Page 7 of Lost Hours
Jude frowned. “So much for that idea.”
“So back to the poster then.” Abby looked around. “The fight may be tough, but so are you! Time to try the punching bag in the corner.”
Nearest to the bag, Gabe grabbed a pair of gloves and handed them to her, then slipped his hand into one. “There’s something in here.” He pulled out small pieces of paper. He dropped the glove and jostled the papers. “Letters. Just a bunch of letters cut out of a newspaper or magazine.”
Abby took her hand from her glove. “Mine are numbers.”
“Check the other ones.” Nolan turned his attention back to the trophies. “I wasn’t a jock, but could they be from championships or records set by any of you in high school?”
“Not me.” Gabe moved to the table holding the wooden box and laid the papers on the table. “I was too into motorcycles and chicks to be bothered with sports.”
“I played basketball,” Reece said.
“You gotta know I wasn’t tall enough to do anything except make posters for the pep squad.” Laughing, Abby joined Gabe and let a handful of papers filter down onto the table. “These are the cutout numbers from my glove but the other ones were empty.”
“I was a football fanatic.” Hayden crossed over to the case.
“Me too,” Jude said, coming up behind them. “Quarterback, in fact. I set several passing records.” He leaned closer to the trophy case. “Nothing I recognize in there.”
Nolan stepped back. “Hayden, check out the trophies to see if any of them are related to you.”
“We won state one year and got a big trophy.” Hayden took Nolan’s place in front of the trophy case. “Nope. Not in there. These look like individual trophies and not all look sports-related.”
What in the world is going on here?
“Maybe these letters and numbers will tell us something,” Abby said.
“I suppose they could help find the key to the trophy case.” Nolan stepped over to Abby and Gabe.
Abby tapped the wooden box on the table. “Could be in here, but it’s locked too. Looks like some fancy smart combination lock.”
Hayden joined her and lifted the lock to study it. “You’re right. Our host can access it remotely and open it at any time.”
Reece grinned at him over her shoulder. “Being our resident geek, you would know that.”
Hayden rolled his eyes as he often did when being called a geek, but the shoe fit. He’d helped them all with computer issues in college and when they’d attended police academy together. Now, he’d taken that role in their team, and Nolan couldn’t be more grateful to have someone with exceptional computer skills on his side.
Abby moved a few pieces of paper around. “I’m assuming this is going to spell out a message of some sort. Do you think it’s related to the academy or boxing since we found it in the glove or something else?”
“Not sure.” Gabe shoved around nearby letters, then looked up. “If you go by the ink colors and background, we can sort this into words. So far I’ve gotthe, is,andto.”
“The numbers could be a date.” Nolan rearranged the scraps until he formed a date.
“That’s our academy graduation day,” Abby said, still moving letters around. “I’ve gotbest.”
“Andyet,” Gabe said.
Nolan shifted the last four letters. “Come.”
“The best is yet to come,” Abby cried out but didn’t need to explain as they all used this saying to help get through tough days at the academy.
Nolan spun. “What else are we missing related to the academy? Maybe specific to graduation.”
“The bookshelf,” Reece called out. “Our class graduation picture.”
Abby charged over to the bookshelf and grabbed the framed picture. She flipped it over and ran her fingers along the back. “There’s something in here.”
She freed the backing. “A key. It has a key taped to it. Small, like it would fit the trophy case lock.”
