Over the next two days, Holly also meets with board members, sits in on strategy sessions, even drops by a few photo shoots. Pixie Dust is everywhere—on billboards, in magazines, plastered across the front of every cosmetic store. Barry has left her a folder filled with celebrities sighted with the product, along with a chart detailing current marketing efforts and future expansion. Sales are crazy good, and Holly has to admit, being back in this part of her life is a wonderful escape. Still, she makes sure to text Jack between meetings, getting monosyllabic responses for her troubles. When she asks how he’s doing, he sends a single thumbs-up emoji.
She doesn’t bother texting or calling Jane, who is notorious for being impossible to reach. If there’s a problem, her mother will call. She hopes.
Meanwhile Barry is pushing her to consider a full line of makeup. When she reminds him that this means more money into R&D, he laughs.
“We’ve finally made it. This is the big time, kid. You’ll have all the R&D you can handle, if that’s what you want.” He looks as if he wants to say something else, but settles for “Enjoy it.”
It’s not until the middle of the second day that Holly finally makes it back to her lab. Even now, she’s supposed to be at a lunch, glad-handing a few CEOs who weren’t interested in Darling Skin Care two years ago but now can’t wait to develop a line with her. Barry is the one who hooked them, but it’s her they want to meet. Normally she’d take this moment to gloat, to celebrate that her little company has come this far. But she’s desperate to see Elliot alone. All she thought about on the plane ride to New York was how to persuade him to help her, how the two of them working together might be able to solve the roadblocks keeping her from developing a fully functional synthetic version of the proteins in Eden’s blood. If the sheer excitement of the science won’t do it, then she’ll have to appeal to his human side, assuming he has one. She’ll say anything, take any risk. Even if it means losing everything. Because everything is worth nothing without Jack and Eden.
But Elliot isn’t in the general lab. She hasn’t seen him at any of the launch events, either. Not that that’s unusual for him. Elliot often skips the high-profile events, even though as lead developer he’s invited to them all. But she’d thought even Elliot would want to take a moment to bask in how far he’s helped bring the company.
Then again, Barry has been keeping her so busy it’s quite possible she’s missed spotting him. With all the excitement surrounding the launch, he’s probably holed up in his office. She hurries down the corridor.
She takes a second to compose herself in front of his door, then knocks. There’s no response. She frowns. He must be engrossed in his work. She knocks again before pushing the door open.
But Elliot isn’t there.
The room feels off. It’s too neat. The stacks of papers, the empty soda cans, the fast-food wrappers that usually litter his work surfaces are gone. There are a few charts, a sample of Pixie Dust, and a handful of slides, but nothing else.
“Can I help you?”
Holly whirls around. A young woman is standing in the doorway. She’s dressed in a lab coat, and she’s scowling at Holly, as if she’s the intruder.
“Excuse me?” Holly says, drawing herself up.
The woman’s eyes widen. “Oh, Mrs. . . . Dr. . . . Darling! I didn’t recognize you.”
“Who are you?”
The woman extends her hand. “Pat Harper. I’ll be heading up the research division. You were away when I was hired. I’m so excited to finally meet you.”
Holly ignores the woman’s hand. Dr. Pat Harper doesn’t look old enough to be out of college, let alone in charge of a lab. Someone has clearly made a mistake. Or is joking with her.
“Where’s Elliot?”
“Who?”
“Elliot Benton,” Holly snaps. “Dr. Benton—the head of R&D?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman says, clearly terrified she’s said something wrong. “I think Dr. Benton was here before me? But we never actually met.” She looks guiltily around the office as if Elliot might materialize out of thin air. “I don’t know what happened to him.”
She’s still talking, but Holly isn’t listening. She turns on her heel and walks, as quickly as she can, to her own lab. Fumbles her way through her security protocols and pushes open the door.
The safe is open. And it’s empty.
She stands for a moment, trying to think. There should have been at least one bag of plasma and serum in the safe. She hadn’t asked Elliot to send it when he sent the vial of blood. There’s no reason for him to have taken it. But the only person besides herself who had access to this room was Elliot. And now that she looks around, none of her prototype samples are here, either. It doesn’t make sense. Why would he take them?