Page 9

8 A.M.

Stacey couldn’t help but find it a bit unnerving having Frost stationed at the spare desk.

It was an area that had accommodated many experts and consultants over the years, but having Frost taking up space hadn’t been on her bingo card.

‘You’re watching me again,’ Frost said, raising her head and meeting Stacey’s gaze.

‘You make me nervous,’ Stacey said honestly.

‘Of what?’

‘Having a conversation,’ she said, nodding towards Penn, who was now listening and who had also been silent since the boss had left. ‘Normally we’d be throwing around ideas, spinning theories, bouncing off each other.’

Frost looked from her to Penn. ‘What’s stopping you?’

‘Not knowing how much of what we say is gonna end up in one of your articles either now or sometime in the future.’

‘Absolutely nothing. Firstly, I brought this to you, so I’m just as invested. Secondly, I don’t even care about your conversations. Thirdly, it has been made very clear to me what I’ll lose if one word of what you discuss leaves this room.’

‘What will you lose?’ Penn asked.

‘According to your boss, my life.’

In spite of herself, Stacey chuckled. Not one of them understood the dynamic between the boss and the reporter, but if Kim trusted her, then she had to as well.

She just couldn’t help feeling that Frost was judging their every move. While attempting to track the phone number being used by the Jester, she’d found herself wondering if Frost was thinking she was wasting her time or thinking she should have been working on something else. It would be no surprise to anyone that the phone he was using was a burner, but they’d had to check it out.

Stacey resolved that she would do her job normally and pretend Frost wasn’t even in the room.

‘Okay, Penn,’ she said, turning her attention back to her colleague and the case. ‘What are you working on?’

‘I tried googling the name “the Jester”, but without a team of five to work through the millions of search results, I’m a bit stuck on that.’

Stacey could imagine. She had been searching for anything similar in other forces’ records and had so far come up blank. She’d had the same result checking for the Jester on the main boards of the Seekers’ and other geocaching sites.

Of the other tasks set by the boss, Frost herself was working on why he’d chosen her, so that left only one thing they could do.

‘Okay, let’s work on the clue,’ Stacey said, looking to where Penn had written it on the board.

‘Let’s take out key words: human, nature, spring, food.’

Penn stood and noted the four words separately on the board.

Stacey called out words as Penn wrote them down. They were a mixture of what she was looking at on screen and words already in her head.

‘Human, person, being, individual, citizen, mortal, species.’

She waited for him to catch up.

‘Nature, insects, wildlife, forests, flowers, plants, hiking, traits, personality.’

Stacey paused.

‘Spring, summer, winter, autumn, season, coil, spiral.’

She paused again.

‘Food, sustenance, fuel, eat and way too many more to even consider,’ she said, looking at the board, which was now awash with random words. She hadn’t had a clue before, and she had even less idea now.

What the hell kind of mind came up with stuff like this? And more importantly, what else were they capable of?