Page 400 of The Romance Adventure

Royal glowers at my wife. He’s all bark, no bite. “Now you’re sticking up for him and before it looked like you were going to tear my brother limb from limb to get the keys?”

Without taking my eyes off the dial, I say, “We made up.”

“You’re such a sucker,” Royal says.

“Magnus, maybe you should take a look at the cipher thingy,” Ryan says.

My brother smirks, knowing that I’m not entirely what I seem. “Nah. CJ is the man for the job. When we were kids, he could crush a Rubik’s Cube.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say genuinely.

“Don’t mention it.”

I sense eyes on me and glance up. “It’s going to take a while.”

Jolie remains by my side. Isla, Harley, and Lally leave to get refreshments. My brothers murmur questions.

How did the note get inside the chest?

Where is the crown?

Are Mom and Dad still alive?

Well over an hour passes as I decode out the words, one by one. Jolie makes sure I drink some water and she all but shoves a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie from the resort’s bakery into my mouth.

Tapping the paper, I say, “The.”

“The?” Royal asks, unimpressed.

Another thirty minutes go by. “Crown.”

“The crown,” Ryan says.

“Is!” I shout triumphantly, not necessarily because of the word itself, but that one took me less than fifteen minutes to figure out.

“The crown is,” Magnus says.

I’m getting better at this. I get the next word in less than ten minutes. “In.”

“The crown is in,” Royal says.

“The again.” I’m so close. But the next word stumps me. From staring at the metal dials with little scratches, letters, and symbols for so long, my eyes burn and blur.

The last word is stubborn.

The crown is in the... fill in the blank.

“Maybe ice cream would help,” Harley says.

“How about if CJ solves it, he gets free ice cream for life,” Ryan suggests.

Still, not looking away from the Salty Skeleton, I say, “I already do.”

“How’d you manage that calculus? Chip left me the Sip & Scoop.”

“I’m your brother.”

“He charged me the other day,” Magnus says.