Those hours spent prowling the empty streets were like the sea Sam swam across now. Dark and scary and hopeless and, most of all, unavoidable. It was a road he had to travel—for the sake of his family.
TWENTY-FOUR
When the car dropped Adeline off at Daniele’s home, she was on the verge of hyperventilating. Just inside the front door, Daniele stood waiting for her.
“She knew,” Adeline said between breaths. “She practically caught me.”
Daniele placed her hands on Adeline’s shoulders. “Breathe. You’re probably imagining it.”
Adeline closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m not. She. Caught me.”
“Did you see—”
Adeline held her phone up. “I got it. She’s the killer. She has a whole bedroom set up like a murder board. She’s tracking people. Dates. Pictures. Crazy stuff.”
Daniele took the phone and moved to the study off the foyer that she used as a private office. She plugged Adeline’s phone into her laptop, downloaded the photos and video, and then deleted them from the phone.
“Hey, I wanted to keep those.”
“You can’t. Not on your phone.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
Adeline realized why: because if Constance was the killer, her next move would be to try to find out what Adeline had discovered. She might hire someone to hack her phone remotely.
“What happens now?”
“They’re coming over. At six p.m.”
“Who? Constance?”
“Yes. And Hiro and Elliott. We’re going to meet in the basement.”
“About?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Absolom Two.”
Daniele exhaled. “No comment. The point is, this is an opportunity for us.”
“How?”
“When the three arrive, they’re going to leave their phones on the kitchen island.”
“To make sure no one is listening.”
“That’s right.”
Daniele held up a small white item. “When we’re in the basement, plug this into Hiro’s phone and wait for the LED to turn from red to green.”
“What is it? Spyware?”
“Nothing that intrusive. It just tracks his movements.”
“Should I use it on the other phones—Elliott’s and Constance’s?”
“No,” Daniele said quickly. “Constance, as you said, might be suspicious now. And I know Elliott is.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s hired a private investigator to follow me.”
“Are you in danger? Are we?”
“Maybe,” Daniele said quietly. “I’ve hired a private security firm to watch the house.”
*
In her bedroom upstairs, Adeline watched from the window as Elliott, Constance, and Hiro arrived.
One question nagged at her: why would Elliott hire someone to watch Daniele? There was only one good answer: he thought she had killed Nora. If that was the case, it meant he hadn’t killed Nora.
Could it be true?
If it was, it would mean Constance was innocent. Which was hard for Adeline to believe given what she had just seen at her home.
But something was still bothering Adeline: how fragile Constance was. And how kind. On the outside, she seemed like anything but a killer. That mystery would have to wait.
She had work to do.
Adeline exited her bedroom onto the landing and listened. It was quiet downstairs.
She crept down the hardwood steps, into the stair hall. In the foyer, she eyed the closed door that led to the basement.
Basement homes were rare in this part of Nevada. They were hard to dig because of the caliche, a sedimentary rock-like material that was prevalent in the area. But all it took to break the rock was money, and Daniele Danneros had that kind of money. And thus, a full basement.
Adeline wondered what was being said down there.
She walked away from the basement door, down the hall to the kitchen, where the four phones sat on the island. She tapped each one to awaken the lock-screen image, and quickly found Hiro’s （it had a picture of his niece and nephew hugging at Disneyland）。
Adeline plugged the small device into the port at the bottom of the phone and watched the stair hall for any movement, occasionally glancing down at the red light.
When the light on the device turned green, she disconnected it from Hiro’s phone and crept softly through the stair hall, still careful to avoid making footfalls that would be heard in the basement.
In the foyer, she stared at the closed door to the basement.