“West Coast and East respectively. Ella’s turning me into a grandfather.”
“Oh, Frank! When?”
“Couple of months. I arrange my own lecture schedule. So I see them both quite a bit. Frankie’s got a partner now, going on three years. Thom’s a computer whiz. We talk math till Frankie falls asleep.”
“Happy for you.”
His eyes dropped. “I haven’t been in touch. I should’ve called.”
She held up a hand. “I’m just as guilty. Life moves on.”
“How about I get some lunch going?”
She gave a sour laugh. “That’d be great. Breakfast ended a little quicker than we’d planned.”
He put a large pot of water on to boil and got some fresh pasta and a bowl of cooked bacon from the fridge.
Parker said, “Sorry. Hannah’s a vegetarian.”
The strips went back.
“Cheese?”
Parker shook her head. “I don’t know. The rules change all the time. Maybe today it’s zucchini only.”
Frank called, “Hey, young lady. How’s cheese pasta suit you?”
There was no answer.
“Hannah, can you hear us?”
“Yeah.”
“Answer Mr. Villaine. Is cheese okay for lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Hannah!”
“I’m not hungry, thank you.”
Parker lifted her palms and Frank gave a laugh. His children had been teens once too. “Give her cheese. She’ll eat it.”
Frank asked, “What do you do at Harmon?”
“I just finished up a stint as anti-terror girl. Now I’m garbage girl.”
“Okay.”
She explained about the S.I.T. trigger and her current project: the fuel rod pods. “Like changing batteries — the difference being batteries won’t kill you if you come within twenty feet of them.”
“Your idea?”
“It was.”
“You like nuclear work?”
“Who wouldn’t?” A beat of a pause, then: “We’re leading the way to a brighter and cleaner tomorrow.”
He was clearly amused.
“Ah, just because it’s a slogan doesn’t mean it’s not true. And I believe in what Marty wants to do in developing countries. You’re mostly green, right? Wind and solar?”
“A hundred percent.”
“We’ll see where it goes,” she told him. “Lot of thinking that nuclear isn’t green at all. That debate’s going to heat up.”
“To critical mass?”
She laughed.
Parker didn’t add that she not only believed in nuclear power but she found the science particularly comforting, because of its certainty. You could rely on the immutable words of Einstein: energy and mass are interchangeable, E=MC2. All else in life might be in shambles but the formulas and equations she spent time with daily never betrayed, never lied.
“Hannah, come on in here.” She didn’t add: Be social.
Again, no response.
“I’ll go get her.”
Frank said in a soft voice, “This must’ve been hell for her. She can stay there if she wants.”
“No. She should sit down with us.” Parker rose and walked into the girl’s room. She found her sitting on the bed with her computer. But her eyes were out the immaculate windows.
The fields were autumn sparse and dun colored, but the trees beyond were spectacular in their radiant spectrum, interspersed with rich green pine.
It would be nearly impossible for someone at the forest line to look into the rooms, but the exposure troubled Parker and she walked to the window and lowered the blinds. She wondered if Hannah would object. She didn’t.
Parker leaned back against the dresser, crossed her arms. “Okay, Han. I was mad about your selfie. You were mad I got mad. And I was wrong not to tell you the risk. I should’ve done that. Let’s put it behind us.”
No answer.
Trying to keep a parental edge from her voice, she borrowed Frank’s word. “I know this’s hell, honey. But it’s not going to last forever.” Then tried a hapless cliché: “And it’s only going to get worse if we don’t pull together.”
The girl didn’t even roll her eyes at the trite words.
Parker tried again. “Please. What’s all this about?”
“Nothing.”
Which was the hardest single word your child could utter. It could mean the literal definition. Or it could mean the opposite: everything. Or any one of a million stops in between.
And you, the person who desperately wanted to know the answer, left wholly in the dark.
“Please. Talk to me.”
Then startling her, the girl blurted angrily: “I don’t want to stay here. In this house. I want to go.”
“Why?”
Her eyes shot defiantly toward her mother’s. She nodded toward the kitchen. “He’s the one you cheated on Daddy with, right? Go ahead. Just admit it!”
The girl slammed her computer shut and turned away.
53
Mrs. Butler’s Buick was as pristine a car as Merritt had ever seen.
Even the steering wheel had been polished. It was slick. He smelled Pledge.
He piloted the car into a shopping mall parking lot and drove to the far side, where dozens of modest vehicles rested. It was the spot where employees of the stores were told to park, freeing up spaces closer in for paying customers. Very little traffic — vehicular or foot — here.
Head back, pressing into the padded rest. Eyes on the textured ceiling.
He wanted to sleep. He was exhausted and groggy and in gobs of pain from the rubber shells, the second one of which had slammed into muscles still sore from the puking. But no time now. His anger was growing and growing, making him nearly as nauseous as he’d been earlier.
Get to it.
He sat up and opened the backpack. It was full. He’d brought all of his possessions from the River View. He’d checked in by paying cash, but there was still a chance he’d be recognized. Better to find someplace else.
He dug through the bag, set the whisky bottle beside him and some clothes, then lifted out the trove of remaining documents he’d taken from Allison’s rental home.
It took a half hour and he was nearly to the bottom and growing more discouraged and therefore angrier, when he stopped, studying a printout of an email. He set this on the dash and continued through the rest of the stack. Nothing else.
The one email would have to do. He read it again.
He went online and looked up the name in the “From” line. He found plenty of references but no addresses.
He then sent a text to Dom Ryan asking him to use his contacts to see if there was a nearby address associated with the name.
The mobster replied right away that he’d check. Of course he would. The money clock was running.
The email was a curious one. It was an interoffice email, dating to when Allison worked for a different company ages ago.
The missive was brief.
Hey there, Alli!
Euler’s Identity has been called the most beautiful of formulae.
eiπ + 1 = 0
I know another identity that’ll give Euler a run for his money...
Apparently the sender, his ex’s coworker Frank Villaine, wasn’t too much of a geek to have a romantic side.
54
“Tell me what you’re talking about.”
The girl’s rounded jaw was set. Her eyes red. “You think I was fucking deaf? I heard your fights. He said he knew all about you. You were cheating on him! Everybody in the neighborhood could’ve heard.”
Some did, yes.
“Go on,” Parker whispered, finding a calm center. Somehow.