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ChapterTwenty-Three
Ariana flipped through the pages of the little notebook with shaky fingers. She tried to say something, but couldn’t find her voice.
Lia whipped around. “You found something? You were supposed to tell me.”
“I… it… this was taped to the top back.”
“Does it have the safe combination?” Lia hurried over and looked over Ari’s shoulder.
“The first pages are all in code.”
“Stop,” Lia said. “There are notes there.”
“Who’s Mitch?” Ariana asked.
The page they were on listed all kinds of details about someone — name, birthdate, likes, dislikes, quirks. Nothing that would help them find him. No address or phone number.
“Is that Jared’s real name?” Lia asked, her eyes widening.
“I don’t know. She didn’t put a date on any of these.”
“Try his birthday on the safe.”
Ariana’s mind raced as she turned around and spun the numbers on the dial.
Nothing.
Lia swore. “What’s it going to take to open that thing?”
“She obviously didn’t want this Mitch person to guess the code either,” Ariana said. “I think that points to Mitch either being her boyfriend, or perhaps someone she saw in the past.”
“Definitely. What else is in there?”
Ariana flipped through the pages. The last fourth of the book was blank. “I’m going to try to figure out the code on the first pages.”
“Let me see.”
Ari flipped back and stopped at a random page. The letters were all in random order, but were listed out in paragraphs as if they communicated something.
But what?
“Does this look familiar to you?” Ari asked.
Lia looked closer. “No, but it reminds me of the secret codes my friends and I made up in middle school to keep the boys from reading the notes we passed back and forth.”
“How’d you make the codes?” Ari asked. “My friends and I never did that.”
“We had no other choice,” Lia said. “The teachers collected our phones every morning and didn’t give them back until the end of the day.”
“Can you crack Rita’s code?”
“Maybe.”
Ari handed her the notebook and felt around the drawer again. After finding nothing, she replaced all the items and looked over the drawers, trying to decide which to tackle next.
“I cracked it!” Lia said.
“Already?”
