“Sorry, Ridley, but it doesn’t appear that a Mr. Tithe stayed in room 412.”
“Oh, well, maybe I got the room wrong.”
“No, honey, you misunderstand me. Nobody with that name has ever stayed here at the Grand Oak Resort.”
FIFTEEN
Ridley flinched, forcing herself to not peer over her shoulder at the spot where her friends were hiding. “But this is the name Dean gave me. Fred Punier Tithe.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Quinn made a sad smile. “Maybe he was messing around. We’re not really supposed to give out guest information to just anyone. Not that you’re just anyone, Ridley, but… you know what I mean.”
“I guess I do,” Ridley replied, trying to not look as confused, or as embarrassed, as she felt. As she made her way back toward the fireplace, those emotions started to transform, and by the time she reached her friends, she’d become full-on furious. “We’ve been had,” she spat out.
“By whom?” asked Theo.
“I’m not sure,” Ridley answered. “By Dean? By Quinn? By someone else?” She quickly explained what Quinn had told her, and watched her friends’ faces turn grimmer.
Leila began to fidget. “I say that’s enough for today. It’s late, and Dad and Poppa are probably wondering where we are. Even though they’ve been busy trying to rebuild the magic shop’s business from up here at the resort, they’ve also been pretty protective lately.”
After agreeing to come down to Ridley’s tomorrow afternoon to look closer at the puzzle boxes, they all said their goodbyes.
Ridley called her mom to come pick her and Theo up. “You didn’t even tell me you’d left, Ridley,” Mrs. Larsen had snapped. “I’m in the middle of the penultimate chapter and now I have to step away again.… Where are my keys? I could have sworn—Oh, there they are.… Have you had lunch yet? I don’t have much at home… and if you’d given me some sense of what you’d be doing today, I could have planned.…”
Eventually Mrs. Larsen hung up the phone and arrived in her mint-green Plymouth a few minutes later, looking exhausted. There were dark marks under her eyes, and her hair was frizzed out. Ridley figured she’d worked through the day without glancing in a mirror. “What’s all this?” Mrs. Larsen asked when Ridley handed her the oilcloth sack filled with the five puzzle boxes to put in the trunk.
“Research?” Ridley answered.
To her relief, Mrs. Larsen shrugged.
In the back seat of the car, Ridley whispered to Theo, “Can you bring out Mick’s puzzle box when we get to your house?”
“How about tomorrow instead? My mom and dad are probably going to be upset that I stayed out after dark.”
Ridley pressed down on her annoyance—and then realized that she was only annoyed at being annoyed. “Understandable. I’ll work on what I can tonight, and then we’ll see if Mick’s box helps anything when you bring it over.”
Theo smiled. “Nice,” he said. As they sat in silence, Ridley wondered if he’d been commenting on her plan for the puzzle boxes, or if he’d been commenting on her. Either way, it certainly felt nice to be getting along with her best friend again.
Once inside her house, Ridley made straight for the small doorway beneath the foyer staircase. “There’s some fruit in the kitchen,” her mother said before starting upstairs toward her office. “I’ve got to get back to the book.”
“It’s fine,” Ridley called out. “Not hungry just yet anyway.”
(Ah, I do wish Ridley would have a piece of fruit. Apples, pears, bananas—they are so very good for you. Let’s all take a quick break and find something to snack on, shall we? I’m craving a piece of dragonfruit myself.)
In the lab, Ridley arranged the puzzle boxes on the table in the center of the room. There was something to the strange markings that gleamed from the inlaid wood—something Ridley knew she was missing and that might help her discover what was inside them.
She glanced at the box of tools on a shelf, considering a small handsaw. She remembered the promise she’d made to her friends at the hotel—that she wouldn’t break them open. But it wouldn’t take much just to see…
No. The Misfits were the most important thing right now. She wouldn’t let them down. And who knew? Maybe the point of the boxes had nothing to do with what was inside them. Maybe they had a different purpose entirely. She couldn’t be sure, however, until Theo brought the final box over tomorrow afternoon.
She glanced instead at the secret project