Annie typed in the terms again and hit the search button. Once more, images popped up at the top of the results. This time, however, she didn't click on them. She didn't need to. She'd already drawn her conclusion.
"The common thread you two are missing is the rock art. Seems fairly obvious to me."
The epiphany washed over Holmes. "Of course. We forgot all about the rock art. That's the missing connection."
"Yes. So if you combine that with the wallaby paw, my initial thought would be that you're looking for a place where wallabies live and where there's rock art."
"That could be any number of locations," Jack said. "There are wallabies all over this country."
Annie nodded. "I suppose that's where the letters on your rock come into play. J & MC might be a company of some sort. Or it could have been two people."
She stopped her conjecture and looked at the stone in Holmes's hand. "What about that?" she pointed at the defaced side.
"It's nothing," Jack said. "They dug it out to remove what was there."
Annie wasn't so sure. "Let me see it."
Holmes hesitated and then reluctantly set the stone on the table next to her. She picked it up. The weight of it surprised her. Annie turned it over and examined the odd side the two men believed to be a victim of vandalism.
She stared at the anomaly for nearly a minute before she spoke. "This shape. It's quite unique, like a crater. Notice how the sides of it slope up, though."
"So?" Jack asked. "Who cares? Obviously they didn't want us to know what was there."
"Seems like a strange thing to do if they were going to leave the other sides in good condition."
"Maybe they were in a hurry."
Annie shook her head. "No. You can see here that it took a good deal of time to cut the stone in this way. This thing wasn't defaced. This is a design."
Holmes jumped back into the conversation. "A design of what?"
"Well," she thought for a moment, "if my memory serves correctly, I think it's a place in South Australia."
She turned back to the computer and started pecking away at the keyboard.
"Wilpena Pound?" Holmes said.
"Yes. It's in a national park in South Australia." She hit the enter key.
Seconds later, images of a plateau with a crater in the middle appeared on the monitor. She clicked one of them and circled it with the arrow to emphasize her point.
"See? Looks an awful lot like that side of the stone."
The two men stared in astonishment.
"How did you know about this place?" Holmes asked.
"My parents took me camping there when I was a child. It's in the Flinders Ranges."
The men didn't say anything for nearly a minute. Then Holmes said, "So that is the next place we will go. We'll find the boomerang there."
"Or maybe another clue," Jack corrected.
"Right. Still, now we have something to go on."
Annie stopped both of them. "Don't be too sure about that."
"What do you mean?" Holmes said, looking distraught. "You just said that's the place."
"You're forgetting the letters on that rock of yours. You need to figure out what that has to do with this area. Besides, you don't want to go traipsing around the bush at Flinders. You could be there for weeks and not find anything."
The idea of them doing that nearly caused Annie to smile for the first time in a while, but she held it back. The longer they took to find whatever it was they wanted, the longer she would be in this box of a room. If she could help them, though, maybe they would extend a little courtesy to her.
"I want a room with a window," she said.
"What?" Jack grumbled. His face took on an irritated expression. He raised his hand to strike her again.
"Wait," Holmes said. "She's trying to help us, Jack. Take it down a notch.”
"I know where you need to go next,” Annie muttered.
"How's that?"
It was the ace up her sleeve. She considered not playing it, but given the circumstances, she needed to try.
"During my time in the museum, I came across more names than I care to remember. These were people who usually had some sort of importance in regard to Australian history. I didn't pay much attention to this particular pair of names at the time, but now it seems like they're the ones connected to the letters on your stone.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because there are several areas named after those people."
Holmes grew tired of her game. "Annie, spit it out."
"I want a better room than this closet you've been keeping me in. Call it a down payment on the beach you're going to send me to."
Holmes rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll put you in a nicer room. Now please, tell me what we're looking for."
She flashed a devilish grin and then spun back around. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing in the name of Mount Chambers Gorge.
"This is where you need to go."
Images of circles cut into dark red rock appeared on the screen.
"It's named after John and Mary Chambers. J&MC, as the stone suggests."
The men didn't speak for almost twenty seconds as they stared at the images on the computer screen.
Finally, Holmes cut through the silence. "Astounding. Good work, Annie. See? That wasn't so hard?"
Holmes turned and started for the door.
"Wait," she said. "My room?"
Jack picked up the computer and followed his boss to the doorway.
Holmes stopped mid-stride and spun around. "Jack, have Miss Guildford here moved to a better room. And get her a change of clean clothes."
Annie stared down at the table and smiled. She'd just given herself a way out.
Chapter 31
The drive back to Reece's place seemed to take forever. To say the air conditioning in Rick's truck didn't work well would be a vast understatement. During the day, the four men spent much of the time sticking their heads out the windows to let the wind evaporate the perspiration from their faces and heads. Fortunately, half of the journey took place at night when the temperatures were much milder.
As soon as Tommy's phone hit cell service, it started vibrating repeatedly in his pocket. He fished out the device and checked the screen. He'd missed a half-dozen text messages plus three voicemails from Tara and Alex.
"Got something from the kids," he announced, breaking the long silence.
"What is it?" Sean asked.
Tommy held up a finger and mouthed, "One minute," as he listened to the first voicemail.
He finished it and then put the phone against his ear again, listening to the second.
"They found something. The hackers weren't using a periscope. They put a trace on your accounts. That's how those guys were following us. They tracked our purchases."
"We didn't buy much," Sean said. "Except at that diner in Richmond."
"And getting gas on the drive."
"By then they were already on our trail, could have been following us for hours."
"You didn't see anything unusual, did you?" Reece asked.
"No," Sean said. Admittedly, he'd been so tired, he kept dozing off on the ride out to Kata Tjuta. Though he never stayed asleep long on the journey, all those moments added up.
Tommy continued relaying information. "Alex said it wasn't any kind of traditional hacking job. He said it had to be done by someone on the inside of the credit card company."
Sean's forehead wrinkled as he frowned. "Most of them do operate on common systems. But for someone to have access to that… there would need to be significant resources behind them."
Tommy put the phone back in his pocket when he'd finished listening to the voicemail. "They're going to call me back if they find anything else."
"Sounds like they found a good bit," Reece said.
"Yeah. Unfortunately it doesn't tell us much, only that whoever is after us is adept at using computers."