No amount of research turned up answers, either. They discovered the cryptic message within other "City Papers". Philadelphia. Baltimore. Pittsburgh. Nashville. Whenever they were in a city large enough to have one, Face grabbed a free copy and scanned it. The ad was the same in each of them.
It made no sense. There was no way she would know they'd even read one of those papers, so her "Urgent!" couldn't have been too urgent. That also meant it was less likely to be a trap of some kind, because again, what kind of plans could be made on a random, fingers-crossed kind of shot in the dark?
The four of them tried to puzzle it out. Even with their resources, they couldn't figure out how long Sosa had been placing the ads, or from where she started. She'd managed to blanket them across the country.
"An enigma the likes of the Voynich Manuscript!" Murdock exclaimed. "Or the Toynbee Tiles!"
Face found he had less tolerance for his best friend's proclamations then before the ads were noticed.
Finally, a good ten months after the first was found, Face sat down with Hannibal and told him he wanted to contact his ex-girlfriend.
Hannibal aimed a lungful of smoke away from the man across the table from him.
Face waited with growing impatience as he received no reply.
He finally demanded, "Well?"
"I'm surprised it took you this long to decide," Hannibal answered carefully. "I'm surprised you hadn't already gone behind my back."
Face was surprised at those disclosures. With a nod and Hannibal on board, they turned their search to finding Sosa. They find her, the mystery is solved.
No more wondering and odd sleepless nights.