Chapter 10: Code

I didn't ask Cade about the first of the month.

I told myself I would, and then Wednesday came and he was gone before I woke up.

The Ironhorse had a film session at the club until eleven.

Marlo was in the living room with a bowl of popcorn and the baseball bat across her knees, watching a baking show.

"Go to bed," she told me at nine. "You look like a ghost in a robe."

"I'm going."

I went upstairs, closed my bedroom door, counted to a hundred and walked down the hall in socks.

The study was dark.

Cade had left the lamp on his desk, and it threw a gold circle on the wood.

I stood in front of the safe and tried to think like Cade.

He was a man who wrote things down only when he couldn't stop thinking about them.

Four digits.

His birthday didn't work.

Mavis's didn't work.

Mine, the date we got married, didn't work.

I stepped back and my hip hit the glass case on the side wall.

A rugby ball sat inside it on a small stand, scuffed and old.

A brass plate on the base read, "Ironhorse 24, Cromwell Sports 20. National Final. May 21."

I stared at it.

Then I turned and put my finger on the dial.

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