That place was an island in the Pacific. In the future, Elliott had told Adeline that Daniele had bought an island and was developing it, but until that moment, she had never understood what Daniele’s plan had been. She saw it now. The island was a refuge of last resort if she couldn’t clear her father’s name.
The island became her secret project. She began researching seasteading to expand it and hired contractors to draw up plans to create the ultimate self-sustaining escape. Off the grid. Off the map. A place to disappear to.
*
When the legal documents for Absolom Sciences were ready to be signed, Hiro requested a meeting with Adeline.
They met at the office on Cowper Street one morning, both sipping coffee in the conference room.
“I don’t want to own my shares,” Hiro said.
“Why?”
“Risk.”
Adeline shook her head. “You’ll be paid in addition to the equity—”
“Not that risk. The risk is… that I’ll sell the shares and spend the money. I want you to control a trust that owns my shares and only allow me to sell a small percentage each year. The rest should go to these charities when I’m gone.”
Hiro slid a page across the table.
“Why?”
“I have a sickness.”
Adeline studied him. She knew what his sickness was. And she knew he would feel better once he told her. She waited as he spoke slowly, staring at the floor.
“It’s the same reason I don’t have a wife or a family.” He looked up quickly. “It’s not that kind of sickness. It’s a compulsion I’ve never been able to control. I gamble.”
*
The confession from Hiro wasn’t the only one Adeline received that week. She woke the next morning to an email from Constance, requesting a meeting at her home.
Adeline arrived that afternoon, and she was reminded of that day she had visited her in Absolom City, of how terrified she had been back then, of what she had seen.
This meeting started in the same way, with the two of them sipping tea in the living room, the doors to the backyard open.
“If we’re going to be partners, I think it’s only fair that I tell you something you should know about me. About my health.” Constance set the mug down on the glass table with a clink. “I’m sick. I have been for a few years. And I’m getting worse.” She opened her mouth to continue but seemed to reconsider. “Actually, I think I should show you.”
She rose and made her way upstairs, to a room on the front of the home.
The hairs on Adeline’s arms stood on end. It was as if she was reliving the scene from her past—and Constance’s future.
The woman reached out a skinny hand and turned the handle to a bedroom with no bed, only pictures on the wall and notes. Adeline had seen these very pictures and notes before, in the bedroom in Absolom City. Only here, there were fewer pictures, as if Constance was only now beginning to build the tableau.
She walked close to the wall and studied a photo of a young man in his twenties, holding a large glass full of beer in a pub.
“After college, I took a year off before going to grad school. I was restless and wild back then. My father had just died. I was mad at the world. I had enough money saved up to travel, to not work, and simply indulge. And I did. I spent a hedonistic summer in Europe. A downright shameful fall in Hong Kong. A winter full of debauchery in Australia. I arrived home in California that spring out of money and ready to live a normal life again.”
Constance turned and clasped her hands together. “But time and money aren’t all that reckless interlude cost me. I didn’t know it until years later, but somewhere along the way, I contracted HIV. And I very surely passed it along to others during my romp around the world.”
Constance inhaled. “I thought you should know. That’s my interest in Absolom. The treatments for the disease have come a long way, and I want to get the best care possible—but it’s more than that. I want to use the money to find whoever I might have infected. To notify them and offer to get them care as well.”
Adeline stepped deeper into the room, scanning the pictures. It all made sense now.
“I hope that doesn’t change anything,” Constance said.
“It doesn’t,” Adeline whispered. “The past is the past.”
But she wondered if it did, if Constance’s secret was the piece she was looking for—if it somehow connected to Nora’s murder in a way she didn’t yet understand.
FIFTY-FOUR
With the founding of Absolom Sciences, Adeline moved to Palo Alto. She bought a small home a block away from her parents’ house and Elliott’s house.