Code(65)

“The hard deadline still bugs me. Friday at nine p.m. Why so specific?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Shelton leaned closer so Hi and I could hear over the wind. “Everything the Gamemaster has set up seems meticulously planned. Agreed?”

“Absolutely,” Hi said. “Some of his toys are expensive, too.”


“I think your instincts are dead-on, Hi.” Shelton shifted to face us. “Here’s my theory. The Gamemaster began setting this game up a long time ago. Did serious planning. I’m talking weeks, maybe months.”

“Or even years,” I said. “How’d he run those wires beneath the eighteenth green?”

Shelton nodded rapidly. “I’ve been meaning to check when Kiawah’s Ocean Course was last resurfaced. But you get my point.”

“Yes. But not where you’re going.”

“We found that first cache—the Loggerhead one—right after it was registered online.” Shelton pointed to Hi. “You said it’d been on the geocache site less than a week.”

“Okay.” Hi wasn’t following either.

“Then we were forced into a series of tasks with varying time limits—Castle Pinckney was untimed, we had forty-eight hours to locate Kiawah, and then seventy-two to find Mepkin.”

“And now we have a specific deadline—Friday at nine.” I tried to calculate the total hours, but gave up. “More than five whole days. It makes no sense.”

“Unless,” Shelton said, “the endgame was always going to be Friday at nine.”

Deep in my brainpan, a faint bell began jingling. “Keep going.”

“Maybe, for some reason, the game has to end then.” Shelton made a chopping motion. “Right then. No matter how much time the earlier legs might’ve taken us.”

“Because the early legs were variable.” I felt a rush of insight. “We could’ve taken much longer to find Pinckney, since it didn’t have a time limit. And though we came down to the wire that night on the golf course, we still had hours remaining at the abbey when we found the . . . last clue.”

Corpse. Why couldn’t I say it?

“Exactly.” Shelton slid from the bench to crouch before Hi and me. “So the upshot is this—the Gamemaster couldn’t know how long it would take us to reach this particular point. He had to allow enough flexibility in his sick schedule for his pawns to complete all the tasks.”

“Assuming we didn’t get killed along the way,” Hi grumbled.

“So he couldn’t use a timer.” It all made sense. “Not if the final task requires a specific hour and date. Because he couldn’t know when we’d actually get to the crypt.”

“That’s why the last note is different. The Gamemaster just needed us to have reached the crypt before Friday at nine, when he obviously has something planned. If that left seven days, five days, or two days, so what? We’d still be on pace for his timetable.”

Hi grabbed Shelton by the cheeks. “You, sir, are a genius.” He leaned forward to kiss each one.

“I try.” Shelton flailed as Hi planted his first sloppy smacker. “Man, get off me!”

I ignored the doofuses.

This changed everything. If the Gamemaster’s finale had to take place Friday at nine, we might be able to determine what it involved.

The jingling in my head morphed to gonging. What?

“Combine what we’ve learned,” I said, wheels spinning. “Add this deadline to the mix.”

Shelton moved back to the bench. “It’s definitely going to be a problem.”

“Problem? Why?”

Hi looked at me strangely. “We’re a little busy Friday night.”

“Busy? Doing what?”

The boys exchanged a look. Hi snorted.

“I don’t know about you,” Shelton said, “but I’m escorting my friend Victoria to her debutante ball.”

“Oh. Right.” How could I forget?

Willful blindness.

“We’ll all be stuck at The Citadel,” Shelton went on. “No boat, no ride. No way to sneak away with your dad there. Plus, don’t you have to walk the runway?”

“Sometime after eight,” I said glumly. “I’m not sure where I’ll be in the order.”

“Aim for back of the line,” Hi said. “Those with swag should strut the castle last.”

Thunderbolt.

Facts coalesced in my mind.

Friday. Nine. Smack in the middle of my debutante ball.

Combine what you know.

The Citadel.

Combine what you know.

Castle Pinckney. The answer to the Gamemaster’s first clue.

Combine what you know.

“The Citadel is a castle,” I breathed. “That’s what ‘citadel’ means.”

“Say what now?” Shelton didn’t get it.

“So?” Neither did Hi.

The Gamemaster knew things about us: where we lived, who our families were, even the activities we liked. Could he know our schedule, too?

A chill spread through me.

He always seems to be watching.

The debutante ball was the perfect target for a madman.

“I don’t think we’ll have to sneak away on Friday.” Pulse racing, I gazed out across the open sea.