The house that Zoe normally never wouldhave dared to stand in front of. It was no coincidence that she only came hereat night, under the cover of darkness, and when the alcohol had stripped awaysome of her nerves. It meant they weren’t likely to see her, and she couldstand there and wallow in her guilt like a coward, and never actually doanything.
It wasn’t as though she didn’twant to. Zoe wanted more than anything to go up to that house and knock on thedoor. She wanted it to open and for Agent Shelley Rose to be standing there,her blonde chignon perfectly in place, her pink lipstick without a smudge. Shewanted Shelley to smile and say something like, “Read to go, Z?”, and theywould get on a plane together and go solve a murder, and everything would be allright.
But it wouldn’t, because Shelleywas no longer there. Shelley was in the ground. Zoe had watched them do it,watched them lower her into a fresh pit while her husband and daughter watchedat the side of the grave. She had wanted to say something then, but she couldn’t.She wanted to say something now, but she still couldn’t. She didn’t deservethat closure.
Shelley’s husband, left without awife. Shelley’s daughter, left without a mother. Zoe could knock on the doornow and tell them that she was sorry, that it was all her fault, that she hadn’tbeen able to stop it. She could have shouldered all the blame, taken theirhate, whatever they wanted to throw her way. Made them feel better.
But whether it was for theirbenefit or her own, she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t just about what shedeserved. It wasn’t even about whether she had the guts. Zoe looked up at thathouse and tried to think of something that she could say to them, and all shecould think was the house has five windows facing the road, each dividedinto four panes; the door is six and a half feet tall; the path to the door issix feet long and contains twelve paving slabs; each paving slab is half a footlong, or 15.24 centimeters, or six inches, or 0.167 of a yard, or…
Zoe had no words to tell them. Sheonly had numbers. She turned away from the familiar house and all of itsdimensions, forcing herself to take the necessary steps toward home. Every timeshe ended up here, she felt even lower than when she set off. But still, herfeet kept finding the way.
Sooner or later, she was going tohave to stop going out at all. The risk wasn’t worth it.
And Zoe couldn’t see any way outof this mess—this mess that she had created. She could only sit at home andleave her phone turned off, and ignore the calls that would come when hersuspension was up, and let it all fade into someone else’s memory.
CHAPTER TWO
Elara Vega looked at her watch andraised her eyebrows, the gesture meant only for herself. She was alone, afterall; her colleagues had all left, mostly at six when their workday was over. ButElara’s work was everything to her—had always been everything to her.
No, that wasn’t quite true, shereflected as she gathered her things and moved her notes into an orderlyconfiguration for the morning. There had been a time when other things hadmattered more. She had raised her son, and for a time there had been herhusband, although the divorce came twenty years ago. Two years after that theson had moved out to go to college, and since then, she had been alone. Sheliked it that way. Just her and the stars and planets, eternal and yetfleeting.
Elara glanced over her tidy desk,checking for anything astray. If there was something she had learned in herfifty-nine years of life, it was that keeping things tidy was a lot less effortthan cleaning up a build-up of mess after it had had time to settle.
Satisfied, Elara grabbed her coatfrom the back of the chair and shrugged it on, heading for the door. She wasstill straightening the collar as she stepped out into the hall, where ajanitor was running a mop in smooth circles over the floor. She always felt badwhen she stayed late enough to interrupt the cleaners. They had a job to do,and here she was, walking over the newly washed floor in her boots.
The planetarium was set up withoffice spaces, corporate and event rooms, and facilities branching away fromthe central theater, which led directly to the main foyer and the exit. Elarastepped out into the dark space, always slightly eerie at night with the wholebuilding in darkness and all of the chairs sitting silently empty. It hadalways reminded her of those apocalyptic movies when the characters would comeacross something poignant: an abandoned theater, the covers on the seats slowlyrotting, the projection equipment gone to ruin. She crossed the floor quickly,wanting the comfort of the foyer and the night air.
She was halfway across the frontof the seats when a familiar whirring noise started up: the mechanical noise ofthe projector coming to life. Elara’s steps faltered, and she looked up andaround herself in wonder. The stars and planets had burst into light overhead,swirling around until they settled into their places for the beginning of thepresentation. She had seen it a hundred times, had even taken part in checkingthe accuracy of the new astral maps a few years ago when it was updated, but itwas something new to be standing right in the middle of it like this. Feelingthat you could almost reach out and touch the stars…
But who had turned the projectoron? All of her colleagues had gone home, and it wasn’t supposed to be on atthis time of night. Orchestral music was beginning to blare, so loud it drownedout everything else. Elara frowned and began to turn, thinking that she wouldinvestigate the projection room—
But she was on her knees, staringat the floor. How had she gotten here? Just a minute ago, she had been—butthere
