Something Wilder(86)

“Duke had no way of knowing I’d find this, but you’re lucky I did.”

She hesitated. “Why?”

“Because it’s a computer code.”

“Wait. Duke used a computer code?”

“It appears he did. At least a little. It’s old. We use Unicode now, mostly, but ASCII was used for order-entry computer systems for years. Your dad might have been an old, traditional dog, but he was crafty enough to use every kind of code he could find. He might have even anticipated that ASCII would be obsolete one day, if it wasn’t already—making it even harder to solve.” He frowned. “I don’t actually know when he would have hidden this in the cave.”

“So,” she said, trying to follow, “it’s an old computer code that translates to ‘Beat ya here’? Because that is absolutely something my dad would have said.”

Leo nodded. “In ASCII, there are numbers corresponding to capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers, symbols. The fact that there weren’t spaces between the string of numbers made it hard at first to know what I was looking at,” he explained. “I mean, it could have been anything—even a code he made up himself. But because I’m used to seeing numbers grouped for code, I first looked at them in doublets.” He pointed to the paper. “The fact that there was an odd number told me that maybe he mixed capital letters with lowercase to make it more complex—capital letters are two digits; lowercase are mostly three.”

She was lost. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s okay. The only thing you need to understand is that most people also probably don’t read ASCII, so in many ways it was perfect. Bradley didn’t know, and his friends definitely didn’t know.”

She smiled blandly. “Well, good job to you for figuring it out, I guess.”

He laughed. “You really don’t see what this means?”

“No.”

Leo rested his cheek sweetly on his folded hands and smiled at her. “It means I could tell them anything I wanted.”





Chapter Thirty-Two


LILY SNIFFED, SWIPING a hand over her face before scooting her chair closer to the bed.

“Leo,” she said with forced calm.

“Yes.”

“Are you telling me you lied to them back there?”

He nodded, ignoring the way his cheek throbbed in pain. “Yup.”

Her expression flattened in disbelief. “The note doesn’t say ‘Beat ya here’?”

“It does not.”

“It’s not the…”

“Fougère?” he supplied, and shook his head. “That’s not a real thing.”

“You made up a code to trick them?” she asked.

“Sort of? Not really. I faked it.”

“What would you have done if Nicole hadn’t been there with the cops?”

He shrugged. “That was a problem for Later Leo.”

“Then do you even know what it says?” Lily’s jaw had gone rigid, the tendons above her collarbones tightening. “Leo, stop fucking around.”

“I’m tempted to give you the satisfaction of solving it yourself.”

She scoffed. “I promise I never needed that satisfaction.”

Relenting with a smile, he said, “The real trick was trying to remember ASCII without writing it down. Once I realized what it was, I didn’t want them to see me work it out. I had to do every letter in my head.”

“Impressive.”

“I thought so, too. So, while I was pretending to solve it and write down wrong letters, I was mentally high-fiving your dad for using a mix of capital and lowercase.”

“Why?”

“Because if by chance they put together that my fake Fougère code was a doublet or triplet code, then the three E’s in Beat ya here should have been the same number. But—”

“Leo,” she said with strained patience, “I swear to God if you don’t tell—”

“Look at home,” he said quietly.

She wrinkled her nose. “What?”

“That’s what it says.” He watched her reaction, how her expression crashed in disbelief. “It says ‘Look at home.’?”

“At whose home?”

He gazed steadily at her.

“At—at my home?”

“Who knows,” he said. “But if your dad really was the one writing this, and hiding it, wouldn’t it make sense that it would mean his home?”

“Which is also my home,” she said on an exhale.

“Exactly.”

She bent, cupping her head. “If you’re telling me Bradley was right this morning… that this money has been right under my nose this entire time…”

“Worth looking, isn’t it?”



* * *



Leo could sense Lily’s apprehension as they approached her place. Her old truck barreled down the road, and she attempted to manage expectations. She reminded him that the cabin wasn’t that impressive, that she was never there, and that when she was there, she never had time or money to fix it up. After everything they’d been through, her mood was understandably all over the place. She was hopeful and pessimistic, giddily disbelieving and anxious.