She grabbed two lattes and hustled to case room one, where Serena was waiting. “Sorry about the delay.” They’d talked on their burner phones that morning. “Wolfe insisted on getting drinks.” She handed one over to the cryptologist.

“Thanks.” Serena gestured to the notes on the board. “There you go. They’re all deciphered, although it looks like some sort of shorthand that she intended to expand when she wrote the story. A lot of it doesn’t make sense to me, but now I’m passing it on to you.” She flipped her wrist over to read her watch. “I have to get to class. The summer school classes are some of my favorites, and I like the extra money in my checking account. Call me if you need me, and I’ll be here.”

Dana paused. “Thank you for doing this. Nobody else could have.”

“I’m happy to help. Let me know if you have any more puzzles.” Serena reached for her pens. “Want me to give any message to Jethro? He’s teaching today, too.”

Hmm. Did Serena want an excuse to talk to Jethro? Dana racked her brain for a response. “I don’t have anything specific, but I think he left a couple of books on Malcolm’s desk. Would you return those?” At least it was a fairly decent excuse for dropping by his office.

“Sure. No problem.” Serena skipped out.

Dana turned her attention to the deciphered notes, catching the sporadic connections. If each page dealt with a single subject, it would’ve been easy. But Candy had jumped around, as usual. Dana started with the page on Frank Spanek and read through his aliases, his arrests, and his known associates, moving on to Albert Nelson and then to Theresa Rhodes. The connection was clear, as Serena had detailed the other day.

She then moved to the page on Afghanistan, and her interest was piqued. Though Candy didn’t have Rock’s name anywhere, she had a nice timeline showing the theft and movement of the heroin, even posting several questions about an inside man from the military making it all happen.

Man, Candy had been good at her job. How odd that her story on women entrepreneurs connected to Wolfe’s investigation of Gary stealing the heroin. Life was strange sometimes.

Malcolm stepped inside at some point. “Hey. The HDD handlers are asking us each to go be interviewed about our team and a bunch of bull . . . crap. We’re only going to be able to hold them off for a few days or so. We’ll meet up this afternoon or tomorrow morning to prepare.”

Great. Dana knew the HDD wanted to shut down the team.