Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
“Here,” she said, and handed him her phone. She’d obviously taken a photo and zoomed in. “I watched him do that with a spoon from food that same man brought in.” Rex turned the picture over, and sure enough, the phrase Cyrus was here was scratched upside down into the finish on the wood-planked wall.
“Cyrus,” he murmured. It didn’t necessarily do them any good as far as locating him, but it might serve them at some point, and it was good to be able to refer to him by name. Thanks, kid. “Did you do another search online for missing—”
“Yes. And I searched his first name, too, to see if anything came up in relation to missing kids or online posts, and didn’t find anything.” She showed him the photos of the frog and the bird, though, and went through her search for the two creatures she’d spotted outside the window.
He gave her a wry tip of his lips. “The military could use you.”
Her answering smile was fleeting. “Cyrus is still in danger, though, and we’re not much closer.”
“We might be soon. That celestial navigation expert I mentioned has been designing a program that uses the stars—either in real time or from a photograph—to pinpoint locations. Depending on the input, he’s able to get very close. Unfortunately, the horizon isn’t visible in the photo we have of the night sky outside that window.” He nodded to the computer. “But he’s going to do his calculations and see what he can come up with. We also have a photo of the sun, which is helpful.”
She chewed at her lip, and he suddenly noticed how absolutely exhausted she looked. The red around her eyes was even more pronounced, and a small muscle twitched in the right corner under her lashes. “A photo of the stars can really do that?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s called celestial navigation, and marine and aircraft navigators have used it for centuries.” The science necessary was extremely complex, involving spherical trigonometry and other advanced mathematics, but Joaquin was building a program that would—in theory—allow someone to input a photograph of the overhead stars and come up with an exact location. Or even an inexact location.
Its uses were myriad and plenty.
She rubbed her eye as she nodded. “Thank you for reaching out to him. He didn’t ask—”
“No. Not a single question.”
She turned back to the computer. “One more thing.” She pointed near the door where a fast-food bag sat, what he assumed was the trash from the meal she’d mentioned had been delivered. Next to it was a folded-over plastic bag that had the portion of a red letter showing on the front. “That logo. I’ve been trying to determine what it might be, and it doesn’t seem like anything from a chain. The man had the playing cards in it and so maybe it’s a local store that if we could figure out the name, we could look up the location.”
Great thinking. He picked the computer up and set it on his knees as he looked more closely at it. But it was such a partial view that he couldn’t make anything out. “Maybe when the man comes back to pick up the trash, he’ll turn it so that we can make it out more clearly.”
She suppressed a yawn. “That’s what I’m hoping.”
“Listen, Cami, I’ve been thinking.”
She raised her tired eyes to his, and he saw the flash of anxiety—she thought he was going to drop bad news on her. Maybe about his involvement, or the limited time he was willing to give. But he’d already decided he was in this, come what may. “I think we should go there.”
She blinked. “Go where?”
“To Northern California. If we can get a more accurate location—either through my buddy or another means—that leads us close to where Cyrus is, we’ll need to be able to hop in the car right away.”
She looked away as she grasped her hands in her lap and lifted her shoulders. “The person on the phone did say I was invited to locate Cyrus, so travel can’t be off limits, even if the device is being monitored.” When she looked back at him, she tipped her chin. “Okay. Yes. But where? Where in Northern California should we go?”
Rex rubbed his jaw for a moment before taking his phone from his pocket and looking up a map of the area. “How about we fly into San Francisco and then rent a car and start driving up the coast? If we’re right about the cabin Cyrus is being kept in being located near the ocean, then he’ll be somewhere just beyond those cliffs.”
Cami nodded and picked up her laptop, making the video of Cyrus playing cards smaller and opening a browser tab. She went to the site of an airline and began inputting dates and locations.