Page 31 of Yankee in the Wind

“No, his calls always showed up as Private Caller or Unknown Number.”

“You sure?”

Lilly sighed. “I’m sure, and I would show you my call history, but you tossed my cell phone out of the car.”

Jack started on an apology. “Uhm—”

But Fox interrupted him. “No worries, I can check on that if you give me your number. In the meantime, Jack said that you found your cousin’s ID and Henry Sheppard’s number in a hiding place meant for you?”

“That’s right.”

“Was that all he left you? No other documents? Nothing else?” Fox asked.

“No that’s all…uhm, except for an empty memory stick. Sorry that I can’t be of more help—”

“An empty memory stick?” Fox asked, sounding excited. “Do you still have it?”

“But it’s empty. I checked it myself.”

“It might not be empty,” Fox said. “Did you keep it?”

“I think I put it in my handbag.” She opened her bag and rummaged through it. After an eternity, she produced a USB flash drive. “This is it.”

She handed it to Fox who immediately put it into a USB port and started typing away on his keyboard. Jack approached and looked over his shoulder to the screen.

“You’re looking for a hidden file folder?” Jack asked.

“Yep. River got the same training as the rest of us. While he might not have been a computer genius like myself”—Ace chuckled from behind them—“he would have known the basics about how to hide a directory so it looks like the flash drive is empty.”

All of a sudden, a window opened up on the screen, and a beep sounded.

“Voilà!” Fox said. “Just like I thought. All we need now is a password.”

Lilly came to stand next to Jack to look at the screen. “Wow. You were right.”

“Yep, it happens a lot,” Fox said.

“Can you click on that, where it says password hint?” she asked.

Fox clicked on it, and a question popped up. “What rabbit but an old one has his foot in a pot without a lid?” he read aloud. “That makes no fucking sense.”

“Oh my God, our code,” Lilly said, shock registering on her face.

“What code?” Jack asked.

“When we were kids, Thomas and I developed this code to send each other secret messages, basically emails that needed a password. And the hint was always in the subject line.” She shook her head, tears suddenly brimming in her eyes. “Thomas was right. He knew it all along.”

“Knew what?” Jack asked.

“At the time, I thought it was silly. He said that one day I would need a password, and he wouldn’t be there to give it to me. I would have to figure it out on my own. He was the one who came up with the game. He drilled it into me.” She locked eyes with Jack. “He saw it. He saw it back then. It all makes sense now.”

Jack took her hand and squeezed it. “You’re saying he foresaw this?”

“Yes.”

Fox looked over his shoulder. “How does it work?”

“I’m trying to remember. Each word is either a placeholder or a counter for something. The sentence has fifteen words. Fifteen is the number of hours, which means it’s 3PM. The rabbit is one animal, so 1a. Old back then meant anybody over sixty, so that’s >60. The word ‘without’ means you have to subtract however many words follow it, so that’s -2. So the password is 3PM1a>60-2.”