by C J Murphy
Jordan stopped to ponder that, as she clicked her pen top rapidly. “Okay, so I’m looking for a spot that can be found here on campus, right?”
“Yes. Now, the next one is a polyalphabetic cipher, the Vigenère cipher that was used by the Confederates in the Civil War. Decoded, the message reads follow the clues to each bucket-list destination. Love Aggie.
“So, if I’m understanding this, it appears that Professor James planned out a bucket list for them to follow. Unfortunately, she dies before they can complete it, and Professor Scott retires to parts unknown.” Jordan paused and scratched her head absently with her pen. “Well, I guess I start by finding the location here on campus and see where it leads.”
“By George, I think she’s got it. Now, if we’re done with this treasure hunt for the day, Silicon Valley is in need of my skills to find a hole in their most recent software.”
“I think I can take it from here. Thanks, Watson.”
Jordan hung up and bit her lip in concentration while looking at the sheet. Bandit’s persistent whine got her attention, and she put away her notes. “Okay, okay. Geez, impatient today, aren’t we? Alright, let’s go.” Bandit barked enthusiastically, as Jordan walked across the room and grabbed three tennis balls.
Upon reaching the yard, Jordan started throwing the florescent-yellow balls. Bandit needed the exercise. He could wander back and forth indoors, between Max and Sam’s level and Jordan’s, if he chose to. If Max went outside, Bandit understood he was to always stay with him. Sam and Jordan had hoped that by forming that bond, Bandit would stay with Max if he ever wandered off and was unable to find his way home.
A familiar, deep voice filled the backyard. “You spoil him.”
Bandit immediately wandered over to Max, who came outside and sat down. Jordan watched the dog put his soft nose under Max’s hand and urged him to pet him. Jordan made her way over to the seat opposite Max.
“He’s deserving.”
Max smiled as he smoothed back the soft fur. “Glad to see he got you outside. Your nose is buried too deeply in those books when you’re home. Any progress?”
“A little. I found their book in the library. It had a piece of loose paper inside, with some things in code.”
Max’s eyes twinkled. “Ah, and you called your source?”
“You know I did. Dava cracked the codes in ten minutes. She hasn’t failed me yet.”
“How is Dava by the way?”
Jordan smiled. Max and Sam had met her sister several times at different functions over the years. “Busy solving the ails of Silicon Valley and who knows whatever else the government throws her way.”
“Remarkable young lady.” He paused. “Both of you are, you know?”
“Although I’m barely qualified to carry her luggage in comparison. I hold my own.”
Max tilted his head and squinted his eyes at her. “Always so self-deprecating my dear.”
Jordan reached out a hand and Max placed his in hers. “Nice to know I’ve got a fan.”
He squeezed her hand. “You are destined to solve one of the world’s greatest problems, Jordan.”
“Not if I can’t find a way to graft a heartier and more drought-tolerant root base to my stalk. Everything I’ve tried so far fails. I need to find Professor Scott and, to date, she’s a ghost.”
“This new lead promising?”
She sighed and rolled her neck. “Possibly. It seems that Professor James made a bucket list for Professor Scott to decode.”
Max leaned his head back, looking out over the yard. “Ah, Noeul always did like puzzles. Aggie searched the world over for jigsaw puzzles and other items to stump her.”
“You knew them pretty well?”
“Aggie and Noeul were on staff while I was still teaching at Cornell. They were frequent guests at the restaurant where Sam used to work. A truly lovely couple, different in so many ways and yet perfect for each other. I met Noeul’s parents, when Aggie and Noeul moved them into their guest cottage. Both parents passed within six months of each other. I think grief killed Noeul’s father after her mother passed, not unlike how Noeul was lost after Aggie’s untimely death.” His voice trailed off wistfully. “Funny, I can remember all that. The sad reality is I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning.” He ran a hand across his face and stopped to look at his wedding ring. “I hope I never forget Sam.”
Jordan squeezed his hand and noted that his Project Lifesaver bracelet was in place. The system was designed to provide protection and safety to individuals who wandered due to some cognitive condition like dementia, Alzheimer’s, or even autism. “We’ll make sure you don’t. Now, have you been working on those irrigation calculations for me?”
“Yes, I’ve input all the data you provided and played with conversion tables, trying to calculate the rock bottom amount of water needed for your plant to survive. It’s still more than what will ever fall in Mogadishu.”
Jordan pulled her hand from Max’s and ran her fingers into her short dark hair, tugging on it slightly in frustration. “That’s why I’m so desperate to find Professor Scott. Her work was on the cusp of perfecting this grafting technique that will allow me to combine my superfood cereal strain with a drought-tolerant root ball. I’ve tried over and over to find the right one using different variances and treatments, still, they continue to fail. If I could find her and help her complete her work, we might find a way to plant a crop that could survive those drought conditions.”
“I wish I could be more help. I don’t have any idea where she went after Aggie died. Noeul stayed long enough to close out everything here. After that, she vanished.”
Jordan blew out a long breath. “Well, I’m hoping that coded page I found will give me a clue as to where she vanished.”
***
Later that evening, Jordan brought back a large number of containers that had at one time held the dinners Sam sent her. “Thought you might be missing these.”
Sam hugged her in greeting. “Thank you, it will make next week’s canine courier delivery much easier.
“You don’t have to do that, Sam. You know that, right?”
“If Bandit didn’t bring it to you, you’d live on ramen noodles. You geeks are all alike. You put your face in a book, get lost in your work, and forget about the world.” He tenderly caressed her cheek and took the containers from her.
“Well, I do love the company Bandit provides, and the food is better than my cooking will ever be.”
Bandit brushed by them in search of Max. “Best thing I ever did was get that dog, well, other than convincing Max I wasn’t too young for him.”
“You are the best thing that ever happened to Max and my stomach too. No doubt about that.”
Sam carried the basket over to a cabinet and placed the containers back inside. “Nice to be appreciated. Now about Noeul, Max said you found something today. I remembered she told me one time, she and Aggie had a plan to see as many national parks as they could. That’s where the idea for the book came from. I’d forgotten about that until Max mentioned it.”
Jordan thought about what she’d read earlier that day. “I’ve counted ten parks so far in the book. Most of them are the biggies: Arches, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and the like. They wrote very vivid descriptions of the ecosystems involved in each. It’s hard to believe there are still places untouched by industrialization.”
“They both took the environment very seriously. Aggie taught geography and ArcGIS and had a degree in mechanical engineering as well. Noeul, as you know, was chair of the biology department and a very serious scientist…driven you might say.”
“I’ve heard that from several people. I remember her intensity from my few classes with her. If I could find her, we could perfect her technique and possibly feed millions.”
“You make me proud to know you, Jordan. I have no doubt you’ll find a way to do that, whether you find Noeul or not.”
Jordan smiled at the confidence Sam placed in h
er. “I wish I believed in me the way you do.”
“Don’t worry, Jordan, I have enough confidence in you for the both of us. Now, you look like you need a good night’s sleep.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek.
Jordan wasn’t sure sleep would come, as her mind raced around the few tenuous threads of connection she was building to the elusive Professor Noeul Scott.
Chapter Two
SATURDAY MORNING, JORDAN WOKE without the aid of an alarm. She hadn’t needed one since the day her sister Dava had been born. She woke at five thirty religiously, from that day on. She stretched and got out of bed, as she recalled the morning of her sister’s birth with perfect clarity. The thought brought a smile to her face. She hadn’t completely understood as a child. Within a few hours, after they’d made it to the hospital, everything would change. Being born ‘differently abled,’ as her mother called it, made no difference in the Armstrong family. Their parents never treated either of them differently and did everything they could to make life inclusive instead of exclusive. Dava would, however, live her entire life dealing with mobility issues and illness. She flourished, despite her physical limitations, her intellect propelling her far beyond where her wheelchair would take her.
Waking with Dava on her mind, she pulled up her sister’s number, knowing she would be awake. Jordan stretched and scratched her head, as she listened for her sister’s voice.
“What’s on your mind?” Dava asked.
“I actually woke up thinking about the day you were born.”
Dava laughed. “Really, what brought that on?”
“I’m not really sure. You know how my head is. I remember every minute of every day. That one was the best in my life.”
“The day you were saddled with a sister who would never walk?”
“No, the day I got the best promotion ever.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You were six.”
“Yup, and the day you were born, I got promoted to big sister.” Jordan knew her grin was wide enough to bring out her dimples.
Dava chuckled. “You’re such a sap.”
“True. I will easily admit to being a sap that loves you.”
“There is that.”
Jordan stretched again. “So, now for why I called. I guess I need a little reassurance. I’ve got to start somewhere, so I’m going to make my way over to the botanical gardens today, see where it leads me. I can’t come up with the grafting combination on my own, and I’ve tested every theory I could find of Professor Scott’s. She left incredibly detailed notes, but something is missing, something I can’t put my finger on. Maybe it’s just that she didn’t finish her work here. I don’t know. I’ve read everything she ever wrote that was either published or was in her lab reports. There’s something missing.”
“Maybe you’re trying too hard or overthinking. Could be it was something she couldn’t complete? It’s possible you’re the one who’s meant to find the solution.”
Jordan could hear her sister taking a drink of her morning creamer with a shot of coffee. Completely opposite, Jordan had come to love the taste of deep, rich, dark coffee. It didn’t have to be expensive; good and strong was the only requirement. After she poured her own first cup, she settled into her morning routine of working through a problem with her sister.
“I guess so. I know this could make such a difference. I’ve got a viable superfood that I need to be able to grow in hostile conditions. By the time we grow a crop in an ideal location, process, package, and ship it over there, the cost is unmanageable. Those people deserve a chance. I could give it to them if I could get this damn plant to grow in sand with next to no water. I need to graft the superfood stalk on something like a cactus root ball.”
“You’re the agricultural version of young Frankenstein.”
That brought a huge belly laugh from Jordan. The sisters shared a love of cheesy movies and had always been drawn like magnets to anything from Blazing Saddles to The Princess Bride, quoting from the movies frequently.
“That’s Fronkensteen. Well, Abby Normal, I guess I’d better get my butt in gear and go find those coordinates.”
“You’ll call me, won’t you? Don’t keep me in suspense, Sherlock.”
“Watson, you’ll be the first to know. Now go save Silicon Valley while I try to save Death Valley‘s cousin.”
***
Jordan scratched behind Bandit’s ears as she left the yard. She unchained her bike and started toward the botanical gardens. Her GPS and other small hand tools were tucked into a backpack and secured to a rack on her bike. She bit the tube of the hydration pack slung across her shoulders and sucked in a drink of ice water. The general area the coordinates pointed to wouldn’t be difficult to reach. The problem was, she didn’t have any idea what she was looking for when she got there.
Is it buried or laying out in the open? She couldn’t believe that there wouldn’t be some challenge to this. After all, it was a coded message. Probably meant to be an adventure. She continued to picture the couple, whom she’d done a great deal of research on. Both were accomplished academics. After numerous interviews with former students of Aggie’s, she was remorseful that she’d not had the opportunity to learn from her. Jordan had excelled in Professor Scott’s class. She was saddened and disappointed that Aggie’s death caused Noeul to leave the university before she could learn more from the esteemed professor. Now if I can somehow find Professor Scott.
Ten minutes later, she arrived at the gorge and strolled over to the visitor’s center to pick up a trail map. She’d learned the hard way that it never hurt to have a backup that didn’t require batteries. She smiled at Clarice, one of her students, as she approached.
The bright-eyed, young student perked up. “Hey, Professor A, out for a hike today? Or are you looking for the holy grail?”
Jordan smiled at the name. Her bosses insisted she be addressed as Professor. Since Professor Armstrong was too long and formal, she’d settled on her students calling her Professor A. Everyone knew of her quest to find the needed methodology to successfully graft her superfood to the perfect root ball. She pushed on toward her holy grail. “Morning, Clarice. A little of both I think. And yes, before you ask, I’ll likely be going off trail. So, don’t squeal on me. I promise not to swim in any of the restricted areas, and I promise to be cautious.”
Winking at her, Clarice slid her a trail map. “Well, since you pretty much single-handedly keep our wildflower program going, I’m sure the powers that be will turn a blind eye as long as you don’t attract followers.”
Jordan patted her backpack. “I have about three pounds of native seed ready to go.”
Clarice screwed up her mouth for a second. “Where are you going to be concentrating today? Just so I’ll have a general idea if something, uh well, you know.”
Jordan noted the concern in Clarice’s face. Everyone knew Jordan’s skills, and she’d never gotten into trouble on any of her ventures into the gorge. That didn’t mean problems couldn’t happen. “I’m going to be down around the bottom area. My plan is to be back by five this evening. I’ll check in here with…” She stopped and thought about her other students’ schedules. “Rick, I think. That will set everyone’s mind at ease.”
Clarice shook her head. “Your memory is uncanny.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Now, if I’m going to reach my destination, I’ve got to get going. Have a great day.” Jordan waved as she settled her backpack over her shoulders and turned to go.
She immediately headed to what she’d determined was the closest point of access. The coordinates indicated an area deep into the gorge area and well off the beaten path. Her wildflower efforts would start along the more popular trails that would see visitors. More than once, she’d seen young lovers plucking a vibrant flower as a token gift. A year ago, she’d witnessed an engagement at the base of one of the waterfalls. A tall, athletic woman had dropped to her knee and presented a flabbergasted woman with a velvet box. Jorda
n had quietly watched the scene with admiration, as the redhead nodded an enthusiastic acceptance. The first woman rose and placed the ring on her companion’s finger. She picked her up and twirled her around while they embraced. “She said yes,” echoed off the rock walls and drowned out the water that rushed over the falls.
Jordan remembered her own proposal that hadn’t gone as well. She and Tina Holden, a mathematics professor on loan to Cornell, had hiked down in the gorge and were enjoying a picnic. The memory rushed at her with the velocity of the water crashing down onto the base of the falls.
Jordan pulled out a travel brochure and handed it to Tina.
Tina furrowed her brow and looked at the colorful images of a Hawaiian adventure. “What’s this?”
Taking another drink of her water, Jordan paused. “Someplace I’d like to take you.” While Tina examined the pamphlet, Jordan removed a chain from around her neck and slid a ring into her palm. She put the necklace in her pocket, not bothering to put it back on.
“Hawaii? What brought this on?” Tina looked up from the brochure. Jordan was holding a large solitaire diamond ring between her index finger and thumb.
“For our honeymoon.” Jordan shifted closer and placed a finger under Tina’s chin, lifting her face so that their eyes would meet. “Tina, I love you, and I want to spend my life with you. Will you marry me?”
Tina looked stunned as her hand came to her mouth. Tears formed in her eyes.
“Hey, hey, this isn’t supposed to make you cry. It’s supposed to be one of the happiest moments of our lives.” Jordan wiped an escaped tear off Tina’s cheek with her thumb. “You haven’t answered me.” Jordan flipped the ring in her fingers.
“Oh, Jordan.”
Jordan shook her head violently, as she gritted her teeth. Tina had been unable to say yes to the proposal. She had to admit she’d been legally married to a man for over fifteen years. The betrayal cut deep and resulted in Jordan being unable to open her heart to anyone since that day.