Page 219 of G.O.D.S Omnibus

“Dinner is ready if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks, we will be out in a second.”

She nods her head and disappears.

“I think I . . .”

I turn my attention back to Jimmie. “What can you see?”

“It’s what we can’t see. This is unlike anything either of us has ever come across. What if it’s a jigsaw puzzle?”

“You’re a fucking genius! That’s the link you were talking about. When I was a kid, he would compare what I did to a puzzle, and I worked on coding puzzles, but they were nothing like this one. Though I was only five at the time.”

“So apply the same principles as school—the work starts out easy, and the information is repeated year after year. It just gets more technical as time goes on.”

Jimmie slides the laptop to me, and I do as he says. My mind easily accesses the information from when I was a child. I’m no super brain like Brennan or Boston, but when it comes to computers, I just get it.

“I did it,” I say with a laugh, clicking the folder.

Its password locked, but at least those are easy to crack. I let Jimmie do the honours of removing the password, which he tells me was a level one. I sigh. That means we haven’t even scratched the surface of this, but at least we have some idea of what Mr Z was doing. Not that he would have done this himself; he would have hired someone.

The folder opens and is labelled Zircon Olympia. I run my hand over my face. These could be the files on us we have been searching for. For years, we have wanted to get our hands on them, and now, we might finally have that chance.

“Should we open it? Jolie might not want us to see it,” Jimmie says.

“Maybe, but whatever is in there will lead us to what else is on here.”

“Or we download it onto a secure drive and then go back and look at the puzzle again. There might be another way to solve it and unlock the other files. It’s at least worth a shot before we ask her—she will skin you alive if you don’t. Marlow, she is still really hurt over all the lies. Would she forgive you for this, and are you willing to take that risk?”

“You’re right,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s have some dinner and some sleep. If you want, we can meet up again tomorrow and continue.”

“Are you serious? I would love to.”

“You’re a good friend to her,” I add, before standing. I don’t want shit to get too mushy.

“She is a good friend to me too, and I needed her in my life, even though I didn’t know it.”

We both head to the dining room. It isn’t as large as the one in the main house, but we all manage to fit. When we enter the kitchen, no one is there. We both look around at the empty space. “Maybe they are on the back deck,” I suggest. “Brennan makes a mean steak on the barbeque.”

Sure enough, everyone is on the back patio. Petra is setting the table, and Brennan is pulling the last of the meat off the grill. Jimmie gets a call from Betty and decides he will go home and have dinner with her. It’s a good idea, especially since they are both trying hard to make it work.

“There you are! I was going to send a search party to find you soon,” Petra jokes.

I join the table, and Petra hands me a plate. Kai leans forward to grab a bread roll.

“Don’t be a savage. Let Jolie eat first,” Chester snaps, throwing his butter knife at Kai, who actually catches it mid-air.

“It’s fine. There is plenty of food,” she insists.

“He can be a gentleman and either let you serve your food first, or he can serve it for you,” Chester grits out.

Case stands and takes Jolie’s plate and helps her load it with a bit of everything. Then he places it down in front of her, where she is currently seated on Chester’s lap.

“Can we eat now?” Kai complains, his voice taking on a whiny tone. Chester nods, and Kai proceeds to stack his plate.

Brennan clears his throat after we have all served ourselves. He beats me to making the announcement that I cracked one of the codes. “Jolie... I need to tell you something. I’m sorry we haven’t told you sooner, but I was waiting until we had something solid.”

“Okay,” she says, looking up at him.

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