“Are you still at her apartment?” Dopp breathed.
“Yeah, why, what happened?”
“Is she still sleeping?”
“Yes … what’s going on?” Trent sounded worried.
“I think she might try to go back to the clinic tonight. Make sure she stays put until I get there. Whatever you do, don’t let her go anywhere!”
“What happened?”
“It was a lab, just like we feared.” Dopp’s voice quivered. “And there are more people involved. Someone named Sam.”
“How—how do you know that?”
“I found a letter. I’ll explain later. But just make sure she stays put. Don’t let on that you know anything. I’ll arrest her as soon as I get there.”
“Where are you now?”
“Avenue A and Eighth. I’ll be there soon.”
For a second, silence, then: “Okay.”
Dopp hung up, not caring to say good-bye. He tried to keep his mind on the road, but all he could see was the destroyed embryo in the dish. It was the kind of awful image that he knew he would never forget—a crime scene that would have made even the most seasoned DEP agents recoil. This was why he needed to keep his job. And it was exactly what was going to make that possible. The hidden lab was sensational—it would be all over the news, as soon as Arianna’s arrest was made public. He couldn’t wait for the moment he told her the words.
Never had he felt so validated; in a flash of epiphany, he understood that his whole long career at the DEP, his journey to fully reestablish himself as a servant of God, was just now peaking. Of course, God had known it all along, had offered the guiding hand and the patience to help him get here. What a terrible fool he had been to doubt his intuition, even for a second. Relief dawned on him, weighty and comforting, as he realized that his divine link had been secure all along. He would never worry again that he was alone with guilt, for there was always the Lord leading him to redemption.
“Amen,” he breathed.
In a blur, he managed to make it safely back to Arianna’s apartment building and parked askew next to the curb. With a hand on his gun, he ran inside, flashing his DEP badge to the doorman.
“Arianna Drake,” he demanded.
The doorman looked flustered. “Is everything okay?”
“She’s under arrest,” Dopp said. How satisfying to finally speak the words!
“Apartment 3R,” the man sputtered. “Third floor, make a right.”
Dopp ran into a waiting elevator, jabbed the button for the third floor, then raced out into the hallway and made a right, skimming the numbers on each door until he reached 3R. He turned the knob; the door was unlocked, and he pushed it open, expecting to see Trent waiting there for him.
But the apartment was dark.
“Hello?” he called, flipping on the light switch next to the front door. A living room to the right and a kitchen to the left were both empty. Holding his gun forward, he walked down the hallway toward a closed door. He knocked.
“Trent?” he yelled.
There was no answer.
He pushed open the door and saw an unmade bed, a dresser, and a night table. A whistling breeze blew in from the window, billowing out the curtains.
No one was there.
He swung open the door to the closet and was surprised to find it practically empty, with just a few fancy-looking dresses hanging inside. About two dozen wooden hangers hung bare on the rack.
Dopp shook his head in confusion. How could they be gone? Hadn’t he just spoken to Trent?
And then he felt a glimmer of understanding—and the deepest betrayal.
There was only one other place they could be.
* * *
By the time Dopp reached the clinic, he was breathless and sweating despite the bitter air. He whipped out his DEP badge, the key to the sensor on the outside of every fertility clinic, and waved it in front of the door. A green light flashed, and he opened the door, stepping into the waiting room. The lights here, too, were off, as if everyone had gone home for the weekend. He wasted no time rushing past the empty chairs to the door that opened into the clinic’s nerve center: its hallway, flanked on either side by examining rooms. All the white doors were closed. Dopp cocked his gun as he prowled the hallway. A strange high-pitched alarm was emanating from one room off to the right. He reached its door and opened it slowly, expecting to see someone, but inside was just an empty office. On the wall, on a flashing screen, was a picture of himself, snapped by a security camera seconds earlier as he had stepped into the waiting room. In the picture, his face was dark red, and his hand was withdrawing the gun from its holster on his belt.
He gripped his gun tighter and let out an exasperated grunt; it was only a signal screen. Within two minutes, its alarm faded out. Back in the hallway, Dopp slowed his step next to each door, listening. As he walked farther down, he heard it: a quiet but steady beeping. It was coming from the last room on the left, which was labeled OR 2. He stopped in front of the door and turned the knob. It was locked.
“Open up!” he shouted, smacking the door with the side of his gun.
There was no response. Then he remembered he still had Arianna’s keys. She owned this hell; surely she could open its doors. He pulled the key ring out of his pocket and steadied his hands enough to insert a random one into the lock. His fury mounted as the key refused to turn, as did the next one. But the third one fit, and turned the lock with a satisfying click. He leaned the side of his body against the door as he pushed it open, keeping his sweat-soaked gun close to his chest, finger on the trigger.
He craned his neck around the door. Five pairs of horrified eyes met his own, familiar and strange,
