CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Suspicions
“Well. Summer Bryn,” I said.
“Noah Parker.”
Seeing Jane would have been worse, but not by much. She had sunglasses on, so the glare I felt was probably my imagination. “Didn’t expect to see you,” I said. Or Ben Fulton, for that matter. Why did I have to pick Tonto today? “We’re, um, on a geocache.”
“So are we.”
“Right.”
More awkward silence. These memories started flashing through my mind of the terrible shouting matches with Jane. Summer really had seen the worst of me.
“What’s that thing on your shoulder?” she asked.
“Haven’t you seen a dragon before?”
“Not in person. I might have seen one on a geocache once, out in Red Mesa. It ran off before I could get a good look.”
“That wasn’t a dragon. They don’t live in the wild.”
“Then I guess I haven’t. I just figured a dragon would be more, um . . .” she paused. “Impressive.”
“Tsh.” Granted, it’s not like I’d impressed a bronze or anything, but Octavius was still special, in a way. “Size isn’t everything.”
“I should hope not.”
Octavius seemed to know we were talking about him. He flicked his tongue out at her, one of his rudest gestures.
“Hey, now, be nice,” I told him, fighting the grin that wanted to spread on my face.
Summer clipped her mangy pig on a leash. She’d grown her hair out. She looked lithe and healthy, which only served to twist the knife that the reunion planted in my gut.
Octavius never took his eyes from the pig. I had to pry him loose from my shoulder one claw at a time.
“Did you find the marker?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
How did she get so tan, anyway? All I ever did was burn. The SPF50 saved me from the worst of it but kept me pale as a ghost. “Not going to tell me, huh?”
She shrugged. “It’s against the rules.”
“Fine, be that way,” I said.
“I think I will,” she said. “See you in another few years.”
She stalked off with the pig in tow, which meant she’d found the marker and was headed to the next one. I watched her go, wishing I’d thought to say that. She’d always liked to get the last word.
We could have just followed her, but that would be cheating. Besides, it would be far more enjoyable to beat her fair and square.
I pointed Octavius to the boulder. “Right there, buddy,” I said. “Find the marker.”
He glided to the boulder, circled it once, then settled down at the base. He chirped at me; he had it already. It was a brick, half-buried in the dirt, with a number stamped on the top. At least she hadn’t buried it. I put the coordinates in my watch. About a third of a mile.
“Come on buddy,” I said. “We can’t let a girl beat us.”
Karma came promptly back to bite me, because there was no catching Summer and Riker. We caught glimpses of them from time to time as we approached a marker, but they built a lead and kept it. I’d figured we’d be quick to catch them; Octavius and I were good at this stuff. But she didn’t miss a beat.
It was ridiculous.
Finally, we reached the endpoint. Octavius found the case in a hollowed-out log. It turned out to be an old can of WD-40, sawed off and capped with a plastic lid. I took this off and dumped the contents into my hand. There were some McDonald’s toys, a couple of matchbox cars, a G.I. Joe, a pack of gum. I plucked out the micro-USB drive and plugged it into my watch to log the find. Octavius got to pick out the prize. He nudged a glass marble with sky-blue whorls with his snout.
“That what you want?” I asked.
He crooned the affirmative. I took the marble and left our own little token, a tiny pewter dragon figurine. I made sure the lid was on tight before I put the cache back. Then I obscured a couple of footprints I’d made in the loose dirt—no need to make it too easy for the next guy—and headed back to the parking lot.
Jeeps and SUVs now occupied most of it. A light coat of sand-dust covered all of them, too, from the constant comings and goings. I finally had cell service again, so I couldn’t resist the urge to check my league stats. I’d hoped today’s cache would put us ahead. Still tied for first. Damn.
There was a little picnic area beside the line of cars. I caught a flash of movement there, and Octavius hissed. Riker shot past, in hot pursuit of a neon green frisbee. He reared up to snag it out of the air. Not a bad show of talent, for a pig. He raced back to Summer and ruined the performance only a little by refusing to give her the frisbee.
She saw us and made a big show of checking her watch. “I was about to call the rangers. Thought maybe you got lost.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“Did you find it, or do you need some help?”
“Funny,” I said. She thought she was so smart. “You know what the WD stands for, in WD-40?”
“No, what?” She threw the frisbee again and brushed an errant strand of hair out of her face.
“Water displacement.”
“For real?”
“That’s why it’s used to prevent rust.”
“You’re such a nerd.”
Riker had the frisbee and came trundling back for another round of tug-of-war.
“Yeah, I know. I even named my pet after a “Star Trek” character,” I said. “Oh, wait. That was you.”
“Hey! Riker’s a good name.”
They were a good team, too, though I didn’t say that. Right then it hit me. Riker was the name of the first officer on “Star Trek,” and the captain called him Number One.
“Oh my God,” I muttered. I really hope that’s a coincidence.
Summer glanced at me. “What?”
“Nothing.” I thought about leaving, but my curiosity got the better of me. “So the geocaching thing. You don’t happen to go by the name SomeNumberOne, do you?”
That caught her off guard. She gave me a sort of side-look. “How do you know that?”
I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”
She gasped, and even let go of the frisbee. “You’re NPdesign.”
“Yeah.”
She chewed her lip. “This is weird.”
“What are the odds, right?”
“Took you long enough to tie me on the leaderboard,” she said.
“Just wait until next weekend, when we pull ahead.”
“I’m not too worried about it.” She yanked the frisbee away from Riker and threw it again. A perfect, level throw, just far enough to make the pig work for it.
“We’re doing Big Mesa Star,” I said.
It was a lie, at that point. Big Mesa Star was a legendary five-marker geocache in Big Mesa National Reserve. It had the highest difficulty rating, so finding it probably would put us on top. She had to know that.
She snorted. “Good luck with that one.”
“Thanks,” I said. “See you in another few years.”