Despair crept up her spine, cold fingers on the back of her neck.
There had to be an answer here, but she couldn’t see it. She looked around the room, looking for some sign that she’d accessed something else, but no matter where she looked, she could find no clear answer why she’d come in here. None of it made sense. All the Sagittarius-related data was still too new to be in the archives, so it couldn’t be anything about that.
Not to mention, how had she even gotten in here? The lock required an access code that she didn’t have.
It hit her that security probably kept a log of every time someone accessed the room. There was probably a camera outside the door.
Suddenly the room seemed even smaller, the walls creeping toward her. She had to get out. No one could find out she’d been here. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, adding to the chill running through her. Not only didn’t she have authorized access but some of the information in here was way above her security clearance. If they knew it was her… Catherine had a sudden vivid image of security leading her out of the building in handcuffs, handing her over to the feds. Getting caught committing a security violation was the last thing she—or NASA, for that matter—needed. Aaron might be willing to overlook some strangeness on her part, but a security violation? Hell no.
The image of her in handcuffs persisted. She’d lose everything. Aimee. God, she could already see the hurt and disappointment on Aimee’s face. She’d lose her job. David could lose his job.
Because who would believe her if she told them she didn’t know why she’d come in here?
She hurriedly closed everything on the computer and shut it down.
Her heart hammered painfully in her chest as she peeked out the archive door before exiting. This time the hallway was mercifully empty, and she looked around and up in the corners, but didn’t see any sign of a security camera. Still, she didn’t start to breathe normally until she was on the elevator. Three people got on at the lobby level. She smiled and said hello. None of them looked at her strangely. By the time she got to her floor, she thought she must have looked fine.
She settled back in at her desk, prepared to tell anyone who asked that she’d just taken a long lunch. Words on her screen seemed to dance in front of her mockingly, and trying to form sentences of her own was completely futile.
It was no use. She couldn’t focus on anything, jumping from task to task and expecting at any moment for Cal or even Aaron to storm into her office with security guards demanding to know what she’d been doing in the archives.
Catherine did something she’d done only once before, when Aimee was tiny and had come down with a raging fever. She couldn’t face going to Aaron’s office to speak to him directly. Instead, she sent an email to the team saying she had to leave, but would keep an eye out for any urgent emails or messages.
She practically slunk out of JSC, praying that no one would talk to her.
16
THE HOUSE WAS quiet when she got home. David was still at work, of course, and Aimee had a summer job at a nearby computer repair shop. The silence was oppressive.
Catherine went to her computer and turned it on, planning to make good on her promise to keep an eye on anything that might need her attention. But even as she sat at her desk in her own home, a sense of impending doom hovered, as if someone were still watching her.
Images flickered through her mind: getting called in front of some sort of committee, or worse, a federal judge. Scandal. Losing Aimee. No matter what she tried to focus on, her thoughts spiraled out of control.
Without thinking about it, she went to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine.
She sat at the breakfast bar with the open wine bottle next to her. Slowly, the worst of the images started to fade. The second glass wiped them away almost entirely. Finally, Catherine was able to sit there in the kitchen and breathe. A third glass was tempting, but now she at least felt able to focus on something, so she decided to go with her other favorite method of distraction.
David hadn’t gotten rid of any of her belongings while she was gone, and they were all still waiting for her, packed away in the guest room. Now she could go through some of them—all the clothes that were ten years out of date, that didn’t fit anymore, that she never liked to begin with.
As she cleaned, she was better able to think through her options. She should tell someone what was happening. She’d kept this in for too long. Even if Dr. Darzi wanted to insist that everything was normal and fine, it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Catherine felt as if a random hand were moving her around like a chess piece, and she had no idea if she was a pawn or the queen. Either way, the strategy in play wasn’t hers at all.
But Dr. Darzi was employed by NASA. Could Catherine trust her? If not her, then who? The answer was obvious. David. She could tell David. Let me help you, he’d said.
Decision made, she threw all her energy into sorting through the closets, drawers, and boxes full of her belongings.
By late afternoon she was sweaty and a little grouchy, but her mind felt clearer, and all the extra stuff that had been stored in the guest room was cleared out and sorted through. And it was worth it: there were several bags of things to donate as well as to toss out.
In the master bedroom, she worked through the dresser drawers, reorganizing, putting things away. Tucked in the back corner of one of those drawers was a black velvet box. Thinking she might have found a piece of old, forgotten jewelry, Catherine pulled it out. The hinges were stiff and it took more effort than she expected to pop it open.
Inside the box was a diamond solitaire in a gleaming platinum setting. It wasn’t Catherine’s. Her engagement and wedding rings had made the trip to TRAPPIST with her in her Personal Preference Kit—the collection of personal items all astronauts brought on missions—along with photos of her family and a USAF sweatshirt, and were back on her left hand. Besides, she hated platinum. She took the ring out and checked—it was too small for her fingers.
Maggie had small, delicate fingers. And Catherine had seen her wearing platinum jewelry.
She’d known that David had moved on while she was gone. But, knowing it was one thing. Holding the proof in her hand… that was something else entirely. All she could do was stand there, staring at the sparkling item in her palm.
“Hey, there you are. Feeling better?”
She jumped out of her skin as David came up behind her, slipped his arms around her waist, and kissed her neck. “I just got home. Aimee’s talking about going out again, so it’s just going to be us. I was thinking, we could order something in for dinner, settle on the couch—”
She pulled away from him and turned around, unsure what to say.
David’s forehead creased as he looked at her, and then at the ring in her hand.
“When were you going to tell me about this?” Catherine asked.
“Catherine, I—”
“Had you already asked her? Were you planning a wedding when I reappeared and messed everything up?” Something bubbled in her chest and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep it from boiling over this time.
“I hadn’t—” David took a breath and stepped back. “We’d talked about it. I hadn’t formally proposed yet. We were talking about it after she moved in here, with Aimee and me.”
Logically she knew that David and Maggie had slept in the same bed she slept in every night, the same bed David had been about to try to get her into. But that did nothing to calm her irrational anger.
“In here,” she said flatly. “In our bed. How could you do that?”
“You were dead!”