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“Swallowed it.”
“Swallowed it,” I repeat tonelessly. “Did Penelope not feed you well enough at home that you decided you need the nutritional value of paper?”
Raquel rolls her eyes. “I needed to destroy the cipher just in case he got his hands on it.”
“Why not —oh, I don’t know— rip it up?”
“It’s called tape.Duh. Swallowing it was the only thing I could do in the moment.”
“But how are you supposed to decode something you don’t have?”
She taps her temple. “Don’t worry. I have it all right here.”
“Really?”
“What? Don’t believe me?”
“Not at all.”
“Ye of little faith. I happen to have a photographic memory, so I remember every little detail.”
“Prove it.”
She sighs. “Fine. Give me your phone.”
I stare at her, unsure what she’s playing at. “You stole my car, and now you want me to willingly hand you my phone?”
She shrugs. “I’m sorry?”
“No, you’re not.”
After a tense beat, I reluctantly hand my iPhone over to her. She navigates the home screen expertly, though she does click her tongue and grumble something about having “way too many apps open.” I watch her work, impressed with the concentration in her eyes.
She opens a note app and types the cipher with the tip of her finger. I peer over her shoulder.
“A Caesar box cipher,” I realize aloud.
“Precisely what I thought,” she says, sounding very pleased. She looks up at me with a smile. It quickly falters when she realizes how close our lips are.
I go rigid. The last time we were this close, she made me ruin my pants. I won’t make the same mistake twice. At least, not any time soon.
“Do you know how to solve it?” I ask her.
She nods slowly. “I think so. Dad was super into codes. That was his thing.”
“I remember.”
Raquel glances at me like she has more questions, but she holds her tongue. It makes me wonder how much my old friend talks about his old life. Not a lot, by the looks of it.
She solves the cipher in a manner of seconds, realigning the jumble of letters into neat little columns and rows. Read vertically from left to right, it reads—
“TheVase of Aphrodite,” she says out loud.
I groan. “Goddammit, Chet.”
“What’s the matter? What’s theVase of Aphrodite?”
I rub a hand over my face. “Back when I was still a part of the crew, we’d sometimes hide things in our more sizeable takes. Keys to safety deposit boxes, personal items, maps to help us find where we’d stashed our rainy-day funds.”
