“Well, she’s got to be awake now. How are you feeling, Sassy?” Dante asks.
“Are you okay?” I lean over the side of the railing.
“I’m better than okay. I think I figured it out. Well, I think I figured a little section of it out. Translating this is going to take bloody forever.” Zane waves a piece of paper at me.
“Rocky’s agenda?” I ask.
“Yes, it’s bloody amazing. Come here. I mean...” He clears his throat. “Or I’ve been staring at it long enough to make me think I’ve figured it out. And honestly, I don’t have it all yet, just... Well, come here and see.” His smile covers his entire face.
“No way.” Easton shakes his head. He’s leaning over Zane’s shoulder. I’m the only one who’s been encouraging Zane to continue figuring out the agenda. All the other guys think it’s a lost cause. Admittedly, lately I’ve thought it might be impossible too.
“Give me a second. I’ll be right down.”
“Take your time,” Zane says, like a man who wants me to hurry.
I laugh. “Just a minute.” I run my fingers through my hair. I don’t need a mirror to know that it might be clean now, but going to bed with it wet—or rather, having sex with it wet—and then falling asleep without brushing it? Yeah, I’m going to have to take a dunk in the ocean to get it to even go into a ponytail.
I’m down the ladder, and Dante hands me a cup of coffee as my toes hit the sand. “Enjoy it, Sassy. We have enough for two more pots. I’m thinking about Christmas morning and New Year’s Day.”
“Good idea. Thank you.” I take a small sip and slide onto a seat at the table next to Zane. “Show me.”
Easton’s sitting next to Zane, and Dante’s across the table.
I take another sip of coffee. “Where are Calvin and Sam?”
“Around,” Dante says. Which has been the answer a lot lately. Well, not Calvin and Sam. Mostly Sam and someone else.
“Oh.” I raise my eyebrows and stare at Dante over my mug.
He shrugs. “Okay, Zane, give us the goods.”
“Well, I don’t have all the goods yet.” Zane laughs.
Dante moans.
And I shoot him a look. “Don’t mind the naysayers. They never spot genius.” I rest my hand on Zane’s shoulder. He’s not paying any attention to Dante.
“Right, well. I don’t have all of it yet. But the numbers go from 1 to 50, which is confusing because the alphabet has 26 letters. But then I thought, what if he’s used the other numbersas words he’s memorized? Like important names or frequent words. Which is why it’s harder to solve. Because normally you can look for three numbers that are repeated more frequently and boom, you have the word “the.” But not here. But there are an awful lot of 5s. What if 5 is the key? And then I thought, what if he’s got the alphabet numbered back from 50? But there are a lot of 50s but not many 25s. So that bloke did it backwards, but there aren’t enough 25s either. I’ve tried it both ways. On this passageway. But there’s a heck of a lot of 46s and that’s the most common letter in English. So I’ve been using this passage. Over and over. Thinking maybe he added a few numbers that equaled important words to him. Easton said Rocky’s been doing this for ages. Before he merged with Harding, before Candy.”
“And they could be 50 and 49. But how many whole word numbers would he have added?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. And moving from the back seems the most logical. Again with so many 46s. I don’t know why that didn’t stand out to me months ago? I’d been jumping all over. So now I’m using this passage as a test.” He points to a part in the book.
4 49 / 34 46 46 47 / 8 / 38 37 29 46 / 9 25 9 26 / 46 33 37 38.
“These two? 4 and 49 seem to be together a lot. Then there’s that 8, so forget about that. Here—the last three phrases are the ones I’m working on. And I just got it, using the alphabet backwards. Making 48 the letter B?—”
“Not A?”
“A’s one of those high-frequency words. I believe it’s 9.”
“Right.” I think I understand it. Maybe.
“Get to it already.” Dante’s leaning over the table.
He flips to a different page. “Right. The last three words here would be ‘moved away from.’”
“What if 4 is Rocky and 49 is Harding?” Easton’s a lot more invested now.
