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“Not even close,” Lexie scoffed.
I got the feeling Ava was trying to distract Wolf from his thoughts while we waited for Hunter and Damon. He gave Ava a small smile, but seemed to have zoned out a little again, as if his thoughts had gone inwards. He was absentmindedly stroking Ava’s waist. I figured it was a hang up from being alone so much. He seemed to crave touch.
I kept one ear on the girls’ chatter about Maia’s pregnancy as I got up and wandered over to the box to inspect it. New things had always intrigued me.
Nick came over beside me and ran a hand over it. “Sam said he saw it working once, and it was open and had lights on. But there’s no obvious power supply or on/off switch.”
The comparison to the giant box generating energy underneath the Palace unsettled me. I unconsciously glanced down at the floor, as if I could see what was beneath us.
“I know,” Nick said, picking up where my thoughts had gone with eerie accuracy. “I suspect that’s why Max really brought it.”
I walked around the box, conscious of Max watching us closely. It seemed to be sealed tight, but there was definitely a front. It had a strange circular pattern embedded in it, then a large slot with a weird shape bisecting the middle.
“It looks like it turns,” Nick said, “but nothing we’ve tried will make it move. It needs some kind of unusual key. If they left it behind at their gramps’ house, it’s long-gone now. Maven burned it to the ground.”
“I had a contact at the Network, but there’s no way my method of contacting him would work now. It involved leaving a coded message at a hotel. I can’t imagine it’s still open, even if the phone lines worked,” I said.
My thoughts weren’t really on my words, though. Something was sitting at the edge of my mind. Niggling at me. I looked over at the people on the couches, trying to think of what I’d seen and what connection my brain was trying to make.
“What are you teasing out?” Ryder came over and asked me. He knew the way my mind worked, that it had snagged on something. Sometimes talking helped, but usually if I just let my mind drift where it wanted to go, without forcing it in a particular direction, the answer came to me.
“What…” Nick started to say until Ryder put his hand over Nick’s mouth playfully.
“Be quiet for a second,” Ryder stage whispered. “He’s got this weird voodoo thing he does with a problem. Just let him do his thing.”
Nick just reached up and twisted Ryder’s nipple. “Ow,” Ryder hissed, but he was laughing as he let Nick go.
“Go, Nick, with the purple nurple,” Lexie called out. But my attention kept getting pulled back to the box.
I looked at the device again, then back to the couches, and let my mind drift. My eyes snagged on Maia in her ridiculously oversized military jacket. It had caught my eye earlier because it was an unusual thing for a woman to wear.
“Whose jacket is that?” I asked her when I noticed they’d stopped talking and were watching me. I knew it couldn’t possibly be hers. It had medals on it that looked real, but I needed to know where she’d gotten it from. I knew the Network was mostly made up of retired military guys. It seemed too much of a coincidence.
“It was my gramps’ jacket. Leif rescued it as a memento for me. I know it’s too big, but after reading his letter this morning, it’s making me feel better to wear it.” She sounded a little defensive as she pulled the jacket tighter around her. I was about to reassure her I had meant no offense with my question when my eyes snagged on the medals pinned to it. The light had hit them as she’d pulled the jacket closed, making the metal glitter brightly.
I felt a cold sweat break out over my neck. I looked at the device and back at the medals again.
“Could I borrow your jacket?” I asked her. Maia looked at Leif and seemed unsure.
“He won’t harm it, I promise,” Ava said. “He used to do this when we were kids. His brain works at a problem until he solves it. He’s good at seeing patterns.”
Maia slipped off the jacket and handed it to Max, who cradled it protectively as he brought it over to me.
“This jacket means a lot to her,” he murmured. I nodded, and he handed the jacket over.
I looked at the medals, then at the device again. I carefully unpinned one and held it up sideways against the lock. It slipped in easily, fitting snuggly as something within the mechanism clicked. The medal had been an ornate four-pointed star, and three points were within the lock. I was holding onto the last one, trying to keep it steady.
“Holy shit,” Max gasped. “I’ve been trying to figure that out for days.”
“What?” Maia cried out as she slipped off Leif’s lap and dashed over. She was speechless when she saw what I had done.
“Do you want me to turn it?” I asked Max.
“Not yet,” he answered. “Can someone grab Damon and Hunter? They can’t have gone far.”
“I’ll go,” Pala volunteered.
“Ryder, can you take the girls and Angel into another room?” I asked him. We knew nothing about how this machine worked and, from what I’d heard, it had hidden in a basement for years.
