He looked at the freshly cleaned crystal chandelier above and the custom-made Persian rug on the floor. Shame to think that modern elevators weren’t so fancy. This elevator was taking him home. Finally. Edison sat next to him, his eyes following the stone wall passing by outside the fancy wrought iron.
Detective Bailey had given him her card and told him to call if he remembered anything else. She’d written her personal phone number on the back. He touched the card in his pocket. Before New York, before Celeste, this would have been an invitation. But now that he was trapped inside, he felt neutered. It was meaningless for a woman to give a guy her phone number if he couldn’t go outside.
The elevator doors opened onto the ever-cool air of the deep tunnels. Here, the hot outside winds had lost their battle with the cool, dank air from underground. At this depth, the temperature was always stable at around fifty. The sweat on Joe’s skin turned icy. He ran his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair to let the cold soak in.
He checked the alarm he’d installed. All the lights were green — no one had opened the doors that closed off the ends of the tunnel on which his house sat, no one had moved inside the house itself, and no one had come out of the elevator before him. All clear. He’d worried a bit about the elevator inspectors, but they clearly hadn’t ventured into the alarmed zone. Good.
He kept Edison at heel while he switched off his alarm, then he wedged the lever open that controlled the elevator’s movement. Now no one could call the elevator up to the terminal level. No one could sneak up on him here.
His house was the safest place in New York City. But a shiver went down his spine as the suitcase’s wheels bumped along the wooden planks that lined his tunnel, and he looked over his shoulder. Nothing behind him, and nothing in front of him but Edison.
He remembered the paranoid email his father had sent before his death. I’ve said things I shouldn’t, to people I shouldn’t. I’ve set them on paths. His father’s paranoia wasn’t crazy at all. Something in this box was worth stealing.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you, his father’s voice rang in his ears. What if someone had been out to get his father? What if someone was out to get Joe now?
It wouldn’t be the first time. He thought back to his last day in the outside world. He hadn’t known it would be his last day, of course. He’d come to New York for what was supposed to be a victory tour. Pellucid had been set to go public, and he was supposed to ring the bell to open the New York Stock Exchange, but he had never made it there, too afraid to go out the Hyatt’s front doors and into his waiting limousine.
At first, he had thought his condition came from a common change in brain chemistry. Agoraphobia came late in life to many, and the reasons were often unclear. His condition was no different than 1.8 million (cyan, purple, and a long row of black) other people who had developed the symptoms of agoraphobia out of the blue. Like them, he had no idea why he was suddenly unable to do something ordinary — walk out the front door.
But blood tests had revealed that his brain had changed because of chemical interference — he’d been poisoned.
He ticked off suspects in his head as he walked along the gray boards toward his house. First up: the flight attendant who had served lunch, Betty Bauer. Unlikely. He’d never met her before, but he’d checked with Virgin Airlines, and she’d been a flight attendant there for seven years. Probably not a hired poisoner.
For dinner he’d had a meeting with colleagues and a few members of the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA had fought Pellucid in court and tried to prevent the company from going public, citing reasons of national security. He had been their chief opponent, but they had lost, so why bother to poison him? They had nothing to gain from crippling him, save revenge. Agent Bister had seemed like a guy who was willing to do a lot to take revenge, and his partner, Agent Dobrin, was a wild card. So, Joe had hacked into the CIA database and downloaded everything he could about them both, then hacked into their emails. Neither had ever been involved with operations where anyone was poisoned. They seemed to have given up on intimidating Pellucid after the IPO and moved on. Nothing indicated they might have done it.
If it hadn’t been them, it might have been one of the others at that table: George Greenblatt, CEO; Sunil Sharma, CFO; Mary Mitchell, CMO; and a couple of investment bankers, Alvin Ross and Thomas Lee. Joe’s crusade against the CIA might have cost them the fortunes they had all realized when the firm went public, but, again, by that day everything was already decided. They’d all won.
Still, he’d compiled dossiers on all of them and hired detectives to dig deeper, looking always for a hint that any of them might have had a reason, and access to the drugs that had poisoned him. Dead ends, so far.
His colleagues and the CIA made good villains, but they weren’t the only ones who’d had access to his food and drink that day. That night his friend, Leandro Gallo, had invited Joe to a party. The Gallos were descended from the original engineer for whom the underground house was built, and Joe had always wanted to see it. He’d never imagined he’d end up living there when Leandro called. Joe had long since gotten the guest list from Leandro and had compiled dossiers on them as well, but all seemed harmless — rich socialites who would have had no motive to poison him. He checked this, too. None of the other guests had since come down with agoraphobia, or any other mental disorders.
No one seemed to have anything to gain from trapping him inside for the rest of his life. But that didn’t change the fact that someone had poisoned him.
He unlocked the door, and Edison trotted ahead of him into the house. It was a real house, not a hidey-hole, no matter what his mother said, and he was grateful he’d found it.
With a sigh, he pulled in the suitcase, closed the door, and hung Edison’s leash on the hall tree. He trailed a finger along the pale pink paint, called ashes of roses, which decorated his front hall. His mother would love the old-fashioned color.
He hadn’t changed any of the house’s details. He liked the feeling of stepping into a Jules Verne novel. He’d left everything intact, concealing his high-tech gadgets — a giant TV, high-speed Wi-Fi router, air filters, and an alarm system — in cabinets or gilt frames.
He lit the electric fire in the parlor, and faux flames glowed comfortingly under the carved black mantel. He rubbed his hands over the orange glow, although he was no longer cold, because that’s what he always did.
While Edison lapped at the water in his bowl in front of the fireplace, Joe took off the dog’s service vest. Then Edison flopped down in front of the fire. He dropped his head on his outstretched paws and closed his eyes. He was off duty and had earned a nap.
Joe sank into his favorite leather chair to see what secrets the great Tesla had entrusted to his pigeon keeper. He laid the suitcase on the marble-topped coffee table in front of him. He set his palm on top of the suitcase, drawing out the anticipation. His father had wanted him to have this. For better or worse, it was the last gift the man would ever give him.
Slowly, he unzipped the suitcase. Resting inside its black interior was a plain cardboard box held closed by four interlocking flaps on top. It was just like any other box. Nikola Tesla’s secret wasn’t even secured with a piece of tape. How important could it be?
Still, his heart beat faster as he lifted the flaps. Soft light fell on the contents — a neat stack of three folders. Joe drew them out slowly, almost afraid to touch their dusty surfaces.