The Cipher by John C. Ford Read Free Book Online

way.
    â€œC’mon,” she said, “we’ll hop on your computer. Maybe she’s still at the same place. And California is three hours behind, so—”
    Melanie stopped. She had triggered something in Smiles.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œProbably nothing,” he said, “but . . . where is area code 510?”
    He brought out his cell phone and showed her a record of two missed calls from a 510 number. “They came in this morning.”
    Melanie had no clue where 510 was, but it couldn’t hurt to try. “Call it.”
    She pinched her lip between her teeth as he contemplated the screen. And then he pressed the “call back” button. The tinny sound of a ringing line came through as Smiles drifted to his bedroom, the cell to his ear. Melanie followed on light feet to the doorway.
    Smiles sunk to his bed, just a box spring and mattress lying on the floor. The sheets lay across it in a great swirl, a radar image of a hurricane. Even from the doorway, Melanie could hear the voice answering the call. She couldn’t make out words, but there was something sharp in the delivery. It sounded female enough.
    Smiles paused a moment. Melanie thought he might lose his nerve and hang up. She gripped the doorjamb with an unconscious intensity.
    â€œHello?” Smiles said. “Is this Alice Smylie?”
    Silence for a moment, and then a muted reply. Smiles continued: “This is Rob Smylie. Your son, I think.”
    I think
. It was heartbreaking. Melanie realized she’d cracked a nail and forced her hand away from the door frame.
    Smiles nodded and then started again. “I, uh, well, you know Mr. Hunt? I was talking to him today and he told me there was a letter that you’d left for me. And a notebook of some kind. I’m not sure I really understood, but anyway I was wondering—”
    A longer burst of sound, but now the voice had a note of finality in it.
    â€œWell, okay, but I mean the whole thing was just a little confusing. You did write the letter, then?”
    Silence, and then another clipped sentence from the other end.
    â€œMaybe you could just tell me about it then? ’Cause it turns out Mr. Hunt actually threw away the letter. It’s sort of a long story, but my dad’s kinda sick and—”
    A louder, longer response. Smiles’s head made a slow bow of defeat to the carpet. Melanie wanted to throttle this woman. She couldn’t take it anymore, and worse, she felt like she was invading Smiles’s privacy. If she could pick up the line and demand some answers, she would. But she couldn’t, so she did the only decent thing she could think of and retreated to the living room.
    Melanie waited for five minutes there, looking beyond the gurgling fish tanks to the low clouds turning to Creamsicles in the sunset. The murmured pleadings she heard in Smiles’s voice pained her ears.
    Since she had last been to his place, a number of golf ball–sized pocks had appeared in the living room drywall. Her shoes rested on a gigantic purple stain in the carpet with dried chunks of paper towel all over the place. Smiles had parties during the week, attended, she imagined, by people he met out at the bars who liked the idea of hanging out with Robert Smylie’s son for a night. It worried her. She wondered what happened here at night during the week but never asked. Chalk up another thing she wanted to change about herself.
    She was sitting on the battered blue sofa that Smiles had found in the trash area on the day he got his keys. On the wall facing her was the seventy-two-inch plasma.
    The obscene hunk of black plastic was shrieking everything she didn’t like about Smiles. She wasn’t comfortable here. And still she knew why she had come tonight. She knew why she had confused him with her birthday gift, and why she’d kissed him back by the aquarium. If she had the list right now, she would have