The Vanishing Game (17 page)

I checked my cell phone. There were several texts and a photo from the friends who had asked me to come camping with them. They were standing together, making I-love-you and rocker hands.

There was also a voice message from my foster mom, Marilyn, checking to see how I was doing. I shot her a quick text saying I'd hiked to a place that got reception, but I'd probably be out of touch for the rest of the time. Not to worry, I was okay. Lying to her stank, but if I ended up bringing Jack home, I knew all would be forgiven.

Noah asked if anything was missing from my suitcase. I quickly searched through it.

“Not that I can tell. And everything's still in my wallet, including credit cards and cash. That doesn't make sense. Why would someone steal my car but not take anything?”

“And why did someone bring it here last night?”

“Was it a threat, or just an anonymous good deed?”

“I don't think someone doing a good deed would've left it without knocking on the door, because it's upsetting not to know how it got here. So whoever brought it back wants you to know they're on your trail. Which means it's not safe to stay here anymore. Especially after you were attacked. If you want to change your clothes, do it now. I'm going to pack a few things. Then we need to get out of here. You've got ten minutes.”

“Okay.” I watched Noah, amazed that he wasn't even a little upset. If anything, his mood seemed lighter, like this was exciting instead of dangerous.

I took my suitcase to the bathroom. Though I was relieved to have my stuff back, everything now seemed suspect. I wondered if the thief had gone through my clothes. He or she probably had, even though it all still looked the same. It felt like I was being forced to play a game that I didn't want to. Then I reminded myself it had been my choice to come here in the first place. I could have tossed the Jason December letter and called it a cruel joke, but I hadn't. Driving up here may have opened the door to all sorts of weirdness, but if I really loved Jack and wanted to find him, then I needed to be tough.

After my attitude adjustment I changed into clean clothes, head to toe. Since the weather was even cooler and the sky overcast again, I pulled on a dark gray long-sleeved shirt and my favorite jeans. I ran a brush through my hair, wincing at the pain, and then quickly put on some makeup. The scrapes on my face had practically disappeared by the time I was done, and my eyes stood out with the smoky shadow and pencil I'd applied. Feeling more like myself I smiled, until I saw the red marks on my throat. The outline of my attacker's hand was still visible and it bothered me. Digging through my suitcase, I pulled out a long Chinese scarf with streaks of plum and green, and beads on the ends. I wrapped it around my neck a couple of times until it hid the burn.

I finished packing everything together and headed to the living room, where Noah was busy putting stuff in a duffel bag. He looked up and stopped what he was doing, studying me. I felt a little uncertain under his stare. “Is something wrong?”

“Don't leave anything behind that you might need. I'm not sure when we'll make it back here again.”

“That sounds serious.”

“It is.” He wore a cheerful expression in contrast to the words.

We made sure the house was locked, and after a quick discussion about which car to take, I gave in. We put our bags and his laptop in the backseat of his Jeep. Noah smiled at my obvious worry. “Just think of this as an adventure.”

We stood together in his garage for a few seconds, almost on the same spot where I thought he was going to choke me to death. I was still afraid, but this time for different reasons. He tucked a piece of stray hair behind my ear. “Let's go.”

We climbed in his Jeep. He turned the ignition over and pressed the garage door opener. The mental image of bullets flying in through the back windshield came to mind and I scrunched down in the seat.

He peered over his shoulder as we backed out. “You know, if someone was going to shoot you, they had plenty of time when you were standing in the driveway looking at your car.”

Embarrassed, I sat up and didn't say anything as we drove out of the subdivision and onto the main road leading
back into town. A couple of times I turned around and looked behind us but didn't see another car.

Noah flipped on the radio. Music from a quirky English group came through the speakers. He hummed along.

“What's going on?” I finally asked. When he raised a questioning eyebrow I added, “Where's the angry Noah who bites my head off? You're actually happy.”

He chuckled, though the sound was tinged with irony. “So I'm feeling okay with all this. Is that a problem?”

“It's as if you've been taken over by aliens.”

“Look, Jocey, the bond between you, Jack, and me was always foursquare. So here's the truth. In light of the two pieces of solid evidence, I'm just very relieved to know you're not crazy. Don't look at me like that. What would you think if you were in my place?”

“I'd believe whatever you told me. We always believed each other.”

“That was years ago. Since we met up again, you've told me some crazy stuff. I had this suspicion you were making it up and maybe even planted that clue in Seale House yourself. But last night that guy attacked you. And your car showed up in my driveway this morning. Proof you were telling it like it is.”

“So you're on my side now?”

He looked at me for several long seconds. “I've always been on your side. And just knowing Jack is probably still alive is huge. If he faked his death, he did it because he didn't have a choice.”

“That's what I've been telling you.”

On the way back into Watertown, we passed the Urban Mission with its huge mural painted along one wall. There were colorful swirls and abstract faces floating across a background of deep reddish pink. I remembered it from the last time I was here.

Instead of heading straight to the library, Noah took several meandering turns, his eyes frequently checking the rearview mirror. After another ten minutes we pulled into the parking lot of the library. We headed through the doors and he turned back, his eyes scanning the handful of people coming in after us. He seemed satisfied and went to the information desk while I walked over to a directory. A cute guy wearing rimless glasses and a library name tag came up to me. He smiled and offered to help find what I was looking for. Noah came back and chased him off with a mean scowl.

“Stop playing Dracula,” I said.

“Then don't talk to strangers.”

I bit back an annoyed reply as we took the elevator upstairs. I pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket that had the book's file number and felt a renewed sense of excitement. We found the programming section and Noah checked the numbers. He took a thick book off the shelf and we looked at the cover:
Revision Control Reference
by Greg Hall.

“This way.” He guided me to an empty table behind several tall shelves where we could have some privacy.

We sat down and he slid the book over to me. “Flip through the pages.”

I did, finding a business card sandwiched close to the spine. “This must be it.”

I closed the book as Noah and I read the small card together. There were five groups of letters printed all in capitals: U TREC ALERT LEGAL RYLA

“Which means what?” he asked.

“An attorney named Ryla? Hang on while I grab a phone book.”

It took me just a minute to get one from a librarian and come back to the table where Noah sat studying the card.

“You really think it's a lawyer?”

“No, of course not, but when it comes to deciphering Jack's codes the first rule has always been to pyramid it. Start with the broadest guess and narrow it down. This way we won't miss something. Make yourself useful and try to anagram those letters, will you?”

Noah took the pen and paper I handed him. “Why couldn't he just leave us a note that said ‘meet me at the bus depot' or something?”

“I'd never follow a note like that, because it wouldn't be from Jack.” I glared at the useless Yellow Pages. “Under the listing for attorneys there's only a Rylund but no Ryla. Think it might be a first name?”

“Probably not. If he wanted ‘U' to ‘TREK' your way to a lawyer, wouldn't he have spelled it with a ‘k' not T-R-E-C?”

“Okay, then look at it backward. What's CERT? Is it short for ‘certain' or you have bad breath, pass me a Certs mint?”

Noah chuckled as I grabbed a nearby dictionary and tried looking up CERT and RYLA but found nothing. He tapped me on the shoulder and I looked up to see he was peering so closely at the card that it was only a few inches from his face. At last he handed it to me. “Take a look at the decorative border.”

Turning the card to the light, I brought it close to my face the way he had and squinted at the pale-gray edging that was barely visible. If I held it just right I could see the border was a line of tiny symbols:

“A male and female equation,” Noah said.

I lowered the card and reached for the pen and paper, copying it down. “It's repeated. He used the colon to separate the main five symbols, the way he did on the lantern clues that one time, remember? Okay, so what do we have when we add a female, subtract two males, add a male, and subtract a female?”

“Hollywood relationships?”

I looked up at him and laughed in surprise. “Noah, you made a joke.”

“It happens once in a while.”

It was so rare I wanted to write down the date to remember it. However, deciding not to say anything that might set our touchy relationship on edge, I just smiled and turned back to the equation. “There are lots of possibilities. How do we know what it means?”

“Come on, Jocelyn, you're the one who was always inside Jack's head. You should know what he meant. Is he talking about relationships here? Are some of the people in that equation you, me, and him? If so, who are the other two? And is RYLA a woman's name?”

“No, I don't think so. To Jack, clues were about clues. He would use the border equation to tell us how to solve the letter clues.”

Noah studied the symbols and then grinned with pleasure. “Think about the field trip. Why did we get to go?”

“Because of French class with Mr. Montclaude.”

“Yes. And remember what he stressed all the time? Masculine and feminine articles, because the nouns are gender specific. French basics of ‘le' and ‘la' are what I'm guessing. Translate those male/female symbols on the paper.”

I did as he suggested and ended up with: +la, −le, −le, +le, −la. Taking the pen from me, he added the first ‘la' in front of U TREC and put it all together.

“Lautrec, I'm guessing.”

“What's that?”

“It's a who, not a what. Toulouse-Lautrec, the painter.”

“Good thing you always liked studying art in school.” I'd never understood his interest in painters.

“Now, let's subtract ‘le' from ‘alert' and we have …”

“Art!” My excitement began to grow. “Take away ‘le' from ‘legal' and we have ‘gal,' then add the ‘le' for ‘g-al-l-e' …”

“Gallery,” Noah finished. “Minus the ‘la' from the end of RYLA and with the other letters it becomes gallery.”

“Lautrec Art Gallery.”

“I've seen that before. I think it's over by the Paddock Arcade.”

I let out a slow breath and smiled at Noah. He smiled back with a very pleased expression. It was a special moment, reminding me again of that remarkable day in the pine tree when we solved our first Jason December letter. “So it's not far then?”

“No. And at least he's not trying to send us back to Ottawa.”

As we drove, my anticipation increased. “Have you been inside the Lautrec Gallery?”

He shook his head. “And I can't figure out why he's sending us there. It wasn't even around when we were kids.”

The wind picked up, scuttling wool-gray clouds across the sky and churning the leaves on the trees. It took a couple of passes down Holcomb Street before we found it. The small gallery was a converted house of tan brick with dark-green awnings. Paintings in the windows were elegantly mounted on cloth-draped easels. Noah parked and we made our way across the street. A bell jangled when we opened the door and entered. I smoothed my hair with my fingers.

Looking around, I saw that the gallery had an old-world look. The dark wood floor gleamed, and there were art pieces and antiques everywhere. A tiered display was topped with brass sculptures, and paintings closely covered
walls that were papered in watered silk. Moving deeper inside the shop we heard someone say, “I'll see who it is.”

A boy came hurrying through an arched doorway, a cluster of paintbrushes in his hand. He wore a gray shirt the same color as his eyes, and his hair fell in loose gold curls. He looked young, only about nine, though I knew he was twelve. I remembered what a pretty child he had been, and now—despite the awkward preteen years—he was still beautiful. Dixon stopped where he stood, a surprised smile spreading across his face.