The Enigma Code by Judith Gaines

Author:Judith Gaines [Gaines, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Jade was beginning to think of Alex’s house as her own. She paused, watching the garage door lower in the Hummer’s rearview mirror, and wondered if the feeling was more than familiarity. She and Alex grew close after he helped her rescue Andre from Jarvinen and the catacombs beneath Paris. And, while they hadn’t consecrated their feelings, she had a strong affection for him. The counterbalance was the annoyance she felt with John’s presence.

The tension was a bugger, she thought. It was also not something she wanted to spend energy on as long as someone was lurking around the gallery, and she had millions of dollars of lost art under Alex’s bed.

The garage door bumped into the concrete floor with a definitive thud, and she let out the breath she was holding.

Jade liked being alone, but this time it came with unsettled business. Her father left the art and the ledger in her keeping. It felt like a clinging burden.

She pulled her bag with her computer from the passenger seat and walked with the weight of her thoughts to Alex’s office.

John would track down every parking ticket, every apartment lease, and a high school transcript for Nichols. She had the ledger names and a few more pieces to the puzzle.

Jade sank into the leather executive chair behind the desk and looked around the room. Alex surrounded himself with what reflected his interest and his desire. A Meissonier on the wall behind her. Bronze AKA statures of dogs at point, a few yellowed baseballs with faded signatures.

What was in Jacob Werner’s apartment?

“Not much,” she whispered to herself. It was as bare as a corporate rental with a few suits in the closet.

She rubbed her hand over her eyes. “Why can’t I remember you?” The pain of knowing what she should feel and what she didn’t was a seismic shift in her heart. A hint of what she had lost with her old life.

“Dad, what are you trying to tell me?” she asked.

Was Jacob as disconnected from the world as she felt?

Jade fingered the flap on her bag and removed the envelope John had delivered to her boat. It was almost incomprehensible that only a few days had passed. The story had taken on so many layers that shouldn’t be possible in such short order. Her phone remained mute since Ollie’s death. No anonymous texts or calls.

Impulsively, she opened Alex’s desk drawer and rummaged until she came up with a paper clip and a metal letter opener. Between the two, she pried her phone open, unsure what she would see but certain it would never work again.

A ribbon wire connected the front and back. She pulled the thin connector from a circuit board and then pulled out each component, finding a small dot with a thin half-millimeter-length wire.

She had no idea what should be inside a cell phone, but she hoped if there were something that shouldn’t be there, it would be obvious.

The pieces separated on the desk with no clues presenting themselves.

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