When the saleslady rang up the dress—and high-heeled navy sandals to go with it—Carina was shocked by the cost. But before she could protest, Sheila laid a hand on her arm and handed over her credit card.
“For Walter,” she said. “Let’s send him off in style.”
Now Carina turned to check the back of her dress in the mirror, appreciating the smooth fabric, the way it draped over her hips. It was probably wrong to be thinking of Tanner at a time like this, but she was looking forward to him seeing her in the dress. Especially after last night.
Coloring at the memory, Carina took off the ring she had removed to wash her hands. It was the only jewelry she wore, a gift from her mother on her seventeenth birthday, a couple of months before she died. Carina didn’t often wear it because it was bulky and tended to spin on her finger, but the large green stone looked perfect with the navy dress. Green had been her mother’s favorite color, and the jade was veined with several shades from pale celery to deep pine.
There was a knock at the door. “Miss Monroe? Everything okay?”
Meacham. Of course. Carina sighed before answering. “Just dealing with a feminine issue,” she said maliciously. Maybe that would embarrass him enough to make him go away.
“I’ll be right here,” he said after only a brief hesitation. Okay, so maybe they covered that at secret agent school.
Carina picked up her ring and examined the stone, which was carved into a hexagon and polished to a bright shine. One of the prongs looked a little crooked, and Carina tested it with her fingernail.
It seemed to give, and Carina’s heart sank. That was all she needed today, to lose the stone from the ring, but she had brought only a small handbag without a secure closure and she didn’t want to risk storing the ring in the bag. Trying to decide whether it was safe to wear the ring, she slipped the tip of her polished fingernail under the prong, looking for damage along the small, sharp bit of white gold that held the stone in place.
As she brought it up close to her eye, she noticed that the prong wasn’t like the others—it was hinged at the bottom, a minuscule clasp lifting away as she tugged at the tip. She caught her breath when it snapped backward and the stone popped out.
It didn’t fall all the way out. Carina gingerly tapped the stone. Solid: something was keeping it in place. Holding the ring under the fluorescent light, Carina looked underneath at the flat surface of the setting.
It wasn’t entirely flat. Etched into the gold were characters of some sort … numbers. They were so tiny that Carina could barely make them out, but as she squinted, they came into focus. Two rows of numerals, with a few letters mixed in. There were fifteen or twenty characters in all.
“Miss Monroe? I’m going to need to come check on you if you don’t come out now.” Meacham sounded annoyed. Carina hastily pushed the stone back down, and it snapped into place. She slid it onto her finger just as the door to the ladies’ room opened and Meacham stood in the entrance, glaring at her with suspicion.
“So sorry to keep you waiting,” Carina said, forcing a smile. “Little wardrobe malfunction. But don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control.”
Pushing past Meacham before he could respond, she hurried back toward the crowd, which seemed to have doubled since she’d been gone. She waved at her friends, but they didn’t see her. She scanned the people filling the seats and standing along the aisles and in the back, searching for Tanner, but there were easily a few hundred people assembled and she didn’t see him anywhere. Baxter was hovering at the other end of her row, looking anxious.
She allowed Meacham to help her to her seat, giving him her best innocent look, eyes downcast. While she waited for the service to begin, she took a plain white envelope out of her purse for the third time since leaving the house, running her fingers over the smooth surface, tracing the letters of her name. She couldn’t bear to read its contents yet, not here, not alone. She returned it to her purse and picked up the program from where she’d left it under her seat, and stared at her uncle’s photograph. He was looking directly at the camera and laughing, wearing a suit and tie—a photograph that did not reflect the shy man she’d known and loved.
Carina concentrated on keeping her breathing slow and even. All around, the buzz of murmured conversations failed to cover up the fact that this was one of the loneliest days of her life.
Carina heard very little of the eloquent speeches during the service. The director of the laboratory spoke, as did several of the people Walter had worked closely with over the years. He hadn’t had many friends—work was his life. Sheila spoke, and Carina tried to focus on her words, but her mind kept going back to the last few occasions she and Walter had really spent time together. He’d been especially distracted in recent months, staying late at work nearly every night, his thoughts a million miles away when he was at home. Carina was focused on other things too. There was her relationship with Tanner, her friends from school, and a part-time job at the mall over the holiday break. Once track season had begun, she’d had practice every night.
As the months passed, Walter worked longer and longer hours, and they barely saw each other. Carina had noticed that something was different—okay, something was wrong. There, she admitted it, though doing so caused tears to well in her eyes. Something had been wrong with Walter, but he—like her mother—was not the sort to talk about his feelings, and Carina had been too preoccupied, too selfish, to ask him what it was.
Memories started surfacing, like the time he’d come home after two in the morning, and Carina happened to be in the kitchen getting a glass of water. He looked so exhausted and anxious as he set down his briefcase that Carina had finally asked him if he was feeling all right, and he’d produced a weak smile for her and said that it was nothing. So she’d let it drop, never mentioned it again.
Carina struggled not to cry, squeezing her elbows against her sides and curling her toes inside the expensive shoes, ignoring Sheila when she stepped away from the platform and walked down the aisle to their seats. She pretended to pay attention during the rest of the service, standing when everyone else stood, bowing her head when the pastor gave the final blessing. At last it was over, and people began to gather their things and make their way over to the refreshments.
“I’m going to go find my friends,” Carina said, avoiding Sheila’s eyes as she stood. She was already backing down the aisle, letting the crowd carry her along, but Sheila frowned.
“Can’t it wait? This is your—”
“I’ll be right back, I promise,” Carina lied. She felt guilty—This is your uncle’s memorial service, Sheila had been about to say, and Carina knew she had responsibilities: receiving condolences, talking to the pastor. But she needed her friends now. Nikki, who could always make her smile with her crazy antics, and Emma, who was quiet around people but had called twice a day since Walter died, just to check in. And Tanner, who could make everything a little better just by saying her name.
She started toward where she’d last seen her friends, but the crowd made it hard to see. By the time she spotted Emma’s turquoise dress, they were practically outside the cordoned-off area, being hustled along by security staff. It looked like Nikki was trying to argue, but while Carina watched, one of the guards took her arm and forced her to keep walking.
“Carina.” She whirled around to find Tanner coming toward her, almost knocking over chairs in his determination to reach her. He was hard to miss: six feet two, with the blond hair and cobalt-blue eyes that were the hallmarks of his Norwegian ancestry. Tanner cut his hair only when his mother insisted, and at the moment it was hanging over his forehead and curling over the collar of his oxford button-down. His tie was loosened and hung askew.
As he approached, she saw him notice her dress, her high heels, the makeup and highlighted hair, and her heart lifted a little. Wrapping his arms around her, Tanner held her close long enough to whisper in her ear: “I’m so sorry, Car. I tried to come sit with you, but they wouldn’t
let me. They’re trying to get everyone out to the reception area. I almost had to tackle a guard to get past him.”
Carina only nodded, not trusting herself to speak until she’d swallowed the lump in her throat. She was usually good at keeping her feelings under control, a skill that wasn’t that hard to come by with a family like hers, but when she was with Tanner, all of her usual barriers evaporated.
She finally pulled away and gave him an uneven smile. “You’re awfully hot.”
“Uh … thanks?”
Carina blushed. “No, I mean, your skin seems hot. Feverish. Are you all right?”
“Actually, I feel like I’m coming down with something. I’ve had a headache all morning, like someone’s trying to saw my skull in half. And yeah, I think I do have a fever.” He held out his hand and Carina saw that it was trembling. “I’m definitely off my game.”
“Oh no, I hope I didn’t give it to you. I’m not feeling all that great myself.” Which wasn’t exactly true—she just felt weird, not bad.
“If you did, it was worth it,” Tanner said with great sincerity, making Carina blush.
She was glad he was still thinking about last night, that it had been as unforgettable for him as it had for her. “I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I mean, not today, not when … you know. But, hey, it was a great way to swap germs,” Tanner said. “That’s all I’m saying. Intimate contact.”
Carina’s phone chimed a new text and she looked down, grateful for the distraction. It was Nikki, saying that they were sorry they hadn’t been able to get past the guards after the service and that she’d call later. Carina put the phone back in her purse and gave Tanner a smile. “I had a wonderful time last night,” she said sincerely.
The night before, Tanner had picked her up after she’d gotten home from the salon. The plan was to go out for dinner, but he’d surprised her by bringing a picnic basket and a stack of old blankets and driving to the empty parking lot at Martindale High School. The view from the roof of the main building was the best in town, if you were willing to scale the ladder extending from the fire escape. Few people knew about the ladder, or how to unlatch it; a senior on the track team had showed Carina last year.
The sunset had been spectacular, a sea of gold and pink and orange surrounding the bright descending globe. They watched until the sun disappeared behind the horizon, and the lights of town came on one by one until there was a blanket of gold below and a sky full of stars above. Tanner had asked her if she wanted to talk about Walter, and promised that he’d listen all night if that was what she needed.
But that wasn’t what had happened. Because what Carina needed was a respite from the crushing grief and loss that now had returned to her life after her mother’s suicide and her uncle’s death. She needed to be held. She needed to be touched. And when things somehow ended up going further with Tanner than they’d ever gone before, she was the one who asked him not to stop. She was the one who knew in her heart that it was the right night to make love to him for the first time.
And she wasn’t sorry. Tanner had made her feel cherished from the day they’d met last fall, at the climbing gym where they both worked out off-season. That day, she’d fallen and twisted her ankle and he’d gone to get ice, then insisted on driving her home. She only knew that he was a rich kid from the private school across town, not the type she usually dated.
But Tanner was different. For one thing, he was from a loud, boisterous family of four boys in which everyone talked at once. His two middle brothers tackled him, his littlest brother crawled all over him, and his parents said “I love you” every time he left the house, even if it was just to go for a run. He was sweet and demonstrative with her, and for a girl who had grown up never knowing her dad, whose mother had always seemed too busy for her, the attention was irresistible.
And they never ran out of things to talk about. They were both secret geeks: Tanner loved computers, and Carina had been hooked on math and puzzles ever since Uncle Walter had begun giving her simple problems to solve when she was little. They talked about the superhero movies they both liked, and on their second date, when conversation gave way to kissing and they never made it to the movie because they lost track of time, Carina realized something else about Tanner: he could make her feel things no one else could, make her want things she’d never known she wanted.
They’d come close to having sex before—very close—but it wasn’t until last night that Carina couldn’t stand to wait any longer. When it was over, Tanner kissed her eyelashes, the corners of her mouth, her hair, and told her she was everything to him. In fact, she was pretty sure he’d been about to say “I love you.”
But that was the one thing she couldn’t allow, and she’d stopped him with a kiss. The most important people in Carina’s life—her mother and uncle—had never said “I love you,” and now they were gone. If Carina let Tanner say the words out loud—if she ever said them herself—then she would let him matter more to her than she could bear. She knew that if she lost one more person she loved, it would be the end of her.
Lately, she was starting to worry that simply not saying “I love you” wasn’t enough—she’d started to realize that love could grow even when you were determined not to let it. So now she had to be extra careful. Sex was just sex, she told herself, and she would stay in control by not letting it get to her head. If Tanner had been surprised, if he’d been disappointed, he didn’t let on, and the moment had passed.
“Let’s find somewhere private,” Carina suggested.
Outside the roped-off area, people were getting drinks and food, talking softly as they wandered past the photo display of Uncle Walter. Carina guided Tanner to a stone bench facing an arbor covered with climbing roses. They sat with their backs to the crowd, Carina nestled into Tanner’s arms.
“So, you got through the service,” Tanner said. “The hardest part is over, right?”
“I don’t know. I feel kind of numb.”
“That’s probably normal, given everything you’ve been through.”
“Yeah … but listen, things don’t really seem that normal at all. Something strange happened. Before the service, I was in the bathroom, washing my hands, and I somehow snapped the stone off my mom’s ring. And underneath …”
She removed the ring and found the hinged prong, slipping her fingernail underneath as she had done before. The stone lifted, and she showed Tanner the writing beneath it.
Holding it up to his eyes, Tanner focused on the tiny numbers, not saying anything for a moment. Carina recognized the signs of his intent concentration: his right eyebrow lowered while he rubbed his chin with his knuckle. Tanner could lose track of everything around him when he was working on a problem, and his focus had paid off—he would be studying computer science at Berkeley in the fall, with one of the top programs in the country.
After a few minutes he shook his head. “I don’t know, Carina … I think this is your thing, since it has the alpha characters mixed in—it’s a code, right?” He handed the ring back. “Your mom never told you about the stone?”
“No.” Madelyn had said only that it had been in the family when she presented it to Carina. At the time, Carina couldn’t help suspecting that her mother had actually forgotten to go shopping for a gift—it wouldn’t be the first time—and had given her a piece that she didn’t much care for herself. But Carina kept it in the carved walnut jewelry box that Uncle Walter had brought back for her from a trip to Mexico, and counted it among her most prized possessions, even if she rarely wore it. She had so little that belonged to her mother.
Carina stared at the characters, running her fingertips over the cool edges of the large green stone, thinking. Something about them was familiar. Ever since she was little, she’d had a sixth sense with numbers. In middle school she’d figured out the fundamentals of calculus from the advanced algebra problems her teacher gave her when she got bored.
Now, as
she traced the hexagon, she noticed something odd about the alpha characters: there were only a few that repeated.
“This is hex format!” she exclaimed.
Tanner peered over her shoulder. “I think you’re right,” he said after a moment. “Can you translate—”
“Just give me a second,” Carina said, getting a pen out of her purse. She turned the funeral program over—she wasn’t planning to keep it; she didn’t want a photograph of Walter that looked nothing like him. Quickly, she scrawled a conversion grid on the back of the program and translated the characters.
“That’s an IP address!” Tanner exclaimed when she was finished. “I can’t believe how fast you did that.”
“I’m awesome that way,” Carina said, trying to cover up the hitch in her voice.
Though she was gifted with anything mathematical, her confidence had been shaken when she didn’t get into Berkeley. After her mother’s death, her grades had plummeted, and she’d only recently been able to focus in school again. She had been accepted into Cal State Long Beach for next year, but it was four hundred miles away. Besides the fact that they had no cryptography program, it meant being separated from Tanner, something she didn’t like to think about.
“I only wish I knew what this address means—and why it’s on my mom’s ring,” she said, changing the subject.
“Calaveras Lab home page?” Tanner suggested, one eyebrow raised.
Carina slipped the ring back on her finger. She knew Tanner was joking about her mother’s devotion to her job, but still … if her mother had been the tattoo type, she probably would have gotten the lab’s logo—a graphic of overlapping sine curves—tattooed on her arm.
Madelyn had worked especially long hours at the lab in the months before she died. Carina almost never saw her. Carina’s therapist had gently suggested that the depression leading to Madelyn’s suicide might have been made worse by the narrowness of her life, the fact that it revolved around work and that she had no outside interests.
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