Page 18 of Thunder Pass

This time, Charlie Santa Lucia strolled into the shop, shoving her sunglasses to the top of her head. Gunnar set down the brake pad he’d just pried off Bennie Thomas’ 2004 Subaru Outback. “Hey, Charlie. Thanks for taking the time.”

“I owe you one. I took refuge in here once, remember that?”

“That was nothing.” When Charlie had first come to Firelight Ridge, she’d been running from the man who was now her man. Gunnar hadn’t thought twice about letting her hide out in his back office. Of course he’d had no clue he’d stepped in the midst of a romance, but then again, neither had they.

“Well, I appreciated it at the time, and still do. So what did you want to show me?”

He led her to that very same back office, which was now more like Nelson’s playground. The two of them had reorganized it so that Nelson had room for his comic books and video games. That seemed to be all it took to keep him happy, though more and more, he accepted Gunnar’s invitations to get outside—probably because Gunnar sometimes let him drive the ATV.

“Nelson, this is Charlie, remember we met her in the Magic Bus? She’s a hacker.”

“Former hacker,” Charlie said modestly. “Or should I say, reformed. I only use my knowledge for good and to help out friends with computer mysteries.”

Speechless, Nelson watched as Charlie folded her blonde, tall-drink-of-water self into the chair in front of the desktop. Gunnar couldn’t blame the kid. Charlie was a knockout with her brash confidence and wry manner.

“This is the database that Nelson found.”

She nodded and scrolled through the entries at a dizzying pace. “Can you tell me anything about it? You said it was your father’s. Any idea what he might have been tracking like this?”

“No. As far as I know, my father was just a mechanic. In the seventeen years I knew him, that’s what he did. He fixed vehicles, and he took care of me, and sometimes he went to The Fang for a beer, and that was about it. He skied a lot, too. Backcountry, telemark. Loved to ski. Loved to hike. I think that’s why we moved here. I never even saw him use this computer.”

“Could someone else have created this file?”

“No. He never had anyone working for him. It was just him and me.”

Charlie glanced up at him in surprise. “What about your mother?”

“She died when I was little.”

“I’m sorry.”

Gunnar shrugged. The departure of his father had affected him much more than the loss of his mother, since he’d been seventeen instead of two. “Thanks,” he said briefly.

Charlie resumed her scrolling. “To be honest, it looks like some kind of code to me. These numbers aren’t amounts, or dates, or coordinates, or any of the obvious numerical designators. I think the numbers stand for something else.”

“Like what? Can you decipher it?”

“Not without some kind of key.” She looked over at Nelson. “Have you found anything like that? Maybe something that shows a correspondence between numbers and letters?”

Nelson shook his head no.

“Would it have to be in the computer?” Gunnar asked.

“Not at all. Maybe he wrote it down on paper somewhere.” They all looked over at the filing cabinets, which were so stuffed with papers that the drawers didn’t quite close all the way. “Good luck with that. I’m a digital gal, not analog.”

Gunnar gave a sigh. As if he had time to go through decades’ worth of paperwork in the middle of summer. “I guess it’ll have to stay a mystery.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said sympathetically. “Want me to try a decryption program?”

“Sure.”

She tapped some keys, then sat back. “This is the part where we wait.”

As they all stared at the spinning circle on the screen, Nelson suddenly found his voice. “That’s not what my mom said.”

Gunnar and Charlie both turned to the boy. “What are you talking about?” Gunnar asked.

”You said your father was just a mechanic and didn’t do anything else.”

---