Optimism was a choice, so Gigi chose to believe that the time she spent staring at herself in the bathroom mirror was productive. Best-case scenario, Knox and Brady would perform an exorcism on the ghosts of their past and hug it out, all while Gigi brilliantly and single-handedly solved their riddle. To that end, she pulled out her trusty marker, which she might or might not have had stashed in her cleavage, and hopped up to perch on the edge of the sink so she could write the words of the riddle on the surface of the mirror.
I COME BEFORE FALL AFTER THE CENTER
AND NOT BAD AT ALL
IN FRONT OF A HORSE NAMED LILY OR ROSE
OR COOLNESS IN SHADOW I’M ALL OF THOSE
WHAT AM I?
Starting at the beginning hadn’t gotten Gigi anywhere, so this time, she started at the end. The last line—the question—was self-explanatory. I’m all of those seemed to indicate that the answer somehow fit everything that had been previously described. Moving up another line got her to coolness in
shadow, which probably, maybe, possibly, conceivably meant shade.
In front of a horse named Lily or Rose. In the riddle, that bit had occupied two lines, making it seem like there might be two separate answers—one for the flowers, one for the horse. But ignoring the spacing, they flowed together.
A single clue? Gigi’s fingers found their way to the vibrant blue-green pendant nestled just above her collarbone. She closed her fingers around it and thought harder. A horse named Lily or Rose. Obviously, those were flower names, but this was a riddle. Obvious didn’t mean right. So what was the less obvious interpretation?
What did it mean if a horse was named Lily or Rose?
“They’re girls’ names.” Gigi’s grip on the jewel tightened, as her lips worked their way into a blinding grin. A horse named Lily or Rose was female. “And a female horse…” Gigi could feel it: This was something. “A female horse is called a mare.”
What if that was all those two lines meant? In front of a mare. Super- charged by the possibility, Gigi exuberantly hopped off the sink. A more coordinated or less on-the-verge-of-something person would have stuck the landing.
Gigi didn’t.
She toppled over, and somehow, in the process of trying to catch herself, she managed to forget to let go of the pendant. She felt the delicate chain break. Her knee-jerk reaction was to open her hand.
The jewel slipped from her fingers, fell to the floor, and shattered.
No. Not shattered, Gigi told herself. Broke. There were only three pieces. She scrambled to collect them, and it was only after she’d picked up the second piece that she realized: The jewel hadn’t broken, either. It had separated, cleanly, along the lines of the gold wiring.
Like the jeweled pendant had been cut in half before. Like the wiring had been holding it together.
Half? Gigi stared at the two pieces of the jewel in her hands—then looked to the third piece of debris on the floor, the piece to which the gold wiring was still attached. Not the color of the ocean. Not a jewel. Gigi made her way toward it on all fours. The third piece was tiny—and obviously electronic. A person with a less eclectic or more legal array of hobbies might not have recognized it for what it was, but Gigi did.
A listening device.
She’d been bugged.
