by Laura Scott
“Miles, even though your faith was a bit rocky over these past few years, you should know that God was still looking after you. Just like He’ll be looking after your family.”
“I hope so.” A shadow of worry darkened his gaze, but then he smiled. “I guess my being there that night the gunman started shooting at your house must have been a big part of His plan.”
“It was.” Their gazes clashed and held for several long moments. Then she did something completely out of character.
She took off her glasses, leaned forward and kissed him.
TWELVE
Paige’s kiss caught him off guard, but only for a moment. Then he drew her close, deepening the kiss, enjoying the warmth and comfort he experienced from having her in his arms.
When they finally drew apart, he rested his forehead against hers, struggling to breathe normally. She splayed her hand over his heart, and he wondered if she could feel the erratic beat of his pulse.
Miles knew he should feel self-conscious about spilling the truth about his relationship with Dawn and his struggles with his faith, but he didn’t. Instead he felt lighter than he had in years.
Yet as much as he wanted nothing more than to kiss Paige again, he slowly lifted his head. “We need to stay focused here. I have to continue my investigation,” he said, his voice gruff with regret.
“Oh, yes. Of course. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Paige looked embarrassed as she picked up her glasses and slipped them back on. Almost as if she were hiding behind the frames.
“I don’t regret our kiss,” he said, wanting to reassure her that he wasn’t taking her gesture lightly. “To be honest, I’ve never told anyone, except for my pastor, about how I felt after Dawn died. Until now.” He flashed her a crooked grin. “Thanks for listening and for helping me to keep things in perspective.”
A genuine smile bloomed on her face and he was struck by how pretty she looked when she was happy. “Anytime, Miles. I’m glad I could be there for you.”
He stroked the tip of his finger down her cheek. “Your ex was a fool to let you go. Just remember that his failures are not yours.”
The happiness faded from her eyes and she shrugged. “I’ll try, but it’s difficult not to take his indiscretions personally.”
“His mistakes, not yours,” Miles repeated sternly. “He’s the one who broke his promises to you, not the other way around.”
“I know...” Sighing wistfully, she turned and looked at the paperwork scattered all over the table. “So. I guess we’d better get back to work.”
Miles nodded, pulling his thoughts back to the issue at hand. He’d already gone through the stuff, but he kept coming back to the fact that Jason had sent this information to his PO box for a reason. There had to be something buried in the documents that he was missing.
Something that would lead to the identity of the killer.
With renewed determination, he picked up reading where he’d left off. As he neared the end of the documents, he noticed the scientific jargon was broken up by lists of numbers.
He cocked his head, then shuffled through the documents to find the beginning. The numbers weren’t present until the last three pages of the document.
They didn’t appear to be formulas, although he was far from a math wizard. They almost looked to be some sort of computer code.
He blew out a frustrated sigh. Why would Jason send him encrypted documents? His buddy knew that numbers were about as far out of his area of expertise as you could get.
Wait a minute.
Miles pulled the three sheets of paper with the numbers on them. What if they weren’t computer code but some other type of code?
Using the basic, A=1, B=2, and so forth didn’t work. Figured. Trust Jason to make it complicated. Doing the alphabet backward didn’t work, either.
A feeling of helplessness gripped him around the throat. He had to figure out what these series of numbers meant. He just had to.
Then it hit him. What if he started with vowels, the most common letters of the alphabet? Once he understood which numbers corresponded with the vowels, he’d have a better chance of cracking the code.
If there really was a code. What if he was imagining the numbers meant something when they really didn’t? What if this was nothing more than a waste of time and energy?
Miles glanced at his watch and decided to give it an hour. If he hadn’t made any headway by then, he’d move on to something else.
* * *
Paige moved away from Miles, doing her best to ignore the butterflies in her stomach. She had no idea what she’d been thinking to kiss him like that. When she’d met Travis, he’d been the one to pursue her. She’d never initiated any intimacy and she was mortified that she had done so with Miles.
Kissing him was nice. More than nice. His musky scent still clung to her clothing. If she wasn’t careful she’d lose more than her common sense before this nightmare was over.
She’d lose her heart, as well.
Enough, she told herself sternly. This wasn’t the time or place to focus on her love life. She glanced his way and saw that Miles was working furiously on the information his friend had sent. Why he continued to go over the information was beyond her, since the documents hadn’t provided any clues so far.
Turning toward her daughter, she wondered if there was a way to help Abby cope with whatever she’d seen. The little girl still hadn’t said a single word since that very first night, but maybe there was another way Abby could express herself.
Drawing? Wasn’t that what some psychologists called play therapy? She wasn’t an expert, but thought it might be worth trying.
Anxious to do something constructive, Paige quickly riffled through the cabinets, searching for paper and crayons or colored pencils. The kitchen didn’t have anything like that, but when she walked down the hallway to the room that was obviously used as an office, she found exactly what she needed.
Paige brought the paper and colored pencils into the living room and fanned them out on the coffee table. Abby perked up, looking excited to have something to do other than watching cartoons.
“Would you like to draw pictures with me?” Paige asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Abby nodded and settled in across the table from her. She picked up a black pencil and began drawing.
Paige kept an eye on her daughter’s picture, a bit surprised when she realized Abby was drawing what looked to be a square structure.
“Oh, how pretty. Is that a picture of our house?” Paige asked.
Abby nodded, but didn’t look up. Her forehead was puckered with concentration, as if she were working on a masterpiece.
The way her daughter worked so intently on her picture made Paige frown with concern. She wanted to ask more questions, but did her best to be patient enough to let Abby finish her drawing.
Time ticked by as her daughter seemed lost in a world of her own, picking up different colored pencils to add to her picture. Soon Paige recognized the pink curtains hanging at the window and the brown desk in Abby’s bedroom.
Outside the house, Abby drew a large rectangle, then put a stick figure in the middle of it, adding short yellow hair. Travis? Maybe. Suddenly Abby drew a large black X over the stick figure’s mouth. Paige swallowed a gasp. Abby looked up at her, wide green eyes tortured with the need for her mother to understand.
Paige tried to wrap her mind around what the X meant. “Is this Daddy?” she asked hoarsely, tapping the yellow-haired stick figure.
Abby nodded, her gaze expectant.
“You saw Daddy on the tablet through the ChatTime link.” Again, Abby nodded, but this time a sense of exasperation was in the child’s gaze.
“Did someone have their hand over Daddy’s mouth so he couldn’t talk?”
; Abby frowned and shook her head.
Paige tried again. “Did Daddy tell you to be quiet because someone might be listening?”
There was a flash of confusion, but then Abby shook her head. No.
“Is it that Daddy couldn’t talk for some reason?”
This time Abby nodded, but her expression remained serious, as if there was more. She bent over the paper again and this time she drew a black sideways L-shaped thing.
A chill snaked down Paige’s spine and she willed her voice to remain steady. “Is that a gun?”
Abby nodded and pushed the paper away as if she didn’t want to draw any more.
“The man with the mask over his face had a gun?” Paige asked, trying to clarify. When Abby nodded, she added, “Was there more than one person?”
Abby shook her head.
Paige couldn’t bring herself to ask if the man wearing the ski mask had shot Travis with the gun while Abby watched. She didn’t think so, since her daughter hadn’t drawn anything indicating blood or some kind of violence.
Just the large X over the stick figure’s mouth.
She wasn’t sure what the X meant, but it was clearly traumatic enough that her daughter hadn’t spoken a word since seeing her daddy.
And Paige could only hope her silence wasn’t permanent.
* * *
“I think I have it,” Miles said with excitement. He looked over to where Paige was drawing with her daughter. “I cracked the code.”
“Code?” Paige blinked in surprise and rose to her feet. She quickly came over to see what he meant. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Miles hated to admit how long it had taken him to figure out Jason’s encrypted message. “Look at this. Using the first five numbers backward matches up with the vowels. And the numbers 767 break up the words. This first sequence of numbers spells out this sentence: I found and corrected the error in the robotic design.”
Paige’s expression was skeptical. “You really think that’s what Jason was trying to tell you?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” Miles stared down at the remaining sequences of numbers. “Now that I cracked the code, getting the rest of the message should be easy.”
He applied the corresponding letters to the numbers he’d identified, and then quickly wrote out the next sentence, the impact hitting him squarely in the gut.
“I’m in danger so I’m sending the information to you for safekeeping.”
“The information contained on these sheets of paper?” Paige asked with a frown. “That doesn’t make sense, because the stuff I read said something about being close to having the design, not that it was fully functional.”
“Yeah, I know.” Miles had gotten the same impression from reviewing the scientific jargon that Jason had sent him. “But there are more numbers here, so maybe he’ll explain what he means.”
“Maybe.” She leaned close, her hair brushing his shoulder and her citrusy sent making it difficult to concentrate. “Keep going,” she encouraged.
He didn’t answer, since he was already in the process of doing just that. Deciphering the code was faster now that he was getting the hang of it. The next two sentences were long, though, and it took him several minutes to spell out all the words. When he finished, he had to read it through twice to comprehend what Jason was saying.
There are rumors about Sci-Tech stealing from ACE Intel and vice versa to the point I don’t know who to trust. The robotic design won’t work without the missing link so I’m sending it to you for safekeeping until we know who deserves to have it.
“The missing link?” Paige looked at him in confusion. “What link? What’s he talking about?”
“I have no idea.” Miles scowled and shuffled through the pages again. “I don’t see a missing link. He must have buried it in the information somewhere?”
“He went through the trouble of creating a secret code to give us this much, why couldn’t he just spell out what exactly he meant in plain English? We don’t know any more now than we did before you managed to crack the code.”
Paige’s frustration mirrored his own. None of this made a whole lot of sense. He put the papers in order, determined to go through them one more time. His eyes burned and his head throbbed from his attempts to understand the detailed jargon.
“Maybe we should take a break for lunch,” she suggested. “That way you can start fresh in an attempt to find the missing link.”
“I guess.” He wasn’t particularly hungry, but knew that Paige would want to keep to a normal meal schedule for Abby. He folded the dozen sheets of paper in half and quickly stuffed them back inside the padded envelope. He wasn’t looking forward to going through them again for what felt like the hundredth time.
“I was only planning on having sandwiches. Is that okay?” Paige asked, retreating to the kitchen.
“Sure. Sounds good.” He stood and stretched, trying to relieve the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders from being hunched over the kitchen table for so long. He glanced at the phone, wondering if he should check in with Mike, when Abby came over to him, holding up a picture as if she wanted him to have it.
“Is this for me?” he asked with a broad smile. “It’s beautiful, thank you.”
Abby frowned at him and shook her head.
“Oh, I should have realized you drew the pretty picture for your Mom.”
Abby’s scowl deepened and she stabbed her finger at the picture, as if he were stupid for not understanding. And maybe he was, because he truly didn’t get what she wanted.
“She drew a picture of how she saw her daddy through the ChatTime link,” Paige supplied helpfully as she opened a loaf of bread.
“You did?” He’d been so intent on cracking Jason’s code that he hadn’t paid any attention to what Abby and Paige were doing. He inspected the drawing carefully, realizing that the yellow-haired stick figure with the X over his mouth was her father.
The large X bothered him.
“She indicated that she only saw one person,” Paige said. “And you can see she drew a G-U-N.” She spelled the word, as if to prevent Abby from becoming upset.
After looking at the drawing again and identifying what must have been the gun, he went down on one knee so he could look at Abby’s face. “This is a very good picture, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Thank you for helping us to understand what happened that night.”
Abby surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a hug. He cradled her close, looking over the child’s head to find Paige watching them, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
Miles pressed his lips to Abby’s hair, wishing desperately that he could give the little girl the peace and safety she deserved.
It made him more determined than ever to find the missing link Jason had indicated.
Abby broke away from his embrace and rushed over to the kitchen to look expectantly up at her mother. Clearly Abby was ready for lunch, even something as mundane as peanut butter and jelly.
“I have turkey and roast beef,” Paige said, setting Abby’s sandwich aside.
“Roast beef.” He walked over to the counter. “What do you need me to do?”
“There are glasses in the cupboard, will you pour some milk?”
“Sure.” He did as she asked, and a few minutes later, lunch was ready.
Paige led the prayer and he found himself once again adding a silent plea that God would help Abby find her voice.
“Amen,” he added, when Paige finished.
“Was there anything else in the PO box besides the envelope containing the papers?” Paige asked before popping a potato chip into her mouth.
He lifted a brow. “My regular mail was there. You know, bills, advertisements, that kind of thing. Why?”
�
�I keep wondering about the missing link he mentioned.” She took a sip of her milk. “It would make more sense if it was a thing, rather than some obscure formula buried in the documents.”
Miles took a bite of his sandwich, regarding her thoughtfully. “I’m not sure Jason would have risked sending it separately. Too easy to miss.”
“Yeah, maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced.
He thought back to the morning he’d gone to the post office. He’d flipped through the mail pretty quickly, pouncing on the package from Jason almost to the exclusion to everything else.
What if he had missed a second package? The moment the thought entered his mind, he dismissed it. No way would he have missed another package. Even a smaller one would have caught his eye.
The answer had to be within the information he already had. When they’d finished lunch, he carried their dirty dishes to the kitchen. But when he would have helped, Paige waved him off.
“I’ll take care of it once I get Abby settled with a movie. She looks tired... I’m hoping she’ll take a short nap.”
Since he didn’t know much about kids and their naptimes, he simply nodded. “All right, but if you want to leave the dishes to air dry, I’ll take care of them later.”
Abby must have heard the dreaded word nap, because suddenly she shoved her drawing off the kitchen table in a rare show of temper. Then she pushed the envelope with the papers tucked away inside off the table too, sending everything down onto the floor.
“Abby! What’s gotten into you?” Paige chided, coming over to where the little girl was still sitting at the table. “I was going to let you watch a movie, but now I’m not so sure.”
Abby kicked the table, then winced and pulled her foot up to rub her toes.
“She’s tired,” Miles soothed, coming over to pick the envelope and her drawing off the floor. As he set the envelope down, he stared at it for a moment. Had he felt something? Setting Abby’s drawing aside, he took the padded envelope in both hands and gently pressed on it.