“Wait. Put it down.” Kayla's hand pushed on Joule’s arm where she was holding the sweater out open by the shoulders, trying to read the front of it in the dim light. Kayla had pulled her phone away, but Joule was just moving her head in closer.
The stitches were loose and clumsy, not a nice tight professional stitch. That would have been easier to read—
“Put it down!” Kayla said again.
“I'm trying to read it.”
“Think about what we saw on the satellites,” Kayla demanded of her, and it took Joule a moment before she folded the sweater and tucked it in close in an attempt to hide it.
It was more than possible that someone already had seen or would later go back through satellite footage of the area. What if they were seen out here?
If someone saw them find the sweater, what would it even mean? The drone dipped precariously as David failed to pay attention to it, his eyes more on the conversation nearby.
“Do you think the cartels have satellite access?” Joule asked.
“It's not that hard to get.” David shrugged and righted the drone. It had to be harder to operate without the lights on it. “One would have to assume that they can access something.”
“Do we go back now?” Kayla asked.
“I think we have to. We need to get where we can see this.”
“I don't understand how it's a message. It’s just a . . .” David said. He seemed to be searching for a polite word. “Poorly knitted sweater.”
The arms and back of the top were intact. They had only reknitted the front, an excellent timesaver that Joule appreciated. The machine manufactured pieces also helped disguise what had been done to it. Only a few people would be able to read it, and how many would even think to try?
This was a message just for her.
They’d dropped it along the way, maybe last night, maybe tonight. It was brilliant, Joule thought, but said, “I think our best bet is to go back.”
She picked up the walkie talkie, ready to tell the others but again Kayla pushed her hands down. “These are great but not secure. I just realized how much information we might be giving away. Someone need only search frequencies to find what we tell each other.”
There was a pause, then Kayla instructed, “Tell them we gave up and we're deciding to come back in.”
Fuck monkeys. How many times had they been out here saying what they’d found? Was it better that way? Maybe. They needed the McQueenys to tell them what they might have messed up.
Then again, they hadn’t really found anything before besides footprints. Still, Kayla’s warning about the information they were sharing went straight through her. What if they’d screwed up?
David circled the drone back as they turned around. On the return trek toward the cars, the small machine darted back and forth in front of them as they walked, checking for things they might have missed. This time, though, they didn't go slowly. They weren't scanning the horizon. They had an endpoint and they beelined for it, moving off the straight and narrow only for large rocks and small shrubs.
When the group had gathered back together, Joule motioned to everybody. “Walkie talkies are off?”
Though two of them had to flick the button to make it happen, they all quickly nodded.
“This is Aurora’s sweater, right Malcolm?” Joule held it up quickly for him.
“I think so, but it didn't look like that before.”
She tried to keep the sweater vertical, out of line of sight from any passing satellite. “Then we need to take this home and get into the light, so we can read it.”
“What do you mean, read it?”
“I did this when I was in high school. I knit Winnie the Pooh into a sweater in Morse code. Cage remembered. He must have fed the idea to Sarah or Aurora, because he can't knit.”
“Aurora can,” Malcolm said confidently. “Her work usually looks better than that though.”
“But it means they're alive.” Joule clutched the sweater close. “If we want, we should all go back to my place. We can figure out what they said.”