You'll join them.

"Sure that sounds good," you answer. "I'll meet you there. What's it called?"

"White Mountain Tavern. It's on 7th street, just off Main. Easy to find," Donna answers as the three of you walk into the garage. You nod, striding towards your bike and kicking it to life. You roar out of the garage, wanting to feel some free air in your face, if only for a few minutes.

On the road you open the bike up a little, savouring the feel of power under you and the cleanness of the evening. You think back to the events of the day with mixed emotions, wondering if you wouldn't be better off just putting your bike on the Interstate and never looking back, leaving your sparse belongings and your brief career at Pink Rose behind you.

But you've never quit. Never. Not as a kid when growing up was hard and poor, not in basic training when you were convinced Gunny Marsden was trying to kill you on the obstacle course, not in combat, and not in the long months of rehab after being wounded. And your old CO had asked for help, and you'd be damned if you were going to quit on him. Not because you'd let yourself get infatuated with your boss or because some teen pussy opened up for you.

You were Kyle Hawkfeather, USMC and a proud descendent of a proud people. You might bend, but you would never break. You might lose, but you'd never surrender.

It is with renewed sense of purpose that you pull up in front of the White Mountain Tavern and rock your bike back onto it's kickstand before heading in to find Donna and Lorri.

"I thought you'd already be here," Donna waves from a table. "The way you took off I figured you were a man in **** need of a drink."

"I just ran it down the highway a few miles. To blow some air into my lungs," you answer, sitting down.

"Tough day?" Lorri asks. "What are you drinking?"

"The Coors on tap is good. Not too tough I guess. Just not what I'm used to."

"You did good Marine," the imposing black woman nods as she signals to the bartender. "Scared some of those rich white girls. Although you know..."

"When they get scared they get excited..." Donna laughs.

"And when they get excited they get horny," Lorri finishes, grinning at you.

You nod as a barmaid puts a glass down. Taking a sip you enjoy the cold crispness with a sigh and let yourself relax a little. "I've seen a few displays," you answer.

"I bet. Lyndsey White put on a show I hear, and you and Diana paddled Rose Newton for contraband," Donna says.

"Couldn't happen to a more deserving bitch," Lorri snorts. "That girl gives snotty white rich brats a bad name."

"How did the meeting with Valerie's parent's go?" Donna asks. "I've met Dad. He's a piece of work."

"She had hysterics when he threatened to take her out of school. The nurse came and the meeting is suspended until tomorrow. The whole family is a mess. I feel sorry for the kid."

"Don't waste too much sympathy on her," Donna says as Lorri nods. "She's dumb and mean, which is never a good combination."

"Well, Mason and Brian seem to have taken her under their wing. Maybe they can turn her around." You catch a fleeting glance pass between the two women, but decide not to pursue it. "How were your days?"

"Good. We just had to show up at the meetings, not put on a show," Lorri answers. "As far as I'm concerned, my job starts tomorrow, teaching these girls all they don't want to know about physics and chemistry." She takes a deep draft of her beer and gives an earthy laugh. "I don't even know why they offer the courses, but I'm happy to take their money."

"Plus you get the pleasure of intimidating your students," Donna laughs.

"That too. The last time most of these girls got close to someone as black as me he was washing their car or cutting their lawn. I regard it as my contribution to diversifying their consciousness."

You grin at her and take another pull at your beer. Leaning back you casually put one hand in the pocket of your khakis. You feel a slip of paper between your fingers, and slightly puzzled you pull it out and look at it. It's a series of numbers, and you look at it with a frown, wondering what the hell it is and where it came from.

"What have you got there?" Donna asks, as you suddenly remember that it fell out of a book during the search or Rose and Chanel's room.

"Just a scrap of paper; a bunch of numbers. I must have picked it up when Diana and I were searching Chanel and Rose's room. I guess I put it in my pocket without thinking."

"Let me see that," she says, stretching a hand out and taking it from you, smoothing it out on the table so both she and Lorri can look at it. She runs her hand down the columns, nodding to herself. Lorri purses her lips, looking at the paper.

"Could be a code," Lorri mutters, and Donna nods more certainly. You frown in puzzlement, looking at the two women.

"You found this just lying on a desk or the floor or something?" Donna asks.

"Uh...no...no it fell out of a book." The women share glances and Donna looks at you with a knowing smile.

"A book code," she says with certainty. "See Kyle, each set of numbers begins with a one to three digit number, then a period, then another one to three digit number. The first number relates to the page of the book, the number after the period, the word counted down from the first on the page. Was the book a dictionary?"

"Uh...no, some kind of horror novel, or stories. You're way ahead of me. What the hell is a book code?"

"It depends on the participants in the code all having the same book. Same book, same edition. You make up a message, then find the words in the book and turn them into numbers. Unless you know the book and the right edition, it's pretty close to unbreakable. Simple but effective." She shrugs and takes a sip of her drink. "Cryptography is kind of a hobby of mine. The price of being a mathematician."

"So why would these girls be making coded messages?"

"Who knows? Secrets for the hell of it probably. They're not much more than children, emotionally I mean, and children love secrets. Whose book was it?"

"Chanel's....but now that I think of it Rose had a copy of the same book. I figured it was a text in a course they had."

"Roommates wouldn't need to send codes to each other. Either it belonged in a different book, or there are more girls in their little code club," Lorri says, waving to the bartender.

"My guess would be more girls," Donna says, handing the paper back to you. "Hang onto this. I'd be curious to know what it says. You don't remember the title?"

"Not really. Something with a strange name. Began with a 'C' I think."

"Cthulu?" Lorri asks, spelling it out. "You said horror, and there's a whole bunch of stories called the Cthulu Mythos. Most of them written by a guy called Lovecraft."

"That sounds right. At least it had that word in it, and that name sounds familiar."

"See if you can get it. You're the Dean. Search her room again. You found contraband there once, you can say you're checking again. It's probably nothing, some schoolgirl horseshit about fucking their boyfriends, but I'm curious."

"I'll see what I can do," you say, tucking the paper away in your wallet and taking another pull on your beer.