EIGHTY-SIX

2.25 P.M.

Penn was growing to hate their trickster more and more with every passing minute.

It wasn’t enough that he had brutally tortured a helpless and vulnerable man before ending his life. The man had now kidnapped a heart surgeon. A woman who saved lives on a daily basis. What kind of person did that? he wondered.

He knew that if they didn’t bring the doctor home, their team would not look the same tomorrow. Their performance would be picked apart and analysed as the higher-ups looked for somewhere to place the blame.

They all knew who would be first in line.

There were many reasons to hate their sicko, but Penn had one more on top.

He had never felt so stupid in his life. Normally he loved puzzles and logic and cryptic clues, but this guy was making him feel that he should never have been given his degree.

It didn’t help that for the last hour and a half, all he’d heard beyond the protection of his headphones were the ridiculous, incessant shrieks from the stupid YouTube guy.

‘Stace, what am I missing?’ he asked, conceding defeat. They now had only forty minutes to solve this clue and find the next before he published it.

‘“Locate the knots tied in the dark,”’ he said out loud.

‘Knots, tied, dark,’ she called out, pausing her current video.

‘Oh yeah, I know all about knots. Wikipedia sent me down a rabbit hole. Did you know that a knot is an intentional complication in cordage which may be practical or decorative or both?’

Stacey raised an eyebrow.

‘There are bends, loops, hitches, splices. A knot may also refer to a stopper or knob at the end of a rope to keep it from slipping through a grommet or eye. There is also an area of mathematics known as knot theory.’

‘Okay, Penn, you’re working better on me than a tranquilliser dart at the minute.’

Oh, he had so much more.

‘How about knot as in speed?’ Stacey asked. ‘You know how he likes to mess with the words.’

Penn had already checked that one. ‘A knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour. Can’t link that to anything else in the area cos we’re a hundred miles from the sea.’

‘Smaller boats also measure speed in knots, and we have rivers and canals and – hang on, run those types of knots by me again.’

‘Bends, loops, splices, hitches…’

She looked up to where he’d written the clue on the board.

Penn felt a rush of pure relief when a smile started to form on Stacey’s face.

‘Oh, Penn, I think the next drinks are on you. Get the boss on the phone. Now.’