I nod. “Right. And if it’s drastically different, then it’s probably not going to be a hidden object—a hidden object could be found by anyone with the proper searching skills. So maybe…” I stop and chew on my lip as I think. “Maybe it’s something that’s hidden in plain view.”

“Potentially something symbolic?” Ash offers.

I walk back into the living room, turning in a full circle and reexamining the room. “And if the message is in plain view, then it has to be something I would know how to decipher but that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else….” My voice trails off as the realization dawns on me. I run to my room with Ash at my heels.

I immediately scour my picture collages.

“What are you thinking?” Ash asks. “Can I help in any way?”

“What I’m thinking is that Dad always said I logged our entire lives in these collages,” I reply. “I’ve been making them since I was eight. I used to spend weeks on them, picking a theme, cutting out the pictures so they fit together exactly the way I wanted them to. I’d take over the whole living room floor with photos from our trips and school dances. Dad used to come along and move a couple of the pictures on me as a joke and I would get super annoyed,” I say, scanning every inch of the collages.

Ash stands next to me, noting the details of the pictures with interest. “I always assumed you were missing something because you weren’t raised like a typical Strategia, but now I’m thinking it’s the exact opposite. It’s me and Layla who lost out.”

I hear the personal admission in his words, but I’m too focused and we’re under too much pressure to give that opening the attention it deserves.

“This!” I practically jump in the air as I poke my finger at a collage from when I was thirteen. “He switched these two pictures. I can’t believe I didn’t think to look here before.”

“What do they mean?” Ash asks.

“Good question,” I say, and trade my enthusiasm for concentration. “Let me think this one out for a second.” I point to one of the changed pictures. “So this is from the camping trip we went on with Aunt Jo as my middle school graduation present. And this one is Emily and me laughing over the ridiculous things we were thinking of putting in our seventh-grade time capsule.”

“What’s the—”