“Most likely that the bomb was made in a location with a lot of paint about. They found traces in the tire tracks as well.”
River’s eyes snap to Oz. “A warehouse?”
“Could be. It would offer plenty of space and they’re usually in secluded enough areas in case something goes wrong.”
“Thanks, Ramsey.” River hangs up.
Jude’s already opened his laptop and is tapping away at the keys.
Oz holds out a hand. “I can do it. I’ll be quicker.”
Jude shifts away and shoots him a scowl. “You’re not supposed to look at screens.”
Oz is right though; he would be quicker. It’s taking Jude a while, so I turn back to the crime scene photos of our kitchen that we Blu-Tacked to the wall.
I scan the pictures the techs took; a few strands of Freya’s hair; a scuff on the floor; Oz’s drugged coffee cup. There must be some clue as to where Freya’s twin took Oz. If Freya could find her then–Fuck.
I spin around to face the others. “How did Freya know where to go?”
Jude looks up from the screen. “Are we sure she didn’t have another burner phone?”
River shakes his head. “I would have noticed. And,” he clears his throat, “I may have placed a jammer in her room.”
Oz quirks an eyebrow. “She’s going to love that.”
“Okay so how then?” I ask again. “How did she know exactly where to go?”
When we got back to the house, Jude and I went upstairs to look for Oz. River and Freya stayed in the kitchen. “Think back,” I say to him. “What did she do when we found Oz missing? What did she see?”
River’s eyes flick up to the corner as he thinks. His jaw hardens. “The coffee cup. She picked up the coffee cup.”
I grab all the photos of the coffee cups off the wall and place them on the bed on Oz’s blanket. We pour over the images.
“Wait, wait,” Jude says. “Those scribbles on the cup, I’ve seen them before.” Jude goes back to his laptop and pulls up another image. He turns the screen to face us.
“Is that Maxwell’s old house?”
Jude nods. The image is of a wall in the basement, covered with non-sensical scribbles. It was almost six years ago that we found the house and by the time we got there Maxwell was long gone.
Jude scrolls through more photos, close-ups on the lines. “The markings are too repetitive and structured to be random. We figured it was a code but it’s complex. The shapes aren’t just replacing letters, there’s an added element to it that we couldn’t figure out. Oz and I spent a while trying to solve it, but seeing as we thought Freya was dead and we already knew Maxwell’s identity, we decided it wasn’t worth our time.”
I hold the photo of the coffee cup up to the screen.Holy shit.“It’s the same code.”
Oz sits forward, wincing a little as he does so. “Jude, have you found a list of warehouses yet?”
Jude clicks onto a different tab. “Five abandoned warehouses that were used for storing paint or for processes that involve paint and three that are temporarily out of order due to maintenance.”
My eyes flick to the clock over by the door. The second-hand ticks like a countdown to a bomb. “We don’t have time to search all eight locations.”
“We might not have to.” Oz watches Jude. He’s traded the computer for a scrap of paper, scribbling out the code from the coffee cup. “Part of the message has to be a unit number, right? That gives us a starting point. If we input the eight different addresses we have, the correct one should act as a key for the code.”
Jude’s curls fall around his face as he works. The speed at which his brain functions never fails to amaze me. He whizzes through the different options, inputting them into a program on the computer that’s connected to the rest of the code we gathered from the basement.
On his fifth attempt the shapes on the screen translate into English. He looks over the rim of the laptop at Oz and grins. “Jack-and the bean stalk-Pot.”
“Oh, that’s a good one.”
I groan towards the ceiling. “Address, Jude?”
