“Get out,” she barked.
He stepped around her and pulled open the door. Pale morning light streamed into the basement as he walked out and let the door slam. Arianna closed her eyes, but her lids were futile dams against her tears. She looked to Sam.
“Don’t look at me,” he said angrily. “You deserve most of the credit.”
The urge to protest faded with her strength. She turned to Patrick. He was already walking pointedly back to his microscope.
Not knowing what else to do, she reached for the door. Sam said nothing as she stumbled out. Ian was gone. In front of her, the concrete stairs looked like mountains, requiring more energy to climb than she possessed. With a muted sob, she sank onto the first step and pulled out her cell phone.
* * *
At work, Trent felt jumpy; anxiety did more for his alertness than any espresso could. What emergency was she facing? What could he do to help? And could he actually outwit Dopp? It was beyond any risk he had ever taken, and he had no idea how to pull it off.
While Trent pondered his next move—and worried that his shifting loyalties were somehow apparent—the man himself stopped in the doorway. He looked authoritative in his crisp black suit with a cross pin fastened on its lapel, a gleaming golden reminder of past and purpose. Pretending to knock in the air, he half smiled down at Trent.
“Hey, there,” he said in a deep voice suited to his stature.
“Hi.” Careful with every word, Trent thought.
“No surprises today, right?”
Trent shook his head. “No, sir.”
“I don’t work with quitters.”
“Sorry about that.” He forced an apologetic smile.
“You’re lucky that I have enough faith in you for both of us,” Dopp said, turning to leave.
“Thanks.” Trent hesitated and then called, “By the way, did you know the stem cell heart is still on display at the Natural History Museum?”
Dopp’s head whipped back around. “No kidding. How do you know that?”
“A friend told me.”
Trent felt his face grow hot—what was he hoping to accomplish? But part of him wanted to witness Dopp’s reaction, to find out if there was any hope for redemption in the man he had long admired.
“It’s truly despicable,” Dopp said. “When you think about how many embryos they had to destroy to grow that heart…”
Trent nodded, knowing he had backed himself into a corner. “I don’t know how they justified it,” he said. “I guess they thought it might have helped people someday.…”
Dopp shook his head bitterly. “If you kill one person to save another, the sum is still zero. Put it another way: If a thief robbed a bank to give the money to charity, would that make it right?”
Trent dutifully shook his head, not daring to debate the semantics of personhood.
“Embryos are not just plain life,” Dopp continued, “but the most sacred form of life—humans without sin, since they are not yet born.”
Trent nodded, thinking sadly: It’s too late for you, boss. Dopp was as steeped in religion as Einstein in physics; it was inseparable from his identity. Under the force of mysticism, his reasoning power had shriveled. Trent understood that Dopp was incapable of viewing an embryo as anything less than a full human being with rights. And Trent realized he had been on the same path. Once a person believes something long enough …
“This is why we have to fight for the department to exist,” Dopp was saying. “We should all feel honored to come here every day. I know I do.”
“So do I.” Trent cleared his throat. “Of course I do.” His lie felt laughably transparent, as if he had just stated his allegiance to Mars. Dopp was watching him with a displeased look—could he suspect anything had changed?
On Trent’s desk, his cell phone shivered. The emergency.
“Who is it?” Dopp asked.
Trent had to answer, and there was only one person whose call was acceptable to take.
“It’s her.”
Dopp’s face brightened. “Don’t let me stop you.”
He tried not to betray his urgency as he lifted the phone to his ear. An odd whimper escaped from the other end of the line.
“Hello?” Trent said. “Arianna?”
“Hi.” The word tumbled into a sniffling sob that burst through his earpiece.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
From the doorway, Dopp eyed him with unchecked interest.
“Trent,” she cried, “Ian quit. All because of you, isn’t that the stupidest thing you ever heard?” She sniffled harder. “I told him you weren’t a threat, but he’s gone and now there’s only two of them and they’re furious.…”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said carefully, his mind racing. “Where are you now?”
“Outside the lab. I’m going to have to cancel on my patients and go home; I’m a mess.…”
“Do you want me to meet you there?”
“I would hate to interrupt your writing—”
“Nonsense. I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you—thank you so much.”
Trent closed the phone and looked up.
“What was that about?” Dopp asked immediately.
Trent looked somber. “She got some bad news about her MS. So she’s skipping work and going home—I thought you would approve of me going to comfort her.…”
“Of course. Maximize the face-to-face time. And remember, no one is exempt from the law.”
“Right.” Trent rose, picking up his briefcase, eager to leave.
“Right,” Dopp repeated more firmly, eyeing Trent’s naked wrist. “Where’s the watch?”
At home, he thought, on the floor. “At home; I didn’t think I would be seeing her this afternoon. I’ll stop by and get it on the way there.”
“Fine. I want to see the transcript on my desk first thing tomorrow. Even if she says nothing pertinent.”
“Of course.”
Dopp stepped out without another word.
* * *
Dopp’s skin alerted him first to the strange feeling that came over him as he walked down the hallway from Trent’s office to his own. Heat seared his forehead, tinged with a shivery cool that made his hands clammy; it was the kind of unsettling instinct that demanded attention, the body’s way of showing the mind what it already senses and does not wish to acknowledge.
He thought of the state budget
