“Hello?” she said, her voice throaty from sleep. A pause. “What? Right now? What time is it?” Pause. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her face drained. “I’ll be right there.” She snapped the phone closed. Trent saw that it was 8:15 A.M.
“What’s wrong?”
She stared blankly into space.
“I have to run over to the lab right now. That was Sam. He said they’re having some kind of emergency.”
TWELVE
As Arianna hurried down the steps to the lab, the unmistakable sound of shouts emanated from the basement. A chill of apprehension cleared her nasal passages. She rapped on the door.
The din stopped, and she heard footsteps shuffling closer.
“Well?” came Sam’s voice.
“You never told me the new password!” she yelled. “Just open up.”
“Are you alone?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
Sam swung it open, revealing his heated pink face crowned by a few strands of white hair. She walked in and shut the door.
“At least now you can use my batch,” Ian was saying to Patrick.
“Don’t pretend to twist this into something good,” Patrick snapped.
They stood in the center of the lab, as if they had been screaming at each other. A jumble of emotions clouded their expressions: Patrick looked frustrated, muttering at the floor, while Ian hung his head, refusing to meet Arianna’s gaze.
Her grip on the cane tightened. “What is going on?”
Nobody spoke.
“C’mon, Ian,” Sam said, “don’t make us do your dirty work.”
Ian raised his head and looked into Arianna’s eyes. “I’m quitting.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m sorry, Arianna, I don’t want to do this, but after you brought that man here yesterday, I don’t feel safe anymore. I can’t risk going to jail—my wife would never forgive me. Last night, I told her about it and she was outraged. She…”
“She what?”
“She threatened to leave me unless I quit today. And the truth is, I understand where she’s coming from—it’s just not fair to her to put myself in so much danger.…”
“Ian. Trent is a good guy. I promise you he won’t threaten us.”
Ian looked unmoved, and Arianna felt her reserve of diplomacy begin to falter.
“A lot of good you did us,” Sam said to her.
Arianna gulped a breath. “Ian, you are as safe here now as you were before.” She held up a hand. “I swear on my father’s grave that Trent poses no danger to us—we talked about the whole thing last night, and he is completely on our side.”
Ian shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about him—it’s just too risky.”
Arianna pulled her cell phone out of her purse and waved it in the air. “What do you want to know? I’ll call him right now, we can all sit down and talk—”
“No, I promised my wife,” Ian mumbled. “It’s too late now. Maybe if I could have met him before … but you just sprung him on us.” His voice turned hard. “It’s really your fault, Arianna, not mine.”
She glanced among the three men for an ally, knowing her poise was sliding. Her tone was a mixture of deference and fury: “I’m sorry, I should have warned you all before I brought him here, but imagine not being able to tell your partner that you have a chance to live. That there is reason to hope!”
Ian half shrugged. “You could have told him in vague terms. Why did you have to bring him here?”
Her eyes flashed as her blood pressure spiked. “This lab holds proof of concepts that are alien to the outside world—proof that this research can work! You wouldn’t believe it either if you were raised the way he was—unless you saw it in progress. I trust Trent—why isn’t that enough for you, Ian? Why don’t you trust my judgment anymore? I arranged every detail of this whole project; don’t you think I’d be the last person to upset it?”
Ian pursed his lips. “Love is blind.”
“Not for me,” she retorted, turning to Sam. “What about you, Sam? Don’t tell me, you, too—”
Sam shook his head, but his expression was far from kind. “Even if you did screw up, I’m here to stay. What have I got to lose?”
“Thank you, Sam,” she breathed. “Patrick?”
Patrick was standing with his arms crossed over his chest. He pointed a thumb at Ian. “This coward’s got a point. It is riskier now, thanks to you. But I hope your judgment is as good as ever, because I can’t bear to walk out.” He looked at Ian. “We will never have this chance again.”
Ian shrugged. “I know, but—”
“But what?” Patrick demanded. “The three of us might be the only scientists left doing this kind of research. Don’t you think that outweighs our own worries? We could save Arianna’s life, not to mention revive this field.… Yes, it’s risky, but think about Copernicus, Galileo, Newton.… They weren’t cowards … and what if they had been? Where would we be today?”
“I doubt we could be much worse off,” Ian muttered. “They don’t matter anymore, none of it matters—”
“Nonsense!” Arianna shouted. “Do you hear yourself? Patrick is right: You are a coward, you have no vision, you’ve bought in to all the fear they want you to feel—you think you’re threatened by Trent?” She let out a bitter laugh. “It’s people like you, who know better but have no courage, who are the biggest threat of all!”
Ian tore off his white lab coat, yanking his arms out of each slot. He pulled his elastic face mask over his head and stuffed it into the pocket of the coat. In his jeans and T-shirt, he looked like the outsider he was. He nodded at Patrick and Sam before walking up to Arianna. She didn’t flinch as he stopped in front of her and handed her the coat. She took it. He opened his mouth, but any parting words died on his tongue as she narrowed her eyes.
“Don’t,” she said. “There’s nothing to say.”
He closed his mouth, but studied her face. With a chill, Arianna realized that he was
