Hadley’s eyes popped open in the pitch-black room. Someone was in there—she could hear shallow breathing like someone was trying not to be heard. Norma? No. She wouldn’t sneak around like that. Brad? Was he there watching her sleep? Some stranger? Noah?
What should she do? Hadley kept her breathing even, trying not to let on that she was awake, while she formulated a plan. She could freak out her attacker by jumping from the bed, flailing her arms, and screaming. Or she could just continue to feign sleep and see what happened. That seemed dumb. What if the person intended to harm her? No, her best bet was the element of surprise.
A few more deep, slumbering breaths—one, two, three.
NOW.
Hadley jumped from her bed, flipped on the light, then squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden brightness. She spun in circles, kicking like Bruce Lee—kind of—throwing her arms around and up and down, trying to fend off an attack or at least confuse the assailant. But she felt no blows. No contact whatsoever.
She pried open her eyes in the bright room. No one was there. She put her karate foot down. What was that sound? Giggling? Hadley whirled around and found the culprit now lying across her bed.
“I’ve come to suck your blood!” Ava dissolved in laughter as she rolled on Hadley’s sheets. “Oh my goodness, Had. You should’ve seen your face! Luckily I have it all on tape. This is so going on Facebook!”
“It better not! I’ll kill you!”
“What? You want to withhold this priceless piece of footage from the world? Oh, that’s gonna cost ya. Big time.”
“What are you doing here?” Hadley tried to still the drumbeat in her heart. Deep breath. She checked the alarm clock: eleven. She’d only been asleep for thirty minutes.
Ava smiled the grin of a person who felt welcome anywhere, anytime. “I’m here to visit. Didn’t you miss me?”
“Of course I did. And it’s great to see you.” Hadley put her arms around her friend and squeezed. Ava had no idea just how glad.
“You look magnificent, girl! This outdoorsy stuff is treating you right.” She looked Hadley up and down then spun her around to take in the backside. “You look like the cover of Shape magazine.”
“The cover? Not so much. Maybe one of the internal articles about weight loss …” Hadley stopped when she saw Ava’s expression. “Sorry. Thank you. That’s a very nice thing to say.”
“Much better. Young student learn much.” Ava grinned and popped the top of a cola.
“How’d you get in here, anyway?”
“Oh, that kooky lady, Norma? Is that her name? She let me in. Said I’d be good for your soul. Is she for real?”
“Norma’s as real as they come—and she’s not kooky, but I thought so at first, too.” Hadley laughed at the not-so-distant memory. “How long can you stay?” The needy little girl in Hadley wanted Ava to say the rest of the summer, but the emerging woman wanted to protect her alone time.
“Oh, I only have a couple of days—have to leave Wednesday morning. But now that you have me here, what should we do? Want to go hunting for one of those cache thingies?”
“Well … it’s the middle of the night.”
“Unless there’s some rule about finding your stuff during the day, let’s go for it.”
Hmm. “Now that you mention it, there is a cache I want to find, but don’t want anyone to see me. I guess now’s as good a time as any. Just give me five minutes to pull myself together.” Hadley padded off to the bathroom, rubbing her stinging eyes.
“According to the coordinates, it’s back here.” Hadley led Ava around Osage Beach Community Church to the wooded park in back where they’d had their kickoff rally. “Here. It’s in this general area.”
“Okay, open up the clue. Read it again. What does it say?” Hadley toggled the display to life and stared at the little poem for probably the hundredth time. First day, sat on a gazelle’s perch Those dimples made his stomach lurch Spotlight from God framed her face How long would she make him chase?
What did that mean? Hadley had a lump in the pit of her stomach. Dimples? It was her, she knew it. Oh brother. It seemed so unlikely. But if the boulder where she’d sat that first day was where the cache was hidden, then Hadley would know for sure. “Come on, Ava.” She led her friend across the clearing and stopped in front of the giant rock where she had sat for the kickoff rally.
It was obviously too big to move, so the cache couldn’t be under it. Ava felt around behind the rock, nothing.
Hadley looked from the rock to the tree. If the sunlight… “Never mind. I know where it is.” Hadley placed one of her boots on the lowest branch of the big oak tree and swung herself up into its boughs, heading toward the break in the tree from where she had felt the heat of the sun shine on her back. She continued her way up the tree until she spotted a gray metal box tucked in the nook of a branch right in front of her. She couldn’t reach it unless she climbed sideways, but there didn’t appear to be another branch strong enough to step on to.
Ava watched Hadley from below. “What are you going to do?” She pointed the flashlight beam at Hadley’s feet.
Hadley gripped the branch then dropped her body down until it was dangling much too far above the ground to jump.
“Be careful, girl.”
She eyed the branch she was aiming for a few feet away and began to swing her body towards it, gathering momentum. When she felt confident that she could swing and reach the other branch, Hadley let go with one hand and used the weight of her body to propel her to the distant bough and grabbed it as soon as she got close enough. Now what? Suspended between two secure spots, dangling over nothing, Hadley didn’t know if she could let go with her right hand and complete the swing, or if she’d fall the minute she loosened her grip.
“Do you need me to go for help?” Ava shouted from below.
“No! Shh!” That was the last thing Hadley wanted. Okay.
Now or never. She shifted her body back and forth to gather as much momentum as she could. When the time felt right, she let go and easily sailed to her target and grabbed hold. She pulled her feet up and linked them around the branch like a lemur then shimmied toward the tree trunk.
“Ava, I’m going to drop a heavy metal box down. Make sure you’re out of the way.” Hadley heard scurrying.
“Okay. Go for it.”
The box whooshed through the nighttime air then landed with a soft thud in the blanket of grass and leaves. Hadley climbed down the tree and hopped off the lowest branch, onto the ground beside the cache. She dusted off her hiking shorts and smiled at Ava. “Found it.”
Ava stared, openmouthed. “I can’t believe you just did that. That was amazing, Had.”
“Thanks. Okay, now we need to open this and sign the logbook to prove we were here.” Unlikely anyone but her would have had a chance at figuring out the clue, but there was no way Hadley wanted to risk someone else figuring out that poem was about her.
She popped open the lid, and there it was.
The Rainbow’s End geocoin.
“What’s that thing?” Ava peered over Hadley’s shoulder. “It’s some special token-coin-thing. I get five points for finding it.”
“That’s awesome. How do we turn it in to collect your winnings?” Ava flipped it over and looked at the back.
The last thing Hadley wanted to do was show up at the church office with that token in her hand, admitting to Noah face-to-face that she’d found it. He’d know she figured out his poem. What did the poem say to her about him? What would the fact that she figured it out say to him about her?
“No. It’s not worth five points to me to turn it in. I want to keep it for … um … a souvenir.” Hadley hoped Ava would buy her explanation and not ask any more questions. She was thankful that clouds had moved in and it was too dark for Ava to see Hadley’s face, which must be crimson with embarrassment. “Plus, I don’t want to give my competition a chance to earn the five points.”
Ava shrugged. “If you say so.”