“Sure. What you driving at anyhow?”
“I’ve lost something—an important paper. You saw me working on it when you came up here.”
“I remember, Dan. Maybe you stuffed it in your pocket when you took after me.”
“I don’t think so. I left everything here on the table.”
To make certain, Dan searched all his pockets. The coded message was in none of them.
Thinking that perhaps a gust of wind had carried the paper far across the floor of the cave, he looked in every corner and even under the couch.
“Ross, it’s gone,” he said with sudden conviction.
“But how could it have disappeared? Honest, Dan, I didn’t take a thing. And none of the Cubs from Den 1 were with me.”
“I believe you, Ross,” Dan assured him. “But someone has been in here while we were on the beach. I sensed it the instant I came in.”
“Anything else missing?”