Read Online The Secret (The Scinegue Series Book 1) by S.R. Booth - Free Book Online

him calling her as soon as he got home. “I’m back here,” she replied from their bedroom where she had spread a load of clean clothes on the bed to fold.
    “You’ll never believe this.” Billy raced into the bedroom, and pulled the handwritten note from his pocket. Pushing towels aside, he sat on the edge of the bed. Sarah was about to reprimand him for disheveling the laundry she just folded, but one look at his face, and she was pushing folded clothes aside to sit next to him.
    “What is that?” she asked, focusing on the note as he unfolded it.
    “It’s addressed to me. William Roth.” He showed her the front and looked up at her almost breathless in his excitement. “It was taped to the side of a trash bag at the same house where I got that other paper. I haven’t read it yet. I was waiting to look at it with you.”
    Their eyes met and held in a combination of excitement and dread before Billy held up the paper so Sarah could read it with him.
     
    Mr. Roth, it began.
    I hope you had a chance to read something from the papers that spilled from my trash. I’m sorry for the inconvenience that torn bag caused you, and am sure you incurred some form of reprimand because of it, but it was imperative that I try to get some information to you. If you did not read anything this note will be confusing. Nonetheless, you may be our only hope.
     
    Sarah released a deep breath. “What do you have to do with any of this?”
    “I don’t know. Let’s keep reading.”
    Billy did a rapid scan over the rest of the note with Sarah looking over his shoulder.
    Sarah pointed to a group of numbers and letters at the bottom of the page. “That must be another code.” She leaned closer to get a better look. “It’s different from the first one, though. I wonder if we can figure it out.”
    “Listen to the rest of this first.”
     
    I’m sorry to draw you into this. However, you have been watched for a long time now. Myself and the few others who feel about this as I do believe you have been chosen to help us. May God be with you and with us all. Go–
     
    Sarah grabbed the note mid-sentence.
    “Let me take this to the computer and see if the Code Breaker will work on it,” Sarah called over her shoulder, already half-way down the hall with the note in hand.
    Billy watched her leave but stayed where he was. There must be something to the information Sarah decoded yesterday. For someone in Scinegue to know the name of their trash collector was shocking to Billy. For that someone to leave him a note taped to a trash bag was crazy. And also a pretty big risk.
    He could have called in sick today, or the new guy could have jumped down to help the day go faster by throwing a few bags into the truck and could have easily seen the note. Billy could have even overlooked it. It was luck as much as anything that let that piece of paper catch his eye. Why would someone, especially someone living in Scinegue who was supposedly the best of the best in the whole world, take a chance on sticking a note on a garbage bag?
    He caught up with Sarah in their mini home office. She was busy typing, and he put his hands on the back of her chair and leaned close trying to see if she had come up with any answers. His mind was still on the mystery of why someone so smart would take a chance on leaving a note on a trash bag as a way to contact him. And why on earth they would want to contact him in the first place.
    “It’s not working in the program I used yesterday,” Sarah told him with a shake of her head, still tapping keys. “It looks like there is a pattern in here. I’m just not sure what it means. I’m going to search the web for some more code tips and see if anything looks like this.”
    Billy concentrated on the letters and numbers that appeared to randomly fill the bottom section of his note. The more he studied it, the more certain letters seemed to pop out at him. He pulled up a chair beside Sarah and grabbed a notebook and