Chapter 54

LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS

Poppy shouldn’t tell Ryan Richardson anything about the evidence. He’s long been a suspect. And Poppy’s been on the job for less than a week and the sheriff already admonished her for breaking protocol. But Ryan knows something. Even through the small screen on the iPhone, she can see it on his face. And the UK detective told Poppy that Ryan—who goes by “Ryan Smith” now—had an unbelievable tale. About the man he claimed abducted Alison Lane, complete with missing pinky fingers, tracking him to Italy. About the man then ending up dead at his home in England. But the impossible part: The story is checking out. The man with the missing pinky fingers is a ringer for the man Ryan described to a sketch artist five years ago, complete with the missing fingers. And the detective said it turns out he was an undocumented noncitizen, an American who told locals his name was Peter Jones. They’re sending Poppy his DNA in the hopes that a U.S. database will get a hit.

“You want to know the key to the code, send me the note,” Ryan repeats.

“I’m not authorized to—”

“Come on, Deputy.”

“If I send you the note, how do I know you’ll give me the key?”

“I guess you don’t know that,” Ryan says. “But I promise you, I will.”

Poppy’s eyes don’t leave the screen. Ryan jostles like he’s typing on his phone now. His face comes back into view. He’s outside on a gloomy day. By a gas station, from the looks of it.

“I just pulled it up on my phone. It’s the key. It has to be,” he says.

“How do you know?”

“Because I know Ali,” he says. “She made me one of these codes for her prom-posal.”

Poppy hated that phase in high school—everyone trying to one-up classmates on creative ways to ask dates to prom. That didn’t seem like Ali Lane’s style. Though Ali asking Ryan to prom rather than the other way around seems on brand.

“What’s the key, Ryan?”

“Send me the note…”

The standoff continues.

Ultimately, Poppy relents. She hopes she won’t regret this. She swipes her phone, finds the photo of the printout of the note found in Ali’s car on her reel. Her thumb hovers above the send triangle. She hesitates, then decides she’s already in this deep. She’ll have to trust him.

She hears a ping on his phone, then one on hers. Ryan has sent her the crypto key. It’s a photo of a plaque on a wall somewhere. The plaque’s inscription is in a foreign language.

The screen is dark now, but Ryan’s still on the line. Poppy thinks he’s trying to crack the code.

“Ryan,” Poppy says.

“It’s a plaque at the Louvre Museum. Ali’s great-great-great-grandfather helped save the Louvre from being burned down during the French Revolution. There’s a plaque at the museum paying tribute to him. She used it as the key for the prom proposal.”

Poppy shakes her head. This is some weird Da Vinci Code shit.

“How’s it work? I thought you needed the pages of a book for the code numbers.”

“No. The first number is the line, the second the word, the third the letter. Ali said her dad taught her the code. He was in the military.”

Poppy examines the plaque:

EN MAI 1871

HENRIBARBETDEJOUY

CONSERVATEUR AU MUSéE DU LOUVRE

ANTOINE HéRON DE VILLEFOSSE

ATTACHé AU DEPARTEMENT DES ANTIQUES

LEON MORAND

CHEFDUBUREAU ADMINISTRATIFDESMUSéES

PAR LEUR COURAGE ET LEUR DECISION

ONT ASSURE LA DEFENSE INTERIEURE

DULOUVRE

ET CONSERVE A LA FRANCE

SES COLLECTIONS NATIONALES

The first number is 11, so she goes to the eleventh line on the plaque. The second number is 5, so the word is “France.” The third number is 1. The first letter of the fifth word is F.

The second sequence of numbers is 4–4–2. Fourth line, fourth word, second letter: I.

So far: F-I.

She continues and decodes the first word of the note: find.

There’s what appears to be only four more words, but it still will take a little time. She moves on to the next word when she hears Ryan’s voice from the phone:

“Oh my god.”

“What is it, Ryan? What—”

Before the line drops, she hears him say, “Ali’s alive.”