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“I’ll get the FBI’stechnical teams to try to trace the website,” Simon said. “It didn’t work lasttime, but maybe he slipped up this time.”
“We know from theprevious victims that doesn’t work,” Francesca replied. “The killer uses a VPN toset the site up, and it doesn’t link back to him.”
“We have to try,”Simon said. “It only takes one mistake from him for us to catch him.”
Amber didn’t thinkthat was likely, though. It also wasn’t where her attention was right then. No,their best chance to save this victim was if she managed to work out thelocation where they were being held so that she and the others could get therein time. That meant solving the hangman puzzle.
Amber was alreadystudying the blank spaces on the screen, getting a sense of the patterns ofthem and the possible words they might form. She knew that the killer had lefta message in there, encoded within the letters they would soon be filling in.She had to find it.
The first thingshe noted was howmanyblank spaces there were. Was it possible thatthey were looking at a full street address?
“Last time, whatdid the puzzle say once it was solved?” Amber asked. She wanted to get somecontext before she started making any guesses.
Francesca replied,grimacing slightly with the memory of it. “It said ‘warehouse, fourteenthstreet, blue sign.’”
“So something thatwas as much a description as an address?” Amber said. That was an important distinction,and one that affected the range of words that might be in the puzzle.
She saw thedetective nod.
Amber stared atthe dashes on the screen, preparing herself, while at the same time trying towork out why she wasn’t already making guesses.
---- ---- ---- --------- -------
She realized why:because she’d seen how the mechanism had worked in the previous murders.
“Every time Iguess a letter, the winch is going to tighten the noose slightly,” she said. “Andif I guess wrong, it tightens quicker. If I guess wrong too many times, I couldkill someone.”
Francesca andSimon both looked at her, understanding in their eyes.
“So we have to becareful with our guesses,” Simon said. “We can’t just throw out random letters.”
“Exactly,” Ambersaid. “We have to study the puzzle and try to figure out the message hidden inthe letters without guessing too many times. That’s our best chance of findingthe victim before it’s too late.”
“But we also can’thesitate,” Francesca said. “The mechanisms at the previous scenes tightenedover time, too.”
It was a dilemma,one that sent tension thrumming through Amber’s body. She was responsible fortrying to save this victim, she had to make guesses, but every guess she madebrought that victim one step closer to death. It was hard to bring herself tomake that first guess.
“You can do this,Amber,” Simon said.
Amber looked over atDetective Angelique. “I’ll need your help. I don’t know this town. If it’s adescription, I’ll need you to help me recognize the meaning.”
“I can do that,”Francesca assured her. Amber hoped so; a life depended on it.
Settling intoposition, Amber started to make her guesses. She felt a sense of dread washover her as she realized that the message was longer than the previous puzzle.More letters meant more chances to fail.
Amber had to forceherself to be disciplined with the first few guesses, had to force herself tostick to the most likely letters. She’d gone over the theory of hangman before,and the optimal strategies. She just hoped that it would pay off now. She beganwith vowels, trying to get a sense of the shape of the words.
-o-- -i-- -ea- -oo-e-i-- -ea-ie-
There were no “U”s.Amber winced at that, knowing that the misstep would be tightening the noose aroundsomeone’s neck. Amber guessed “T” next, and felt frustration as the letter wasn’tthere. She could imagine the noose growing tighter. She looked at the word withthe double “O.” If it wasn’t “too” then what?
The verysimplicity of the game was what made it a challenge here. She didn’t know thekiller, couldn’t get inside his head to outguess him on this, the way she mightif she’d been playing hangman with a friend.
Amber could barelybring herself to press the letter “Z” when it was so rarely used in normalwriting.
The word “zoo”came into focus.
“Does Westfordhave a zoo?” Amber asked.
