The Lies That Save Us (The Broken Heart Series) (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

The drive back to the house seemed longer than the drive out to the photo site.  Alexa sat mostly in quiet contemplation, and it appeared to her Cayman was doing the same thing.

“Maybe it’s too soon to love again.  Maybe I’m not ready yet.”
  She couldn’t help but smile at that, because her body sure seemed ready.  It was her soul that didn’t want to trust or love or be loved.  She thought she was stronger than she was when it came to her father.  She had found that strength inside her, but going out to the desert today, she felt like she’d lost it, again.  It seemed that’s how her life was now, this roller coaster of emotion.  First she felt one way, then that was gone and she felt another way and then that was gone and she felt still another way.  Her mind was a mess and she didn’t know how to fix it.

She knew she could lose it all in loving this man sitting in the car beside her, but was that because of the loss she felt from her fiancé?  She couldn’t even bring herself to speak his name, hadn’t said it since he was sentenced to “life in prison without the possibility of parole”.  She was certain not saying his name would make the pain go away, but it hadn’t. 

Now, she wondered if she’d lost the independence and strength she had thought she’d found.  She was too independent to lose herself in a man, what was she even thinking? Still, she wanted to lose herself in this man, she wanted him. Was that even healthy? And around and around she went.

“Hello?” Cayman was trying to get her attention.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she started.  “Were you talking to me?”

“Only for the last half hour,” he said with a laugh.  “And here I thought you were listening so intently.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m a little distracted.”  She gazed out the window.  “What were you saying?”

“I was asking you if you ever played spy when you were a kid.  Did you ever have one of those super cool spy rings, because boy, I sure did, and I
loved
my spy ring.”  Cayman waxed a bit nostalgic in the memory. 

“One day, when Sam was a baby, he swallowed it.  They had to rush him to the doctor and see where it was.  We had to watch his diaper for days to see if…well…if it came out, which it did.  But somehow, no matter how my mom cleaned it, I couldn’t bring myself to play with it again.”

Alexa burst out laughing mid-story and the end of it, she couldn’t breath at all. 

“Are you
serious
? Your little brother ate your spy ring and gave it back to you in his diaper?”  Her laughter filled the car, and lightened her mood.

“I’ll have you to know, that was a pretty special toy to me.  It’s what got me started on my current hobby of deciphering codes.  I used to make up my own and then give the whole family a different note with the cipher code and they’d have to figure it out.  Mom was the only one that would take the time to actually figure it out, but sometimes Dad would, too.”

“Well, isn’t that just cute,” she said pinching his cheek.

“Okay, well, I tell you all that to tell you this.  I’m wondering if your dad’s recording isn’t in some kind of code.  Did you guys ever do anything like that?”

“What?” Alexa was laughing again.  “No, he spent his spare time at my awesome Barbie table having tea with me.  Now, that’s a
normal
kind of kid thing.  That’s just funny; my dad sending a message in code?  How would he even know how to do that?”

“Yeah, I guess it is pretty stupid, but it sure was cool as a kid, although, the Barbie tea party sounds like a blast.” His sarcasm was quickly taking over the conversation.

“I mean, wow…that is absolute extreme fun.  I’m sure it got very, very dangerous, too.  I mean, how did you know where that tea cup had been?”

They continued to poke fun at each other’s favorite toys as kids and soon they were back at the house.  Alexa went straight to the kitchen and grabbed a couple of Gatorades from the fridge , taking them into the living room. 

“Thanks for buying all the groceries.  Want a drink?”

“Yeah, I’ll take one.”

They sat down on the couch and Alexa pulled out the recording.  They started the playback and listened for a few minutes. 

“Stop, there.” Said Cayman.

Alexa stopped the recorder.

“What?”

“Well, tell me if I’m nuts--” He started.

“Okay, you’re nuts.”  Alexa laughed.

“Cute.  What I was going to say was, doesn’t this recording sound like nursery rhymes?  I mean it doesn’t rhyme like that, but it’s kind of metered like a poem or nursery rhyme or something like that.”

Alexa’s eyes widened.  She turned the machine back on and listened carefully.  A smile moved across her mouth, growing bigger the more she listened.

“No, not a nursery rhyme, it’s Dr. Seuss!  He was my favorite author as a child.   I
loved
his books.  My father had to have gotten so sick and tired of reading them to me, but--”

“What?  But what?” Cayman leaned forward, wincing and grabbing his arm.

“Did you take that anti-biotic today?” Asked Alexa.  “Are you okay?”  She studied his face and glanced at his arm.

“Yes, yes, it’s fine, just pinches every once in a while.  I’m fine.  You said ‘but’ and stopped.  What were you going to say?”

“I was just wondering, what if it’s in the books?  What if there’s something in my set of Dr. Seuss books?”

Alexa jumped up and ran to her room.  She opened the door and walked quickly to her book case. Cayman was right behind her.

The bookshelf contained all kinds of books, it was like a children’s section at the public library.  She squatted to see the bottom shelf, found the set of Dr. Seuss books and began pulling them from the shelf.

“Can you carry these with one arm?  I’ll take the rest,”   she said, handing some of the books to Cayman.  Cayman assured her he could carry the books just fine.

They walked back out to the living room and set the two piles of books on the coffee table.  Sitting side by side they each picked up a book and held it by the cover, binding up, so the pages would hang free.  They did this with each one, shaking it, hoping something would fall out.  Nothing did.

“I don’t understand.  I thought for sure there would be something in these.  When you said rhyme, it was the first thing that came into my mind.  I really thought there would be
something
here.”

“There probably is,” said Cayman, rubbing his chin in thought.  “Do you remember the order you got these in?”

“What?!  How in the world would anyone remember that?”  Alexa looked at him, dumbfounded. 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s true.  But, there’s got to be a clue in here.  I mean, like the rest of the world, I love Dr. Seuss, but to have to read every one of these, and not just read, but really scrutinize them?  That would take weeks.  For you to think ‘Dr. Seuss’ he must have set the recording up so that is what you would think of, but why?”

He leaned back against the couch again.  Sitting quickly forward he snapped his fingers.

“Your favorites!  What were your favorite books?”

Alexa smiled and began pulling her favorites out of the pile.  She pulled nine books out.

“Okay, now,” Cayman said thoughtfully, “you’re going to have to really think on this one.  Order these favorites from one to nine, one being your most favorite.

“Cayman, this is ridiculous,” she said, “My dad didn’t know anything about codes and ciphers.  He was my dad, the export guy.  There’s no way he would have any idea how to put something this extravagant together.”

“Something happened out there in the desert that day, Alexa.  I don’t know what it was, but from that point on, even more than usual, his main goal in life became keeping you safe.  I think he was desperate, I think he needed to make sure you had some piece of information that would keep you safe.”

Cayman sat back and sighed.  “There just has to be something, don’t you think?  I mean, he left the picture for you to find.  Why would he do that and not tell you what you need to do with it?  It just doesn’t make sense.”

Alexa looked at the books.  What he said was logical.  She hadn’t put it all together like that.

“Well, okay then, since you put it that way.  Let me think.  My favorite books in the set…I never thought of them like that, but, hmm…let me see…”

She began pulling books out of the favorites stack one at a time.  She’d smile as she set them in a row and went back to pull another one out.  Once they were all in order she stared at the row of books and began moving them around. 

“No, I really think I liked Hop on Pop the best, better than Green Eggs and Ham, but I
really
liked Green Eggs and Ham, too.”

“Really…?  Can it be that hard to figure this out?”  Cayman was clearly impatient.

“You didn’t get read to much, did you?” said Alexa eyeing him curiously.

“Well, no, we were busy most of the time milking cows and chasing cattle.”

“When you were
two
?”  Alexa shook her head sadly.  “My kids are going to get seriously read to. 
Seriously
read to.  They’re going to know all the classic kid books, the fun ones.  Some of my best memories are on my dad’s lap as a kid listening to his deep, soft, voice reading me stories.  They’re my best memories.”

Alexa looked out the window, remembering those times with her dad. 

“Uh, yeah, I get that,” Cayman’s voice interrupted her reverie.  “But, we really need to look at these nine.  May I pick one up, or will you hurt me?”

Alexa sighed and chuckled.  “No, I won’t hurt you, but you better respect the books.  With my dad gone, they represent some of the best memories I have of him.  My kids are going to be read to out of these books, and I’m going to tell them about their grandpa every time I open them.”

Cayman smiled at her. “You’re going to be a great mom,” he said as he squeezed her shoulders.  “Now, start reading.”  He patted her back and it made her laugh again, but she picked up a book and began slowly leafing through the first few pages.  She surprised herself at how she remembered the words without even having to read them and she went through the pages quickly.  She didn’t see anything unusual so she tried the next book, still nothing.  Finally she decided to slow down, to examine each page, perusing the books from front to back.  Opening the book again, Alexa noticed a number on the inside of the cover on the lower right hand corner next to the binding.  It was very light and she almost missed it, but found it just as she was about to go on to the first page. 

“Here we go,” said Cayman.  He’d opened Hop On Pop and was paging through it. “Look closely at the words.  Can you see it?”

Alexa looked at the words.  She could see that some of the letters were very lightly underlined.  She knew she hadn’t done that.

“And look at this,” she said pointing to the number she had just found.  “I didn’t write this in here and I didn’t underline letters.  This has to be from my Dad.”

They looked through each book and on the inside of each cover found the numbers one through three and five through ten.  On the inside of the back cover, on the lower left hand corner, near the binding, she found random numbers.

“Obviously your father disagreed with how many favorites you had, and your order for those favorites.”  Cayman laughed softly.

“Well, then there is one more favorite in that stack.  How am I supposed to know what he thought it was?”

“We look for a number four in the lower right hand corner of one of these,” he said pointing to the remaining stack of books.

Alexa hadn’t left out one of her favorites, she’d forgotten her dad’s favorite title, Yertle the Turtle.  They placed the book amongst the favorites and began to write down the underlined letters on a piece of paper under the title of each book.  None of it made any sense at all.

Alexa started the recorder back at the beginning and together they listened with the paper in front of them.  They listened to the whole thing before Alexa leaned forward and studied each book, still listening to the voice.  She turned off the recorder.

“We’re missing something,” said Cayman, searching the titles.

“Yeah, and I know what it is.”  Alexa was touching each book and looking at the paper.  “We forgot the titles, and we also forgot the code phrases.  Look at this title.  She held up Horton Hears a Who.  Do you see it?”

There was so much age on the cover, mixed in with crayon marks and smudges it had been easy to miss.  Under two letters of the title he saw the same soft pencil mark they’d seen inside the book. 

They quickly began looking at the other books and found the same thing.  They wrote down the additional letters they’d found and then listened to the tape and wrote down the phrases.

It was useless.  All that seemed to accomplish was more letters mixed in with the jumble they already had.  It was frustrating and Alexa began to feel that Cayman was trying to re-live his glory days with his code ring.  There was nothing to be found.