Chapter 34 #2
Shrugging, she opened the door to my room and walked inside. She flopped on the bed and sighed. “Maybe. He’s weird about communication, though. And if a guy can’t check in with me every day, he’s up to something.”
I snorted, and Gia sat up with a huff.
“I’m serious, Quinn! Are you seriously trying to tell me a man can’t find two seconds in his day to send a good morning or good night text?
No one is that busy or important. And we all scroll our phones when we use the bathroom, so I make no excuses for men.
If he can go that long without checking in, clearly, I’m not a priority. ”
She pursed her lips and arched a brow, as if I might argue.
Conceding her point, I tossed the diary and paddle on the floor with the rest of my clues. “You’re right. Okay, let’s get ready for this shindig so I can work on my clues until we go.”
Once I was primped and polished, I sat cross-legged on the floor. When the black light yielded nothing extra on the diary pages, I looked through my clues and cyphers and wrote out where each clue led.
- Lockbox—>Photo—>Paint Thinner—>?
- Paddle—> ?
- Riddle—>Magnifying Glass—>Map?
- Diary—>?
“I still don’t know what the paddle adds, but maybe it tells me which of the two options is the right one? I might need to use one of my Secret Questions if I can’t figure it out myself.”
As I pulled it towards me, the splintered wood dragged on the carpet. Breaking free from the paddle, it left a small hole.
A flash of white stuck out. “Hey! Something’s in here!”
Without fully thinking it through, I slammed the broken edge of the paddle onto the carpet. It cracked further, and I dug my fingers inside to dig out the small scrap of paper.
“Holy shit!” Gia came up behind me, her face flushed with excitement. “What does it say? What does it say!”
I shot her a look over my shoulder as I unfolded the paper. She mimed zipping her lips and bounced beside me.
The paper contained nine boxes, all filled in.
“It looks like a shift cypher.” I picked up one cypher I’d gathered during the Obstacle Course and showed her. “But based on this example, it’s wrong.”
“What the heck is a shift cypher?”
“It changes the letters in a code, so a scrambled group of letters turns into a word. Normally, the boxes would be blank, and one box would have the new order of the alphabet.”
I grabbed the flashlight and held it over the cypher.
“Look!” Gia squealed as three letters appeared, glowing under the black light over the middle box. KLM.
After writing the rest of the alphabet over the other letters, I glanced at the list I’d made and compared. “If this is the right way to do this, L for lockbox becomes J, R for riddle becomes P, D for diary becomes B. That can’t be right.”
Gia put her hands up in front of her, palms out. “You’re the expert. Don’t look at me for help. I thought you switched the top one with the bottom letter.”
I studied the cypher. “Well, in that case, L becomes N, R becomes T...”
Gia scanned the list. “Are you sure you have the right words to start?”
“Not at all.” I huffed a laugh. “This whole thing has been an exercise in winging it.”
She scrunched her lips as she thought about it. “What about journal instead of diary? What does that get you?”
I peered at the list. “L. That’s not a bad letter with T and N! Aren’t all of those on the starting letters for Wheel of Fortune?”
“They’re the most common.” She scratched words out on my list and replaced them with new options. “We need vowels. What letters give us vowels?”
“Y for A, C for E, G for I, M for O, and S for U.”
“Statue starts with S,” Gia pointed out.
“Yeah, but that’s been the destination, and we’re looking at the starting points.” I frowned. “Okay, what about the magnifying glass that was in the lockbox with the photo? That would be O.”
“And code would give us an E.” She scribbled on the list.
“We’re just going in circles with this. We could come up with a million options.
I need to see what I’m missing with the statue, but first, I need to make sure I’m on the right track.
I still have all these other cyphers, and what?
I’m only supposed to use one? What is it with this place and misdirection? ”
Gia gave me a sympathetic smile. “What about your secret questions? Could you ask about this?”
Chewing on my lower lip, I warred with going to Morty. “He’s supposed to answer truthfully, so I’d just need to be very careful about my phrasing. I’ll ask him tonight at the party. Gia, if he gives me the answer…”
“We’ll go, obviously!” She checked the time on her phone and quickly started packing up my clues into the lockbox. “We’ll bring everything in this, and if you get an answer from him you think is right, I say go for it.”
Apprehension swirled in my belly. “I feel like we’re onto something, but I could also be grasping at straws.”
Gia got to her feet, handed me the lockbox, and grabbed my shoulders. Turning me to face her, she gave me a much-needed shake. “There’s only one way to find out, Quinn. But don’t second-guess your gut. You know what you’re doing with this stuff, okay?”
I grabbed onto her wrist with my free hand and squeezed. “Okay, I hear you.”
“Good. Because I’ll fully pep talk you more, but we’re running late.” She came around my back and pushed me toward the door. “Late for a very important date. Now, let’s go party!”
She pushed me out of the room before I could argue.
Rushing down the stairs, I kept an eye out for Morty. I didn’t see him anywhere as we made our way to the back patio, where the guys set up a large tent for the fourth party.
Gia gawked at the display, as Knights ran around completing last-minute tasks. “You know, for all the apparent wealth these rich bastards have, they sure put the Knights to work.”
I laughed as we stepped onto the lawn. “You’re not wrong, but seems fair, all things considered, for the Maidens.” I searched everywhere for a sign of my guys, hoping they’d point me in Morty’s direction. “Let’s go this way, or maybe we should split up.”
“But I don’t know what Max looks like!”
“Tall, dark, handsome. He’ll be the one looking like he’d rather chew his arm off than be here another second.”
At the panicked look on her face, I grabbed her shoulders.
“Okay, new plan. You search for Kingston and Landon. I’ll look for Max and Morty. We’ll meet back here in…fifteen minutes with or without them. Got it?”
She nodded. “Got it.”
We took off in opposite directions, and gratitude for Gia and her no-bullshit approach to people ran through me. With anyone else, I would’ve been throwing them to the wolves.
But not Gia.
I waited until she disappeared into the crowd, then I ran off in search of Max and Morty.