Hiro stood next to Elliott, looking exhausted, eyes bloodshot as if he had been up the entire night before.
By the accordion door that led to the lanai, Daniele stood beside Ryan, gazing wearily at Elliott. As he began to speak, she slipped her arm around Ryan’s shoulders, as if bracing him for a windstorm about to come.
“In the tradition of the greatest Starfleet Medical Officer in history, Dr. Leonard McCoy, I’ll just say this for myself: ‘I’m a scientist for God’s sake, not a speechmaker.’”
The lame Star Trek joke sent a ripple of laughter through the room, but the tension was still there. Apparently, it wasn’t lost on Elliott.
“Let’s start with the elephant in the room, shall we? We’re used to that in science: dealing with facts, even if they make us uncomfortable. And the fact of the matter is that you’ve come here today for a memorial service for a murder victim and for the person convicted of that murder. I applaud you for that. I thank you for being here, and I hope that you will take what I’m about to say to heart. I hope you’ll look at the facts too.”
Elliott swallowed and took a deep breath.
“Sam Anderson was my best friend. He was one of my oldest friends. If, right now, something happened in my life, and I was in trouble or needed help or just needed someone to talk to, he is the first person I would call. That’s how fresh the wound of his departure is. Like a limb that’s been chopped off, and I still can’t get used to the fact that it’s not there. Because he was always there for me. He was more than a friend. He was family. And I simply can’t get used to the fact that he’s gone. I don’t think I ever will.”
Elliott stared at Adeline.
“And I won’t accept it. As long as I live.”
Elliott took a deep swig from the champagne glass.
“Nora is someone I knew professionally for a long time but had never gotten to know personally until we worked together on Absolom. She’s someone whose intellect I have always admired. She was a sharp mind, but there are a lot of those in our field. What I can say about her—that I can’t say about many—is that she never got too invested in her own ideas. She wasn’t blinded by her own discoveries. She wasn’t in it for personal gain. Or fame. Her interest was always the truth and helping people, and I think that’s what made her such a great scientist. It’s that same quality that made her such a great person. I found that out when our Charlie died.”
The champagne glass in Elliott’s right hand began to shake.
“It’s a sad truth that the people who understand tragedy the best are the ones who have gone through it. Sam was my rock. But when Charlie…”
Elliott clenched his teeth and swallowed, the words coming out slower now.
“When Charlie was taken from us, I was adrift and what I needed was to get back to shore. I was going through life like a lucid dream. Hopeless. Aimless. And Nora was there for me. More than anyone I ever met, she had this almost supernatural ability to listen and make you feel at ease. It was a selfless kind of gift that drew people in like a vortex. I don’t know what you call it. Animal magnetism or charisma or what, but she had it. For her, that gift wasn’t a loud, ostentatious sort of charisma. She was like the sun in the sky, burning and warm and unwavering and pulling you in with gravity you couldn’t escape.” Elliott paused. “That’s what she was to me back then. My world was frozen, and she was the sun that helped thaw it out. I don’t know how she did it. Maybe it’s because she had lost her husband in a car accident a few years after they were married. One minute he was there. The next, he was gone. Just like our Charlie. And now, just like Nora herself. And Sam.”
Adeline felt as though the walls were closing in on her, as if Elliott’s words were shrinking the house, suffocating her.
She set her glass on the marble countertop of the kitchen island and staggered through the people around her, through the dining room, and into the foyer. A stair hall led to a large study at the front of the home. She had intended to retreat there and wait for the assault of the words to be over, but another thought occurred to her then.
An opportunity.
The U-shaped stairway before her led to the bedrooms and rec room upstairs. A door beneath the landing opened to the stairs to the basement. Like Daniele, Elliott had the resources to dig a full basement. Adeline had been down there a few times, mostly at Christmas parties when the kids were relegated to the lower level where there was a game room with a pool table, arcade games, and a full home theater.
She gripped the door handle and it turned and she quickly slipped inside and descended the stairs. She was reminded of spying on the four scientists at Daniele’s home. But this time, she didn’t stop on the landing.
She kept going, out into the open game room. The door to the half bath stood open. So did the double doors to the theater. It was empty.
The far wall was almost entirely glass, and beyond was a cavernous wine cellar. There were only two other rooms in the basement. One was a mechanical space that Adeline had seen once. To her, it looked like the belly of a giant boat: there were air handlers and mechanical pumps, and through another glass wall, on a raised platform, a giant server room that ran the home automation system, window shades, security, whole-house audio, and probably stuff Adeline didn’t even know about.
The other door led to a home gym. Adeline had seen it once. Mirrors hung on the walls, and thick rubber covered the concrete floor. There were no windows.
And something had been added to the wall beside the door to the gym since her last visit here: a touchscreen panel.
Adeline tapped it. A menu came up for the home automation system. The door handle had no keyhole, but it was locked.
She navigated the system until she came to the screen for a room named workout. It had a keyless entry option that showed a full keyboard. The code to open the door was a series of letters.
Adeline listened for a moment, trying to determine if Elliott’s speech was over. If someone found her down here, she could always say she had felt overwhelmed and needed to get away. In this case, it was true.
But this was also an opportunity. One she likely wouldn’t soon see again.
What could the door code be?
Charlie was her first thought. But that was too obvious. What was a word no one would think of?
Adeline raised her finger to the panel and typed:
M
O
L
O
S
B
A
The door lock whined, gears grinding as the bolt receded. Adeline tried the handle. It turned. She swung the heavy wooden slab in and gasped at what she saw.
The mirrors on the wall were gone. In their place was a dark gray soundproof foam from floor to ceiling.
The rubber still spread out at her feet. The opposite wall was covered in photos of Charlie. In them, he was about Adeline’s age now—late teens or early twenties. He was strung out in most. Loitering outside nightclubs or on the deck at house parties, a drink in his hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Some photos had been taken from a distance, through closed windows, showing him in the living room or bathroom of a home or apartment, often consuming drugs or simply slouched in a chair or couch, listening or laughing.
Based on Charlie’s age in the photos—and the fact that he was wearing the same clothes—they appeared to have all been taken around the same time, in the days leading up to his death, which had hit Elliott hard.
The last time Adeline had seen Charlie had been at his family’s Christmas party that year. He hadn’t been himself then. There was an edge to him, an anger underneath everything that even crept into his infectious laugh. He had been mad at the world.
As she turned that memory over in her mind, Adeline had to admit that she felt herself standing on that precipice. She wondered if she would descend into the abyss of blame and bitterness too. Probably. If she didn’t get answers—and justice—soon.