Ice Shock(27)

I run a search for all files created in the last week. Then I look thoroughly through the image files. Four of them are scans, made two days ago—the same day the pages were taken from my house. I bring them up on screen. Bingo.

I delete all four images of the codex pages and leave the room. All I need to do now is destroy the original hand-copied pages, and that’s it—mission accomplished. No need to worry that Ollie and Madison’s group will be able to use any information from the Ix Codex.

In the kitchen, I turn on the gas stove and set fire to the pages, watching them crumble to ash on the stove top. I can hardly believe I’ve gotten away with this so easily. I’m all set to leave the same way I entered when I realize what an opportunity I’m missing. Her computer is totally accessible! This is my chance—maybe my only chance—to gather information about the enemy.

I can’t pass it up. Even the NRO and Montoyo seem to know almost nothing about Madison.

I go back upstairs, the alarm still shrieking like a banshee—but the world outside is oblivious, as I predicted. Back on the computer, I go to her e-mail.

Immediately, I notice e-mails from “Simon.” I read a couple—they’re short, telling Ollie where he is (Cambridge, Connecticut, Beirut), making comments about me—obviously responding to things she’s been telling him.

But all I can see is the way they’re signed.

Love ya baby, S

I feel my skin burning red, while the pit of my stomach turns to ice.

I push myself to look further. No other e-mails from anyone with familiar-sounding names. I read some of the e-mails to and from Tyler. It’s pretty standard, friendly stuff. There’s lots of speculation about what happened to me in Mexico, how “messed up” I am.

And that makes me wonder if Ollie had Tyler fooled too. Girls don’t usually send a guy that many “hi there” e-mails. For a brief second, I wonder what he’d make of it. Would he feel as bad as I do? I could spend hours just on their e-mails, but I press on.

I look through her folders. No obviously suspicious names. I search for documents opened in the last week.

I find a Word document in the Temporary folder. It looks as though it was received as an e-mail attachment.

It’s a list of place names. Maybe towns in Germany, Italy, or Switzerland—Andermatt, Wengen, Morcote, Ticino. Beside each is a sum in euros. It could be a list of vacation homes and their prices, for all I can tell.

The first page is followed by a long list of names, with nationalities. I punch the “Page Down” button a few times. There are pages and pages, hundreds of names from countries on every continent.

It’s the letterhead design that really catches my eye. It’s a Mayan symbol, or looks like one. Not a glyph made up of syllables, but a logogram—a whole word. I don’t remember seeing it before, but then I’m hardly an expert. It looks something like the eye of a storm. I’m staring at it when I hear the front door being opened. By someone in a hurry.

I freeze momentarily, staring in dumb horror at the staircase, waiting to hear someone walk upstairs. The burglar alarm stops; the downstairs lights go on. I hear someone pace toward the kitchen. Then I hear Ollie’s voice: “Who’s there?” In half a second, I’m out of the office and into the unused double bedroom, hiding.

There’s going to be no easy way to explain my being in her house, alone, window smashed and lights out. My only hope is to stay out of sight until she assumes I’ve already left, and then go. I glance around the room, hunting for a hiding place. I climb into a wardrobe, among a rack of suits. I breathe slowly, stay perfectly still.

Inside the wardrobe, I can’t hear so well. I don’t hear Ollie’s movements until the bedroom door opens. She can’t be taking more than a quick look around, because she closes the door a second later.

Time passes. I wait. In the calm of this moment, it sinks in; what seemed like a paranoid nightmare has come true.

It really was Ollie. But at least Tyler is in the clear.

The minutes tick by. It occurs to me that I’ve maybe done a stupid thing. In here, I have no idea where Ollie is. She could be anywhere. I can’t leave until I know she’s safely tucked away in the bathroom or her bedroom. Slowly, slowly, I open the wardrobe door, praying that it won’t squeak.

It doesn’t.

I step out, then stumble slightly and lose my balance. I manage to land on the bed with a quiet thud. I stay rigidly still, waiting for the inevitable sound of Ollie at the door. But it doesn’t come. I stand, creep over to the door, and listen. I hear the faint sound of Ollie’s voice. She’s talking on the phone downstairs, quietly. With each passing second, I’m getting more desperate to get out of this house, but I can’t risk going downstairs while she’s there.