Or have a personality as unlikable as Kat’s? Why?
On this first morning in February, a strip of misty clouds hovered at the base of the mountains. Above, green slopes reached upward to form peaks. Then more white clouds obscured the sky.
“Tire trouble?” she asked Dawson, the dog with wheels functioningas his back legs. Finley adjusted a harness strap. “There you are, darling.”
He licked her hand and rolled off.
Two dogs started barking over the same toy, and Finley quickly intervened, using nothing but her body language and atsksound. Making communication with animals look easy, she picked up the toy and placed it on a hook, putting it in time out.
Luke reached down and threw a ball for Arthur. Then another for Harry.
“I know that my suggestion that we try dating each other offended you,” Finley said.
He straightened and buried his hands in his jacket pockets.
“And I understand why,” she went on. “After thinking about it, it must have seemed like I had plans to use you in the short term because Chase isn’t here in the long term.”
He envied Chase with so much white-hot heat, he didn’t allow himself to say anything.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’d never use you. The truth is that I like you. And that’s why I wanted us to try dating. Simply that. I like you.”
After a few seconds passed, he said, “Okay.”
“Am I forgiven?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
“Finley, yes. Drop it.”
“Pardon my uncertainty, but if that’s your forgiveness, it looks a lot like irritation.”
He looked right at her. “This is my forgiveness.”
“Thank you.”
He could make out each of her long eyelashes and the kaleidoscope of blue in her irises. He needed to change the subject, complete the hunt, and drive to Montana. “What are we going to do about the latest clue?”
“I thought I might ask Kat about the number my dad provided.She does crossword puzzles every day. A clue like this could be right up her alley.”
“It’s fine with me if you ask her as long as we don’t tell her that the number is connected to the hunt.”
“Agreed.”
They made their way to the workroom, where they found Kat stationed in front of the fax machine.
“I wonder if you could help me with something,” Finley said to her. “I received this clue in a brain game thing I’m working on, and I’m stumped.” She jotted306.8752onto a nearby piece of paper.
Kat, who considered herself an expert in everything, looked pleased to have been asked. “This was the full clue? Just this number?”
“Correct.”
“Hmm. I don’t think it holds any particular mathematical significance. It’s not pi, nor any of the other famous numbers I know. The decimal is interesting. If you’re looking for a real-world correlation, I’d associate a number with a decimal first with a dollar amount. But this has four decimal places rather than two. My next guess would be that this number represents a temperature. For example, the temperature at which water freezes or boils. Body temperature. However, this number doesn’t represent any of those.”
It would be great if Kat’s superior attitude, which he had to put up with for hours a day, would prove useful for something.
“Decimal, decimal,” Kat muttered. Then snapped her fingers. “Dewey decimal system. Could this be a Dewey decimal number?”
