Chapter 8
The women stopped at a Walmart for supplies and cash, taking out as much money as the ATM would allow and gathering the materials Julie needed to create the cipher wheel. Then they headed south in Hank’s SUV.
Julie was sitting in the passenger seat, which was now parked an hour and a half away from Marianne’s at the Albany airport.
In her lap were twelve slices of a paper towel roll, each neatly marked into twenty-seven equal sections.
The thirteenth was in her hand, along with the ruler and a pen.
It was careful work, but she was nearly done.
A light green minivan pulled into the next parking spot over, and Gwen hopped out of its driver’s side door. Julie finished the last of her measuring and climbed out to join her.
“I thought a minivan was more practical, in case we needed somewhere to sleep.”
“Good call.”
The women worked to move their belongings and supplies to the new vehicle, Gwen once again taking her place at the wheel. She turned around in her seat to back out cautiously, then headed toward the interstate.
“Julie, I had to give them a credit card and a driver’s license,” she said.
“Crap.”
“I know. But they wouldn’t give me the van without it, and they wouldn’t take the prepaid credit card. My license says Trueblood, but I had a MasterCard in the name of Gwen Beaumont, and she let me use that one when I pretended I had just gotten married and it was all I had.”
“Wait, you took David’s name?”
“I tried it on for size. I went back to Trueblood after a month or two.” Gwen took a last sip of her soda, the straw taking in air with a loud slurp.
“Maybe the different name will be enough to throw them off.” Julie said hopefully, though her voice sounded false to her own ears.
No use crying over spilled milk.
Julie inserted the battery into the disposable cell phone she picked up at Walmart and held the power key, its display coming to life. She hit the internet browser button and immediately looked up the Leopold Cipher.
“Are you almost done?”
“Close.”
Each of the thirteen numbered rings would be labeled with all the letters of the alphabet on it and one blank, each in a different order.
This is what she needed to look up, and she meticulously copied them from the internet site to the rings she had created.
The key—the thirteen numbers she gleaned from “beautiful”—would tell her the order of the rings themselves.
“Nothing to it, but to do it,” she said to herself. With shaking hands, she grabbed another roll of paper towels and slid the towels off it, then used the scissors to slice the cardboard open with one long cut.
“What’s that for?” asked Gwen.
“I need a dowel to put the rings on. It has to be a little smaller in diameter than they are.” She cut a long piece of duct tape and put the roll back together, with a sliver of itself tucked inside the roll.
“This is so exciting!”
Julie smiled at her aunt’s enjoyment, her own stomach in knots. Digging in her pocket, she found the paper where she had written the cipher key and began to place the rings onto the long roll in the correct order.
“Now what?” asked Gwen.
“Now I turn the wheels to spell out the first thirteen letters of the coded message.” Julie skipped over the first line, knowing that had only been a reference for her to know to use the Leopold cipher.
“You put the gibberish in?”
“Yes.”
“How do you get the message out?”
Julie finished lining up the first thirteen letters of text, using a piece of tape to hold them in position.
“You roll it around until you find the line that makes sense.” As she spoke, she opened her palm and let the cipher wheel roll slowly down her fingers.
Her eyes scanned line after line of gibberish before the words suddenly jumped out at her.
I AM NOT DEAD
She jerked her hand back as if she’d been burned, and the cipher roll fell to the floor of the van.
“Holy shit!” Julie snapped.
“What?”
“‘I am not dead’! It says, ‘I am not dead’!”
“Holy shit,” said Gwen.
“My father is alive!”
Hank didn’t know she was gone until lunchtime.
Since Julie put the blinds down, he slept until almost eleven. When he couldn’t find her, he looked for the dogs and figured the women had taken them for a walk.
He sat alone at the kitchen table, sunlight streaming in the windows and a hot cup of coffee in front of him, planning his future with Julie Trueblood.
It would be touchy, given her involvement in this case, but he had no intention of letting her go.
Hank knew a good thing when it stared him in the face, and that woman was as good as it got.
He was in up to his knees emotionally. It wasn’t just physical.
Hell, they had rocked the physical world off its axis last night, but that alone wouldn’t have him sitting here thinking about their future.
His mind was telling him this might be the one he had waited his whole life for, and Hank was wise enough to embrace that possibility and not let it get away from him, no matter who their relationship might upset.
Barstow’s going to shit his pants.
Hank smiled at the thought as he lifted his cereal bowl to drain the remaining milk. Still, he wanted to minimize the negative consequences that dating Julie could have on his career, and that was going to take some doing.
Marianne walked in, carrying several grocery bags. “Morning.”
“Hey, Ma. Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas. I thought you were out.”
“Why?”
“Because your truck’s not here.”
Hank’s brows snapped together, then he stood up and peered out the window.
“I do know what your truck looks like,” said his mother sarcastically.
“Yeah. I know.” He sat back down at the table and shrugged. “Julie must have taken it.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I just got up a few minutes ago. I thought she and Gwen took the dogs for a walk.”
“In the truck?”
That was odd. There must be a good explanation for why the two of them, the dogs and the truck were all missing. “Did they leave a note?” He hadn’t really looked for one. A sick feeling settled in the hollow of his stomach as Marianne scanned the counter tops, shaking her head.
“The pad is out, but no note.”
She wouldn’t just leave.
As if to prove it to himself, Hank walked to the pantry and looked inside, his eyes resting where the dogs’ food had been since the women arrived.
It was gone.
Hank stared at the spot longer than necessary.
Julie was gone.
But why? It didn’t make sense. He was working to keep them safe. What had changed to make them want to leave?
The only thing that had changed was a night of incredible sex. Was she running away from a relationship with him? Julie had not seemed upset by them taking things to the next level. On the contrary, she seemed as moved by what they had shared as he was.
Then what? What could possibly make them take off in his SUV like that?
An image of Julie flashed in his mind. “Are you sure we’re safe here?”
Panic slammed into Hank and set him reeling, his eyes darting to doors and windows, locks and unbroken panes.
“Was anything out of the ordinary this morning?” he asked his mother.
“No, not that I noticed. Why?”
Hank’s cell phone rang and he glanced at the caller ID. ADMIRAL BARSTOW was displayed across the screen in big blue letters. He could see Julie standing where he stood, seeing what he was seeing.
“Son of a bitch!” Hank smacked his hand down violently on the counter. “She saw my phone. Son of a bitch!” he screamed, pounding his fists as the phone continued to ring.
Marianne turned from her groceries and stared at her son.
“Jared,” he nearly shouted into the receiver.
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling all morning,” said Barstow.
Any doubts about Julie’s departure vanished in an instant. Julie and Gwen were running for their lives.
Running for their lives, from me.
“It’s Christmas Day, sir,” Hank bit off the words, barely restraining his frustration with the older man.
“What goddamn difference does that make?” he barked. “You work for me, Jared. Not forty hours. All the fucking time. Do I make myself clear?”
Hank fought against the desperate need to verbally rip apart his superior officer. He concentrated on breathing in and out, feeling the air fill his lungs, and heard himself say, “Of course, sir.”
“Where are you on the McDowell case?”
“Julie’s still working on the cipher.”
“You’re sure she would tell you if she solved it?”
Not anymore.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do what you have to in order to earn her trust.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“I mean,” Barstow chuckled, a dirty throaty noise that disgusted Hank, “she’s a beautiful woman, Jared. She just lost her father and she’s vulnerable. Do what you need to do to ingratiate yourself with her.”
Hank felt nauseous and angry, self-loathing warring with indignation in his blood.
That’s what Julie thinks I did. She thinks I betrayed her.
Barely trusting himself to speak, Hank didn’t respond at all. In his mind, his fist connected with Barstow’s face. It was all he could do to remain silent.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“What the hell are you doing at the Albany airport?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t play with me, son. Now, I’d like to know,” he drawled out, “why you’re touring the goddamned Northeast without updating me on this fucking case. I shouldn’t have to call you to find out your fucking flight itinerary. Do you understand me, Jared?”
Realization dawned clear. “You have a GPS on my car.”
“Of course I do.” The admiral snickered. “And you’d better start explaining.”
“I remember her,” said the young man at the rental car counter. He had a swatch of dyed blonde hair amidst masses of brunette curls. “Did she do something wrong?” He held his hand to his chest, wide-eyed.
Hank had been showing Julie and Gwen’s pictures around to ticket agents and car rental employees for nearly an hour. It had taken thirty-five minutes to have their pictures sent from DMV in the first place.
“When was she here?”