“Really?” I exclaimed, exasperated. “Two more Os?”
“Nancy, you just totally gave away your letters!” Bess laughed.
I shrugged. I was losing badly by this point anyway. I placed the tiles on my stand with a sigh and started rearranging them. Suddenly I remembered the scrap of paper from yesterday.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, practically knocking my tiles over. “I think I know what that number might have been!”
George and Bess both gave me puzzled looks.
“Number?” Bess asked. “What number?”
“The one on the paper Paige dropped in the supermarket,” I reminded my friends.
“What do you think it means?” George asked.
“Well, I was rearranging the letters on my stand, and I was looking at the number of points assigned to each letter instead of at the letters themselves,” I explained. “Maybe each of those numbers corresponds to a different letter of the alphabet.”
I spun my stand around to show them.
“Well, I guess the game’s over if you’re showing off all your letters,” George joked.
I glared at her.
“Sorry, sorry!” she said, waving her arms in apology. “Please, go on.”
“George, I know you thought the number might be a date, but what if it’s a word?” I continued. “The numbers were 9-1-14, so we should try the ninth, first, and fourteenth letters of the alphabet.”
Bess had been keeping score, so she quickly grabbed a scrap of paper and a pencil and jotted down the numbers one through fourteen on the paper with the letters of the alphabet below them. She studied the paper for a second and then gasped.
“The letters spell the name ‘Ian’!” she cried.
“Really?” I asked, intrigued.
“It’s a good theory, but why would someone write down numbers instead of letters for someone’s name?” George asked. “I admire your sleuthing skills, but maybe the number is just a number.”
“You have a point,” I admitted. “People sometimes write things down if they’re likely to forget them, and ‘Ian’ doesn’t seem like a name that would be hard to remember.”
“Or necessary to disguise,” Bess pointed out a bit defensively.
“Well, we don’t know about that, do we?” George joked. “Maybe he’s an undercover spy and his cover is that he’s the sheriff’s nephew-slash-intern.”
“Ha, ha,” Bess replied, rolling her eyes.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “If it is just a number, a number that someone wouldn’t want to forget, it could be a combination—maybe to a safe?”
“And that would explain why the bookstore owner looked so alarmed when you picked it up,” George pointed out. “Maybe it’s the code to a safe she has in the bookstore.”
I nodded. “It’s a possibility.”
“Are we done with this game, then?” George asked as she gestured at the abandoned Scrabble board. “Or are we still playing?”
Bess threw up her hands. “It’s no use, George,” she admitted. “You’ll win anyway. Let’s call it quits.”
“I agree,” I chimed in. “You are truly the champ, George.”
With that, we packed up the game and headed to bed.
I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But I was startled awake in the middle of the night by a rustling noise outside the cabin. I sat straight up. Bess was still sleeping soundly in the bed next to mine, but I saw George shift in her bed across the room. She sat up too.
I tiptoed over in the dark and perched on the edge of her bed.
“Did you hear that?” I whispered.
She nodded. “It sounds like someone’s out there,” she said in a hushed tone.
I stood up and dashed back to my bed to grab a sweatshirt and my cell phone—just in case. I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and stepped into my flip-flops. George did the same, and then we quietly went out into the cabin’s main room.
A shadow darted past the window next to the front door. George and I both held our breath.
“Maybe we should call the police,” she said quietly.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I clutched George’s arm.
What I had seen outside was now behind me, but inside.
CHAPTER SIX
Shadowed
THE MOONLIGHT CAST THE FIGURE’S shadow on the wall in front of me. I grabbed a ceramic frog that was perched on the sideboard and whirled around, my heart pounding. I raised the frog, ready to bash the intruder.
“Stop! Don’t touch me!” the voice screamed.
Bess?
I lowered my arm. “Bess! You scared the daylights out of us!”
Bess flinched and then scowled. “You almost hit me with that—that ugly frog.”
I smiled apologetically. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly, glancing at the painted ceramic figurine. “I thought you were an intruder.”
“I did too,” George added.
Bess glared at us both. “Well, you two are the ones who are out of bed in the middle of the night,” she said accusingly. “I heard the floorboards creaking and both of your beds were empty, so I didn’t know what was going on. What’s up?”
“George and I heard something outside the cabin,” I explained, leaning over and flicking on the light switch. “We wanted to check it out.”
George nodded. “And then we saw a shadow on the front porch. We were about to call the police when you came up behind us.”
“Well, let’s call, then. It’s possible the intruder is still around.” Bess shuddered. “I still don’t know why anyone around here is interested in us.”
She picked up the phone and dialed 911.
About ten minutes later, Sheriff Garrison appeared at our front door.
“What seems to be the problem, ladies?” he asked. “I didn’t expect to see the three of you again so soon.”
George said, “We heard a noise outside the cabin. Then we saw a shadow flit across the porch. We thought someone might be trying to break in.”
The sheriff looked concerned. “I’m glad you notified us,” he replied. “This is the third call we’ve received tonight from the cabins around Moon Lake. It seems there have been a few sightings.”
Bess, George, and I exchanged a look. First a fire, then a theft, our almost drowning, and now three calls to the police in one night? Was that also a plot from one of Lacey’s books?
The sheriff’s walkie-talkie crackled.
“Unit One, come in.”
The sheriff pulled the handset off his belt and replied, “Sheriff Garrison here.”
“We’re sending the chopper over Moon Lake. Looking for a perp in the southeast quadrant.”
“Copy that,” the sheriff replied. He turned back to us. “You ladies okay? We’re sending the helicopter out over the lake, so if there’s anyone still out there, he or she should flee quickly or be caught in the floodlights. In the meantime, lock all the windows and doors and turn on any lights around the outside perimeter of the cabin. I doubt the perp will come back this way, but if you see or hear anything suspicious, just give me a call.”
He handed me a card. “This is my cell number. Feel free to call me directly and I’ll send someone out ASAP.”
“Thanks a lot, Sheriff,” Bess replied as she held the door open for him. “And sorry to bother you twice in two days. At least we weren’t annoying anyone this time.” She smiled.
“No bother,” he replied. “That’s what I’m here for.”