New Project 6

Maybe the disarray was a warning. Yes, that was it. He'd sent her a message.

"Why do you keep them like that? It makes no sense and it takes so much time and you need a bigger case the way you sort them."

"You know I need everything ordered for my personal feng shui."

"Feng shui is room arranging, not jewelry or sock arranging."

"Alphabetic."

"Say what?"

"They're alphabetic."

"By what? Color, designer, by who gave it to you? Because I swear, it looks way random ass to me, on this side of the equation."

"By stone or metal. See, the jade and next the onyx and the topaz. The metals are gold, silver, rhodium plated, titanium."

"Oh, I see! Amethyst, beryl, coral, diamond, I get it! That's pretty cool, now that you explained it. I bet no one else in the world does it like that."

The stones, they were grouped by color, and the plain hoops by size.

"Only you! That is so hot. You're a demented genius."

"Thank you. It's a carry over from my day job. I alphabetize my files, too." She winked at him.

"Yeah, but you do it by source, not by client."

"Works for me. Means no one else can access my files without me knowing."

Without me knowing. He wanted her to know.

"Suppose I put the garnet over here and the jasper over there? Then what?"

"Don't you dare! It'll freak me out."

"Just messing with you. You know I'd never hurt you. Ever. I know how you get when things are mixed up, how you have to put them right. I love you. I love your crazy brain."

He loved her crazy brain enough to warn her. She paused. Was the mess a warning or was it a message, too? Was there a second meaning in the disorder or was it just telling her to get out? How did he have them? What was the pattern? She had to remember how he'd mixed them.

She had to go back. She couldn't, but she had to know. She circled the lake and headed back to the home she used to know.