Your friend,
Henry
314
Then he started scribbling on the notepad. “It’s an acrostic puzzle.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh my god! Henry left a code?”
She stared at what he’d written down, heart pounding. The first letter of each sentence formed a word. DENVER.
“How did you even see that?”
“Basic codebreaking. What I don’t know is what this number means. 314. Do you know?”
She shook her head. “I wondered, but I can’t connect the number to him in any way. It’s not his house number. Not a part of his phone number. I even wondered if it could be the amount he paid for the Wollstonecraft at auction, but that’s not it either. And it’s not on the key.”
He went quiet again, scribbling, occasionally counting under his breath. Finally, he exhaled through his nose and looked up at her with a slow grin. “It’s the bank address.”
He placed the key in her hand and closed her fingers around it. “He wanted you to have whatever’s in this box, bookshop.”
Her pulse beat in her ears. “Now what do we do?”
His smile was back, brighter than the sun. “Wanna go to Denver?”
Chapter Thirteen
Carson’s office door was half shut, light spilling across the hallway floor. Gabe rapped his knuckles once and stepped in when Carson looked up.
“Got a minute?” Gabe asked.
Carson gestured at the chair, and Gabe drifted to it. “How was the dinner date?”
Gabe couldn’t stop the smile from spreading over his face. “It was great. But why do I get the feeling I caught you in the middle of a thought?”
His boss drew his lips tighter across his teeth. “I just got off the phone with Oaks. He and the rest of my brothers are on their way home.”
“That’s great news.”
“It is.”
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there?”
“Colt was injured during one of the riots at the company.”
He sat forward. “Hell. Is he all right?”
“He got jumped by some crazy who thought they were fighting for justice, when all this could have been settled with a few meetings and a calm conversation. But the employees were determined to overthrow the company and now Colt’s got a concussion and a lot of bumps and bruises.”
“Shit. Hospital?”
“Released. We’re just glad it wasn’t Denver—you may know he was released from the military for too many head injuries.”
He nodded. “Heard the rumor. I bet Aspen’s going crazy with worry.”
Colt’s significant other was always kind whenever she visited the vets, and she often planned events for them with the utmost care—a task she loved doing since she was a travel concierge to the rich and famous.
Carson nodded. “I could barely keep her from getting in the car and going to him when she heard. But there’s no need—the whole team’s on their way home.”
