A soothing, cool hand rubbing his legs. Reaching up and drawing away.
Sam cracked his eyelids and slammed them shut when the bright sun lanced through his eyes, bringing pain with it.
The gentle, cool hand came again, but it wasn’t a hand. It was a wave. Washing over him.
Sam’s fingers ached, but he forced them to move, to curl and dig—into the sand.
The beach.
He was lying on the beach.
His head rolled to the side, and he saw the sand. Tears flowed down his face.
He hadn’t swum to shore. He had gone as far as he could and given every last bit he had. The tide had carried him in. That was the way of the world, he thought: you give it your all; sometimes it’s enough, sometimes it’s not, and sometimes, the tide carries you in.
But the tide can’t help you if you don’t get close enough.
A strong wave washed over him, across his sunburned face, the saltwater stinging the blisters. The pain shocked his body into movement. He pushed up and scampered up the beach, getting his first clear look at Pangea.
A thick forest lay beyond the beach. At the edge were rows of broad-leaved shrubs. Behind them, trees reached to the sky. The forest looked so dense he wondered if he could even pass it, as if it was a wall of green, blue, and purple plants preventing anything from the beach from getting inside.
But what stopped Sam cold wasn’t the trees or the shrubs. It was the thing hanging from the lowest limb on the closest tree. Blowing in the sea breeze was a thick white sweater. There were no words on it. But even in his exhausted, nearly delirious state, Sam recognized the garment. It was the same type of sweater he was wearing. The type worn by an Absolom prisoner.
He knew instantly what it meant. And that scared him more than the sea he had just escaped.
TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, Daniele took Adeline and Ryan to work with her. Ryan received a visitor badge.
Adeline’s badge was similar, but it was actually an employee key card with the word INTERN printed across the top.
The older woman held the card out to Adeline. “Keep this with you at all times. You never know when you might need it.”
She slipped the card into a plastic sleeve that dangled from a lanyard around Adeline’s neck.
The three of them walked the halls of the Absolom research building, Daniele dictating the tour. There were team rooms that looked to Adeline almost like classrooms as well as clean labs where suited figures were working on mechanical prototypes.
Standing at a wide glass window, Adeline motioned to a figure holding a soldering gun. “What’re they building?”
Daniele smiled. “Pieces for an experiment.”
*
They had lunch at Daniele’s house, and after, Ryan went to visit some friends a few blocks away. Daniele announced to Adeline that she needed to talk to her about something.
They met in Daniele’s home library, where Adeline was expecting them to discuss the plan to find Nora’s killer. Or how to get her father back. Or both.
The meeting was about neither of those things.
Daniele set a stack of books on a long table. “I want to discuss a subject of great importance to me. I would appreciate it if you would pay attention and learn from these books.” She paused. “Can you do that?”
“What’s the subject?”
“Finance.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“Why? Dad was rich, right? And he got a check every three months from the company. Interest or like a—”
“A dividend.”
“A dividend, right. It’s probably millions of dollars.”
“The most recent quarterly dividend paid on your father’s stake in Absolom Sciences was 1.17 billion dollars.”
It took Adeline a few seconds to process that. She had known her father’s stake in Absolom had made him wealthy, but she had no idea how rich.
“Your father was also a good investor,” Daniele said. “A little on the conservative side, but that’s better than being too aggressive.”
“Look, can we do this after we get him back? I promise: I’ll learn all about finance after that.”
“No. We can’t. This is important, Adeline.”
“Why?”
“Because I made a promise to your father that I would do everything in my power to take care of you.”
Adeline laughed. “There’s a killer on the loose, and you’re protecting me by teaching me about stocks and bonds? I think you’ve lost it.”
“I haven’t.”
“Let’s face it, money is maybe the only thing I’m not worried about.”