A/N: Hey guys! I'm soooo sorry! Again! I know I'm late...but this was a really hard chapter because I had to figure out a lot of stuff...
Sorry!
Here it is:
Annabeth's POV:
We got a call from Nico the next day,
"Hey, here is something that might or might not mean something," he said as soon as Percy picked up.
"What?" Percy asked into the phone.
"Well, I had forgotten about this, but everyday we have the 'Book of The Day' in the store..." Nico trailed off.
"You think it might connect to what Bianca was talking about?" I asked him.
"Well it's possible, it's one what to distinguish books from other books" he replied.
"That's true. What are you thinking?" I asked.
"Code. The letters in the titles, certain words. They might spell out something," he responded.
"It's worth a shot," Percy agreed
"Yeah, or maybe it's something to do with the book itself, or the list of books in order in a particular month...the possibilities are endless. And for all we know it might be a dead end," Nico mused.
"Send us the list of books," I told him.
"Yep, I'll text you a pic of the list for the past 2-3 weeks," he affirmed, and hung up. A second later we had a list.
Books of the day:
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
4. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
5. 39 Clues Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan
6. The Hound of Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
7. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
8. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
9. Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
We stared at the list.
"Well Maybe there is pattern with the first letters?" Percy asked. We tired. The first letter down the list, on a row with each other the titles. Nothing worked.
"Maybe its the second letter, or a combination?" I mused. That didn't work either. There were too many possibilities.
"The first title alone doesn't make sense, if you group HA and Po, it doesn't make anything," Percy said frustrated.
"Maybe HA PO AT DE HA..." I tried the letters at the beginning of every word. And again for the list.
"Wait! if this is a code then the code has to be in that day's book. The people can't see the whole list for the week, so it's highly unlikely there is a code with the list," I pointed out.
Percy nodded, "I see what you mean, we have to only focus on a book title..."
And we did but came up with nothing.
"The problem is, is that there are so many letters they can spell out anything. We don't know which words to put emphasis on," he stated.
That gave me an idea, I called Nico,
"Hey Nico, how do you choose the Book of the day?" I asked as soon as he picked up.
"We don't, the sign is printed out each day, we just get it from the printer and hang it up," he responded.
"Send us a picture if the sign for today," I instructed.
"Okay," and he hung up.
A second later a new picture appeared. It showed the display. A sign overhead read Book of the Day and underneath that was a printed sheet of paper,
TaLeS Of fourth GRADe nOthINg by juDY BLume. The letters were colorful, Tales being all orange except for S that was blue, of being yellow, fourth being red, grad being green and E at the end was red. N was red and OTHIN was blue. JU was red and DY BL were purple. UME were green.
"They way they write it!" I exclaimed.
"Why do they do that? it makes the code more easily detectable if you know what to look for," Percy pointed out.
"It's just a creative way of writing it. Plus they don't expect people to think they are a gang," I explained.
"So lets start with, capital letter?" Percy asked. So we did. All the captalized letters spelled out yo TLSOGRADOINDYBL, so in other words nothing.
"Well there is 'grad' in the middle, and it could be 'doing' also in there," Percy pointed.
"What about the small, we return to this only is the other options don't work," I said. The small case letters said, aeffourthenthgbyjuume.
"That makes a bit more sense, spells out more words," I said dubiously. We both examined the title again.
"Wait! Colors! Check the colors," Percy almost shouted. We started with red, it spelled out fourth,n,e, ju,.
"June fourth!" I said, "If you read ju and go backwards, june and then fourth. It's a date!" I yelled. I turned to Percy to give him a hug.
"Nice one Perce!" He smiled and returned the hug.
"But we have to make sure it's the same for the other titles," Percy said after we pulled back.
He called Nico to see if he could send us the signs that had been used before. Apparently all the signs were thrown out at the end of the day, there was no way to test our theory.
Percy hung up with a sigh.
"It's like taking two steps forward and one step back." I nodded,
"There has to be another way to get those signs. Are there pictures? Or..." I turned to him, "Security footage?" I ended hopefully.
We tore out of the room and back to where the security footage was, after fiddling with the cameras we found one that had the display clearly shown.
"Yes!" I exclaimed getting out a notepad,
"Alright you read the red parts of the each of the names, I'll write them down," Percy nodded and went to the book where Nico's list started.
"First Book, Harry Potter one, red parts are o, n,e, death, J, R," he read off.
"One death JR. JR could be initials," I said. Percy forwarded to the next sign,
"Second one,51, Ray," he read off, I nodded for him to continue, " Third, S, O, S, by, W, G. Fourth book,..." and he went on until I had a list complied.
1. one death JR
2. 51 Ray
3. SOS by WG
4. Death NAC
5. 9 clue bones KD
6. Hound kill by Arthur
7. Murder Express AC
8. Red Pyramid
9. Tom Booth
and today's: June Fourth
"This definitely sounds like a code," Percy agreed. "The first one could mean the death of a person, with those initials," he continued.
"Second could be a date May first and ray could be a name..." I mused.
"Third is an obvious call for help and fourth could be another death," Percy went on.
"So we have possibly cracked the code, but we still don't know what some of the names and stuff mean and are," I sighed, leaning back.
"Yeah, but we have one clear clue. June Fourth. It's at the end of this week, something may happen," Percy stared at the list.
We called Nico and told him to come to the station as soon as possible, and that we had figured out the code. He said he'd be here in ten minutes.
Percy and I trudged back into the conference room and plopped down on the chairs.
I closed my eyes, this case was turning out to be more complex by the minute. Percy came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. I opened my eyes and looked up into his green ones. It was a calming effect.
"Hey beautiful," he smiled down at me. I played along,
"Hey handsome." He grinned and pulled me out of the chair and up against him. I hugged him back breathing in his sent.
"We'll figure this out," he reassured, knowing the doubts going through my mind.
I looked up at him, and he leaned down and kissed me. This case was complicated but I figured as long as I was with Percy, everything will be just fine.
A/N: Yeah, bad ending...sorry.
So how was it? Please review!
See ya! :)
