The Sholes Key (An Evans & Blackwell Mystery #1)

by Clarissa Draper

  “I sent you an email.”

  Sophia pulled the mobile from her bag. “Let me check. Why wouldn’t you just ring?”

  “Check your email.”

  She did. “You sent me an e-card?”

  “I made you an e-card, and it took me all morning. Watch it. That’s why I thought you came. I thought you forgave me.”

  The video popped up on the screen. A sweet song played, as photos of the two of them sitting on a bench in Hyde Park flashed by.

  “I once held the beauty and uniqueness

  Of a snowflake in my hand.

  But, because of my selfish actions,

  Only had a teardrop left on my palm.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  Marc turned slightly and Sophia caught him wipe a tear from his cheek. “Did you like it?” he asked her softly.

  She laughed. “Are you kidding me? Romeo couldn’t have uttered sweeter words.”

  Marc put his hands to her waist and brought her close. “Do you feel better now?”

  “Maybe. I brought something for you.”

  “What?”

  She held keys in front of his face.

  “You’re going to let me drive your car?” he asked.

  “No, I’m going to let you drive your car. I was going to knit you a cardigan, then I was going to buy you one, then I drove past the dealership. Whatever you do, don’t tell me you’d have preferred the cardie.”

  “Do you normally buy your boyfriends a new car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “No, not really, you knob. Besides, it’s on lease. I can take it back at any time.” She gave him a gentle push. “So are we going for a ride or what?”

  * * *

  Shortly after midnight, Marc dropped Sophia off at the Mercedes Benz dealership, and she drove her own car toward home. She wanted to ring Liam and tell him to stop following Marc, but then it hit her. What if the killer was following Marc? The hairs on her arms went up. The rest of the way home, she drove a different route, sped through three yellow lights and one red to see if someone would follow. No one did.

  When she approached her block of flats, she slowed down and studied the cars in front of her building. A white vehicle caught her attention. She met the driver’s eyes. When she descended into the car park, the other car followed. After she parked in her spot, she pointed to an empty stall behind her. The white car pulled in.

  “How did you know it was me?” Theo asked. He pressed the fob and a horn resounded.

  “It’s your mother’s number plate, isn’t it?”

  “Do you have all my plates memorized?”

  “Yes.” She pressed the button for the lift and watched the numbers decrease. “You have good news?”

  “Remember we thought the writer wasn’t related, because she had no code etched into her back?”

  Sophia turned to him. “Don’t tell me you found…?”

  Theo held up his fingers and wiggled them. “Stamped on her fingertips.” From his pocket he pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to her.

  “These are letters.” The lift doors opened and Sophia walked inside. “Coming?”

  Theo didn’t move. Instead, he looked at his car and down at his watch. “I should go. I haven’t been home much the last few days.”

  Sophia held out her hand to stop the doors from closing. She suddenly felt ill, her stomach jumped into her throat.

  “Is that all right?” he asked.

  “What? Yes, all right. Near the entrance there’s a button that opens the garage door. I will work on this code.” She held up the paper and let the lift doors close. Why did she feel so uneasy? As the lift ascended to her apartment, she took a deep breath and started the search engine on her mobile. This code was different—only letters. QETKWEYB. The lift doors opened on the third floor and she stepped out.

  In a search bar, she typed Cryptogram Solver and picked the first result. When she typed the eight letters over six hundred possible options appeared. It could also be a name. The killer was testing her. As she walked toward her door, she scrolled through the list. Nothing stood out. She pulled her keys from her bag and placed it in the lock. The lift dinged behind her. She turned around to see Theo disembark. He walked toward her, shoulders slouched, but didn’t say anything. She grabbed his hand, led him inside and kicked the door closed behind them.

  She took some notepaper from her bag and sat down on the sofa.

  “I gave the security footage to forensic,” Theo said. “I begged them to make the killer’s face clearer. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.” He sat down next to her.

  She nodded and picked up her copy of code two. Counting numbers and repeating the same division she had done with the first, she wrote down the results on the paper.

  “What are you doing?” He leaned over her shoulder and watched her write.

  “I’ve determined that the code is neatly broken up into double digits rather than four. After writing down each two-digit number I come across, I’m only left with the numbers 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 22, 23, 24, 31, 32, 33, 34. That’s only twelve numbers. Twelve. We need twenty-six to make up the alphabet. I’m missing something.” She picked up the paper Theo had given her. “This must mean something.”

  “What?”

  Sophia lifted her eight fingers and held them in Theo’s face. “What would you use these eight fingers for?” She wiggled every finger except her thumbs.

  “I don’t know. I use my hands for everything. Why? What’s wrong with your fingers?”

  “What is the killer trying to say?”

  “He’s trying to press our buttons?”

  She sat back and closed her eyes, trying to picture the crime scene. She opened her eyes. “I think I have it.”

  “You do?”

  “Theo, listen. About the letters found on the fingers—the third code—I think we’re all wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She stood up and walked back and forth across the carpet. “We’ve found all the crime scenes staged very carefully. The killer left nothing willy-nilly, especially the codes. We’re trying to solve it instead of looking at it. What I mean is, look where we found the code, not on her back or in numbers. The letters were found hidden on her fingers.”

  “We could have missed that code. Easy to pass over the fingers and miss it completely.”

  She waved him off. “But we have found it. Now we have to think about what’s being staged. Why put the code on her fingers? Why letters? Personally, I think it’s more important to know what it means, not what it says. What does it mean? Why write on her fingers, why not her back? Then it came to me. The killer stamped the letters on her fingertips.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well,” Sophia replied, “what does a writer do? She writes. Every word she types out, she touches her fingers to letters, letters on a keyboard. They don’t actually leave a mark on the fingers, thus the invisibility. But they do leave a mark on the page, and on other people’s lives.”

  “And that’s why he strangled Helena?”

  “That I don’t know.” She picked up the letter code again and studied it.

  “What point is he trying to make?” Theo pondered. “There are many authors who type, and many more of them make stronger statements than she does. She only writes bloody romances.”

  “The letters mean something. He didn’t just pick random letters.” Sophia sat down at her computer and pulled up a search engine.

  “What if he’s trying to waste our time? Make us spend time figuring it out, and it’s all gibberish. Do you think it’s important?”

  “I think everything’s important,” Sophia said. “But the letters are letters; I doubt they represent numbers.” She typed “Scrabble helper” into the search bar. Picking the first page that came up, she used the page’s program and typed in the letters QETKWRYB. Lists of words appeared on the screen. “There’s a word that begins with Q without a U,” Sophia said. “QWERTY.�
��

  “What does that mean?”

  “Not a geek, are you? It’s a type of keyboard, invented by C. L. Sholes back in the 1860’s. There are different types of keyboards, such as Dvorak Simplified and QWERTY.”

  “Why QWERTY?”

  “Because of the letters on the top row: Q-W-E-R-T-Y.”

  “Do you think that’s what the killer was trying to say?” Theo asked.

  “Not sure. That word is only six letters long. If you take the other two…” She quickly crossed out the six letters on paper. “You are left with K and B. You know what that means, right?”

  “K and B? No,” Theo said.

  “Keyboard, it could be an acronym for KeyBoard. Qwerty Keyboard.”

  “Maybe it’s just me, but what the hell does QWERTY keyboard tell us? He’s letting us know he uses a QWERTY keyboard? Most of us in this English-speaking world use that type of keyboard. What of it?”

  “I haven’t worked that out yet.” Just then, her mobile beeped a message from Liam. Why was he texting her so late?

  Soph, another flurry of emails. They estimate twenty-four hours or less. We need that key.

  Chapter 26

  Liam awoke before his alarm. Not that he slept much. He had turned over every fifteen minutes to glance at the clock beside his bed. The day ahead was important, not only for his career, but perhaps for Londoners. He did not want to attend another bomb-blast victim’s autopsy. Nor did he want to explain to their families why his team couldn’t crack something they had thought would take a few short weeks. He had one last chance to get it right. Whatever Sophia believed, he knew Marcus Master was guilty of orchestrating the bombings. Now if only he could prove it.

  At exactly a quarter to seven, Liam knocked on the door across the street from the Marc’s flat. Adams led him to his awaiting team in the sitting room. Six men, one woman, and a handful of suited reinforcements with guns stopped talking and looked to him for instructions. As Liam was about to begin, he saw Sophia and Marc exiting the residence across the street.

  “She’s there early,” Liam remarked.

  Adams pointed to the desk covered in audio-visual equipment and said, “She’s been there since three this morning, keeping him busy, if you know what I mean. Did you know today’s her birthday?”

  “It’s not her birthday,” Liam said, shaking his head. “What do you mean she’s been there since three?” He watched Sophia take Marc’s hand and lead him to the car in front of the house. “When did Mr. Masters buy a new vehicle? Where did he get the money?”

  “It was a gift,” said a woman, turning dials on the sound box.

  “From who?” Liam asked.

  “Who do you think?” the woman replied, pointing out the window. “It’s getting serious, from what I hear.” She tapped her ear.

  “Stop that,” Liam said, slapping his hand down on the table. “She’s doing her job. If she couldn’t get him to leave the house this morning, we couldn’t get in, could we?” Liam clenched his fist. “Now, we don’t know how long we have. Did everyone study the layout of the house? You all know what you have to do? I don’t want wasted time.” He studied his team. “Well? Do you?”

  “Yes, sir,” they yelled in unison.

  Liam watched the couple drive away. “Do we know where she’s going?”

  “I believe,” the woman with the earpiece replied, “I overheard Marc invite her for a birthday breakfast.” She winked at Liam.

  “That should give us at least an hour. We need to find the key, and we need to find it today. He’s been working on his security system; Sophia texted me the new code last night. I want the house turned upside-down. The boxes are there.” Liam pointed to the corner. “We box up all the books and take them with us. We take everything: computers, clothes, shoes, papers, the pots and pans…everything.” He took a deep breath. “Well, what are you people waiting for?”

  The team put on their bulletproof vests and gathered their supplies. Liam led them across the street, through the back door, past the security alarm, and into the house. He watched his people head off in different directions; and he listened to cupboards slam, papers shuffle, books fall, and miscellaneous curses.

  Liam headed upstairs into the master bedroom. Clothes littered the floor and the disheveled bed. He picked up a pair of dainty knickers and threw them against the wall. The stupid, stupid girl. What a mistake he had made in choosing her for this team. He began to root around in the drawer beside the bed. He pulled out items and examined them carefully before throwing them into a box: papers, books, pens, condoms, headache medication, a handful of change, and a couple of tie clips.

  Liam worked his way around the room, taking drawers from bureaus and wardrobes, feeling pockets and pulling apart socks. Suspicious jacket liners, he tore open. He pulled off the heels of boots and shoes. Nothing left unturned. Forty minutes passed. Pushing the button on his radio, he asked, “Anyone find anything?”

  A series of negative responses returned through the device. Damn. He was about to tear the last heel off, when a series of loud bangs erupted downstairs. Gunfire.

  Time slowed for Liam as he watched Adams run from the bathroom and a man in a black mask enter the bedroom. Before Adams could react, he caught a bullet in the chest. Liam watched the shock on his friend’s face, moments before he felt the explosion rupture in his own chest, pushing him backward. Blood rushed to his head, and for a moment he lost vision and hearing. He lay on his back, wondering if he was dead. He didn’t feel pain, just fear and emptiness. And he thought of Sophia. Please don’t come back here, Sophia. His lips moved slightly as he pleaded with her in his mind. He had to warn her. In his hand, he could feel the radio. He didn’t have the strength to push the talk button or raise the device to his lips.

  Where was he? He could see a round light. The light of death? No, Marc’s ceiling light. How long had he been lying there? He could feel pain in his chest and hear only ringing. The fear in him rose as a face came into view. Marc stood over him, pointing a gun at his head. He could see Marc’s mouth move, but he couldn’t hear the words. Instead, he felt the boom.

  Only when the ringing diminished did he hear the scream—Sophia’s gut-wrenching scream.

  Chapter 27

  Liam wasn’t dead but he wished he were. He couldn’t find the stop button on his brain, and the events of the morning replayed in his mind. Except none of it made sense.

  “Sophia?” he whispered. He tried to yell but couldn’t. He tried to hear but only caught muffled voices. He tried to move, but his body refused. All he could do was feel, and he didn’t want to do that. “Where’s Sophia?”

  A paramedic came into view and said, “Don’t talk. Just lay still. You’ve been shot.”

  “I was wearing a vest,” Liam replied.

  “Yes, but you may have broken ribs. The bullet didn’t penetrate the skin, but you took the full force of it. We’re taking you to the hospital to have a look.” The paramedic motioned to someone behind Liam’s head, and slowly ambulance doors came into view. “You’re fortunate the bullet hit your vest.”

  “Where’s Sophia?”

  The paramedic shook his head. “I don’t know. Is she your wife?”

  “No.” Liam struggled to sit up but could only lift his head. He saw his boss, Robert Vincent, approaching. “Sir, sir,” he called to him.

  “What the hell happened in there?” replied Vincent. “Four agents are dead. You had better have the key. It’s a bloodbath in there.”

  “Have you seen Evans? Is she all right?”

  “Evans? Your bloody career is on the line and you’re asking about her? She’s not good.” Vincent turned his head toward the house and said, “I don’t know how I’m going to explain this.”

  “Masters shot her?”

  “What? No, you’ve got it all wrong. She shot Masters.”

  “What? Masters is dead?”

  Vincent nodded.

  “Where is she?” Liam asked.

  Vincent poin
ted somewhere behind him.

  “Help me sit up, sir.”

  The paramedic stepped forward. “That’s not a good idea. If his ribs are broken, they may puncture his lungs or intestines. He could have internal bleeding.”

  “I don’t care. Help me up.” Liam grabbed his boss’s arm and attempted to pull up. To his relief, Vincent finally helped him. Liam looked around his boss and saw Sophia curled up on the pavement. He slowly slipped off the gurney, fighting waves of nausea with every step. “Sophia?”

  Sophia didn’t look up.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her. “What happened?”

  She rose, reached into her trouser pocket, and pulled out a silver watch. “It’s the key.” She placed the device in his palm. Her hands shook uncontrollably. With a sigh, she started to walk away.

  Liam turned the watch over and studied the set of rotating dials on the back. “Wait, Sophia.” He grabbed her arm and a sharp pain radiated through his body. “What happened? Did you shoot Marcus? Why did you come back to the house? Who were those men?”

  She closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “Liam, I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll drive you home.”

  She nodded and walked down the street to her Merc as he ambled behind. Before he could reach the car, she got in and drove away. He stood there for a few moments debating his next move. She wouldn’t do anything stupid, would she? She wouldn’t jump off a bridge, would she?

  “What is that?” Vincent said behind him.

  Liam turned around. “It’s the key… apparently.”

  Vincent snatched it from his hand and turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Liam asked as he tried following.

  “This aside,” Vincent replied, pointing to the house, “we still have a bomb to stop. Once you’re done at the hospital, see me in my office.” And he left.

  Chapter 28

  Theo leaned on a table in the incident room and massaged his eyelids. Another sleepless night spent in the back of his vehicle, debating the course of his life. He had imagined an all-nighter with Sophia, but she shooed him out shortly after two. She didn’t seem to notice that his car was still in the car park when she left thirty minutes later. Where had she gone?