ramp and me. “That ropes course in the woods?” he says. “It’s not like anything you’ve ever seen.”
I’m not sure what that could possibly have to do with the coin or the Latin phrase, but I trust he’s going to tell me. “Have you done the course?” I ask.
“Some of it. I was invited, but I didn’t get to the next level.”
I frown, somehow not seeing this boy as one who’d merit an invitation from Rex Collier. “Who invited you? When?”
“I have no idea. A few weeks ago, I got this anonymous invitation to do the ropes course. At first I thought it was some stupid Vienna High jock thing and I ignored it. Then the invitations got more … inviting.” He rubs his two fingers together in the universal gesture for cash. “Kind of hard to ignore an envelope when it lands on your doorstep with a picture of Ben Franklin in it.”
“Someone just gave you a hundred dollars to do the ropes course? Did you?”
He snorts. “Hell yeah. This thing needs gas, you know, and Mickey D’s doesn’t hire kids with probation officers.”
“What happened?”
A blue car takes the ramp, diverting our attention for a second as it travels on.
“Nothing happened,” he says when the car is gone. “In fact, it was like any high school party that Josh throws. Tons of idiots getting loaded and climbing trees and zip-lining like they’re George of the Jungle.”
“Like Josh and his football friends?”
He shakes his head. “No, kids I didn’t recognize. No one talked to me and not everyone was taking it seriously, but some did. Some followed the course. Which is marked …” He slides me a meaningful look. “With instructions in another language.”
“Latin, by any chance?”
“By every chance.”
“Is that why you asked me for the translation?”
“One of the reasons, yeah. I wanted to know what that meant … nihil whatever.”
“ ‘Leave nothing behind and no trace.’ ” I nod toward the bushes. “Besides being on that coin, where did you see it?”
“The phrase is stamped or burned or even painted in a couple of places along the course,” he says. “But everything’s in weird, ancient languages, including the instructions on each platform for getting from obstacle to obstacle.”
“That adds to the difficulty quotient.”
“Especially for a guy who struggles with English, let alone Latin,” he agrees. “I quit after a while because it got to be a stupid risk. No one gets very far.”
“What happens if someone does?” I ask, imagining just how athletic and intelligent you’d have to be to attack that challenge.
“I imagine they get the scholarship, but I’ve never heard of anyone getting it. Maybe they just get one of those gold coins.”
With tracking devices in them. “But someone might have finished the course?”
He shrugs. “I guess. I haven’t been around Vienna long enough to hear about anyone getting the scholarship. Have you?”
“I told you I’d never heard of it. So what did you do when you quit the course, just walk away?” I ask. “Did you ever hear from whoever invited you again?”
“Once,” he says after a beat. “Somebody put a note in my locker to go to the senior lot and find …” He adds a meaningful look. “A black F-150 pickup, presumably the one we’re waiting for. Anyway, when I got to the parking lot, I saw that truck—or one that looks exactly like it—windows down, no one in sight. On the dash was an envelope with my name on it.”
“And another Benjamin Franklin?”
This time he gives me a sardonic smile. “Ten of ’em.”
“A thousand dollars?” I choke on the words. “To do the ropes course again?”
He shakes his head, his eyes as dark as a night sky, filled with regret and something a little scarier. “To go to the Keystone Quarry. The same night Olivia Thayne was killed.”
Holy, holy hell. “And you went.”
“Not until I got a text from you.”
“That I didn’t send.” Then who did? “Any other times?”
“Yeah. One more that I ignored.”
“To go where?”
“A house.” He grimaces. “The house where Chloe Batista died.”
I inhale so sharply I almost cough. “The night she was killed?”
He nods. “But I ignored it and the money because I didn’t want to miss a chance to see you.”
“But someone invited you to go to both places where the girls were killed?”
“Died,” he corrects, but I just look away. Did they die in horrible accidents or were they helped along?
“And you saw the truck in the lot when we were having coffee,” I say.