Page 71 of Edge of Ruin
“Go ahead,” Jack said. “Lose it all you want, for as long as you want. You’re entitled.”
He stroked my hair while I hid my face in my hands. I raised my face after a moment. “I want to call my sisters,” I blurted.
“It’s three a.m., New York time,” he reminded me gently. “We’ll be there tomorrow. We’ve waited this long. Can’t you wait a few hours more?”
“Okay,” I said, sniffling. “I guess.”
Jack laid the united necklaces on the bedside table next to the gun and slid between the sheets. He held the covers up for me. “Will a hard-ass broad like you allow for some cuddling in bed?” he asked.
“Oh, hell, yeah,” I said, sliding between the sheets and into the hot, lovely rush of his tight embrace. “I may be a hard-ass, but I’m not an idiot.”
I let his warmth relax me for a few moments and then turned up to look searchingly into his face. “Thank you for coming back to save me,” I said.
He gazed back. “Anytime,” he replied. “But the truth is, I was saving my own ass. Thank you for still being alive when I got there.”
Tears prickled in my eyes, but if I gave in to them again, I was afraid they would drown me.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jack
Duncan and Vivi’s sister Nell met us at the airport. Nell was horrified when she saw the battered-looking, hollow-eyed Vivi, and insisted on sitting in the back with her little sister and holding her hand while Duncan and I debriefed.
At one point, I looked back and found Nell’s eyes sparkling at me. “What does that Latin phrase mean, anyhow?” I asked her hastily.
“Hail queen, mother of mercy, first Doric mode,” Nell told me.
“Does that mean anything to you?”
Nell shook her head regretfully. “Not in particular, no. It’s just a common phrase from the Catholic liturgy.”
We headed to Nancy and Liam’s place, and I bucked up my extremely depleted social energy to meet two new people. Fortunately, they both seemed mellow and sensible, and disposed to be friendly and approving. Liam struck me as intelligent and canny, the older sister Nancy likewise. I felt at ease with them immediately.
Liam had prepared a juicy and appetizing pot roast with a mountain of gleaming potatoes and vegetables. I dug into it gratefully. Afterward, we gathered in Liam’s workshop around an unfinished dining room table, upon which he had set Lucia’s unopened safe.
“So?” Nancy asked briskly. “Do we try just keying in the letters of the phrase? In Latin, or in English?”
“Try them both,” Vivi said.
“You’re sure it won’t explode in our faces if we get it wrong?” Duncan asked, his eyes wary.
“Only if we try to crack the safe,” Nancy reassured him.
Duncan looked far from reassured, but Nancy just got to it, frowning down at the keypad as she keyed in the long sequence.
The little button flashed red. The door remained locked.
“In English, then,” Nancy said, undaunted. She keyed in the new sequence. The light flashed red again. “Nope.”
We all pondered the safe, discouraged. Nancy held up the linked pendants. “Hail queen, mother of mercy,” she repeated slowly. “I’ve seen this translation. First Doric mode is a musical term. This was sung, not ... oh. Oh, my God. Yes.”
“What?” we all demanded, in a ragged chorus.
“Just a minute. Let me get something.” Nancy leaped to her feet and scurried out. She came back moments later, a CD in her hand.
“Novum Gaudium!” she announced. “They’re a Gregorian chant choir that I represent! I took Lucia up to see their concert last Christmas, at the Cloisters Museum concert series. She loved it! She even bought the disc.” Nancy pried out the liner notes. “Let me see … it’s a Marian antiphon, and the phrase ‘hail queen, mother of mercy’ is the incipit. This is in Doric mode. I wonder if she meant for us to somehow get a code out of the music. But how?”
Jack spoke up, his voice hesitant. “I don’t know anything about music,” he said. “But could the tune have some sort of numeric correspondence?”
