out his story, but not today.
She pulled Seth aside, out of earshot, while Payton stepped into the main living room. “You look like a DUI booking photo. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m…okay. I know you may find this hard to believe, but not everything is rosy in Harperworld twenty- four/seven. Lately I’m not exactly riding the rails of the happy train, but I’ll figure it out…soon. No worries.”
She didn’t buy his answer. But before she could quiz him further, he changed the subject and headed for the living room, raising his voice loud enough for Payton to hear.
“I’ve been trying to decipher the random numbers on this report of yours, but I’ve got nothing so far. When you called this morning, you mentioned you had a visitor last night. Catch me up, okay?”
The living room had maps strewn over the sofas and chairs, turning a part of the space into a jumbled mess. And in the study, with his laptop cranked up and room service dishes set aside, the desktop looked cluttered too. No wonder Harper didn’t want maid service.
She gave him the short version of her story, unsure what he would need to know for his analysis of the document, versus what he’d want to know as a player.
“Okay, so tell me exactly what Alexa said about these numbers again,” Seth pressed.
“She said that some numbers were jumbled up on purpose, to throw us off. She implied that if anyone unauthorized got their hands on the documents—like us—they’d need a decoder ring to make sense of it. Apparently she had her super powers in high gear, because she figured it out. Or maybe she just knows more about these jerks than we do. But she told me that the numbers were coordinates to where Globe Harvest had some of their operations. Something like that.”
Jess chewed the inside of her lip as she replayed Alexa’s words in her head, then added more.
“She said that each location was compartmentalized and that it was important to hit them all at once in order to shut them down permanently, otherwise they’d spread the word, evacuate, then crop up somewhere else. That’s why I thought she should get copies to our pages. If she’s got the resources to do this, it’s our best chance at shutting these bastards down. We could never pull off something on this scale.”
“But she called them coordinates. I mean, she used that word, right?” Seth persisted.
“Yeah, she did. I’m sure of it.” She nodded. “And she said that on the pages she got from me, there were fifteen locations. I figured that if we back into that number, we might figure out the arrangement and decode the hodgepodge.”
“Yeah, I think I know where you’re heading with that. But if she used the word ‘coordinates,’ we might have a better shot at cracking this report format. Give me a minute.”
Clearly, Seth had other things on his mind. He looked frazzled, like he had one foot in the room with them and the other in some alternative universe where only genius types had membership cards. He disappeared into the study but emerged again, pointing a finger at her.
“Oh, and if you’re hungry, order room service. We might be here awhile.” He turned to head back the way he’d come, but changed his mind. “And order plenty of coffee. I think we’re gonna need it.”
“The guy needs food and caffeine to think.” She shrugged. “Who am I to argue?”
After room service arrived, she and Payton ate while Seth worked in the study. Harper had embraced his alone time and refused to stop, but he did take the food and drink she offered. That left her and Payton killing time in the other room while Seth worked.
She used the time by contacting Sam to do a background check on the mysterious Alexa Marlowe, but wasn’t surprised when her friend came up empty. Chasing someone like Alexa would be like trying to grab smoke. Sam did pass along to Payton the information that they hadn’t found a body at the destroyed factory yet. For him, her update was a mix of good and bad news. Good that Nikki wasn’t a confirmed casualty, but bad that his niece was still in the far-reaching tentacles of Globe Harvest.
After Sam’s update, Jess’s mood grew more somber. She and Payton speculated on their next moves in the search for Nikki, but mostly they split their attention between the discussion at hand and the guy in the next room, slaving over his high-tech laptop.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” Payton muttered under his breath to her. “We don’t have much. If what Alexa said was right, Nikki was transported out of Chicago and we’ve got no place to look. Even if we hit all these locations at once, like she said, that still doesn’t mean we’ll find her, does it?”
Payton had indeed been thinking. And he’d come up with the same conclusions she had.
“But I’m not willing to throw in the towel, Payton. Are you?” When he didn’t reply and only stared at her, she continued, “You see, this is what I was saying about hope.” She leaned closer and grabbed his hand as they sat on the sofa. “Now, Sam said they hadn’t found a body in the rubble, right? So far, that supports what Alexa said about your niece being shipped out. If she’s still alive, then we’ve got a chance at finding her. That’s all I care about. And if that kid in there”—she pointed toward the other room—“can find one shred of a direction, I’m willing to take that next step. What about you?”
“Yeah, I’m with you…coach.” He crooked his lips into a half smile. “Thanks for the pep talk. I needed that.”
Jess watched Seth from the living room and caught glimpses of his face in the blue haze of his computer monitor. And she heard the sounds of his quick fingers on the keyboard. The kid was completely engrossed in what he was doing. He had gulped down the java and devoured his scrambled eggs and toast as if he hadn’t tasted them at all. She could have served
In a short amount of time, Harper had endeared himself to her and become a part of her inner circle. And without flinching, she believed in his ability to pull a rabbit out of his bag of tricks. Strange as he was, he’d become a friend. She only wished she knew more about him.
Finally, after nearly two hours, the kid yelled, “I think I’ve got it. The pattern.”
She heard the smile in Harper’s voice, and his excitement was contagious. Payton followed her into the study.
“Here—look at this.” He pointed to a column of numbers on his monitor. “Like Alexa said, they jumbled the format, but once you told me she used the word ‘coordinates’ to describe the locations, it got me thinking. Longitude and latitude.”
He grinned up at her until he realized she needed more to catch the wave of his enthusiasm.
“Once I figured out the pattern of how to arrange the variables, I started pulling numbers off the list and compiling them into viable longitudes and latitudes. It wasn’t hard from there.”
“If you say so.” She grimaced and shrugged to Payton, who looked just as lost. “Geography was never my thing. If I had to sum up my questions, I’d say, what the hell are you talking about?”
Seth grinned and took a breath, searching for a way to explain what he’d found.
“Any location on Earth is described by two numbers—its longitude and its latitude. If a pilot or a ship’s captain want to specify a position on a map, they would use these numbers as
“That’s not what I meant, genius boy,” she said. “Let’s try a less accurate way to describe it. Can you dumb it down a hair? What’s the bottom line?”
“If the world were a transparent globe, the lines of constant longitude, or
“So by finding these coordinates, Alexa thinks she has an idea of where Globe Harvest has some of their operations?” she asked.
Seth nodded. “Yep, but here’s the strange thing. Alexa told you that she’d located fifteen Globe Harvest operations. On our report, I found seventeen coordinates.”
“Do you think she missed some?” Payton asked.
Jess was very much aware of Payton looking over her shoulder. Her skin tingled with the heat of his intimacy. And the smell of his skin was intoxicating. She swallowed and took a deep breath, feeling her cheeks flush with warmth when memories of last night filled her mind.
