Chapter 16: Fourteen Minutes

The front door of the lab hung off one hinge.

Glass from the bell crunched under Kellan's shoes as he held it open for me.

It was three in the morning, and the old dry cleaner smelled of cold metal.

A police officer was writing in a notebook by the hangers on the wall.

He was thinking about his shift ending and the cost of a broken door.

Kids, probably, he thought. Looking for drugs. Nothing taken but paper.

"Nothing taken but paper," he said aloud. "Ma'am, I'll file it."

Dr. Wheelock sat at the bench with both hands flat on the wood.

Mrs. Wheelock stood behind him with her coat over her nightgown.

The shelf where the notebook had lived had a pale square on it, clean of dust.

"Six years," Dr. Wheelock said. "Every failure. Every dead end. I wrote down the day my hands first shook."

"We'll find it," Kellan said.

"Nobody takes a notebook full of failures," said Mrs. Wheelock, "unless they want the one page at the end of it."

Dr. Wheelock looked up at me.

"The fix is on that page. In your handwriting."

"I know," I said. "I have it."

I took the green notebook from my bag and set it on the bench.

I had carried it in my bag every Saturday since the first one.

Dr. Wheelock stared at it. Then he let out a laugh that came out half a sob.

"I told you to keep that at home."

"I did, mostly."

The officer finished his form and left.

The three of us stood in the cold lab, and Mrs. Wheelock put the kettle on a hot plate, and nobody sat down.

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