The others bore writing as well. Always five letters, though some included the number two at the end, such as GNHIP2. None of the codes unscrambled into any normal word, and some didn’t have vowels. Undeterred, she spread them across the table, looking for a pattern. She arranged them in alphabetical order, then grabbed a nearby notepad. As she jotted codes down, Dad clapped her shoulder.
“Ashlee!” His face lit up. “There’s seventy-eight bills here. Seventy-eight!”
Ash smiled, confused. “Did Candace owe money?”
“No, but there are sixty-six Traders, and some folks traded twice. About a dozen people double-dipped at the creek. If each bill matches a trade, we’ve got something.”
“Holy shit!”
“What’re you guys yelling about?” Trent limped in with an empty beer bottle. His eyes popped when he saw the cash. “Christ, Ash, were you out running drugs?”
“These are Candace’s,” Dad said. “They got codes written on them. Gotta be connected to the Traders.”
“Codes?” Trent leaned over the table. “What do they mean?”
“If they each correspond to a Trader,” Ash said, “they might hint at what was traded.”
She studied her list:
AJNOS
AYNEC
BTSPI
Her pen stopped down at KHKNE2. She tapped each letter. K… H… K… N… E.
K… H…
Karl Hudson.
She circled the two letters and looked to the remaining three. “KNE” had to mean something. She barely finished underlining the letters when she realized what. They were the first three letters in the word “knee.” If the number two on the end meant anything, it had to mean two knees.
KHKNE2.
Karl Hudson. Knees. Two.
“Think I got it,” she said, her pen trembling above the list. “Look.”
They leaned in.
She circled the first two letters in each string, then underlined the next three. She stopped on JMKID2. That was the one that sealed the deal for her. “JM” meant John MacReady, the man who died the other day. The “KID2” part meant two kidneys. She wrote out his name and parts.
“Ahh, I get it now,” Trent said. His finger landed beneath the one reading RWEYE2. “Looks like Rosita Werner has the eyes.”
35
By midnight they had deciphered most of the list. Trent contributed little more than brewing a pot of coffee while Dad and Ash scribbled diligently. They didn’t mind his lack of participation, so he made no effort to get more involved. Instead, his mind wandered. His heart pounded. His mug went empty. If Trent had another cup, he’d be up till sunrise, so he decided to call it a night. With a yawn he announced he was heading to bed. He rose from his seat, planted his cane, and put weight on his bad leg. Pain snagged it like a lobster claw.
“Trent?” Ash said, her tone hopeful. “You in?”
He grimaced. “For the leg, you mean?”
She nodded.
“We’ll see,” he said, limping off. “Let me get some sleep.”
When he hit the pillow, he got none. He lay on his back, overheating beneath the sheets. His mind raced like a man on two good legs. Tomorrow, they would make the final trades, and he intended to participate—but only if Jake joined him. In order for that to happen, Trent needed to make the eyes available. And he would. Even if it meant Rosita would lose hers permanently.
He had two options—murder her or remove her from the zone. Though he often said he’d kill to get Jake’s eyes back, that was, of course, hyperbole. Killing Rosita would land him in prison, and the whole point of replacing Jake’s eyes was so they could live normal lives together.
That meant there was only one true option: stuff her in the trunk and drive ten miles north. Easy job. Fifteen or twenty minutes, tops. Then again, Trent wasn’t built for kidnapping; he could barely wrestle a shower curtain. And while Rosita was old, he didn’t have the strength or mobility to strong-arm her. He considered holding her at gunpoint, but he didn’t have a gun, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure he could coax her into the trunk of his car with one. If she called his bluff, he’d wuss out on shooting her, and Jake would remain blind.
Forever.
Nope, he thought. Can’t risk it. No room for error on this.
He needed help.
He needed Ash’s help.
36
It was nearly one o’clock in the morning when Ash noticed something odd about the coffee-stained list. Even with all the names and parts written out, she couldn’t wrap her sleep-deprived mind around one particular item: JMHIP.
The only “JM” in Dad’s Trader directory was John MacReady, the dead guy. He surrendered two kidneys, which matched Snare’s request and made total sense. But if MacReady had also lost a hip, they had a problem.
First of all, the code “GNHIP2” suggested the pizza shop owner Gina Narducci had already claimed both hips. The second, and more troubling, problem was that Snare had never requested a hip or any hip-related parts. MacReady’s kidneys had returned to Snare, which meant the “HIP” part should’ve returned too. But Snare hadn’t requested anything like it. Whatever body part it was, it had likely been claimed again—discreetly and not long before Ash’s first chat with Snare.
“Think Candace had him killed?” she asked, feeling her gut drop. “She or somebody she knew could’ve needed a hip replacement. It would explain why she’s been so touchy about the creek today.”
Dad frowned. “She’s never betrayed us before.”
“Not that you know of,” she said. “Any way you can check?”
“Not without admitting we robbed her.”
“Hmm.” She circled GNHIP2. “Think Gina Narducci’s involved? Like maybe she traded a hip years ago and got the other this week?”
“No. Narducci traded after a nasty car accident back in the nineties. It was in the papers. Both her hips were badly broken.”
Ash tapped her pen against JMHIP. “This has to mean something.”
Dad shrugged. “Could be overlapping parts. Snare’s always been flexible with that sort of thing. Like how I traded my knees and got some of the surrounding muscles fixed.”
“In that case, it looks like there’s nothing we can use against Candace.” Sighing, Ash grabbed her phone. “Guess I’ll call Berke and take down those cameras.”
“Hold off. Candace was watching the video feeds when I was over there.”
“So? That was hours ago. It’s gotta be past her bedtime.”
“She don’t sleep well. This situation could keep her up all night.”
“We can’t just do nothing.”
“Ashlee, wait till tomorrow. She’s hosting two meals at the banquet hall. She’ll have her hands full.”
Ash considered, but if Dad was wrong, they’d be squeezed for time. “What if she lets Mick run the banquet hall while she babysits the creek? Then how we gonna kill the cameras?”
He blinked.
“Face it, Dad. It’s now or never.”
“Fine.” He slid his chair back. “I’m going with you.”