The Manolo Matrix (12 page)

He holds his hands high in the air, well away from the panic button that is surely under his desk.

“Roll backwards,” I instruct, because once I was burned by a clever executive who tripped the signal with his knee. That wasn’t the incident that landed me in prison, but the experience had
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been too close for comfort.

He complies—who wouldn’t with a gun aimed at his heart?

“Who the hell are you?” he asks.

“I told you. I’m doing a favor for an acquaintance.” I don’t know much about what is going on, just the limited information that has been transmitted to me in the form of this additional assignment. But I do know that Thomas Reardon wasn’t the only one helping to keep the game alive. Beyond that, I have nothing but supposition. And what I suppose is that Reardon knew too much. That others had played the game before me (lucky bastards) and that the authorities were closing in.

“If someone put you up to this…”

“Someone did,” I assure him. “Did you think you were the only one helping Archie out with his game?”

“Archie isdead. ”

“So,” I say, “are you.”

JENNIFER

“Maybe it’s a hoax,” I said, not really believing it. Someone was serious enough to shoot Andy. I was sure they were serious about getting me, too. “I mean, how? How can they say ten tomorrow with such certainty?”

“Sniper? Poison?”

I frowned, feeling lost and sulky. Not that he’d said anything I hadn’t already thought myself. I just can’t say that I was too keen on thinking it.

He sat down beside me. The beard stubble made him look sexy and dangerous, and I was desperately glad that he was there. For better or for worse, I knew that Devlin Brady really would protect me. He might not protect himself, but for me, he was willing to go the distance.

Except for my parents, was there anyone else in the whole world who’d do that for me? Was there anyone I’d do it for? I’d been “assigned” to protect Devlin. If it came down to it, could I?

Would I?

Even more, would he let me?

I squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to think about bloody conflicts or being a protector or even my parents. Especially not my parents. Because if I thought about them, I’d want to call them. And if I called them, they’d worry. Worse, they’d call the cops.

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All these thoughts were raging through my head when Devlin took my hands in his. He squeezed, and I

looked up at him, trying for a stalwart smile, but managing only a grimace.

“We don’t have enough information to know what’s going to happen tomorrow. All we can do is follow the clues. It’s a kill switch. An incentive.”

“To make us play the game,” I said, the prize pupil.

He touched the tip of my nose, a ridiculous, silly gesture that had me wanting to cry. “Exactly.

So we play. We solve my clue. We follow where it leads. And along the way, we’ll figure out how to stop whatever it is that’s going to happen to you.”

“Oh hurry,” I sang, “or I may be dead.”

“Exactly,” he said, then passed me the message. “Be brilliant.”

“Speedy Delivery,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s who delivered it. He wouldn’t tell me who dropped it off, but he did tell me that his boss gave it to him. Maybe we could call. Talk to his boss. Figure out who’s behind all of this,
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and then we can—”

“Wait.”

He spoke with such firmness that my mouth closed automatically. And believe me, that’s not something that happens often.

“Maybe,” he said. “But not yet. First we figure out the clue. First, we make sure you’re safe.”

Since I was behind that plan one thousand percent, I didn’t argue. I didn’t argue, but—“I don’t know what to do with this,” I said, tapping the message. “Do you know what to do with this?”

“ ‘Play or Die’ is pretty clear,” Devlin said. “But I don’t have a clue what this gibberish means.”

At this, he pointed to the weird combination of letters like “ANA” and “AKKI.”

“Or this,” I said, also pointing. “What does ‘If the understudy becomes the lead’ mean? Other than my life’s dream, that is.”

He looked at me with interest. “You’ve been an understudy?”

I scowled. “You really need to learn not to take me so literally.If I ever get a job, andif I’m ever assigned as the understudy,then it’ll be my life’s dream.”

“Maybe you’ll nail the lead right off the bat,” he said.

I was liking him more and more. And I was just about to say so when he held up a finger.

“Actually, you may be on to something.”

“I may?” That was news to me. “What?”

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“If the lead in a show is the first, then the understudy is the second. Right?”

“Okay.” I said the word slowly, wishing I knew what he was talking about.

“This list of shows is in alphabetical order,” he said, his finger once again tapping on the paper.

“Right. Broadway musicals in alphabetical order.”

“And these nonsense words have to be in code.”

“I certainly hope so,” I agreed.

“And I think we have the key to the code right here. Understudy, lead. Second, first.”

I made a whooshing gesture over my head. “Not following.”

To Devlin’s credit, he didn’t roll his eyes, look away, or do anything else to suggest that he thought I

was an idiot, and he feared for his mortal safety with me cast in the role of protector. Then again, considering his doom and gloom persona when we first met, maybe he didn’t give a shit about whether I

could protect him or not. But since that wasn’t our current problem, I wasn’t going to worry about it.

Instead, I just scooted closer, focused on the paper, and said, “Show me.”

“Take this one,” he said, pointing to the first weird word in the sequence: ANA. “The understudy becomes the lead, or the second becomes the first. So we look down the list of musicals—the alphabetical —list, and find titles with the second letter of A.”

He did that, his finger stopping atCabaret.

“So since the second becomes the first, then the letter we’re looking for to undo the code is the first. So the letter is C.” I said all that, and when Devlin nodded, I sat up straight, just as proud as if I’d recited all fifty states from memory (which is not, for the record, something I’ve ever managed except before my tenth grade social studies midterm).

“And N is the second letter ofAnnie,” he said. “So the second letter of our interpretation is A for Annie.”

“Right. And we’ve already translated the A in our code and we know it’s C. So that means the word is

CAC.”

Our eyes met and the apartment fell completely silent. Not even the creak of the walls or the
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thud of feet in the apartment above. And then the silence was broken. I broke it, actually. I said,

“Well, shit. We’re screwed.”

And you know what? Helaughed. He actually laughed at me.

“What,” I demanded, “is so funny?”

“You,” he said. “Stick with theater. I’m thinking you don’t have the patience for investigative work.”

I made a face. “In case it escaped your attention, I never claimed to be interested in the detective arts.”

“If you’re going to survive through tomorrow, I suggest you develop an interest really fast.”

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That sobered me up. “Right.” I frowned at the message. “So what are we doing wrong?”

“Maybe it’s—”

“Wait!” I had it. I was right. Iknew I was right. “There are a whole bunch of options. We have to set them all out and then choose.”

“Show me.”

He grabbed a felt tip pen off the table and handed it to me. Then he shoved a copy ofMen’s Health in my direction and tapped the cover. “Scratch paper.”

I was tempted to suggest that he actually read the issue, but this really wasn’t the time for levity or advice regarding healthy living. Instead, I ran my finger down the list of Broadway titles and wrote the following:

A

N

A

C

A

C

D

D

F

F

H

H

L

L

M

M

V

V

Then I started working across to see what words I could come up with. I ended up with these: CAL, DAD, DAM, FAD, HAD, HAL, HAM, LAD, MAD

“Go with ‘had,’ ” Devlin said.

“Why not ‘mad’?”

“Looks like a sentence,” he said. “That’s the most likely word to start a sentence with.”

I could think of a lot of sentences that started with Dad or Ham, but I wasn’t inclined to argue.

And I

had a gut feeling he was right, anyway. I wrote HAD in big letters across the top of the magazine.

“This isn’t going to work,” Devlin said.

“Are you kidding? Ithas to work. It’s the only clue we have!”

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“Not that,” he said. “The magazine. Hang on.” And then he got up, disappeared into the back room, and came back with a yellow legal pad.

Okay. Much better.

I moved on to the next word:

R

N

E

R

N

E

N

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B

A

J

B

A

J

A

R

R

“Barbara,” Devlin said, before I’d even written the final A in my chart. “This one’s easy. You can practically see the word.”

It took me a second longer, but he was right. The word had to be BARBARA. I wrote that on the legal pad, just after HAD.

Had Barbara…what?

We kept going. I thought the next word would be pretty easy since the only translation for the KK in

AKKI was OO. Unfortunately, A and I both had a lot of options. The word list we came up with was

COOK, COON, COOP, COOT, FOOT, HOOK, HOOP, HOOT, LOOK, LOON, LOOP, LOOT, MOON, and MOOT.

All well and good, but none of those words really seemed to fit. Had Barbara cookedmight make sense.

Or looked. But to just sit there? I had to wonder if our tormentor cared about verb tenses. More important, had we screwed up on the HAD BARBARA part of the equation?

I was just about to suggest to Devlin that we move on to the next word—figuring maybe that would give us a clue to this one—when he tapped the paper. I looked down, saw that he was tapping COOK, and then looked back up at him.

“That’s it,” he said.

“You’re sure.”

“Positive.”

I wasn’t and so, being both reasonable and nosy, I asked.

“Barbara Cook,” he said. “Broadway musical star. Starred in—”

“Any Wednesday, Carousel, Candide, The Music Man,”I finished. Then I leaned over, took both his cheeks in my hands, and kissed him. He looked surprised, but not annoyed. Score one for my team.

“You’re brilliant,” I said.

“Duly noted.” He nodded at our notes. “But we still have a long way to go.”

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“At least we know the theme. And we know we’re doing this right. We’ve got a list of Broadway musicals, and now the name of a star. That can’t be a coincidence. We must be on the right track.”

My enthusiasm was like a living thing, pushing me along as I moved on to the next word and the next and the next. Unfortunately, living things die, and this was seriously hard. We were still making progress, but it was slow going. More to the point, the message we were revealing wasn’t striking lightning in either of us.

After working our tails off for two solid hours, all we had was HAD BARBARA COOK

ACTED

PROFESSIONALLY & SEARCHED FOR HER WHITE KNIGHT ON THE RIVER.

I was starving and discouraged and, frankly, I was a little pissed off. “I thought the first clue was

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supposed to beeasy. Get the game rolling, and all that.”

“Relativelyeasy,” he said. “Maybe this is a breeze compared to what’s coming next.”

“Oh, thank you. Thanks so much for helping me feel better.”

He grinned, and then we split up the words and went to work. Another hour later, we’d solved the entire puzzle—for all the good it did us.

HAD BARBARA COOK ACTED

PROFESSIONALLY & SEARCHED FOR HER

WHITE KNIGHT ON THE RIVER, SHE WOULD

HAVE FOUND HER ANSWER HIDDEN IN A FACE WITH

MOURNFUL EYES.

I read it out loud, then looked up at Devlin. “I’m so screwed,” I said. And, damn the man, he didn’t disagree.

JENNIFER

“Well?” I said.

“We’re not beaten yet. We just need to break it down. Figure it out one piece at a time.”

Which, I figured, was a nice, polite way of saying that I was dead meat.

“We also need to eat,” he said. “We’ve been at this for hours. It’s no wonder we can’t think.

What do you want?”

“I don’t know. Pizza,” I said. “Pepperoni. Mushroom. Extra cheese. And sausage on half, too.”

“I thought you didn’t know?”

“I figured it out,” I said. It’s a bad habit, I know. I say I’m undecided, when I really know exactly what I

want. It drives boyfriends nuts. I think it’s a girl thing.

Devlin didn’t look annoyed. But he did point to the decoded message. “You’re on a roll. Figure that out.”

And then he took the phone and disappeared toward the front of the apartment. If his place is like mine, I figured that was where he kept the delivery menus.

I, meanwhile, grabbed my bag and went the opposite direction to the bathroom. I’d washed my hands and was searching for my makeup kit when my cell phone rang.

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I snatched it up, hoping for Mel but getting Brian.

“I thought we were going to have drinks tonight! Where are you, and why have you left me alone with

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