Like all the Absolom founders, Hiro had a home in Absolom City.
What was he doing in Vegas? Visiting a friend?
While possible, it didn’t really fit with what she knew about Hiro. He was easily the least social of the Absolom Six.
Adeline got out of bed, opened her laptop, and went to the Clark County tax records website and looked up the address. The property Hiro was visiting was owned by Molosba LLC.
Adeline stared at the word Molosba.
It was simply Absolom spelled backward. Adeline sensed that she was staring at a clue to something, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.
She did know that she had to get inside that house to see what Hiro was doing there.
TWENTY-SEVEN
In the Triassic, Sam stood on the beach, staring at the Absolom sweater hanging from the tree.
He looked down at his own sweater, searching for any differences. He didn’t see any. Which opened another possibility: the sweater in the tree might be his sweater, left here in the past.
There was one way to test that.
Sam had needed the sweater to float better on the sea. But it was far too warm to wear it on shore.
He pulled the garment off and stretched it tight with his hands. He stared at the sweater in the tree as he ripped his own.
The one hanging above didn’t change.
It wasn’t his.
Which meant there was another prisoner here. Why?
The people sent back via Absolom were the worst of human society. Murderers. Terrorists. Serial killers.
Well, with the exception of Sam himself.
Why would someone send a killer here? There was only one good answer Sam could see: to kill him.
The scientist in him couldn’t help but wonder how the other prisoner had gotten here. Absolom should have sent him to an alternate timeline—and it should have sent other prisoners to their own timeline. No two Absolom prisoners should ever meet. Unless they had somehow used Absolom Two to send the other person—and sweater—here.
Sam realized then that he had more to do here than survive. He had a mystery to solve. A secret to unravel.
If he was going to do that, he needed to recuperate. The sea and a few days without food had left him weak. He needed to get his strength back. Then he would sort out who else was here. And why. And how they had gotten here. He sensed that in that answer was the key to learning who had killed Nora and perhaps a way to get home.
He tied his sweater around his waist and waded into the forest, stopping near the tree where the other sweater hung.
There wasn’t any sort of trap that he could see. It seemed the white garment was some sort of sign, a signal perhaps to any other prisoners who might see it. But why? Was it a lure of some kind?
The mystery would have to wait. Sam was hungry. And thirsty.
Past the shrubs, the forest was dark where the thick tree canopy blotted out the sun. Sam felt as though night had fallen in just a few steps. Behind him, the light-drenched beach was disappearing.
The trees around him reminded Sam of redwoods. The bark was thick with deep grooves, and the wide trunks seemed to extend all the way to the clouds. He felt as though he had been shrunk and dropped in a land where everything was oversized—which was technically the case.
The forest floor was covered in moss. Large ferns clumped together where there were holes in the tree canopy, positioning themselves to get hit by the sunlight.
Sam reached out and touched one of the fern leaves. It was thick and soft, almost like velvet. On the underside were spongy red spores. In the valley of the blades, small puddles of water remained from the storm. Sam tipped the closest one and drank the cool water. It coated his throat like aloe on a sunburn.
He exhaled and breathed a few times, savoring the relief.
He moved to the next fern frond and tipped the leaf to his mouth and drank. He repeated the action until his belly was full and his chin and undershirt were soaked. Sam was so consumed with quenching his thirst that he didn’t hear the rustling beside him. When he looked up, the creature was ten feet away, staring up at him, its scaly head cocked, as if curious.
The dinosaur was a small theropod, shaped like a T. rex, with large hind legs and small forelimbs. But this creature was smaller and more slender, about six feet long, with a head that came up to Sam’s waist.
But it was big enough to do Sam some serious damage. Or kill him. Even a deep wound would be deadly out here. The smell of blood would draw larger predators.
Slowly, the dinosaur opened its mouth, revealing jagged teeth that were razor sharp. This was a carnivore. No question about it. And it was hungry. Its tongue slithered in its mouth, bouncing left and right.
Sam didn’t move.