Piper quickly found herself engrossed in deciphering the code that Samuel Weston had created. The two dogs gave up trying to get her attention and ended up curling up at her feet while she worked diligently, trying one idea after another. Once Piper began to understand the first part of Samuel"s cipher, it became easier. She found she could pick out symbols from the flash drive and then, seeing them in the pages of the book, the task became more manageable. Now she was trying to come up with the missing words and letters to complete the messages he"d left. As much as Piper loved a good crossword puzzle, this was frustrating and slow work. There were no actual clues to work with; most of her results were from either guesswork or dumb luck.
She didn"t notice the passage of time or that the
