Two uniformed police officers led Sam from the hospital-like room to another holding area.
To him, the new cell felt more like a one-bedroom apartment. There was a sitting area with a couch, coffee table, and two club chairs, a long table with six chairs, and a separate bedroom and bathroom.
It certainly wasn’t an average police holding cell. And for good reason: Absolom City wasn’t a typical small town. Absolom Sciences Inc. had built the city to house its corporate headquarters and research facilities. It was located in Western Nevada, near the California border, in the middle of a vast expanse of desert. Around the town, a massive solar field spread out in every direction, collecting the immense amount of energy the Absolom machine needed to operate.
Most of the town’s sixteen thousand residents worked at Absolom Sciences, and the houses had been designed and built specifically for their needs. So had the police station. With the sheer amount of surveillance cameras in the city (and Absolom as a penalty for the worst offenses), crime was nearly nonexistent in Absolom City. But like human nature, crime couldn’t be completely eradicated. There was always the occasional drunk and disorderly. A domestic dispute. A teenager sowing wild oats—or crying for help.
These cells in the police station had been designed for those occasions. They were like hotel suites where wayward—but valued—citizens could sleep off the excess alcohol or reflect on what had landed them here.
As Sam sat on the couch, he wondered if he would ever leave this place a free man. He was certainly the first murder suspect to be arrested in Absolom City.
He did have one thing going for him: he could have visitors. In this day and age, everyone was well aware of the fifth amendment—and their right to an attorney. If a suspect under arrest wanted to avoid talking to the police and communicate with the outside world, it was simply a matter of asking for a lawyer and passing messages from that person to anyone outside the police station. As such, the police were more liberal with allowing people to visit suspects under arrest. In many cases, talking with loved ones even encouraged suspects to confess. And confession was the typical conclusion to crimes in Absolom City, thanks to the ubiquitous cameras recording all public spaces and a well-trained police force.
Tom sat in the club chair opposite Sam. Elliott plopped down in the other one.
“They can’t record in this room,” Tom said. “Can’t even question you here.”
Sam nodded absently. “They arrested Adeline as well. I want her released. This has to be some mistake.”
Tom took his phone out and tapped out a text message.
Sam leaned forward. “Please, Tom. Do it right now. They could be questioning her for all we know.”
Tom nodded, rose, and left the room.
To Elliott, Sam said, “How did you know I was here?”
“Dani called me.”
“How did she know?”
“She said the cops came to her house to get access to city and company records. She must have used the cameras and seen you being arrested.”
They were silent until the door opened and Tom strode back inside. “They were questioning her.”
“What did they ask?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. They won’t tell me. And they won’t release her.”
“This is insane. What’s going on here?”
Tom crossed his arms. “I don’t know, but it’s outside my expertise. I’ve been in touch with Victor Levy’s office. He’s flying in from LA right now.”
“Who?”
Tom furrowed his brow. “The celebrity attorney. Don’t you know—”
“I don’t need an attorney,” Sam muttered. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Tom took a sharp breath and exhaled. “Sam, you know I respect you greatly. Your intellect. What you’ve accomplished. Your character. But what you’re dealing with here is dangerous.” He pointed toward the door. “They don’t know you. They are going to follow the evidence. And if it says you’re guilty, they will take that over your word, no matter what.”
“Well, frankly, I don’t see how the evidence can say I’m guilty if I’m not.”
“Back up,” Elliott said. “Tell us what happened last night.”
“We should wait for Levy to get here,” Tom said.
“No,” Elliott shot back, “we shouldn’t. I know and trust everyone in this room. Some celebrity attorney—forget it. For all we know, he’ll leak everything to the press just to get his own name out there.”
Sam took Tom’s silence as some indication that he agreed with Elliott.
“Last night,” Sam began, “I came home after the meeting.”
“The meeting in the lab, with the six of us,” Elliott said.
“Right. I was supposed to have dinner at Nora’s house. Adeline and I were both going to go over. But it was too late for dinner when I got home. Adeline and Ryan had already ordered take-out.”
Elliott nodded. “Then what happened?”
“We went over to Nora’s anyway.”
Elliott looked confused. But Tom nodded. “Because you had to.”
“Yes,” Sam whispered. “Because we had to.”
Elliott’s gaze shifted between Sam and Tom.
The attorney, still looking at Sam, said, “Because of the pictures.”
“Yes.”
Elliott stood. “What pictures?”
“Nora and I had been seeing each other.”
Elliott’s jaw dropped. “What? How long? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“For a while. We just… we wanted to keep it private until we knew where it was going.”
“But you couldn’t hide it anymore,” Tom said.
Elliott turned and stared at Tom. “You knew about this?”
“Of course. He informed Absolom legal when he got the blackmail message.”
“Blackmail?”
“We slipped up,” Sam said. “Last week at the conference in Davos, Nora and I had dinner, and we were walking back to the hotel, and it was freezing cold, and I leaned over and kissed her and…” Sam shook his head, the memory of that night overtaking him—the way Nora’s soft lips had felt on his, the white steam of her hot breath in the frigid night, his arms around her, lifting her gently off the cobblestones.
It was more than the memory that gripped him. It was how it felt in his mind, how he had felt that night on the narrow street under the yellow glow of the lanterns, leaning in to kiss her, feeling like himself again for the first time in years. He had realized something then: a part of him that he thought he had buried with his wife was still very much alive. And clawing its way to the surface.
Tom, perhaps assuming Sam couldn’t, supplied the rest. “A photographer snapped some pictures of them. He emailed Sam. The subject was: Love in Absolom. Said it was a touching story the world deserved to hear. He was going to sell it to the tabloids unless Sam wanted the pictures for himself.” Tom shook his head. “Legally, there was nothing we could do. We could buy the pictures, but that’s still no guarantee, and a story like that is always going to get out eventually.”
Sam swallowed. “I told Adeline that Nora wanted to give her some things. Just trinkets and reminders of Sarah. But the real purpose of going over there last night was to tell Adeline that Nora and I had been seeing each other. We wanted her to hear it from us before she saw it online.”
“Okay,” Elliott said slowly. “So what happened?”
“We got there around nine. Everything went fine at first. Adeline was thankful for the reminders of her mom. And then—” Sam glanced up at the ceiling.
“And then you told her,” Tom said.
“Yes.”
“How did she react?” Tom asked.
Sam closed his eyes and slowly shook his head, remembering the scene. “She just… lost it.”
“Lost it how?” Elliott asked.
“We were in the living room, sitting on couches and chairs just like we are here, and she jumped up and started pacing and yelling at us, telling us we had been sneaking around behind her back—which is technically true. She said that we were a disgrace to her mother’s memory, that she was never going to talk to either of us after she went back to college, and that she was leaving the city immediately.”
Sam took a deep breath.
“I think it’s just the fact that she had kept it all bottled up for so long. She just wasn’t ready—not ready for anything to change. She screamed at Nora, told her she wasn’t half the woman her mother had been and that we should both be ashamed of ourselves. She punched the living-room wall hard enough to make two of the framed photos fall off. She grabbed one of the other pictures—one with the Absolom Six—and slammed it on the floor.”
“What did you and Nora do?” Elliott asked.
“We just sat there, letting Adeline get it all out. But Nora jumped up when she realized Adeline was bleeding.”
“From the glass in the picture frames?” Tom asked.
“No. From hitting the wall. Her knuckles were bleeding. Nora went to the master bathroom and got some things and tried to clean the wound, but Adeline was still in a rage. She pushed her away.” Sam rubbed his forehead. “Nora stumbled and slipped on the broken glass on the floor. It all happened so fast. Seeing Nora fall sort of snapped Adeline out of it. She immediately tried to help her up.”
Elliott stared at Sam. “Did… she get up?”
“Of course she got up. She landed on her hand, on some glass. She had a cut, but she was fine. We both helped her up and washed the blood off. Once Adeline saw that Nora was okay, she just wanted to leave. She stormed out, and Nora assured me she was fine, so I ran after Adeline. I didn’t see her when I got home, and she was still angry the next morning—too angry to even hold my hand as we walked to Sarah’s grave.”
Sam closed his eyes and rubbed his eyebrows. “It was a disaster. The whole night.”
Elliott put his hands on the seat back and braced himself. “This is bad, Sam. We need to know what the police know. And we need to keep this out of the press.”
“That’s going to be impossible,” Tom said. “Absolutely impossible. One of the scientists whose invention almost eradicated crime is arrested for murdering another scientist who also helped eradicate crime? It’s the story of the century. The world loves a mystery. Especially one with love involved. And rich people. And irony.”
“Forget the press.” Sam focused on Elliott. “We need to bring Hiro, Connie, and Dani here.”
“Why?”
“Several reasons. First, if someone is killing Absolom scientists, they might be in danger. Second, Nora’s death might be related to Absolom Two. If so, we need to talk about precautions. And finally, one of us might know something that could help us find Nora’s killer.”
“We’re scientists, Sam, not some crack team of detectives.”
Sam leaned back in the chair. “Well, technically, we’re frauds, so I’d say that makes us equally qualified for detective work.”
Tom’s head snapped back and forth between Elliott and Sam, finally settling on Elliott. “What does that mean?”
“Ignore it, Tom. Sam is under a lot of stress. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Oh yes I do. Get them here, Elliott. And Tom, go get the detectives. It’s time we found out what happened at Nora’s house after Adeline and I left last night.”