He shook his head. “That chapter of my life is over.”
“A lot of time has passed since you’ve spoken to them—tempers have cooled, expectations have adjusted and regrets have set in.” She didn’t want him to pass up a chance to reconnect with his parents. If she could have one more day with her mother it would mean the world to her. “When was the last time you spoke with them?”
He cleared his throat. “When I got a scholarship to college. I was sixteen.”
“Sixteen. Wow. How did you make it on your own?”
“I worked. Hard. I took every job I could find. I ate a lot of ramen noodles and cans of tuna.”
“Surely they miss you.”
He shook his head. “They made their feelings bluntly obvious.”
“A lot of time has passed. Maybe you could try again.”
“Annabelle.” There was a definite warning tone to his voice.
She understood this was a sensitive subject for him, just as her mother’s murder was sensitive for her. If she could pay him back for all of his assistance by helping to find a bridge back to his family, she had to try.
“I’m sure they regret the way things ended.”
“Stop.” Grayson’s body grew visibly stiff. “Now, do you want to go over this note or not?”
Perhaps she shouldn’t have pushed the subject of his family so much. “I only meant to help.”
“I know.” He turned his attention back to the note and then began typing on his computer.
She glanced at the monitor. “Your idea of this being old-school coding, what did you mean?”
“I think this note could simply be a case of letter replacement or taking every other letter or so.”
“What can I do to help?”
He explained his plan to unravel the note. It sounded simple enough. She just wondered if it’d work.
Annabelle made a stack of photocopies, even though Grayson offered to write a computer program to sort out the correct letters. She said they could do it just as quickly by hand. And she wanted to be able to contribute. So with copies of the note and highlighters, they started going through the note, highlighting every capital letter without success. Then they tried every other letter
, every third letter and so on.
“This isn’t working,” Annabelle said in exasperation.
“I agree.” Grayson studied the note for a bit. “Maybe we’re jumping ahead.”
“What do you mean?”
He continued staring at the copy of the note. “Perhaps the note is telling us something.”
Knock. Knock.
Who could that be? Annabelle sent Grayson a worried look. No one in the palace knew what they were up to and that’s the way she wanted it to remain. She quickly turned all of the pages over.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Mr. Drago stepped into the room. Annabelle had known him all of her life. He was a quiet man, who never gave any outward signs of what he was thinking. Annabelle had always felt like they were strangers.
“Excuse me, ma’am. The king would like to know if you are done in his office.”
“Yes, I am.” Did her voice really sound off? Or was she just being a bit paranoid. “Please thank my uncle for me.”