Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
But I need to stay awake and my eyes are getting heavy, so I quietly go inside, being careful not to let the screen door slap, and rustle up myself a cup of coffee.
I check on Rosie, find her still sleeping, and then decide to take a look in Cross’s bedroom for clues because I suddenly realize that’s something we forgot to do. Rosie was convinced it was Erol right away, so it’s not like we started thinking he was a runaway and needed secret information he might’ve been hoarding.
Clearly, this was a kidnapping.
Or was it?
So I go into the room, flick on the light, and find a twelve-year-old boy’s room. There’s a messy stack of homework on the desk, clothes everywhere, unmade bed, and it smells like a locker room.
My nose crinkles up in protest, and I’m just about to turn around and flick the light back off because this room is really none of my business when I spy something familiar yet out of place on the desk.
I reach for the paper and realize it’s the first puzzle Erol sent to Rosie. The one she never showed me because it’s been here at the house the whole time. This one is an extreme dot-to-dot puzzle. It doesn’t have numbers, but letters in what looks to be a couple of different languages at least.
I don’t know any of these languages—none of them are in English—but it doesn’t matter because the puzzle has been solved. The dots are connected. And it’s not a picture. It’s a message.
Dear Rosie,
I am not dead.
I need to talk to you.
Meet me at our spot by the river. You remember where.
June nineteenth. Six p.m.
I’ll explain everything.
The first puzzle was a letter to Rosie asking for a meeting—which she clearly missed because she didn’t solve this puzzle, Cross did. My eyes flit across the desk looking for more clues, and sure enough, there’s another envelope. This one is not addressed to Rosie, it’s addressed to Cross, and there’s no postmark. It was hand-delivered. There’s also no letter. Whatever was sent, Cross took it with him.
Cross hasn’t been here for days, so this letter came in before they came to stay with me. Before Rosie found that letter on her pillow.
She didn’t look in Cross’s room that night. No one looked in Cross’s room that night. He got a letter too, we just didn’t know it.
And this explains why he was so happy to come stay at the compound and why he was so agitated for Friday night bowling, insisting that he was ready to grow up right now and do important things.
What if Erol was spying on us? What if Erol knew that Cross was antsy? What if the letter or puzzle he sent Cross was some kind of invitation?
If Erol Cross is coming up dead in Penny Rider’s database, but isn’t, in fact, dead, then he’s military. He’s black ops, just like we were.
Honestly, six months ago I’d have thought this idea to be ridiculous. Even though I was black ops and I know it’s real, I would have a hard time thinking lightning might strike twice in the same place. I mean, what are the odds that some random missing boy was never missing at all, he was just recruited?
It’s a movie plot.
But after Blackberry Hill, I’m not so sure it’s actually that farfetched.
And if a boy of age twelve who is eager to make his way in the world gets an invitation from his missing daddy to join him in some secret something or other, might said boy find this to be a grand opportunity? And might said boy agree to meet this daddy of his to hear more about this exciting offer?
I turn around and blow out a breath.
This is what happened. Erol, sensing I was coming between him and using Rosie to get to his son, went straight to Cross instead.
Because he doesn’t need Rosie to agree to anything if Cross wants to see his father. He does, after all, have some rights. Whether he deserves them or not is another story and there might be a fight in court. But if Erol is involved in things like Collin and I were involved in, and he’s got the balls to show up like this… well. He’s sorted out a deal. He’s made plans and gotten them approved. He will fight and he will have powerful people on his side.
He could, in fact, just take Cross and leave Rosie behind.
This would tear Rosie Harlow in half.
She would never agree to it.
If Erol won the right to keep Cross, and he made her an offer to come with them, what would she do?
I huff out some air. Because I know damn well what she would do.
She would leave me so fast, my head would spin.