The Cape of Saint Steven was a park on the edge of Lake Conner just outside of town. With her GPS giving her directions, Maggie took off toward the lake. She had only been to the Cape of Saint Steven once for a friend's wedding several years ago. The clue didn't tell them were in the park the puzzle was located. Maggie supposed that was the first part of the puzzle finding it.
Half an hour later, they were turning down the road toward the entrance to the Cape of Saint Steven. Maggie and Amelia were both keeping their eyes focused on anything that might give them a clue where the puzzle might be located. A bouquet of roses, adorned with a violet ribbon, was displayed on the entrance sign to the park. Maggie stopped the car and grabbed the flowers and the card that was with them.
"Right turns to left, hill goes up then goes down, circle the tree with the heart and park near the ground."
Maggie followed the driveway to the right until there was a sudden left turn. She continued up a steep hill in a part of the park she had never seen before. Suddenly, the hill went down into a gully where there was a gigantic tree and the road curved around it. As she drove around the tree, she could see that there was some construction work being done on the other side and there was an enormous pile of dirt near some parking spots.
Parking the car as close to the pile of dirt as she could, Maggie looked around for the next clue. She and Amelia got out of the car and walked around the pile of dirt, but found nothing. Next, they went over to the gigantic tree and looked all around it. Again, they found nothing.
Amelia walked over to the construction area and looked into the big yellow CAT that was sitting near the parking lot. On the seat was a small potted violet plant with a note card.
"Maggie, I found it!" she called to her friend.
"Down the path, you must go. The puzzle awaits you two. Solve is by morning, or forfeit your last clue."
"Let's go, we only have until morning to solve whatever puzzle they have waiting down there for us," said Maggie as she started walking down the path.
Amelia picked up the flowers and the bag with the water and food in it while Maggie had the backpack with their other supplies. The path was rough and hilly. It took them about fifteen minutes to get to a small clearing where they found a table with a large box on it. The puzzle.
Inside the box was a tablecloth, a camp lantern, and a 10,000 piece puzzle. Literally, she had to solve a puzzle! It had a picture of the Eiffel Tower at night.
"Well, let's get started," said Maggie. "we have about 12 hours to get the thing done."
"Holy crap! It's huge!" said Amelia as she helped lay out the tablecloth.
"Well, it has to be done, and you wanted to help, so here we are!" replied Maggie.
Maggie cut open the puzzle box and took out the bag of pieces. Together, the two women started sorting through the pieces, looking for the edge pieces and a sorting like colors together as best they could. It took them about twenty minutes to find all the frame pieces and put them together. Then they started on the tower itself, since it was the focus of the puzzle.
By midnight, they had the tower put together, along with most of its base. They were about to start on the rest of the city scape when they decided they needed to stop for a bite to eat. The cheese, meat, and other goodies left over from earlier were just as delicious now as they were in the afternoon. Both women wished they had a bit of the wine with them instead of just water.
After they had their break, Maggie and Amelia got back to work. They figured they were about halfway done, if not a little more than half. By two am, they had the hardest part of the puzzle left to tackle the night sky. Because the sections looked very similar, they had to rely on shapes to tell them apart. Slowly, but surely, they found all the pieces homes within the frame of the puzzle.
As the sun was coming up on Sunday morning, Maggie put the last piece of the Parisian night sky in its place. She sat back and looked at the puzzle and wondered how they were they going to know they had solved it in time and when would she get the last clue.
With the puzzle complete, Maggie and Amelia returned to the car. On the hood was a box. The last clue.
Amelia opened the box and took out the paper.
"Roses are red, violets are blue, go back to the food drop off at a quarter to two."
"Do you think that means he will be free, then?" asked Amelia
"I hope so!" answered Maggie as she turned to get into the car. Amelia settled into the passenger seat, and the two women left the park, heading back to Maggie's condo to rest until they could hopefully pick up Andy.
Andy's captors had fed and treated him well. All the food was things he ate regularly, as if they knew him and what he liked. Whenever they wanted in the room, they would open the door, slide in a note telling him to put on the blindfold and sit on the bed. He would do as he was told. They would come in, leave some food, or pick up the empty tray before leaving. It was all very courteous in an odd way.
As he lay on the cot, trying to sleep, his mind kept thinking about Max and Maggie. He worried about how and where Max was during all of this chaos. Max was a good and easy going dog. He hoped he was somewhere safe. As for Maggie, he just hoped she would believe him when he told her he had been kidnapped. He wasn't entirely sure he believed he had been kidnapped. It was just all too strange.
With his mind focused on Max and Maggie, Andy didn't hear the door open. Suddenly, he felt the presence of someone standing over him, looking at him. He kept his eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. There was something about the person standing there that Andy recognized, even with his eyes closed. A scent. Their perfume? Cologne? Something about the way they smelled was familiar to him, but he couldn't place it.
A light touch played with his hair, and Andy fought off the urge to flinch. Then the person standing there leaned in close to him and breathed in deeply, smelling him. This was freaking Andy out, so he shifted a little as if he was moving in his sleep and the stranger backed away quickly. A moment later, he heard the door open and close again, and he knew he was alone.
Not knowing if he was being watched or not, Andy continued to feign being asleep, but inside, he was shivering from relief that they were gone. After what felt like fifteen or twenty minutes, he acted like he woke up and sat up. He drank some of the water that someone had left for him earlier and walked around the little room. Where did he know that scent from he wondered? It was so familiar, he could almost place it, but it just stayed on the edge of his memory.
Was it from someone he played pickle ball with on Thursday nights? Or someone from work? Maybe it was someone from the animal shelter he volunteered at twice a month? Damn it, it was going to drive him crazy until he remembered where or who that scent belonged to.
They held him in a room without a window, so he couldn't track the time of day. When they put him in here, they took his watch. He felt disconnected from the rest of the world without knowing what time it was. Just then, the door opened again, and a note came in. It must be breakfast time, he thought to himself.
Maggie and Amelia stopped at a fast food place on the way back to Maggie's condo to get something to eat for breakfast. Once there, they ate and then got cleaned up and took a nap. Setting an alarm for noon, so they would have plenty of time to rest and then get ready to go, Maggie curled up with both dogs and tried to fall asleep in her bed.
Dreams of roses and violets haunted Maggie as she tried to rest. She was worried that whoever had kidnapped Andy wouldn't actually let him go this afternoon. At least not to her. They seemed dead set against her being anything, even just friends with him. They had only just reconnected the other day. How could someone be so jealous so fast?
Amelia must be right. Whoever did this must know Andy really well. They know what he likes to eat and must have heard him talk about her or something. When they got him back safe and sound, they were going to have to find out who did this crazy thing. This was not acceptable. They would not chase her off from something that hadn't even happened yet by this bizarre behavior.
It seemed like Maggie's brain had just settled into sleep when the alarm went off. She got up and got dressed and took the dogs out for a potty walk. Amelia was asleep on the sofa when she returned with the dogs, so she got a diet soda out of the fridge and woke her up.
"Do you think we should bring Max with us to pick Andy up?" asked Amelia.
"I thought that might be a good thing," said Maggie. "We don't know how they treated him, and it might be nice for him to have his dog there for comfort when they free him."
"That is exactly what I was thinking. Besides, he might be in shock to see that it was you that had been working to get him free." She added.