While Justice Sleeps(77)

    “If you want, I can go inside. You can wait for me.”

Shaking his head, he used one hand to rub at his forehead. “I’m fine. Just didn’t expect this.”

“Expect what? Nostalgia?”

“No. Loss. For the first time, I realize I’m losing my father. Again.” He turned the key to kill the ignition. “Let’s go.”

Avery climbed out of the SUV, and beneath her feet, weeds scrambled for purchase along a flagstone path that began abruptly in the middle of the clayed ground. The stones had separated in the intervening years, like the wooden steps leading up to the porch.

She made her way gingerly up the rotted boards, wary of the strength of the cabin’s foundation. Hinges rotted thick with rust hung drunkenly on their moorings. Termites had feasted on the planks of the wraparound porch, and mice had added their expertise along the baseboards.

Jared came alongside her. Avery stepped back and handed him the key Noah had given her. He tried to insert it into the lock, but the keyhole had been jammed. After a few tries, he turned to Avery. “Step back.”

Pivoting on one foot, he aimed his other heel at the knob and gave it a powerful sidekick. The decaying wood fractured, and the door swung wide. Jared crossed the threshold. “Welcome to Vivian’s Georgia Cabin.”

“Clearly, no door alarm,” Avery muttered with a glance at the broken doorjamb. “The code must open something else.”

“After you.”

Dust had settled on every surface, coating the single couch, the oversized chair, and the coffee table. Moving closer, Avery noticed streaks in the layers along an armoire. The doors swung squeakily on their hinges. Inside, the minute tracks showed movement of the puzzles and games inside. She straightened. “Someone’s been here. By the looks of the dust patterns, they were here recently.”

    “Are you sure? Wait here for a second.” Jared went through the main room and disappeared from view. When he returned, he squatted down by the front door. He removed his phone and shined the flashlight into the doorknob. “Back doorknob was jammed, just like this one. Looks like rust, but I don’t know.” Rising, he instructed, “Check inside the games for something that might require those numbers. I’ll search the kitchen. In case we’ve had company, we need to move fast.”

They operated in silence, opening anything with a hinge or a lid. Twenty minutes later, they regrouped in the living room.

“Nothing is down here. Certainly nothing with a code.” Jared wandered across the planked floor to the stairs leading up to the second level.

“What’s upstairs?”

“My parents used the one bedroom down here. I used to bunk in the loft.” He took the steps quickly.

When she crested the stairs, he was standing near a single bed nestled against the wall below the slope of the ceiling. The loft space was cramped, most of it occupied by the rustic bed frame. A boy’s dresser snuggled beneath a narrow window.

Overhead, a wash of dark blue had been dotted with white, the dots connected by thin, careful lines.

“What’s that?”

“Dad helped me paint the constellations on the ceiling one summer when I was five,” he murmured. “I had a bad cough and couldn’t stay out very long. We drew the images from a book, and he would count the stars with me every night. I’d forgotten.”

“Sounds like an idyllic summer.”

“They always were. When I was seven, he taught me the names,” Jared recalled softly. “Told me how sailors used to navigate by the stars. Clusters of them guiding the men home.”

“Is that why you joined the Navy?”

He’d never made the connection before, Jared realized. “Maybe so. Counting the stars every night, knowing how many points in Aries and Orion and Monoceros…”

“Monoceros?”

“One of the constellations. Monoceros has four stars, but you can’t see them with the naked eye in the summer. They’re most visible in the winter,” Jared explained, pointing up. “Next to it is Orion. Seven stars. Then there’s Taurus, with seven.”

    Avery felt the skin on her neck tighten. “Jared, is there a constellation with three stars?”

“Triangulum. And Aries. Aries has two sets of constellations, actually. One with three stars and the second with ten.”

She dropped to her knees, drawing numbers on the dirty floorboards. “That’s it!” she exclaimed as she traced out the numbers: 3-1-0-7-7-4. “The code on the sheet. It wasn’t for a safe or an alarm system. It’s a hint. For you—to lead us right here. The constellations’ stars: 3-10-7-7-4.”

“A hint about what?” Jared demanded as he helped her to her feet.

“A location—your dad wanted us to come to the cabin. And he used numbers that correspond to a summer when he taught you about the stars. What else happened?”

“Not much. That summer, Mom was into foraging, recycling, and composting. Drove Dad crazy. She made us go on hikes in the woods to ‘reclaim’ fallen logs.” He smiled at the memory. “I got in on the act and convinced Dad to help me build this bed out of the good pine timber we’d found. He complained all week, but he taught me how to hew and drill and sand.”

“I can’t imagine Justice Wynn making a kid’s bed.”