To his relief, the dark creatures sank back into the water. Sam waited for his heart to stop hammering, and when it did, he began to swim again, with even more urgency now. He rode the waves and raced the sun and hoped the blisters on his hands and face wouldn’t pop before his fingers dug into the sand. With every last bit of strength he had, Sam swam for the shore.
But as the night wore on and his body slowly gave out, it became clear that his last bit of strength wasn’t enough to carry him to land.
His limbs went slack and he floated on the water, on his back, staring at the judgmental moon that he could almost feel laughing at him. In his mind, he cursed it. He was so angry he would have pulled it down from the sky and crashed it into the Earth as it once had billions of years ago, just to see it all burn. He was that mad at the world.
Not just this one, but the one he had left. And at whoever had framed him and that his wife had died and fate and everything else that had wrecked his life. It wasn’t fair. He was a good man doing the best he could.
He realized another truth then: one of the things extreme exhaustion took from you was emotional control. His mind was like the evening storm: raging and unpredictable.
Anger wasn’t the only thing he felt.
Helpless. That was the other feeling.
Between the two, Sam preferred rage. That was something he could use.
Mentally, he wanted to roll over and swim. But his body wouldn’t respond. His mind was telling his arms and legs to work—to fight, to swim—but they refused to comply. His body had quit. His brain still worked, leaving him feeling locked in, as if he was silently shouting orders that his limbs wouldn’t obey.
He refused to feel sorry for himself. Refused to close his eyes. If this was his fate—to die stranded in time and lost at sea—he would do it with his eyes open, teeth clenched.
But sleep tugged at him, a force as strong as the long waves of the tide moving across the ocean, propelled by gravity, directed by the pull of the moon and the sun.
Sam tried to fight the darkness and sleep, but soon, it came for him, and it was complete.
*
Light woke him. A hot, burning light on his face.
Sound washed over him next. Crash after crash.
A soothing, cool hand rubbing his legs. Reaching up and drawing away.
Sam cracked his eyelids and slammed them shut when the bright sun lanced through his eyes, bringing pain with it.
The gentle, cool hand came again, but it wasn’t a hand. It was a wave. Washing over him.
Sam’s fingers ached, but he forced them to move, to curl and dig—into the sand.
The beach.
He was lying on the beach.
His head rolled to the side, and he saw the sand. Tears flowed down his face.
He hadn’t swum to shore. He had gone as far as he could and given every last bit he had. The tide had carried him in. That was the way of the world, he thought: you give it your all; sometimes it’s enough, sometimes it’s not, and sometimes, the tide carries you in.
But the tide can’t help you if you don’t get close enough.
A strong wave washed over him, across his sunburned face, the saltwater stinging the blisters. The pain shocked his body into movement. He pushed up and scampered up the beach, getting his first clear look at Pangea.
A thick forest lay beyond the beach. At the edge were rows of broad-leaved shrubs. Behind them, trees reached to the sky. The forest looked so dense he wondered if he could even pass it, as if it was a wall of green, blue, and purple plants preventing anything from the beach from getting inside.
But what stopped Sam cold wasn’t the trees or the shrubs. It was the thing hanging from the lowest limb on the closest tree. Blowing in the sea breeze was a thick white sweater. There were no words on it. But even in his exhausted, nearly delirious state, Sam recognized the garment. It was the same type of sweater he was wearing. The type worn by an Absolom prisoner.
He knew instantly what it meant. And that scared him more than the sea he had just escaped.
TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, Daniele took Adeline and Ryan to work with her. Ryan received a visitor badge.
Adeline’s badge was similar, but it was actually an employee key card with the word INTERN printed across the top.
The older woman held the card out to Adeline. “Keep this with you at all times. You never know when you might need it.”
She slipped the card into a plastic sleeve that dangled from a lanyard around Adeline’s neck.
The three of them walked the halls of the Absolom research building, Daniele dictating the tour. There were team rooms that looked to Adeline almost like classrooms as well as clean labs where suited figures were working on mechanical prototypes.
Standing at a wide glass window, Adeline motioned to a figure holding a soldering gun. “What’re they building?”
Daniele smiled. “Pieces for an experiment.”
*
They had lunch at Daniele’s house, and after, Ryan went to visit some friends a few blocks away. Daniele announced to Adeline that she needed to talk to her about something.
They met in Daniele’s home library, where Adeline was expecting them to discuss the plan to find Nora’s killer. Or how to get her father back. Or both.
The meeting was about neither of those things.
Daniele set a stack of books on a long table. “I want to discuss a subject of great importance to me. I would appreciate it if you would pay attention and learn from these books.” She paused. “Can you do that?”
“What’s the subject?”
“Finance.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“Why? Dad was rich, right? And he got a check every three months from the company. Interest or like a—”
“A dividend.”
“A dividend, right. It’s probably millions of dollars.”
“The most recent quarterly dividend paid on your father’s stake in Absolom Sciences was 1.17 billion dollars.”
It took Adeline a few seconds to process that. She had known her father’s stake in Absolom had made him wealthy, but she had no idea how rich.
“Your father was also a good investor,” Daniele said. “A little on the conservative side, but that’s better than being too aggressive.”
“Look, can we do this after we get him back? I promise: I’ll learn all about finance after that.”
“No. We can’t. This is important, Adeline.”
“Why?”
“Because I made a promise to your father that I would do everything in my power to take care of you.”
Adeline laughed. “There’s a killer on the loose, and you’re protecting me by teaching me about stocks and bonds? I think you’ve lost it.”
“I haven’t.”
“Let’s face it, money is maybe the only thing I’m not worried about.”
“Because you have money.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re making an assumption—the same mistake Nora’s parents made.”
Adeline narrowed her eyes, and Daniele continued.
“You’re assuming your circumstances will never change. They could. They do for a lot of people—in the blink of an eye. One minute your family is rich. The next, you’re carrying every dollar to your name in your pocket, you have no home, and you don’t know where you’re going to sleep that night. Right now, you don’t care about money because you have it. You’ve never had to wonder how you’ll afford your next meal.”
“That happened to you?”
“It did.”
“When?”
Daniele studied Adeline a moment. “When I was about your age. A little older.”
“What happened?”
“We’re not going to talk about that. My point is, knowing how to manage your money is an important life skill. Even if someone else is investing it, you should be able to read the statements and understand what they’re doing. Your father is gone. Preparing you for what’s ahead is now my responsibility. Finance is something I know a lot about. And I’m going to teach you about it—because someone was kind enough to teach me a long time ago, and frankly, that’s the only reason I’m here talking to you now.”