The Sixth Idea (20 page)

L
ydia flailed awake in the most embarrassing way—her numb, stiff limbs spasmed as if they were trying to claw their way out of a nightmare, and she felt the dreaded trickle of sleep drool drying on her chin—one of the greatest horrors of nodding off in public. The chair she'd fallen asleep in should be classified as a torture device, along with the hospital food she'd eaten earlier, but by God, she was still alive. And so was Deputy Harmon, who was snoring peacefully in the bed beside her chair. She didn't see any drool on his chin.

There had been absolutely no question that she would stay at his bedside overnight and keep vigil, even though his wound wasn't critical. He'd stayed by her side ever since she'd called 911 yesterday, and he'd never left it until the ambulance took him away from the motel. No conscious decision necessary. He was stuck with her until he walked out of this place on his own.

However, in the light of day, she was beginning to question the
benefit of her loyalty. Deputy Harmon had been shot because of her. Wasn't she putting him in danger again, along with everybody else in the hospital? She suddenly realized that she was a liability to anybody around her.

She hadn't cried yesterday—not over Otis, not over the bizarre fact that she was marked for death—most likely, she'd been in shock. But finally, she felt tears dripping down her cheeks and she brushed them away with the back of her hand.

“You're going to be okay,” she heard Deputy Harmon's groggy voice.

She looked up at him and smiled through her tears. “And so are you. How are you feeling, Deputy?”

“My name is Terry.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Hurts like a son of a gun, but I'll make it through, and so will you.” He reached out for her hand. “I woke up a few times and saw you sleeping in that nasty chair. Were you here all night?”

“Ever since you got admitted. Hospitals suck, and when you wake up, you should have a friendly face waiting for you.”

He squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

“I hope you didn't mind that my friendly face was asleep.”

“Best thing I've ever seen, asleep or awake. But you'd better get up and get your blood flowing again, take it from me. I don't know who picks out hospital furniture, but I'm guessing it's some kind of sadistic dungeon master.”

“I was just thinking the very same thing.” Lydia stood up and shook the pins and needles out of her arms and legs, wondering who Deputy Harmon—Terry—had watched over from an ergonomically bereft hospital chair. Maybe she would ask him one day.

There was a soft rap on the door, and then Sheriff Gannet announcing himself through the closed door. He walked in and gave them both reserved smiles, which was probably about as ebullient as he ever got, at least when he was on the job. During this whole ordeal, Lydia had observed a compassionate, competent man; one who took his role as leader very seriously. He wasn't the guy who was going to slap you on the shoulder, take you out to the golf course and lie to you, tell you everything was going to be okay.

“Deputy, Ms. Ascher,” he said, nodding. “Everything's quiet, has been all night. Except for the media—they came in like a plague of locusts. Never thought I'd say this about the media, but I'm glad they're here. Bad guys don't always run from the cops, but they'll always run from a bunch of reporters with cameras.”

Deputy Harmon pushed himself up, wincing. “Good morning, Sheriff. Did you find the SOB who did this to us?”

“Yes we did. He's in the morgue now.”

Lydia felt a tickling glimmer of hope. Two people had tried to kill her, and they were both dead now. There couldn't possibly be a third, could there? “Do you know who he is, Sheriff?”

“Not yet. Ms. Ascher, I talked to the Minneapolis detectives a while ago. They have a safe house in mind for you in the city and they'd like to talk to you about it. They should be here soon. As a matter of fact, I'd better get downstairs to clear them through the lobby.”

A
safe house
, Lydia thought. Twenty-four hours ago, her house in the country had been safe, but not anymore.

L
ydia didn't know what to expect from Monkeewrench—the scant news stories about them she'd read in the past described them as reclusive, eccentric computer geniuses who regularly donated their time and software to law enforcement all over the country. Harboring a fugitive target of assassins seemed a little above and beyond the call of philanthropic duty, but according to Detectives Magozzi and Rolseth, Harley Davidson's mansion was better equipped for the job than a lot of high-security installations.

Maybe in Monkeewrench's line of work they were used to threats, maybe even death threats, and extreme personal safety measures were just part and parcel of doing business. Or maybe they were wildly paranoid and as eccentric as the articles had portrayed them. Either way, she was grateful for their offer of shelter, regardless of their motivation. But the most important thing was that they had
requested her presence—she was the only one who might have a chance of deciphering any hidden messages in her grandfather's book. That made her feel like she actually had some control over her own fate and something to contribute to a larger cause—finding justice for Chuck and Wally and Otis and all the other innocents who hadn't been as lucky as she had been.

Yep, Lydia Ascher, thrust into crime fighting by her family's past, would become a superhero and staunch guardian of justice with the help of her little pocket rocket and a pulp fiction novel written by her grandfather. The only problem with that scenario was the novel wasn't yielding any hidden messages or clues, and she'd been poring over it for the past hour.

She set the book down on her lap in frustration and took in her surroundings for the twentieth time—it was a beautiful room in a grand home, filled with books, curiosities, and furniture that wouldn't have looked out of place in one of King Ludwig II's castles.

The king of this castle was tattooed and wore leather and had been named after a motorcycle. He looked pretty terrifying, the type of man you'd cross the street to avoid, but once you met him, he was anything but. Grace MacBride was a different story—she was a beautiful woman, not scary-looking at all, but when you met her, you got an instant sense of danger which didn't have anything to do with the big gun she wore.

She heard crisp footsteps in the hallway—Grace's riding boots, not Harley's heavy jackboots. There was a gentle rap on the door as Grace walked into the second-level library carrying a laptop computer. She'd been considerate enough to announce her arrival with a knock,
perhaps in deference to Lydia's situation, but this woman wasn't going to wait for an invitation from anybody. And why would she? This was her turf, and even though Harley owned the mansion, Grace was the unequivocal leader here, which Lydia found impressive and admirable.

“Lydia? Have you found anything?”

Grace had arresting blue eyes that Lydia couldn't even begin to read, which was unsettling for a woman who made a living reading eyes and faces. “Not really, I'm sorry to say. The problem is, none of this is my past, it's my mother's. There could be something plain as day in the text and I wouldn't notice it.”

“Your mother never mentioned anything unusual about it, aside from the fact that some of the places in the book were real, like the five-and-dime store?”

Something suddenly clicked in Lydia's mind. “Now that you mention it, there is one odd thing. My mother told me that going to the soda fountain at the five-and-dime with her father was one of her fondest childhood memories. She told me all about it, down to every little detail, including the address painted in gold letters on the front door. Five-six-five Main Street. Except in the book, the address of the five-and-dime is fourteen Oak Street. Why would my grandfather change the address?”

Grace's brows furrowed. “Does fourteen Oak Street mean anything to you?”

“No.”

She settled into a chair next to Lydia and flipped open the lid of her laptop. “Maybe it meant something to your grandfather. Let's find out.”

It didn't take Grace long to locate 14 Oak Street in Olean, New York, because the property was still operational, and had been for over a hundred and fifty years. Lydia felt her heart speed up. “It's a cemetery. Oak Hill Cemetery. I didn't recognize the address, but that's where our family mausoleum is. Where my grandfather is.”

“He's buried there?”

“Well, not actually buried. After the plane crash, there were no remains, but they had a memorial service in the mausoleum and dedicated his drawer and placed a plaque.”

“Good catch, Lydia.”

It had been a simple statement of fact, really, but Lydia suddenly felt like a little kid who'd just won a game of Clue, figuring out that Mr. Mustard had done it in the ballroom with a candlestick. “But why on earth would he change the address of my mother's favorite place to the cemetery where he would ultimately be interred? That's morbid. Cruel, even.”

Grace was struck by the eerie sense that dark tentacles of the past were slithering into the room. “My only guess is he was leading her there because he left something for her. Something important enough to hide in the one place nobody would look: a tomb.”

Lydia looked down at the cover of the book.
“In Case of Emergency
.
”

“And you're having an emergency. And look at the author's name. Thea S. Dixid. Scramble the letters, use a few of them twice, and it spells the Sixth Idea.”

Grace watched most of the color leach out of Lydia's face. “I have to go to the cemetery. I have to go as soon as possible.”

“No. People are trying to kill you and if you move, they'll find
you. And if I'm right about this and you lead them to the cemetery, they'll find what your grandfather went to great lengths to conceal from anyone except the one person he trusted most. Your mother.”

“But there might be answers there. There might be
the
answer there.”

“How far is Olean from Rochester?”

“About a hundred miles or so. Why?”

“My partners are in Rochester right now. They could go to the cemetery in your place.”

I
t was early afternoon when Annie and Roadrunner got back to their hotel in Rochester. The suites here most certainly didn't compare to their luxury accommodations in New York City, and there was no Bergdorf Goodman around the corner, but they were flying back to Minneapolis in the morning. As long as there were clean sheets and twenty-four-hour room service, she could survive the night.

She got comfortable in a chair in the common room and stretched out her legs to cushion them on a tuffet because four-inch heels were beautiful murder and she'd been wearing one pair or another for the better part of their two weeks on the road.

Roadrunner collapsed in a recliner across from her and crooked his spindly arms behind his head. His long limbs made him look like a spider, and Annie always wondered what it would be like to be six-foot-eight and skinny as a straw.

“I think the meeting went well,” he said.

“You have an awfully charming way of understating your brilliance. You had that account sold in the first five minutes, and you know it. I was just window dressing. Which I don't mind one tiny little bit.”

“Come on, Annie, don't sell yourself short.”

She gave him a coy smile. “Now, when have you ever known me to sell myself short? Why don't you call Grace and Harley and tell them the good news while I order us some room service and a nice bottle of wine.”

While Roadrunner worked his phone, Annie perused the menu and wine list. “What do you think about trying some of the Buffalo wings? I mean, we're sort of by Buffalo, which is where they invented them, right?”

Roadrunner nodded, then lifted a finger. “Grace!”

Annie watched as he listened for a moment, watched as his anticipatory smile faltered, faded, and died, killing her appetite along with it.

He apologized into the phone, ended his call, and looked up at her with troubled eyes. “Wrong number.”

Oh dear. That was a very bad sign. “Wrong number” was an emergency message Monkeewrench had established a long time ago if a secure connection was required, and Annie knew exactly how to respond according to protocol. She abandoned the room service menu to retrieve her computer and a special phone they all carried when they were on the road. In case of an emergency.