“Have you told Osborne?” she asked, when he was done.

“No. He's in Bangkok until tomorrow. I'll tell him then.”

“Won't he want to know right away? You could send him an e-mail.”

Alex laughed. “If it's not his client, Osborne could give a shit, believe me.”

The moment the words were out, he wished he hadn't said it. He always knew to be tight-lipped about that kind of thing-you never knew how something innocuous could get distorted and amplified in the retelling. He hated that she could have this effect on him.

But Sarah only smiled sympathetically. “So, what's going to happen to the patent?”

Alex ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “I'm trying to find out.”

She glanced at his laptop. “Is that what you're doing there?”

“A little, yeah. Taking Obsidian for a test drive. Trying to see how it does without Hilzoy behind the wheel.”

She nodded. “Well, if you want a copilot, just ask me.”

He looked at her, trying to read her expression. What did the offer mean, exactly? Was it just about work, or…

He felt himself blushing. Goddamn it.

“Thanks,” he said. “I'll let you know.”

She smiled and stood. “Sorry I barged in on you. I was just really curious, you know?”

Alex nodded and forced himself to stay in his seat. He wasn't going to see her off as though she were a damned partner.

She flashed him that beautiful smile again and left, closing the door behind her. Alex expelled a long breath. After a minute, he opened the laptop and returned to experimenting with Obsidian. But he couldn't get his focus back. This whole situation… it was just stirring up memories.

Alex had been a freshman at Menlo Atherton High School the night Katie died. He was sleeping, and was stirred to partial wakefulness by the sound of the phone ringing. He wondered vaguely why someone would be calling so late, then started to drift off again, knowing that whatever it was, his parents would take care of it. And then, a moment later, he was shocked to full consciousness by the most terrible sound he'd ever heard. It wasn't a loud sound, but it made him sit bolt upright anyway, his hands shaking, all the warmth suddenly gone from his body.

The sound was his mother. Six syllables, all in a quavering, unnaturally high voice, the words themselves eclipsed and irrelevant beside the naked terror in her tone.

“Oh no. Oh please God no.”

Alex sat frozen in his bed, holding the covers close, more frightened than he'd ever been in his life. What could make his mother sound that way? Who was on the phone?

A moment later, his father appeared at his door. He flicked on the light and in a quiet, commanding voice Alex had never heard before said, “Alex, get dressed. We have to go to the hospital.”

Alex shook his head, not understanding. The hospital? Who was sick?

“Dad-”

“Now!” his father said.

They piled into his dad's car, his mother in the passenger seat, Alex confused and afraid in back, and screeched backward out of the driveway. The moment they hit the street his dad spun the wheel and locked up the brakes and Alex was thrown forward. He didn't even have his seat belt on yet. Then his dad floored it and he was thrown back again. He got his seat belt on with shaking hands just as his dad fishtailed right at the end of the street, nearly slamming Alex up against the door.

His dad kept driving like a madman, and his mother, who was never shy about opining on his dad's driving, especially when she deemed it unsafe, didn't say a word. Alex was suddenly aware he needed to take a leak. He'd been so frightened, and they'd left in such a hurry, he hadn't even realized.

“It's Katie,” his father said as though remembering for the first time that Alex didn't even know what the hell was going on. He slowed at a red light and swiveled his head to check for traffic, then rocketed through. “She was in an accident.”

Alex felt tears well up and forced them back. He heard an echo of his mother's voice in his mind and knew all at once the sound would reverberate inside him forever.

Oh no. Oh please God no.

“I don't understand,” his mother said, and Alex could hear she was crying. “Where's Ben? I thought you were going to tell him-”

“I did tell him,” Alex's father said. “He was supposed to drive Katie home. I told him specifically.”

Alex tried to understand what this was about. Earlier that day the whole family had returned from two days at the California State Wrestling Championships in Bakersfield, where Ben had won the 171-pound weight class. Ben had been ecstatic, so happy he had even surprised Alex by hugging him in front of everyone in the stands. Some kids were throwing Ben a party that night. It was for seniors and juniors, so Ben and Katie were going. No one had told Alex more than that. They never did.

“Maybe Wally drove her,” Alex said in a small voice, trying to be helpful. Wally Farquhar was Katie's boyfriend. He was a senior and had a fancy black Mustang. He never gave any sign of even knowing Alex existed, and Alex didn't like him much. He had the sense his parents weren't so crazy about Wally either.

There was a long silence, and Alex wondered if he had said something wrong. After a moment, his father spoke, his voice unrecognizably grim. “Wally was driving.”

No one said anything the rest of the way. It was as though the fact Wally had been driving had decided something, something both awful and permanent.

Alex wanted to know more, but he was afraid to ask. Katie was in a car accident… but she would be okay, wouldn't she? And why wasn't Ben driving her? His parents said he was supposed to. He wasn't able to articulate the feeling, but he sensed strongly that Ben had done something wrong, and that whatever it was, if Ben hadn't done it, none of this would be happening.

But maybe it wasn't happening. Maybe he was still asleep at home. Maybe the ache in his bladder, his dad's crazy driving, the sound his mother had made, this whole sickening lurch in their lives, maybe it was all just a terrible dream.

His father screeched to a stop in front of the Stanford Medical Center emergency room entrance and cut the engine. His parents jumped out, slamming the doors behind them, and Alex realized they weren't going to a parking lot, they were leaving the car right here. How was he supposed to know that? No one had even said anything to him, and it felt like they were just leaving him.

He got out. The night was cold and quiet and he could see his breath fogging, could see swirling cones of vapor under the sodium lights in front of the building. The façade of the hospital seemed to glow in the darkness around it, the building's edges indistinct. His sense that this could be a dream deepened.

He ran inside and pulled up next to his parents. His father was talking to a black woman in a window, a nurse or a receptionist. Katie Treven, he was saying. We're her parents. Where is she?

The woman looked at some paperwork in front of her, then at Alex's father. “She's in surgery, sir.”

Surgery. Alex's mind was flooded with visions of masked doctors in bloody gowns, white-hot operating room lights, trays of gleaming metal instruments, and the thought of Katie at the center of it all, right here, right now…

“We need to see her,” Alex's mom said, her voice equally frightened and firm. “Where is she?”

The woman looked at Alex's mother, and though her expression wasn't without compassion, Alex recognized something unmovable in it. He could sense how many times the woman had danced these steps, how accustomed she was to dealing with this situation.

“Ma'am,” she said, “I understand how upset you are. But you're not permitted into surgery. It's a sterile environment, and if you went in it could only hurt your daughter, not help her. Please, just have a seat in the waiting room. The doctor will be out shortly.”