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“Huh.” My brow dipped. “Why’s the date backwards?”
Amano shrugged. “Apparently, that’s a secret-society ring decoder kind of thing. I don’t know all the details.”
“Something tells me that’s a good thing.”
I stared at the inscription a few seconds more, a curious thought clawing at my brain.
Amano noted my consternation. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve seen a number sequence like this before. But I can’t remember where.” I closed my eyes, envisioned the date of our wedding, and then tried to visualize the sequence I’d seen … and wondered why it made me think of Dane. Finally I shook my head. “All this intrigue is clearly messing with my mind. I’m going to do a little yoga. Thanks for bringing me the bracelet.”
I collected our dishes and took them into the kitchen to load in the washer. Then I grabbed my mat and went out by the pool. Gretchen had already told me not to do any poses on my back or that would stretch my abdo
minals too much, now that I’d started my second trimester. So I took it easy, really just working on my breathing and light stretching while my mind churned with the mystery of those eight digits.
It took all day for one very ominous thought to click in my head. I was in the middle of slicing veggies for an appetizer platter before dinner when I dropped the knife. It clamored on the marble counter and Amano jerked to attention, having been engrossed in a magazine.
“Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” My blood ran cold. Numbers that weren’t quite defined but rather a bit blurred flashed in my mind. They were red. Blood red. Then they vanished. Next, I heard Dane’s voice.
Digits? Do you remember what they were?
I hadn’t written anything down that night I’d viewed the Lux’s Web site to see what sort of jobs for the Events department were posted, wanting to get an idea of the positions that would report to and support me, were I to take Dane up on his offer to run the show.
Suddenly the site had turned a deep onyx and the words Under Construction had flickered on the screen, in crimson. Along with numbers in the bottom right-hand corner.
I closed my eyes again, attempting to make a distinct determination of what I’d seen before the Web page had gone blank, solid black.
I could see the five and the one. I concentrated harder, and though I couldn’t recall the exact numbers after those two, I could for sure say there’d been eight digits total.
My lids snapped open.
“Who, besides the secret society, would know about the backwards writing of dates?” I asked Amano.
He looked a bit perplexed by the line of questioning but shook his head. “I can’t say. I only learned about the society when Vale kidnapped you. And Dane didn’t tell me much.”
“It’s supposed to be generational,” I mused, not really certain in which direction my jumbled thoughts ran. “So if Vale wasn’t the sharpest tool in the toolshed, but could still prove his worth to the society—namely the five corrupt members—he might get a seat at the table. But he’d really have to pull off some spectacularly masterminded schemes. Like … gently fuck things up at the Lux, initially, to get Dane, Ethan, Qadir, and Nikolai to consider bringing the original investors back into the fold.”
As I ruminated over this, Amano joined me at the island, sliding onto a stool, obviously intrigued.
I said, “When that didn’t work, Vale had to come up with a more insidious plot. Kidnap me and hold me for ransom, basically twisting Dane’s arm until he cried uncle. But that didn’t work, either. And Vale nearly got the life kicked out of him. Which wouldn’t go over well with Daddy and the others, so his only saving grace would be to take the ultimate, drastic approach. Not just to save face and secure his seat at the secret-society table but also for personal revenge.”
Hadn’t I been thinking of that a lot lately? And understood how it affected people such as Vale?
Amano said, “I’d warned my security staff about Vale after he’d kidnapped you. They all knew what he looked like—there was no way he could get on-property without being seen by a camera, monitored by my guys.”
I didn’t doubt that. Amano was very thorough—especially after what had happened to me. Still …
“Vale wasn’t doing the dirty work, remember?” I said. “It was Wayne Horton. And he knew every square inch of that property, every nook and cranny of those buildings. He had experience with IT, the security procedures and access points, the camera locations and angles.… And let’s face it, he’s one sneaky bastard.”
Wayne’s devious smile flashed in my mind. I cringed. The last thing I really wanted to think about was that terrifying day right here on this land. All similarities had been cleared away and a new house and grounds replaced the old, and yet this was the very spot where Vale had brought me. With Wayne Horton’s help.
“It’s impossible, Ari. I fired Wayne after you told me he’d purposely distracted you when you got into the F5, so that you didn’t look over to see that it wasn’t Dane driving the vehicle.”
“Yeah, there is that.…”
“All of the access codes were changed. Every employee badge was reprogrammed with different rule sets. He wasn’t privy to any of that. He couldn’t have gained access to the lobby to plant the bomb.”
