Page 102 of The Number of Love
She didn’t answer, and he knew as he opened the door and stepped inside that she wasn’t there.
The flat wasn’t empty though. Muffled noises came from Drake’s bedroom—a thumping and a muted vocalization. “Dot?” He surged forward, praying with every ounce of hope he had that his certainty had been wrong, that she was there. Bound, gagged perhaps, but there.
Red somehow beat him to the doorway, his face in agony. “Dotty, we’re coming!” He pushed open the door. It swung free about eight inches, then it stuck, and another muffled yell sounded.
Margot stood frozen a few paces from the door. Seeing it, but not just it. Seeing her mother’s door, too, that terrible morning. When she’d pushed it open, only to find it wouldn’t go. That it had stuck against her prone figure on the floor.
Her throat went tight. Even though she knew it was different this time, still her throat went tight. And the fingers that Drake had dropped as he vaulted forward curled toward her palms.
Numbers clamored for release. Prayers that had remained too long unprayed. Supplications.Thirteen, twenty-six, thirty-nine. Praises.Three, nine, twenty-seven, eighty-one.Pleas for forgiveness.Eighteen. Eighteen. Eighteen.
Red had squeezed through the opening and helped the blue-clad legs find purchase on the floor. Drake swung the door wide.
It must have been the guard they’d posted. He was clearly a navy man, and even from here Margot could see the bloodied knot on his head. His hands were bound behind him, his ankles tied tight, and a balled-up rag had been tied into his mouth, the poor chap.
Red and Drake soon had the gag removed, the ropes cut. Margot spun for the kitchen, Maman’s voice in her head.Get the poor lad some water, Margot. Can you not see thathe will be parched?
Maman had always been wise. The man was managing little more than a few hoarse croaks until she handed him the water, which he guzzled greedily. Then he sank onto the end of Drake’s bed with an audible “Thanks.”
“Tell me what happened, seaman. Where’s my sister?”
The lad shook his head. “I was escorting her home from the OB, Lieutenant, as you’d told me to do. We’d just gotten to the door, and your sister was fishing her keys out of her handbag—she was upset and having a time of it, so I was trying to help. Then, the next thing I know, I woke up here, and it was afternoon already.”
Red spat out his opinion on the matter, shoved agitated fingers through his hair, and spun toward the window. “Where is she? Where? Do you think—is he going to hurt her?”
“I don’t know.” Drake, too, spun. Margot, still on the threshold because it felt too odd to go into his room, watched his eyes flit from left to right, up and down, every which way. Searching for answers. Or, lacking those, for questions. Then the color drained from his cheeks as he stared at something she couldn’t see from where she stood. “Margot. Come here, please.”
Her feet obeyed before her mind even commanded them to do so, and that one step was all it took to remove the wall from her view and replace it with the small desk. On top of which sat a familiar game board, black and white stones arranged just so and a white slip of paper anchored under the corner.
She took in the play first, frowning. It wasn’t their game. Countless times he had taken the board down and set it up again, and always each stone was in the proper position. But this was different. Had she made a different play two moves ago, it could have gone this way, but she’d been smarter than that. Because she’d considered this move, she’d guessed at his response, and she knew that if she moved her white stone like that, she’d be trapped. As he showed her now.
She snatched at the paper. Two words this time.Kikashi.When one forced an opponent into a move that would ruin their momentum. And under that,aji keshi. When one had been outsmarted.
Her fingers convulsed around the paper. “He’s not going to outsmart us. He willnot.”
“No. He won’t.” Drake moved the board a bit, peered around it. Checked the desk drawer. Peered underneath it. Spun for the small shelf by the window.
“What are you looking for?” Red asked.
Drake darted a glance at her. “My poetry book. And the notebook I kept with it. They were on my desk when I left. They’re always there.”
So he could write to her. Those beautiful messages, written in code.
“Why would he take that?” The guard sounded baffled.
“Good question. I think ... I think he intends to tell us something more. More than he can do through Go.”
Three of six. The words, the number exploded in her mind like fireworks, so sweet she nearly gasped from their splendor. They trickled down through her spirit, summer rain on parched soil. A balm. A song. A perfect proposition.
She reached for Drake. “My flat. Now. Three of six.”
“What is three of six?” But even as he asked, he took her hand and followed her out.
“Eighteen. My flat. That day, anyway. Because it’s—it doesn’t matter, just come.”
His grandfather and his attendant were in the doorway, blocking it, but they slid aside when they saw the speed of their approach. Shouted a question after them, but Drake shouted back that Red would fill them in and didn’t slow.
No more words, not on the stairs. They didn’t need them. It was enough that he trusted her. It was enough that God had spoken again in her soul. It was enough to make her hope that there was time, still, to save Dot.
