She had that much time to figure out what was going to happen that night.
On the video feed, Sam gave chase, and Adeline watched her younger self get into an autocar. After the car disappeared into the night, her father walked home, tapping a text message on his phone.
Adeline wanted to leave, to go to Nora’s house. But she couldn’t. Not without breaking the universe. Because the night Nora had died, Daniele Danneros had been at home the entire time.
Thus, Adeline stayed home. She paced the first floor, trying to see the piece she was missing. But it wasn’t there.
She opened the feeds for Elliott, Constance, and Hiro’s homes. Elliott was sitting in his study, deep in thought. Constance was gone. From the past, Adeline knew she had gone to San Francisco for medical treatment.
Hiro’s home was empty. He was in the lab, working through the night.
It was all happening as it had.
*
The sun rose on the front of Adeline’s house, and it seemed to be laughing at her, as if it had known all along that she couldn’t figure it out. She knew it was the sleep deprivation and the extreme stress affecting her, but she just wanted to curl up on the floor, pull her hair out, and scream until she exploded.
Instead, her phone rang. She knew who it was before she answered: the Absolom City Police.
They informed her, as Nora Thomas’s employer, that the woman had been found murdered that morning. They had some questions. Two detectives would be visiting her soon to ask those questions.
By standing agreement with Absolom Sciences, the police had access to view the cameras throughout the city. That would soon lead them to Sam and Adeline.
For now, they wanted her consent to access the deceased’s email, phone, and work computer.
Adeline gave her consent and said she would send an email to legal providing formal authorization. She knew what they would find in those records—specifically, her text chain with Nora last night. Adeline would have some explaining to do.
But at that moment, those files weren’t the ones that concerned her most. It was the historical records in the Tesseract—and an idea Sam had given her last night: what if she wasn’t the only one who had used Absolom Two to travel to the past?
In the server room in the basement, Adeline logged in and did something she wished she had thought to do years ago: she uploaded photos of Elliott, her father, Constance, Hiro, and Nora.
SIXTY-FOUR
Adeline was sitting in her living room when the doorbell rang.
She opened the door and welcomed the two detectives and offered them coffee （which they declined）。
Their names were Billings and Holloway. Two people she hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years.
They recounted the broad outline of the crime with clinical efficiency. When they were done, they let a silence settle in the air. Apparently, awkward silence was the detectives’ signature move. Did they thrive on awkwardness? Was it taught at the academy? Was the slide that introduced it labeled Silence: Your Secret Weapon?
Adeline stared at them, waiting for the question she knew was coming.
It was Billings who asked it. “In reviewing Dr. Thomas’s phone and email records, we came across a rather contentious text exchange between the two of you last night.”
She didn’t ask a question. She just stared at Adeline, using the oppressive silence again.
“We had an argument. Yes.”
“About?”
“I placed cameras inside Nora’s home.”
“Can we ask why?”
Adeline had mentally rehearsed the lie, and it came easily now. “Since Absolom was used on the first prisoner, all of us—the six founders—have received death threats. It was just a precaution.”
“A precaution for all of the Absolom Six? Or just Nora?” Billings asked.
“Everyone. Yesterday, however, Nora found the ones inside, in the main living areas. We fought about it.”
“When’s the last time you saw Dr. Thomas?”
“Early yesterday evening.”
“Where?”
“At the main Absolom Sciences building, at a meeting in the lab.”
“Where’d you go after?”
“Home. For the entire night.”
Holloway took out a pad. “And can we—”
“Verify that? Yes. You can.”
The videos of the crawl space and attic of Nora’s home would verify that either Sam or Adeline had committed the crime. The police were likely collecting the forensic evidence from the crime scene now.
*
When the detectives left, Adeline sat in the living room, almost in a catatonic state.