He'd fallen asleep on Rick's couch the previous night.
Tommy wasn't accustomed to drinking alcohol, so it only took a few drinks for him to get plastered. The whiskey had also made him extremely drowsy, and before he knew it, he'd passed out.
He looked over at the opposing couch where Reece still slept. There was no sign of Sean.
Then everything from the previous day came rushing back. Adriana was dead. Sean hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. Tommy worried about his friend. Sean had drunk enough booze to kill a small horse and then walked out without so much as a look back.
Tommy took rapid inventory of the rest of the room. Rick's house was simple, built by his own two hands. It consisted of a kitchen with a small eating space, a living room, and a bedroom and bath. All told, the building was only about 750 square feet, if that. The interior reminded Tommy of the tiny house movement that had taken the US by storm.
He sat up and paused. His head throbbed, and he put his hand over his face. After rubbing his eyes, he stood up. The world tilted slightly, and he had to put both hands out to steady his balance.
"I really am a lightweight," he said.
Reece stirred on the other couch. He turned his head the other direction and remained asleep.
Tommy tiptoed around the corner and into the kitchen. He was surprised to find Sean sitting at the table. The smell came from the stovetop where Rick was busily frying potatoes and eggs.
Sean's focus was on the device in his hands. It was Tommy's phone.
"Is it dried out?" Tommy asked, deciding not to bring up the night before.
"I think so. I'll know in a second."
Tommy nodded and waddled over to the table. He collapsed into a chair and looked over at Rick, who was busily stirring things in one pan and flipping things in the other. "Smells great, Rick."
Rick turned around and grinned. "Thanks. Breakfast will be ready in a minute."
Before Tommy could ask, Sean told him what he was doing. "We lost our only clue to the next destination yesterday. But we took pictures of it on your phone."
"Oh that's right. I almost forgot about that."
"If your phone isn't fried, we might be able to look at those images and figure out exactly what Mathews was trying to tell us."
Rick shoveled some eggs and potatoes onto a plate and then slid it in front of Tommy. "Pepper and salt are over there if you need it," he said, pointing at a series of shelves on the wall near the refrigerator.
"Thanks again, Rick."
The host filled another plate of food and set it down in front of Sean.
"Thanks," he said. "Not hungry."
"I know," Rick responded as he poured more scrambled eggs into the frying pan. "Maybe you'll change your mind."
Sean kept staring at the phone, as if waiting another minute or two would make a difference between the thing working or not.
He drew a deep breath and then pressed the power button. "Moment of truth."
Tommy slid his chair around to the other side next to his friend and then pulled the plate over. His appetite wasn't strong either, but he knew he had to eat. And if there was one thing Tommy could do, it was power through food while starving himself of emotion.
The screen flickered for a second, and both men held their breath. Then the little icon appeared in black and white, and a moment later, the passcode appeared.
"Looks like it's okay," Sean said.
"My passcode is—" Tommy started to say.
Sean was already typing it in. "I know it."
Incredulous, Tommy straightened up and glared at his friend. "What do you mean, you know it?"
Sean kept staring at the phone. "I know all your passwords, pretty much for this sort of situation."
"Wait a minute. All my passwords?"
"Yeah. Don't worry, I don't use them."
"But… how?"
"Let it go, Schultzie. I used to work for the government, remember?" Sean's tone was hollow, like a man who'd lost everything.
The phone's screen went to the home page, and Sean tapped on the camera. He scrolled to the most recent photos and tapped on the first one.
Rick scooped up some more of the food onto a plate and joined the other two at the table. He grabbed the salt and pepper shakers, sprinkled a little on his eggs and potatoes. After shoving a steaming forkful into his mouth, he looked at the device in Sean's hands.
"What are you looking at?"
Sean turned the phone around so Rick could see. It only took him two seconds to recognize what it was. "Ah, wallaby track."
Tommy frowned. "So everyone here knows it's a wallaby but us."
Sean ignored his friend's complaining. "We found this stone cube yesterday in an underwater cave at Kings Canyon. In our rush to leave, we dropped it. Fortunately, we took a few shots of it before… before everything went down." He struggled to finish the sentence.
He looked at the phone again and swiped the image to the left. "The cube had four distinct images wrapping around it. This is another one that was carved into it."
Sean twisted the device again.
Rick stared at the letters cut in the rock. "J & MC? What does that mean?"
"We have no idea. There's a boomerang engraved into it and then a fourth image that looks like it was destroyed."
"Destroyed?" Rick asked, chewing another mouthful of food.
"Yeah," Sean said. "See?" He displayed the defaced side of the cube to their host, who nodded.
"Ah yeah. Looks like they didn't want anyone to know what was there."
Sean flipped the phone around in his hand and gazed at the image. "See, that's what I don't understand. The cube was where the previous clue said it would be. That means it hadn't been touched since Mathews put it there. If it's the next piece to the puzzle, why would he gouge it out like that?"
"Maybe it was a mistake," Rick offered.
Reece yawned from the living room, interrupting the conversation. "You guys mind keeping it down? Trying to sleep in here."
He stretched and sat up.
"Saved you some food," Rick said. "Best eat it before it gets cold."
Reece reluctantly got up out of the couch and staggered into the kitchen. "That was a lot of whiskey," he said, grabbing his head.
"Hair of the dog in the cabinet if you want some more."
Reece put out his hand to signal his answer to that was no. As he fixed himself a plate of food, the others resumed their discussion.
"It's a good question," Tommy said. "Based on how well the other engravings were done, I'd be willing to bet the person who did them didn't screw up often. They were clearly at the peak of their craft."
"Exactly," Sean said. "Which makes me think it's something else."
"But what?"
Sean's head twisted back and forth slowly. "Not sure." He set the phone down next to his plate and looked at the map Tommy left on the table the night before. "I see you were working on something. Trying to figure out a pattern?"
"Yeah," Tommy nodded and forked some potatoes into his mouth.
"And?"
"And what? There's no pattern. Three locations. Three circles. The lines don't give us anything to go on."
Sean leaned back and put both hands behind his head, interlocking the fingers. He stared at the ceiling for a moment and then sat up straight. "We're thinking about this all wrong."
"How's that?" Reece asked, pulling up a seat next to Rick.
"We're trying to find the wrong answers in the wrong places. We need to go with what we know so far."
"And what do we know?" Tommy said.
"Each location we've been to has that Aboriginal rock art, right?"
The others nodded. Rick just kept eating.
"So it would stand to reason that the next place would have the same thing."