The next morning Zoe paused at the top of the stairs and reread Shane’s text from an hour earlier:
Chinese hacked into GTA last night. Isabel blocked them. No intel breach. Be advised—chatter indicates they are closing the circle on you. GET CODE ASAP.
She pocketed the phone and sniffed. Bacon and vanilla. Two of her favorite kitchen smells. But not now. Now, she wanted to throw up.
Wearing a short-sleeved green T-shirt and navy shorts, Ramos whisked a batter. Bacon sizzled on the stove. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Morning. Hope you’re hungry. I’m making French toast.”
He did a double take and put the bowl down. He faced her. “You look like shit.”
“I didn’t sleep well.”
He took the frying pan off the burner and crossed his arms. “Bullshit. It’s more than that. You’re pale as hell. You can barely stand up. What gives?”
Zoe smoothed her wrinkled shorts with her sweaty palms. He was right. It took all she had to stay upright. She didn’t have the energy to unzip her suitcase, so she’d worn the same clothes she had on yesterday.
They might dislike each other, but given Shane’s text, they had to have each other’s back. He needed to know she wasn’t well. “GTA has been giving me drugs as a field operative. I’m addicted and decided to get off them cold turkey. I’m going through withdrawal.”
He raised his brows. “Good for you. I’ve been there. I had an opioid addiction.” He returned back to frying the bacon. “Did you get Shane’s text?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you have a plan to get the code fast.”
“I don’t.”
“Wonderful.” He wrapped the bacon in a paper towel. “Where’s the kid? Breakfast is minutes away.”
“She’ll be up in a minute. She’s tidying up.” Zoe was beginning to think Leah may have an obsessive-compulsive disorder. Right after she brushed her teeth, she straightened her clothes on the closet shelf, then adjusted her clothes hangers several times until they were spaced equally apart—just like she did at night with her star and bird on the nightstand.
Leah walked up the stairs and stood next to her. Today she wore the one and only dress she had: a lemon-and-burgundy-striped sundress. Sleeveless, it had a scooped neckline and shoulder straps.
“Good morning!” Ramos bellowed as he slid open the door. He turned to Zoe. “What do you think about eating outside? It’s not too hot. I can pull out the awning.”
“Sounds good to me. What about you, Leah? Want to eat outside?”
“Yes.” She raced out and plopped down on the couch.
As Ramos set up the awning, Zoe poured some orange juice for Leah and coffee for herself. She slumped down next to Leah. The warm, moist breeze felt good on her cold, aching body.
Ramos set down plates stacked high with the French toast, and Zoe clamped her mouth shut to keep from vomiting. She gave Ramos an apologetic look.
He winked at her. “Don’t worry, I think Leah will move to your plate in a few seconds.”
Sure enough, the girl was chowing down like she hadn’t eaten in weeks.
Averting her eyes, Zoe sipped her coffee and admired the crystal-clear Mediterranean. A spectacular azure, the calm sea looked like a mirrored reflection of the cloudless sky.
“You’ll be hungry later. And when you are, I’ll whip you up something hearty,” Ramos said to her between chews.
“Thank you.” What a nice gesture, Zoe thought with surprise.
“Hey, no problem. Like I said, I’ve been there.”
She studied him under her lashes. He must have had one heck of an opioid addiction for him to be so empathetic.
Leah and Ramos split her plate and he regaled Leah with more superhero stories while they ate.
Zoe reached for Leah’s empty plate, but Ramos grabbed the dish and said, “I’ll clean up.”
“Thank you,” she said. Maybe Ramos wasn’t a total bastard.
He said to Leah, “Be a good girl today. Zoe’s not feeling well.”
Leah looked at Zoe, her brow wrinkling in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Just not feeling good, that’s all. I’ll be better soon.” She rose. “Let’s go in. It’s getting hot.”
“Okay.” Leah leapt up. “Can we do more origami? Can we make a dragon?”
“Sure. Then we’ll do some more riddles.”
Leah skipped to the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Zoe said, sitting down on the salon couch.
“To get the origami paper.”
“Okay.” Zoe shivered as chills sent cold waves over her arms and legs. She wiped her moist forehead with a shaky hand. She doubted right now she could fold a tissue.
Ramos set a water bottle down in front of her and she gave him a grateful look.
He removed the metal box from the couch drawer and opened it, holding it up to her face.
She looked inside at the spider. “All in one piece, I see.”
“Yep, fixed it.” He set the box down next to her. “Remember what I told you about the Black Widow’s Exploder software. The code will be a mix of ten letters and numbers.” He headed to the captain’s chair.
She returned the box back underneath the couch, afraid its sudden appearance might upset Leah.
Leah entered the salon with her dolls and the origami paper. “Is it harder to make the dragon?”
“A little, you have a few more tight folds.” She paused as a wave of nausea hit her. It took everything she had not to collapse down face-first. All she wanted to do was crawl under the table and die.
But she’d remained standing through the burning pain when they beat her at Woodbury.
And she didn’t have any drugs numbing her then.
Mind over matter.
She’d think of her body as a child throwing a temper tantrum because it wasn’t getting candy. If ignored, a screaming child stopped—eventually.
Zoe ran a trembling hand through her hair. “I need to rest a little before we start the dragon. I’d like to do some more spider riddles.”
Leah stiffened, and Zoe said with gentleness, “You’re in danger, honey. And so are many people. We really have to try.”
When she bent over to retrieve the Black Widow box, vertigo hit her and she almost passed out. Moving in slow motion, she set the replica on the table between her and Leah as she did yesterday.
Again, Leah recoiled from it.
Zoe placed her hand on the girl’s arm. “Please. I care about you. I don’t want you or anyone else to get hurt.”
She gulped at her words. They’d come from her heart. She did care about this child.
Leah gazed at her with panicked eyes.
“You can do it. We’ll do it together. Just repeat the riddles you used to say with your daddy. Please, I need your help.”
Leah turned toward the spider and in a quiet voice, said in Greek:
“The queen of death; she crawls on your stairs.
She’s always so lonely, no mate in her lair.
Her children, they leave home with such haste,
For fear that their blood this new mother will taste.
On silken cord, her daughters await,
For men in their homes meet a similar fate.
Dark as new moon, her crimson belly tells time.
Her mate is passed on, he won’t tell of her crime.
If you see the black maiden, you must run in fear.
One prick from her needles and pain is quite near.”
As Leah spoke, Zoe sensed Ramos rise and then sit back down. He didn’t know Greek well enough to have a clue what the child was saying.
Zoe frowned. From her research online she knew this was a well-known riddle, and as best as she could tell, it had nothing that would have a letter-number code. They’d move on.
“Great one! Really creepy,” she responded back in Greek.
And it was.
The whole situation creeped her out. Leah sat motionless, fixated on the spider as if in a trance.
She’d follow Leah’s lead and speak Greek so as not to disturb the child’s memories.
But that left Ramos out as the code breaker.
As a former SEAL, he’d know Morse code. With her finger, Zoe tapped “will translate” on the table.
Would Ramos catch on?
He did. He slapped the chair’s armrest, responding with, “Thanks.”
Leah squirmed, but her focus remained intense on the nanobot.
Zoe said, “I’m sorry for taking so long. I’m thinking. Yours was so good it’s hard for me to match it.”
The popular Harry Potter Sphinx Riddle came to her mind. It might be familiar enough to relax Leah a little. Zoe started to recite, “First think of the person who lives in disguise—”
“How many legs does a spider have?” Leah jumped in, her attention never wavering from the nanobot.
Without giving Zoe a chance to answer, she blurted, “Who in the black widow spider family eats each other?”
Then, without taking a breath, Leah rapid-fired: “Which pair of legs are the comb legs? How long does it usually take for the black widow’s eggs to hatch?”
Zoe frowned. Those weren’t riddles. They were factual questions.
Leah’s brows narrowed in concentration, and she repeated the four questions in a strong tone.
Then she reeled them off again.
Zoe’s heart beat faster. With the girl’s intensity and repetition, these four had to be the ones her father had made her repeat every night during his mental exercises to try to slow down his Alzheimer’s.
And the answers to the questions were letters and numbers.
The code!
“Boy, Leah,” Zoe said, “those are some hard questions. I’m going to say them in English so Ramos can help me out.”
Leah crossed her arms on the table and her head dropped down onto them, burying her face. It was as if telling Zoe what her father had pounded into her head had taken everything out of her.
“Ramos,” Zoe said in English over her shoulder. “I have some questions that we need to answer about spiders. I need your help in solving them. Listen up. First one. How many legs does a spider have?”
She paused. “I think I can figure this one out since a spider’s right in front of me—eight. Second question. Who in the black widow spider family eats each other? Again, I know this one and it’s sad…babies.
“Third question, Ramos. Which pair of legs are the comb legs?”
At his silence, she said, “I read our briefing paper on spider anatomy, so I know that the fourth pair are the comb legs. So, the answer is: four. Final one. How long does it usually take for the black widow’s eggs to hatch?”
She crossed her arms. “Do you know, Ramos?”
“No,” he grunted.
“I do. Some of us did our homework. Answer: thirty days.”
Zoe mentally counted the numbers and letters.
Eight = one number
Babies = six letters
Four = one number
Thirty = two numbers
A ten letter-number mix. Exactly what Ramos said the code would be.
Zoe stroked Leah’s back as she took deep breaths, letting her tension seep away. Rising, she grasped the table’s edge, feeling lightheaded. With unsteady steps, she walked over to Ramos, who was texting.
He looked up at her with a huge smile. “Bingo!”
“It cloaked?”
“Yep.” He stuck out his chest. “We did it. We met the deadline. Easton and Shane are really pleased.” He bent over texting again.
“Then I guess we should be too.” What a puffed-up peacock. She returned to Leah and said softly in English, to break her out of her sad memories of her father, “Thank you. We learned the secret.”
Leah lifted her head. Her lashes were wet and spiked. She said in English, “My daddy said never to tell anyone those questions, but I wanted to help you. I like you.”
She dropped her head back down, and muffled sniffles and whimpers came from under the skinny arms.
Zoe put her arm around Leah. Such a sweetheart. She had given her all for her. “I like you too.”
Without raising her head, Leah sobbed, “Am I safe now?”
Zoe swallowed as she gazed at the fine hair strands shimmering on the vulnerable bare neck.
What was to become of the child?
Do not get involved.
Not her business.
“Yes,” she choked out.
Leah’s head rose and she looked at Zoe with round eyes. “No one will die now because of my daddy’s secret?”
Zoe sucked in her breath. She was in no condition to handle the girl’s emotional gut-punches.
But she had to.
“Yes, no one will die,” she lied.
With a big sigh, Leah lay her head back down.
Zoe exhaled also. Too much emotion going on here. She had to change the atmosphere or she’d pass out.
Funny riddles. That’d get both their minds off their misery.
She whispered into Leah’s ear, “What did the policeman say when a black widow spider ran down his back?”
Making herself sound like a vampire, Zoe hissed through her teeth, “You are under a vest.”
Leah giggled, but her head didn’t rise.
“What do you call a cow with a twitch?”
Zoe mooed like a cow as she said, “Beef jerky.”
“God help me!” Ramos shouted, jumping to his feet. “This is getting ridiculous. I can’t stand listening to another riddle.” He bounded downstairs.
Leah sat up and grinned at Zoe’s rolling eyes and they both burst out laughing.