62

            “An anagram,” Anthony said.  “You mean a word that, if you switch the letters around, can form another word, right?”

            “Exactly.  A single word, a phrase—any of them can be used to create an anagram.”

            He slid his chair beside hers and studied the small letters arrayed on the table.

E L E L M R W O A Y K R

            “Each letter comes from the name ‘Kelley Marrow,’ ” she said.  “We’ve found out that this Bible never actually belonged to the girl, so Bob must’ve meant to use her name as a code to shed light on these highlighted scriptures.”

            “Do we have to use all of the letters?”

            “That’s usually how it works.  You have to use every letter in the original word or phrase, and you can use the letter only once in the new word.  For example, ‘parental’ and ‘paternal’ is an anagram.  So is ‘eleven plus two’ and ‘twelve plus one.’ ”

            “Now I know why I asked you to handle this stuff.”

            “Come on, you ought to be better at this than I am, baby.  You’re the writer.  Words are your stock in trade.”

            “Stories are my stock in trade.  The words are only a method to communicate my meaning.”

            “Just like Bob’s anagram.”   

            She began to move the squares around the table.  He picked up the Bible and paged through it. 

            There were hundreds of verses highlighted in several colors.  Which, when strung together sequentially, made no coherent sense, as they’d learned from their tedious efforts to transcribe some of them last night.

Think, dammit.  What is Bob trying to tell us?

            He swung the laptop toward him and powered it on.  Lisa ignored him; she was submerged in concentration, hands flying as she arranged and re-arranged letters.

            He restored the Internet connection.  On Google, he entered the search term: anagram.   

            Over a million results popped up.  He selected a site that featured something called an anagram server.

            He skimmed the Web site.  The anagram server would create an anagram from the word of your choice, or assist in decoding one, for free. 

            In the Decode field, he typed: KELLEY MARROW.

            Within a few seconds, the server returned a list of thirty-seven possible results.  He read the list.

            “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. 

            “What is it?” Lisa asked.  She looked up.  She was grinning.

            “I think we’ve got our answer.  What’re you smiling about?”

            “Why don’t we compare?”

            He read the letters she had configured.  Her solution was the same answer the anagram server had placed at the top of the list.

YELLOW MARKER

            “That’s the one I found online,” he said.  “I used an anagram generator Web site.”

            “I used this.”  She tapped her head.  “Good old-fashioned brain power.  No computer can compare.”

            “I think it was Einstein who said that he didn’t know the answer for everything, he just knew where to go to find it.”  He opened the Bible and sped through the pages.  “If I ever see Bob again, I’m gonna give him a gold medal for cleverness.  Marking up all these passages in different colors, making it look like some studious teenager’s Bible—that was a stroke of genius.”

            “What’s the first verse highlighted in yellow?” she asked.

            “Just a minute.”  He turned a page so frantically that he tore the corner. 

            He located the first passage outlined in yellow marker.  It was Genesis 34:1-2.  He read it aloud:

And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.  And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

            They had read the same verse last night, and it had meant nothing to him.  But reviewing it this morning brought gooseflesh to his arms.

            Lisa chewed her bottom lip.  “I don’t get it.  Do you?”

            But he hardly heard Lisa—Susie Marrow’s words were whispering through his thoughts: After what happened to my baby?  After what that terrible man who calls himself a prophet did to her?

            He dug Bishop Prince’s book out of his satchel.  He stared at that face.  That disturbingly familiar face.

. . . he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.

            And he realized, at last, the terrible truth.

            Hands trembling, he fumbled out his cell phone.

            “What is it?” Lisa asked.  “Who’re you calling?”

            “The one who can give us the answers we’ve been looking for,” he said.  “My sister.”