I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
Elena stared at me.
“Lawson.”
“My wife could be alive.”
“She could.”
Two years of grief tore open at once.
I had buried her.
Spoken to her grave.
Taken the twins there on their birthdays.
Blythe had left drawings beneath the stone.
Jonah had once buried his broken robot beside the flowers because he thought his mother could fix it in heaven.
I turned toward Miriam.
“Find Valez.”
She already had.
An abandoned Helixor research facility stood beneath an old pharmaceutical warehouse fourteen miles west of the city.
Officially, the building had been empty for nine years.
Unofficially, power consumption had never stopped.
I did not call Prescott.
Instead, I sent him a message.
ELENA IS AT MY ESTATE.
SHE HAS THE ORIGINAL FILES.
He responded within thirty seconds.
I’M ON MY WAY.
There it was.
He didn’t ask what files.
He
