Page 32 of The Catcher (High Peaks Murder, Mystery and Crime Thrillers #5)
N oah blinked as he was jolted awake by a loud knocking at the door.
Rubbing his eyes, he glanced at his side table clock.
It was blinking red. It was a little after one in the afternoon.
Through a gap in his curtains, he could see the grey skies outside.
He had been hoping for a chance to sleep in after a long and exhausting day, but after returning home, he was faced with the sight of the busted window in his study.
Noah had spent the early hours of the morning clearing the branches and debris, hastily covering the broken window with black garbage bags taped to the frame.
By the time he had finally slipped into bed, it was two in the morning.
“Go away!” he grumbled, pulling the pillow over his head in a futile attempt to drown out the persistent knocking. However, the sound continued, undeterred.
“All right, all right, I’m coming,” Noah muttered, reluctantly tossing the duvet cover back and rolling out of bed.
He grabbed his robe and wrapped it around himself, the fabric providing some measure of warmth against the chill of the morning, and padded out of the room to answer the insistent knocking at the door.
Opening the door, Noah squinted into the morning light, the brightness momentarily blinding him as he was greeted by Callie. She wasn’t in uniform today. Without waiting for an invitation, she brushed past him, her movements brisk and purposeful.
“Come on in,” Noah said, his tone laced with sarcasm as he closed the door behind him and followed her into the kitchen.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Callie confessed, her voice tired and strained.
“Well, that makes the two of us,” Noah replied, his exhaustion evident in his voice as he rubbed his temples, trying to push away the dull ache in his head.
“I was thinking about how we left things,” Callie continued, her words tumbling out in a rush.
“Look, I don’t want things to get awkward between us.
That’s the last thing I want. I just wanted to be honest. It had been weighing on my mind, and I thought you needed to know, especially since you were sharing about Lena and Alicia. ”
Noah felt overwhelmed by Callie’s rapid-fire words, struggling to process everything she was saying. “Uh-huh,” he managed, his mind still foggy from lack of sleep.
“Are things going to be awkward?” Callie asked, her tone anxious.
Noah blew out his cheeks, feeling a sense of frustration building within him. “You had coffee yet?” he deflected, hoping to buy himself some time to gather his thoughts.
“What?”
“Coffee, Thorne?”
“No.”
“How about we start with that and then discuss this? My head feels like a steam-roller went over it.”
As Noah made a pot of coffee, Callie continued talking, her words blending in his mind. The smell of freshly brewed coffee was magical, awakening his senses and bringing clarity. Opening the blinds, he let in the dull light of the overcast day, casting a soft glow over the room.
“Did you hear anything I said?” Callie asked, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yeah,” Noah replied. “Awkward conversation. ‘I don’t want things to be weird between us.’ I got it.”
“Well, do you have anything to say?”
“Do you take cream?”
“Noah.”
He chuckled softly. “Thorne. You have nothing to worry about. I was the one who got the wires crossed, not you. How about we forget it? Start again. Pretend it never happened.”
“That would be a relief.”
As he poured out her coffee, Noah shifted gears, bringing Callie up to speed on the recent events, including the break-in and theft of the Ashford case file and his father’s recent health scare.
“Thank you,” Callie said, taking the cup and nursing it to warm her hands. “So you think the two are connected? ”
“Well, I understand it could be just a coincidence, but this is my father and the Ashfords we’re talking about,” Noah replied.
Noah joined Callie in the living room, settling into a seat across from her.
He nodded, his attention focused as she spoke.
Callie reached up, gathering her brunette hair into a loose bun with a hair tie, her movements fluid and practiced.
That day, she was dressed in deep green cargo pants with a white T-shirt peeking out from beneath a light blue jean jacket.
As she responded, offering her thoughts on the situation, Noah studied her with a newfound appreciation.
It wasn’t that he was oblivious to how attractive she was, but in their professional interactions, she was often in uniform, and he hadn’t dwelled on it.
Yet now, seeing her in casual attire, he couldn’t help but notice the subtle details of her appearance.
“So, what do you think?” Callie asked, breaking through Noah’s reverie.
“Huh?” Noah replied, momentarily distracted as he shook himself out of his daze.
“Someone working on the inside for Ashford. That’s the only way they would have known about that file,” Callie elaborated.
“Possibly,” Noah responded, his mind still preoccupied with his thoughts.
Right then, his phone rang, disrupting the conversation. Noah got up, set his coffee on the counter, and hurried back into his bedroom to retrieve it. He answered the call as he made his way back to the living room .
“McKenzie, no, I don’t suspect you of taking it, but I just had to ask,” Noah explained.
“What are you talking about?” McKenzie’s voice came through the phone, confusion evident.
“The message I left. Forget it. Why are you calling?” Noah asked.
“The sheriff’s office down in Lake George contacted us this morning. Mischa Redka and Addison Sterling have gone missing.”
“What? How?” Noah’s voice was filled with disbelief as he listened to McKenzie’s update.
“It was a trip out of town for the weekend. They were at the Regal Aviation Mall. The parents took them to see a movie. At some point, they stepped out and well, they never returned. The mall’s security fought with a group earlier that morning.
That same group was following the teens.
CCTV has them nearby at the time but no hard description.
We’re unsure if this is Nicholas, as he’s not home.
Anyway, while Porter is searching for Nicholas, Terry and I are traveling down.
We should be there in the next half an hour.
I just figured I would update you,” McKenzie explained, his voice tense.
Callie said something.
“Is that Thorne?” McKenzie asked.
“Yeah,” Noah confirmed. “She swung by for coffee.”
“Nice to have a day off. Lucky for some. Anyway, gotta go.”
Noah ended the call, his mind racing about the missing teens. He glanced at Callie, his expression grim. “Two more teens have gone missing. ”
As he stood there, his mind whirling with possibilities, Noah opened the Geocaching app on his phone, working off a hunch. He brought up the map and zoomed in on the last location, where Colt Banning’s body was found.
“What are you doing?” Callie asked, her curiosity piqued.
“McKenzie told me that on the day the Banning boy was found, they checked the app, and there were no icons for geocaches listed in or around the area,” Noah explained, his eyes scanning the screen intently.
Then, with a sudden realization, he turned the phone toward Callie.
“There’s one there now. Sonofabitch! There wasn’t one listed on the day because he didn’t have the girls. ”
“Let’s head out there,” Callie said as she quickly moved toward the door.
“No need,” Noah replied, his expression determined. “It’s a puzzle geocache. The description says the final cache is not at the posted coordinates. It says it’s a simple math-based puzzle. We just need to use math to find the coordinates to the final location.”
The final coordinates were listed at: N44.AB.CDE W073 FG.HIJ
NORTH
4 guzinta 4=A
Then it listed more for the remaining letters :
WEST
4 guzinta 8=F
Again, it was the same as above.
“Guzinta?” Callie said, her nose screwing up.
“It’s a playful variation of ‘goes into’ and is used in math-based puzzles and riddles.
So, for this, what number multiplied by 4 equals 4?
It’s 1. So, the solution for the first letter in the coordinates is 4 into 4 = 1 (A=1).
Now we have to do it for B, C, D, and E to get the first set of coordinates, then do the same for the remaining letters for the west.”
It didn’t take long. Noah clicked on Waypoints to create a new waypoint with the latest set of coordinates. As soon as they were punched in, he showed Callie.
Callie squinted at the phone. “That’s…”
“The John Brown Farm State Historic Site,” Noah finished.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“I can’t, Thorne. They’ve taken me off the case, and you’re not on shift.”
“Oh, please, when has red tape ever stopped you? You weren’t meant to investigate your brother's murder, but you did. You heard McKenzie. They’re an hour and a half away in Lake George.
Porter is trying to track down this kid.
What harm is it going to do for us to check this out?
It might not even be our perp’s geocache.
What’s the name of the person who placed it? ”
Noah looked at it. Bluebird .
It had no direct relation to any of the missing, or at least their names weren’t used like they had been before. “All right,” Noah said. “Just give me a second to throw on some clothes.”