Please, God, give me a sign.

Late that night her prayers are answered and it changes everything, everything.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Smell Test

It is almost impossible to accurately describe Mrs. Beasley’s Strawberry Surprise, other than to say that it involves a pastry crust that probably has a stick of butter in each serving, and that the element of surprise is not simply an intriguing name for the dish, but key to the taste experience. Sherman Elliot, departing from his normal diet of microwaved man food, was reduced to moans of pleasure and rolling his eyes at each bite, and then gasping like a boated fish after the last crumb vanished into his yearning mouth.

Speaking of fish, the grilled wahoo was—and this was no surprise—wahoo! worthy. So, an exemplary dining experience, and one that a half-starved grad student will no doubt never forget. It turns out that prior to inviting Elliot to join us, Naomi had arranged for him to make a voluntary statement to the FBI, and encouraged him to go back to his apartment and resume his life.

“Everything you have to say on the subject has been entered into official record, which means there would be no point in anyone, certainly not a bullying rent-a-cop, dragging you off for further questioning,” Naomi says, escorting him to the door. “It will be clear to anyone who cares to check that you never worked for QuantaGate and never knew the details of whatever device they’ve been attempting to perfect. Your part in this affair is over. Go back to your life, Mr. Elliot. Live long and prosper.”

He appears shocked at her turn of phrase. “You’re a fan?” he asks.

“Always had a thing for Vulcans.”

She offers her hand. He takes it, bowing slightly, as if auditioning for a part he never expected to play. “What can I say but ‘wow.’ And thank you.”

After the door is shut and firmly locked behind him, I go, “Really? You’re a Star Trek fan? Since when?”

“I enjoyed the most recent movie, the one where they’re all quite young. Before Captain Kirk wore a girdle.”

“And you came across Sherman Elliot how?”

She shrugs. “By posting a query on the grad student forum. Mr. Elliot was one of a dozen who responded, and seemed to have formed the most interesting impressions of the last days of Joseph Keener.”

“So you never left the residence, or your desk, for that matter.”

“No need,” she says. “Teddy was a big help, of course, pointing me in the right direction. By the way, Elliot wasn’t the only grad student who thinks that Professor Keener failed in his quest to design a functioning quantum computer. The belief is widely held in the physics department, and these are not people afraid of expressing opinions, to say the least. So I don’t think Mr. Elliot was ever really in danger from our friends in the stealth helicopters.”

Jack Delancey has just returned from the washroom. He’s fastidious about his white smile, and usually carries a little traveler’s toothbrush in the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket. His grin is freshly scrubbed. “That was interesting,” he says. “Security cops threatening students with rendition. Makes you wonder.”

“Indeed,” says Naomi. “Much to discuss. Anyone interested in joining me for a small brandy in the library?”

When we’re all seated and sipping from the tiny crystal glasses—she’s not kidding about the “small” part— Naomi leans back in her leather armchair and kicks off her heels. “I trust no one is offended? Good. These have been killing me all evening.”

Teddy looks as if he’d like to join her in the shoeless department but, at a glance from Jack, thinks better. A woman in sheer stockings is one thing, a man in socks quite another. Addressing herself to Jack, Naomi says, “If my recollection is correct, you have an acquaintance employed by Gama Guards. Anything of interest there?”

Jack, looking wry and thoughtful, eases back in his own chair. “I didn’t think so. Like Wackenhut, they supply security guards to corporations. Basic rent-a-cops. My acquaintance retired from the sheriff’s department, went into middle management at Gama Guards, recruiting retired law enforcement officers much like himself. No chance of advancement—that goes to the younger career guys—but he’s happy enough, collects his paycheck, takes all his vacation days.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Not in my old pal’s department. But in light of what the kid said, we need to dig deeper. It doesn’t surprise me that the professor would have been paranoid about his own guards checking up on him—that’s part of their job, after all—but when it comes to seizing sensitive materials and documents during a felony investigation, that should have been the FBI, or at the very least the state police. Not private-sector goofballs who get off on threatening students. This doesn’t pass the smell test.”

“Teddy?” Naomi says.

“Deep background on Gama Guards,” our young hacker says, standing up, his brandy untouched. “I’ll get right on it.”

Jack watches him go, waits until he’s clear of the room and then says, “The kid gets better every day. I had my doubts when you first brought him aboard, but no longer. If we could fix that ridiculous hairdo he’d be perfect.”

“I rather like the ’hawk,” Naomi says plainly. “Back to the matter at hand. In light of what Mr. Elliot had to say, I can think of at least three possible variations that need to be explored. One: Keener failed, and someone who wished to keep that failure a secret arranged to have him silenced. Two: Keener was lying to his grad students as a kind of smoke screen, hoping that the message of his failure would be picked up by the kidnappers, who would then have no reason to keep holding his son as leverage for his cooperation. Three: some variation on the above, which involves Keener going to extraordinary lengths to recover Joey, and engaging in actions that have not yet come to light, but which marked him for execution.”

“You mean he tried to double-cross someone?”

“Or some government,” she suggests.

I say, “Everything we know about this guy suggests he was a bad judge of people. Couldn’t read them. And nothing suggests he was good at lying. Maybe that got him in trouble. Either someone believed him about his project being a failure, and killed him, or someone didn’t believe him, and killed him.”

“Or we’re missing something huge that’s staring us right in the face,” Jack says. He starts to add something and then stops, a dark expression passing like a cloud across his handsome features.

He means Shane.

What if we’ve got it all wrong?

Kathleen Mancero lies awake on the twin-size bed, a yard or so from the bed where Joey sleeps soundly, his breathing as easy and regular as clockwork. After hours of playing almost frantically on his keyboard, head bobbing inside the headphones, he finally crawled up on the bed, allowed her to read him a story and then promptly fell deeply asleep. Joey may be a musical prodigy—he won’t let her hear what he’s playing as he thumps the keys, so it’s hard to know for sure, not that she’s any judge of classical music, anyhow—but in all other respects he’s a typical little boy, and shares with most children that amazing ability to sleep soundly when all around them the world is falling apart. How she envies that gift, to sleep in the face of adversity, to escape from the constant fear.

Kathleen may never sleep again, her mind electric with what she finally learned from the silent TV, courtesy of a closed-captioned local news broadcast.