already was, why didn’t he?

“Bear left on Washington Lane.”

Livvy made the turn without sliding on the ice. The driving teacher had harped on driving on snow and ice in her training.

“Has anyone told you about your assignment?” His voice was matter of fact, without a jot of friendliness.

“No one, sir. I was ordered to pack all my gear early this morning and drive to Germantown. I don’t even know where I’m staying tonight.”

“You’ll be quartered at Hamilton House. We both will. “

Her new assignment had a bright side. Too bad regulations forbid hanky panky between officers.

“We’ll be quartered with two naval intelligence men who’ll police the grounds. They should be there by the time we get back.”

From what little she saw of the property, Livvy decided all the security men would have to do was glance out the window now and then. The unbroken snow would speak loudly that no one was sneaking up. Who’d want to, anyway? The place was almost bare of furnishings. Any secrets were probably locked in that briefcase the commander was clutching, not back at Hamilton House.

“If I may ask, sir, what are we doing this morning?”

“I’m interviewing the civilian manager of a naval aircraft factory.

"I’m an engineer.”

As if she didn’t know.

“I’ve been assigned to uncover any plant vulnerability to saboteurs. You’ll take shorthand notes.”

“I’ve been assigned as your driver, not a clerk.” Blast it. She must break herself of the habit of speaking before thinking and contradicting her boss on top of it.

“You’re assigned as my aide. I need to get a secure facility up and running as quickly as possible. Driving is only one part of that. Mostly, the Navy needs your business skills.”

Halleluiah. Some “intelligent” work after all. The military wasn’t being stupid like she first thought when they stuck her in driving school. Driving was an add-on to the whole package. With this opportunity, she might be the first in her Sarah Lawrence College graduating class to set up an office. She smiled. A definite feather in her cap. Losing Cryptology for this project wasn’t a demotion. It was a promotion.

“What about paper and pencil?” Trey asked. “I have extra paper and pencils if you need them.”

As if a Sarah Lawrence graduate would get caught without her notepad and sharpened pencils. “I always carry supplies.”

“Good.”

At least she got one scrap of praise out of him.

“Turn left on Old York Road and follow the Route 611 signs all the way north to Warminster. There are no more turns to worry about.” Much to her relief, he didn’t sound irritated anymore.

She settled back in the seat as they travelled their slow and noisy way toward the NAMU facility. When she heard Trey pull a batch of papers from his briefcase, she glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “I need to study these drawings.” He put his head down to focus, leaving her to the challenge of getting them to Warminster. She secured her grip on the steering wheel and continued her battles with the monster-sized car and Old Man Winter.

Livvy was still a block away from the NAMU complex when the first waves of nausea hit her. A metallic taste flooded her mouth. Insidious buzzing—like millions of bees hovering over a clover patch— flooded her head.

Oh, no. I don’t need this.

A psychic attack was coming on. Her heartbeat increased and her breath caught in her throat. Her hands sweated, causing the steering wheel to slip from her grip so that she lightly sideswiped a snow bank.

“Watch what you’re doing.” Trey barked the command from the backseat.

Usually, her clairvoyant visions pertained to something going on in her life. Why would driving a naval officer to a meeting start one? Livvy groped in her standard-issue WAVES handbag for a pill box and swallowed two aspirin tablets without water. She worked up enough spit to take the taste out of her mouth while she clung desperately to the steering wheel. She mentally created psychic roses and flung them to the outer rim of her aura until surrounded head to- toe. This psychic trick, taught to her by her mother, saved her many a time since her mom’s death. Livvy prayed the protections learned as a teenager would work today.

Trey spoke as she slowly entered the NAMU gate. “Ignore the main building. They’ll be in the inventory shed around back.”

Livvy maneuvered the car past a series of buildings until she came to the back lot and a small brick warehouse she thought considerably larger than a shed.

“Ten minutes to spare.” Trey seemed relieved.

When she pulled into an empty parking space, dark and sinister energy struck her sharply in the belly. “Oof,” she said before she could stop herself.

“Something wrong, Lieutenant?”

“No, sir.”

She dragged herself out of the car and around to the passenger side to open the door for the commander. A man in a business suit came out of the NAMU building and greeted them.

“Paul Lesisko, civilian plant manager.”

Trey introduced himself and his lieutenant. Nothing dramatic happened when the man shook Livvy’s hand. The manager wasn’t the source of her upset. Nor did she pick up negative vibrations from the men standing around outside. Something else was going on. She wished she knew what that something was.

Livvy stood by while the men talked and gestured. The buzzing in her head gradually subsided while she held the psychic barriers in place. Only the slightest ringing in her ears remained. She checked her thought processes. Unclouded—and just in time, too. The men were entering the brick building and she needed to take notes of the inspection.

Livvy pulled her glasses off and rubbed the bridge of her nose to relieve tension. She pulled a shorthand notebook and pencil from her handbag and scurried after the commander and Mr. Lesisko. Stopping a short way from the men, she flipped open the shorthand pad to a clean page. She dated it and glided the pencil across the page, leaving behind swirls and lines as shorthand notes of the men’s conversation.

“These are overflow parts from the main factory warehouse.” The manager described the bin tags that marked which inventory was critical and which was not.

Trey asked questions on the age of the building and the various renovations. His slide rule was in and out of his pocket several times while he studied the structure and calculated stresses. He asked for a set of blueprints and other engineering data to take with him after the inspection tour. The plant manager gave an order to a worker nearby, who left for the main building to develop a set of blueprints.

Livvy trailed after the men in the drafty warehouse, shivering as she wrote notes and barely succeeded in keeping the negative energy at bay. She was more than ready for a trip back to Hamilton House in a warm car by the time Mr. Lesisko told them they were just about done in this building. “There’s only an add-on room in the back to see.”

The closer Livvy got to the bins at the far end of the small warehouse, the more her pores released sweat and her head pounded. Even with protections in place, a full-blown psychic episode was returning. The trauma was more intense than any she’d ever experienced. She clenched her teeth as a brown fog drifted before her eyes. She swayed on her feet.

Trey caught her elbow. “Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

“Fine, sir.” She gritted her teeth. She wanted to yell she was under attack by evil spirits, but they’d think her crazy. She’d learned over the years to keep her clairvoyance a secret closely guarded by family and friends.

Mr. Lesisko made a brief comment on the stock stored there and then said, “We’re finished here anyway.”

Livvy stopped taking notes and packed up her notepad. Something bad was imminent. She had to get everyone away.

“Excuse me, Commander. There is something wrong with me.”

She touched her head where the headache was the worst. “I need some fresh air.”

“Would you like the plant nurse to take a look at you?” the plant manager asked.

“I’d be grateful, sir.”

Mr. Lesisko ushered them toward an exit door. “This way to the infirmary.”

She followed the men toward the exit.

Just then a blast rattled the building. Something crashed against her head and shoulders and threw her to her knees, causing ripples of pain and flashes of light before blessedly knocking her out.