Code

CHAPTER 32

“THIS IS SERIOUS, Tory.”

I shrugged, staring into my cereal bowl.

“I’m not kidding,” Kit flipped a page of the Post and Courier. “We’re smack in the danger zone.”

“Uh-huh.”

His words barely registered. A sleepless night had done nothing for my nerves.

Or my guilty conscience.

“The projected path has Morris taking a direct hit.” Kit set the newspaper aside. “Let’s pray they’re wrong and the storm tracks out to sea.”

“Yeah.”

Sunday morning. Kitchen. Oatmeal. The normalcy jarred my brain.

Yesterday we’d broken into a crypt, dodged a venomous snake, and discovered a fresh corpse. A madman was threatening the city, and our families were smack in his crosshairs.

Yet I couldn’t tell a soul.

We’d left the body inside the sarcophagus. Even muscled the lid back into place. Sneaking from the tomb, we’d found ourselves alone in the cemetery. Unobserved. We’d stumbled to the parking lot and simply driven away.

What else could we do?

The Gamemaster was in control. If we didn’t follow the rules and finish his sick game, everyone we loved was at risk. The stakes had skyrocketed.

So we’d hidden the hideous crime and fled.

Shame burned inside me, so powerful I actually shuddered.

“You okay?” Kit was eyeing me with concern. “You look a little peaked.”

“Fine.”

“Don’t stress.” He misread things, as usual. “Category Four is a major hurricane, no question, but it’ll probably miss like all the rest. If ol’ Katelyn actually decides to visit lovely Charleston, we’ll evacuate well ahead of her.”

Robotic nod. “I’m just worried about the animals on Loggerhead.”

“My first order of business.” Kit carried his bowl to the sink. “I’ll remove the barriers blocking those caverns south of Dead Cat Beach. Along with the old mines, that should give the monkeys plenty of shelter. And the wolf pack can hole up in their cave under Tern Point.”

I felt a pang for Whisper and her brood, but pushed it away.

I had more pressing concerns.

Kit grabbed his keys and slipped on his jacket. “You sure everything’s good?”

“Never better.” Forced smile. “See you tonight.”

I was texting before the door clicked shut. My phone soon buzzed with replies. Three affirmatives. I threw on jeans and a LIRI sweatshirt, whistled to Coop, and headed for the driveway.

Drizzle was falling from a slate-gray sky, slicking the blacktop behind our complex. The gusting winds made ocean travel dicey, so we’d pedal to the bunker instead of taking Sewee.

Two Virals were already mounted and waiting: Shelton on his black BMX and Hi on his trusty Schwinn ten-speed. I rolled my Trek from the garage and joined them.

Ben appeared, jumped on his beat-up mountain bike, and took off without a word. We followed, far enough behind to avoid his tire spray. Coop loped beside us for a stretch before disappearing into the dunes.

“I see Ben’s still a ray of sunshine.” Hi’s poncho hood was cinched tightly around his face. “Should be great company.”

“The stiff freaked him out.” Droplets beaded on Shelton’s glasses. “I’ve never seen Ben so spooked. Can’t say I blame him.”

Coop burst from behind a sand hill and cut across our path, forcing me to brake.

“Watch it, dog face!”

We finished our ride in silence.

At the bunker’s entrance I quickly checked our precious solar array. Despite the foul weather everything seemed in order.

If the hurricane strikes, we’ll have to shelter this somehow. Ugh.

Inside, I found Shelton manning the computer and Hi pawing through the mini-fridge. Ben sat staring out the window, silent and brooding.

Coop bumped my legs as he trotted into the back room. I pictured the sodden dog shaking himself dry beside our expensive network components. Mental note: relocate doggie apartment.

I reached behind me into the crawl, shut the portal, then crossed and took a seat at the table. “We need a plan.”

Hi joined me, popping string cheese into his mouth. “Does the iPad still work?”

“It’s toast.” I set the hateful thing in front of me.

Shelton swiveled, tapped his chest. “My bad. All pumped up and flaring, I kinda freaked out.”

Back in the crypt, Shelton had spiked the iPad in anger. Moments later smoke had begun oozing from its sides. There’d been a burst of static before the screen went dark. Charging had failed to revive a signal. I had a feeling the tablet was dead for good.

“Do we need it anymore?” Shelton took a chair and placed the Gamemaster’s most recent letter before him. “This note doesn’t mention another clue. Only that we’re supposed to—” he read aloud, “—‘combine what you’ve learned to unlock The Danger.’ Whatever that means.”

I had no answer.

Was the iPad’s demise irrelevant? Or had it fizzled before revealing our last hint?

Too late to worry about that now.

“We’ll proceed as if there are no more clues,” I said. “That leaves this message.”

“Okay.” Hi placed the surveillance photos next to the iPad. Just thinking of them gave me chills. “So let’s combine what we’ve learned.”

“How?” Shelton gestured at the items on the tabletop. “Where do we even start?”

My gaze flicked to Ben in the corner. “Will you join us?”

After a long pause, he shoved to his feet, slouched over, and dropped into the last empty chair.

“Let’s examine our finds, cache by cache.” I grabbed a notebook and began a list. “First was the Loggerhead box. Inside was a coded letter and the disguised image of Castle Pinckney.”

“Our first direct message from the Gamemaster.” Hi retrieved the pages from our workstation and added them to the collection.

“Weak-ass code.” Shelton brushed imaginary dust from his shoulder. “Cracked it in no time.”

“Don’t forget,” Hi said, “it was all locked in that Japanese puzzle doohickey.”

“Himitsu-Bako,” Shelton corrected. “It’s called Himitsu-Bako.”

“Whatever.” Hi rummaged the desk until he located the box. “We solved it.”

Shelton elbowed me, then mock-whispered, “I solved it.”

He winked. I rolled my eyes.

“The altered coordinates,” Ben added quietly. “That’s what led us to Pinckney.”

“Right.” I wrote “puzzle box” and “Castle Pinckney” on the next two lines. “At Pinckney we found the iPad. The first clue it displayed was the eighteenth-hole pictogram.” I added my copy of the image to the assemblage.

“The Pinckney cache freaking exploded.” Hi shrugged. “Might be relevant, might not.”

“Good.” I recorded the details. “The accelerant used was diesel fuel.”

Ben looked startled. “What?”

“That’s what Dr. Sundberg swabbed from the scorch marks on the container. Marchant said so.”

“You never mentioned anything about diesel.” Ben looked at me oddly.

I realized Ben was right. After Kit and Whitney’s beach blanket ambush, the swab results had slipped my mind. We’d gone straight to Jason’s party instead.

“Sorry. Does it mean anything to you?”

“What? No.” Ben looked annoyed. “Why would it? I just don’t like being left out of the loop.”

“Ben, I’m sorry.”

“No big deal,” Hi interjected smoothly. “Next, we found Saint Benedict.”

Shelton retrieved the statue and positioned him in line. The black-and-white cloth was still draped across his holy shoulders.

“On Kiawah.” Shelton helped Hi get us back on track. “Ocean Course, hole eighteen, guarded by a wicked snare gun. The chemical equation in the pictogram was the key to finding it.”

“Bromomethane.” I scribbled. “The cloth resembled a monk’s robe, and was embroidered with a rising sun. That led us to Mepkin Abbey, the cemetery, and … what we found last.”

“The dead body,” Ben spat. “And the pit viper. And the envelope full of threats.”

I nodded. Wrote it all down.

“That’s it?” Hi grabbed my notebook and read out loud. “Castle Pinckney. Diesel fuel. Bromomethane. Kiawah Island. Saint Benedict. Mepkin Abbey. Not exactly hot leads.”

“Worthless.” Ben slumped back, arms across his chest. “Random useless facts.”

I sighed. Was he right?

Coop emerged from the back and padded to his corner. One more set of eyes watching me.

A very long moment passed.

Hi broke the silence. “Anyone think it’s odd that the final deadline is so specific?”

“What do you mean?” Shelton asked. “The timer was pretty specific, too.”

“But that just counted down.” Hi scooped up the Gamemaster’s most recent letter. “This message states a precise day and time—Friday at nine. Why the change in format?”

I wasn’t sure I saw Hi’s point. “We need to examine everything we know about the Gamemaster. Look for patterns, or common threads. Dots that we can connect.”

“No, we need to ID the corpse.” Shelton raised both palms. “That’s why you took the photo, right?”

“Of course.”

Just before bolting the crypt, I’d had an idea. It was a long shot, but a Hail Mary beats no play at all. Reaching into the sarcophagus, I’d turned the dead man and taken a picture of his face.

“We’ll do both,” I said. “Connect the dots, and find out who the victim is.”

“Both?” Hi looked skeptical. “How do we accomplish either?”

Though stumped on the first issue, I had a plan for the second. “There might be a way to figure out who’s in that coffin.”

The boys waited.

“Time for another trip to Loggerhead.”