The Lost Journal

by Chris Blewitt

  “That won’t work in the long run,” Madison stated, “but it will at least buy us some more time with this thing. Whoever wants it will find it, and who knows what they will do to get it.”

  Seth took small sips of his beer and nibbled at his pizza. Arthur and Madison paged through the book until finally Madison broke the silence. “What?” she asked while looking up at Seth.

  He shook his head and curled his lower lip over his upper lip as if to say, “nothing.”

  “Seth, what are you thinking about, son?” Arthur asked.

  Seth did not raise his eyes up from his bottle of beer that he was slowly pulling the label from when he spoke. “It’s weird, you know. Why do we care about this book? Why not give it back to them?”

  Madison raised her voice. “What?” Arthur reached over and put his hand on her arm but she shook free. “You basically had me commit a felony today for which I could not only get fired but possibly face jail time and now you wanna quit on this?”

  “I’m just saying we don’t even know what it is and we’re getting threatened and followed to the point that I don’t know if it’s worth continuing.”

  “Seth,” Arthur jumped in, “this book, whatever it is, has been in my hands for quite some time now. I feel it’s my duty to find out what’s in it. Added to which, if this book was not that important, we wouldn’t be followed and threatened. What kind of legitimate business or establishment goes to all this trouble if it was all on the up and up?”

  Now it was Madison’s turn. “He’s right, Seth. That’s the million dollar question. Not what’s in the book, but rather, who needs to know what’s in the book so badly that they would go to all the trouble of following us and threatening us?”

  Arthur got up from his seat with his glass of rusty-colored liquid, walked over to Seth on the other side of the table and put his hand on his shoulder. “Son, this is the most excitement this old man has had in years. I’m in it for the long haul and I want you with me.”

  Madison grabbed her beer and tilted it to the both of them, “I’m in,” she said.

  Seth looked up at his granddad and said, “If anything happens to you, Dad will kill me.”

  Arthur smiled. “Don’t worry about him, I can still whoop his ass.”

  Seth raised his beer, “I’m in.” They all said “cheers” and took a nice long pull of their drinks. “Now, what else is in that book?”

  Madison and Arthur returned to their seats on the other side of the table and Seth went to the fridge to grab two more beers. If nothing else, he was certainly enjoying Madison’s company and would extend the night as long as possible to be near her.

  “Well,” Madison started, “there’s not much more here. The page after the A through E drawing is just a picture of the American Flag. See?” She turned the book to Seth and it showed the original American Flag. Thirteen dots, stars, if drawn to scale, in a circle in the upper left hand corner, thirteen stripes covering the rest of the flag.

  “After that is another connect the dot page, F through K,” Madison said while getting another piece of paper and tracing the dots. They compared both pages and could not make heads or tails around what the drawing was supposed to depict.

  “What if you continued the line from E to F on the paper so it flows together?” Seth asked. Madison connected both pages and they still had nothing. The A-E drawing was larger than the F through K and they tried endless combinations to conjoin the two. A on the left, A on the right, on the bottom, on the top, even upside down.

  “What about under it?” Seth asked.

  “What do you mean?” Madison replied.

  “Here,” Seth said while grabbing the two sheets of paper. He put the F-K sheet on top of the A-E sheet and stared at the new image. “Can’t see much.”

  “Put it under the light,” Arthur said.

  Seth put it directly under the kitchen light and now they could make out the dots on the page underneath. They formed a picture of sorts. Seth added in the dots from the page beneath to the page on top and they now had a full pictogram from A through K.

  “Got it,” said Seth.

  Madison did too and after just a moment, they both said the words together, “A house.”

  Arthur took a sip of his drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “All these years of guessing and all I had to do was put one page under the other. Why the hell would he do that?”

  “Cause it’s a game, Granddad. He wants us to find something or discover something, but then again he doesn’t, so he makes it difficult.”

  The house they created by connecting the letters was small and narrow in size. There were no windows or doors drawn out, but you could tell it was three stories high with a chimney on the left hand side.

  “Nice job Seth.” Madison walked over to Seth and clinked his beer bottle with hers. For a brief moment, they locked eyes and she smiled before taking a swig of her beer. “Now, we’re getting somewhere.”

  “So, we’re looking for a flag in a house. Maybe we’re looking for a flag on top of a house?” Seth asked.

  “Who puts a flag on top of a house?” Arthur asked. “Maybe a building, firehouse, or on a flagpole, but not on top of a house.”

  “Granddad, if this book or diary is authentic, which we kind of believe, it was written in the seventeen hundreds. We have to think like that, not like the world we live in today.”

  “That’s true Seth,” Madison said, “but what house is still in existence today that was built in the seventeen hundreds?”

  “The White House?” Seth replied.

  “Nope,” Arthur replied. “Washington D.C. wasn’t even the capital back then, so George Washington could not have described that. D.C. became the capital in 1800. You know what the capital was, don’t you? That’s right, good old Philadelphia. Washington spent a lot of time in this area. That house we’re looking for could be right under our noses.”

  “So we have to search every house in the city that was built in the seventeen hundreds and still exists today?” Seth asked.

  “And still has a flag on it,” Madison chimed in.

  “Yeah, that’ll be fun, gosh.” Seth said sarcastically. “What else is in the book?”

  The three of them leaned in close to the book on the table. Arthur turned the next page and on it was another “connect the dots” sort of pictogram. It was true, Madison discovered on the internet, George Washington often drew plots of land or maps with a pictogram. He would walk acres and acres of land while plotting points on a piece of canvas. Then, he would connect the dots to form an accurate portrayal of the land. The one they were looking at now was more simplistic. There were seven dots on the left and seven dots on the right, all equally proportionate. In between the sixth row, there were five dots gathered close together. Seth took the liberty of recreating the drawing on a piece of paper. All he had come up with was a series of lines that ran horizontal to each other, like cornrows. In the middle of the sixth however, a shape came to life.

  “A star,” Madison guessed first.

  “Looks that way to me,” Seth responded.

  “Which means what?”

  “That’s what we have to figure out,” Arthur said.

  “So after we find the flag place we look for this shape? Maybe the star is like the ‘X’ that marks the spot.”

  “A treasure?” Arthur said, perking up.

  “I don’t think it’s a treasure, Granddad. Remember what he wrote in the front.” Seth flipped back a few pages and read aloud. “’It is with great displeasure that I am writing this.’ Whatever it is, he’s ashamed of it.”

  “Damn, I wanna get rich. What else is in there, I forget? It has been twenty-five years since I read through it.”

  Seth flipped to the page after the last drawing and read: Once you have found this location, you will have the necessary tools to find the great truth that must one day reveal itself. Do so with caution. Signed, G Washington.

  “What else?” Madison ask
ed.

  Seth flipped through but found nothing else written. “That’s it.”

  “That’s it? After two-hundred years of hiding, that’s all we have to go on is two silly drawings?”

  “Apparently so, let’s get crackin’.”

  “Oh, look who’s the enthusiastic one now, Arthur?” Both Madison and Arthur eyed Seth cautiously.

  “Hey, this was your idea, I’m just playin’ along.”

  “Right,” Madison replied. “You wanna find whatever this is just as badly as we do.”

  Seth took a swallow of beer, shrugged his shoulders, smiled at her and said, “True.”

  Madison grabbed her laptop off the counter and brought it over to the table. Arthur headed off to the bathroom, so Seth moved in to the seat nearest her. They scoured various historic websites but mainly focused on Philadelphia’s City Hall and the Independence Hall, home of the First Constitutional Convention. Both of the buildings were hundreds of years of old, but neither looked like the picture in the journal.

  “Where’s Arthur?” Madison suddenly asked.

  Alarmed, and not noticing that he had not come back from the bathroom fifteen minutes before, he walked out into the living room and founded him asleep in the recliner. “Shit, I was supposed to get him back to his place tonight.”

  “At this hour? They’ve probably locked up and won’t care anyway. Just let him sleep here. We can take him back in the morning.”

  Seth perked up at that last comment. “We?” he asked.

  Madison didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, Seth, we. That means you and I. Both of us. He’s sleeping here and you’re sleeping here. I’m not staying here alone with those crazy guys out there.”

  Seth walked over to her and set his beer on the counter. “Is that the only reason you want me to stay here?”

  Madison put her beer down next to his and grabbed both his hands in hers. She leaned in and kissed him hard on the lips, taking full control of the situation. After several moments she pulled away and ran her tongue along her upper lip. “Yes, that’s the only reason. You get the couch…..at least for tonight.”

  Seth watched her turn the kitchen light out and head into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. “Damn,” he muttered under his breath.

  CHAPTER 9

  The orange glow of the sun coming over the Atlantic in the east never left the tiny oval window inside the small plane. The man sitting in the window seat raised and lowered the plastic shade several times during the past two hours of his eight hour Trans-Atlantic flight. It was odd to take a red-eye flight across the Atlantic east to west, but several provisions had been made for the three person team. As the wheels touched down in Philadelphia, Maximus Church yawned once and looked over at his companions. The woman and the man were asleep almost as soon as the Gulfstream had taken off and were much more rested than he. He closed the Ian Rankin detective novel he was reading and unbuckled his seatbelt.

  “Let’s go, chaps, you slept enough,” he said. When Max stood up, the white button-downed shirt he wore stretched across his tight muscles and he bent over at the knees to get the blood flowing in his legs. He walked down the aisle to the front of the plane, grabbed his matching gray sport coat and threw it over his arm. His tall frame and dark eyes turned and glanced back down toward the sleeping couple sitting across from him. He shook his head and walked toward them.

  He approached the woman, put his hands on his hips and stared at the red-haired beauty. Chloe Tolliver was blessed in that all of her excess weight was distributed perfectly to her chest and her rear end. Barely cresting five feet, she still had measurements that made heads turn. What set her apart was her ability to separate her femininity from the job at hand. A smile came across his face and he grabbed her arm and placed her hand on the crotch of the man sitting next to her. An idea popped into his head and he pulled out his camera phone and snapped a quick picture. He stepped back and chuckled to himself.

  SMACK!

  Max clapped his hands together not ten inches from her face. The man next to her was the first to open his eyes. Evan Long raised his head and took in his surroundings. It took him about five seconds to feel his partner’s hand covering his masculinity. Before Evan could even get aroused, Chloe woke and took much less than five seconds to evaluate the situation.

  She removed her hand from Evan’s crotch and exclaimed, “What the hell?”

  Max couldn’t help but laugh at the two of them. Chloe blushed and straightened her gray jacket and stared off in the distance.

  “You two fuckers have fun on the flight?” Max asked.

  “Shut the hell up, Max,” Chloe replied. “Stop messin’ around, Evan.”

  “Bullshit! I slept the whole time,” Evan said. “You must’ve been dreaming about me, eh Chloe?”

  “In your dreams, Evan.” She crossed her arms and looked out the window as the small plane taxied toward the gate.

  “Don’t worry,” Max said, waving the phone in front of them, “I won’t show everyone.”

  Chloe unbuckled her seatbelt and lunged for the phone, but Max was too quick and too tall. He held it high above her head.

  “Settle down and let’s get the bloody hell outta here.”

  Max was still holding the phone too high for Chloe’s grasp. She sighed and gathered her belongings in the seat next to her and the overhead compartment: a small navy backpack and a small rolling suitcase that she always traveled with. No purse, she didn’t need one. Born with natural beauty, she rarely wore makeup unless she was working undercover.

  The plane came to a stop near a small hangar on the outskirts of Philadelphia International Airport. The door opened and out dropped a short staircase to the tarmac below. The three of them made their way down the stairs and were greeted by a man who wore cargo shorts, a blue logo golf shirt, orange vest and large earphones. He didn’t bother to raise his thick sunglasses as he spoke.

  “Maximus Church?”

  “Right here,” Max said, raising his arm.

  “These are for you,” the man said, pointing to a small, motorized vehicle behind him. On the back of the flatbed was a large six foot long piece of black and silver luggage, appearing to be what golfers used to fly with their bag and clubs.

  “Thanks,” Max said walking over and hoisting the hard plastic case off the bed of the truck. He flipped open the latches and looked inside. It was just as he expected, a golf bag with golf clubs.

  Evan came over and peered inside as well. “What’s up mate? You golfin’ in the states, mate?” except it sounded a lot more like ‘goffing’.

  “No, dipshit,” Max replied. He unzipped the long side pocket and looked inside. Three handguns, nine ammunition clips and three sets of handcuffs were inside. “We’re definitely not golfing.”

  <><><><><>

  The phone on the table rattled and spun as the vibrations took hold of the small device every two point three seconds. After the sixth vibration, Seth was conscious enough to open his eyes and take in his surroundings. He was on the couch in Madison’s house. He looked to his left and saw his granddad snoring away on the recliner. Seth reached for the phone on the coffee table but missed the caller. He checked the missed call and saw that it was his dad calling. Another twenty seconds later, his phone vibrated again indicating a message. He looked at the time displayed on his phone. It was just before seven in the morning. Seth tossed it back on the table, rubbed his eyes and got up from the couch.

  After relieving himself in the hall bathroom, he went to the kitchen and fuddled through the cabinets searching for coffee. “Nice,” he said as he found the opened pound of Starbucks coffee and filters to go with it. Within minutes the coffee was brewing. He checked his phone for email and messages as he waited. The voicemail was from his dad who wanted him to call him back.

  “Mornin’,” Madison said, appearing from around the corner of the living room. Half of her was hidden behind the corner, but the white tank top on and long pink pajama pants she wore enticed him.<
br />
  “Hey,” was all he could manage to say.

  “Thanks for making coffee. Nice waking up to that smell. Thanks for staying here.”

  “No biggie. Thanks for letting that guy sleep here too,” he replied, thumbing toward his granddad on the recliner.

  She walked into the kitchen, opened the cabinet, pulled three coffee mugs out and arranged them on the counter. Seth opened the fridge, grabbed the milk and proceeded to doctor his own mug. Madison carried her cup out of the kitchen and said over her shoulder, “I’m gonna go shower.”

  Seth watched her from behind, staring long after she disappeared around the corner. In his search for milk he spotted some fixings in the refrigerator for a good breakfast. In no time, he’d made a green pepper omelet and topped it with melted cheese and salsa. He separated it onto three plates and laid them on the kitchen table. He went into the living room and stirred his granddad awake, pulled out his cell phone and returned the call to his father.

  “Hey Dad, what’s up?”

  “Hey son, how’s it goin’ up there?”

  Seth looked at his granddad while he stumbled into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee, black. He held up one finger to his lips knowing there was no way he could tell his dad that he snuck his own father out of his home and kept him overnight.

  “Nothing much. Why what’s up?”

  There was a long pause before his father spoke. “Seth, your granddad’s doctor called, and he needs a new liver. Quick,” he added.

  Seth looked over at his granddad shoveling the omelet into his mouth and giving him a thumbs up as if to say, good breakfast. “What’s quick mean?”

  “Six weeks,” his dad blurted out.

  “Jeez.” Out of the corner of his eye he noticed his granddad looking at him. “Well, okay,” his voice grew louder, “that sounds good, I’ll call you later.”