God, no! I’ll explain later. You don’t have to hang out with him anymore. You can leave him.
r u kidding me? This is the best thing that’s happened to me on this vacation. He is soooooo hot. I want to spend time with him. R u ok?
Fine. Don’t tell him anything about what you know and that you’re with us. Remember he works for THE dickhead.
“Is everything okay with William?” Andrew asked as he set the tile back into its place.
“Yes. They apparently bonded and are off to the pool.”
After last night, I was happy William had found some happiness on this trip, even if it was with the enemy and would probably be short-lived. What cover-up story had he come up with? Actually, William didn’t need to come with much, he just needed to omit his last name, and that he was with Dr. Jones.
Andrew took a clean washcloth off the shelf, wiped his face, and then dusted off the floor. He moved a bin with tiny lotion and body wash bottles to mask the crime scene. Holding the wooden box in one hand, he hauled me up and opened the door, letting in cool air around us.
I peeled my dress away from my sticky back. I needed a shower.
We exited the dim corridor and curved into the main hall where our rooms were located. Thankfully there wasn’t a soul in sight.
“For the last six years,” Andrew said as we neared his door, “I have worked alone. Working with you has reminded me of how nice it feels to share the excitement of uncovering something new with someone else.”
I shook my head, not believing what I was about to say. “This trip is the most ridiculous fun I’ve ever had in my life. I’m glad the package was delivered to me.”
“Me too.” Andrew smiled. “Would you mind if I mentioned you and William in my research papers?”
I hoped I mirrored his sincere smile. “Only if you promise we’ll be invited to the opening night of the museum exhibition?”
“You can count on that.”
I turned to go to my room.
“Adriana?” Andrew called out.
I whirled. “Yes?”
“Would you like to help me with these?” He lifted the box in his hand.
I wasn’t sure if it was the idea of spending more time with Andrew or that he thought I could help him, but my heart surged in my chest as I stepped in his direction.
ChapterFourteen
Andrew’s room was a mirror of mine except it overlooked the pool and had a view of the green mountain range as the backdrop. Below us, guests relaxed on white loungers, drinking expertly mixed cocktails. The room didn’t have a desk or table, so the only reasonable option was to settle on the bed. I tried my best not to think that Andrew would be sleeping here tonight, under fine cotton sheets, wrapping his arms around soft pillows. My mind wandered to what he slept in. Did he wear pajama pants, or would he perhaps be completely naked? My stomach fluttered.
Andrew pulled his backpack from the closet and dropped it next to the foot of the bed. Then he lowered onto the tiled floor and began pulling items out of it. I pushed off my shoes and settled on the opposite side of him, crossing my legs and pulling my skirt over them. We spread everything out between us.
“Where would you like to start?” I picked up the brass cipher we’d found and examined it. The outer ring had thirty-three sections with uppercase letters and several numbers in no particular order, and the inner one had twenty-nine lowercase letters.
“Do you know how to work that?”
I shrugged. “I’ve watched enough movies. You turn the discs, and they point to the correct letter.”
“Yes, only you need to know where to start.” He stretched his arm out and waved his hand to give him the cipher. “This one resembles the Alberti Cipher, invented by a Renaissance polymath. We could try its method first. This ring,” he said, pointing at the outer disk, “is thestabilis. It’s fixed. And the smaller one that we can rotate is called themobilis. The sender and recipient agree on the index letter. Let’s say ‘s.’” Andrew turned the smaller dial until the small “s” went under “L” in the outer disk. “‘L’ is now the start of the ciphertext. Once the recipient receives the message, they use the same cipher and do the reverse decoding.” He lifted an eyebrow at me. “Does it make sense?”
I nodded. “How do we know what they agreed on in the first place?”
“Uh,” he said, “that’s a great question. We don’t know.”
“So our best way is trial and error?” I gave him a stern look. “In this case, I won’t be very helpful because I don’t know Spanish.” Slight envy about Brie being multilingual pinched me. How many languages did she say she knew? Six? I only spoke two: good English and bad English. I also couldn’t help sketching the second bracelet’s map because I couldn’t draw a cartoonish house to save my life. I was useless. I shouldn’t have agreed to help him. Why did he even ask me?
“What’s wrong?” Andrew said in a low voice.
