Devour (Unbreakable Bonds 4)

There was a soft snicker over the phone from Quinn, but it was Gidget who spoke. “We tried searching for the colors you gave us, but the results were far too broad. So we dialed it back and focused on ‘golden.’ It seemed strange. Why golden rather than gold? Very specific.”

“You find something?”

“A pattern.”

“Fuck, yes!” Noah said, nearly bouncing in his seat.

“With golden, we found that a certain phrase was used frequently.”

“What’s that?”

“Time to swim.”

Ian frowned and met Rowe’s gaze as he looked over his shoulder. He hadn’t a clue as to what it could possibly mean. He couldn’t remember ever hearing Jagger say that, let alone in relation to the word “golden.”

Noah shoved a hand through his long hair and leaned over the table, moving closer to the phone. “Do you have anything else?”

“After finding that phrase, we managed to catch phrases linked to the other colors you gave us,” Quinn replied. “Like for red, we got ‘let’s sing.’”

“Wait a minute!” Rowe jumped to his feet and hurried over to the kitchen drawers, opening and quickly shutting one after another until he finally found what he was looking for—a fat, black Magic Marker. Moving aside the chairs around the table, Rowe lifted the marker to the blank wall.

“Ummm…babe, you know that’s not a dry-erase board, and that marker is permanent,” Noah said calmly.

“Whatever,” Rowe grumbled. “I’ll repaint Royce’s wall before we leave.”

Hollis snorted. “Royce should be happy if the house is still standing when we leave.”

Rowe lifted his left hand and flipped Hollis off over his shoulder as he started writing down the colors and corresponding phrases in large, blunt letters:Golden – time to swim

Red – let’s sing

Blue – take flight

White – no stopping a rolling stone“That it?” Rowe called over his shoulder while keeping his eyes on the wall.

“We’re still searching, but that’s what we found that is definitely linked to the colors,” Gidget replied. “What’s it mean?”

“No fucking clue.” Rowe turned and did the one thing Ian had hoped that he wouldn’t—pinned him with a hard stare as if the key to it all was locked away in Ian’s brain. And there was a damn good chance that it was, but he didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. He’d spent years trying to forget about his time trapped in Jagger’s compound. He didn’t want to start remembering every second of that nightmare. But if he didn’t remember, kids were going to be sold in auctions—possibly even die.

“I don’t know,” Ian said, unable to bring his voice above a whisper.

“Is it always the exact same phrase?” Hollis asked. He reached out and took Ian’s hand again, causing Ian to jump at the contact. The warmth of his touch was reassuring and calming, but he didn’t want to be reassured or calmed. He wanted to know what this message meant.

“No, not the exact same wording but very close,” Quinn said. “It’s always a binary answer of yes or no in relation to swimming, singing, flying or rolling.” He sighed and his voice came through slightly muffled as if he ran his hand over his face. “Could be referring to animals?”

“What about the stone thing?” Rowe demanded, stopping their conversation dead.

“Could the colors be phases of the operation and the phrases link to where they are in the phase?” Noah suggested. Ian straightened, his eyes snapping to the list again. That seemed like a pretty logical guess.

“We thought that too,” Gidget said with a disheartening sigh. “But the colors don’t ever follow a specific order like you’d expect. We have one stretch where it’s red, blue, golden, red. Another where it’s blue, red, white, red. There’s no order to it. It appears all random.”

“Hey, Gidget,” Hollis started, leaning toward the phone. “Would it be possible to cross-reference the colors with times of the year or months, please?”

“Huh,” she softly said and there was a short pause. “I can give that a try. I’ll also see if one comes up more than any other.”

“You got an idea, detective?” Rowe leaned his shoulder against the wall next to the words, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

Hollis shook his head. “Nope. Just trying to see if there was a seasonality to Jagger’s plans. We’ve seen some crimes are more active than others in the summer, while others pick up in the winter. If your people find something like that, maybe we can match the activity against the CPD’s database.”

“What’s the most recent color they’ve talked about?” Rowe called out.

“White.”

“Anything else, Gidget?” Noah asked.

“Well, with white, we also came across the word ‘akeldama’ a couple of times. In the Bible, that’s a place associated with Judas Iscariot. It also means ‘field of blood.’”

Quinn made a scoffing noise then his voice came through louder as if he was now leaning over the phone. “I really don’t think Jagger is religious.”