After the Golden Age

TWENTY

THIS project rang too many alarm bells in her mind. Far from reaching a conclusion, the clues had branched. She had too many questions, now.

The next morning, attaché and growing collection of notes in hand, she headed back to West Plaza. She was going to do the unthinkable: ask her parents for a crack at the Olympiad mainframe. Maybe their database could make sense of the list of lab equipment, cross reference it with their information about the Destructor. In the afternoon, she planned to knock on Janet Travers’s front door. Maybe an eighty-year-old retired lab tech had the inside scoop.

One nice thing about getting fired: she wore jeans and a blouse softened by too much washing. And sneakers. She was the height of comfortable, ratty chic.

She only had two blocks to go between her apartment building to the bus stop and walked that stretch nearly every day without thinking of it because it was a quiet neighborhood, narrow, older streets lined with family grocers and small restaurants.

No reason the sidewalk should open under her feet.

The grating simply dropped. Yelping, she fell with it, she thought into the storm sewer, to concrete and breaking bones. But she landed on something soft, a cushion that protected her—an industrial-size, wheeled laundry hamper, like a hotel would use, filled with foam cushions.

A lid slammed closed over her and the light from above disappeared. A motor started, then movement. Lying on her back, she pushed up on the lid of whatever box she’d been closed in. It rattled but didn’t open. She kept pounding on it anyway, and screaming, because what else could she do?

She hadn’t been so afraid in a long time. She hadn’t been the victim of such an effective kidnapping in a long time.

Movement stopped. She gasped, startled, and then held her breath.

The lid opened.

She sat up, flung herself over the edge of the hamper, and skidded onto the concrete floor, unable to keep her feet.

She’d been brought to a room, pitch-black. She couldn’t see the walls, and only knew it was a room by the way her gasps echoed off walls that were too close. The whole journey, from falling through the sidewalk to ending up here had taken less than a minute. Her superhuman guardians—still in place, after all her complaints—would hardly have time to recognize she’d disappeared, much less be able to find her.

A light, white and muted, came to life. A propane lantern sat on a card table. A man, dressed all in black, his face in shadow, also sat on the table.

“Celia West,” he said in a flat voice. “You really should vary your route. I thought the daughter of Captain Olympus and Spark would know better.”

She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing hysterically. She waited for the rant to follow—when the villain announced his ominous plan to hold her hostage, to manipulate the Olympiad, to threaten her.

He just watched her.

“You finally got me,” she said. “What now?”

“I wasn’t behind those other kidnapping attempts,” he said. “I’m competent. I succeed on the first try.”

This wasn’t the Strad Brothers, not by a long shot.

“What—what are you going to do with me?”

“Talk. That’s all. Do you know me?”

She stepped a little closer. If he’d lean in, let part of his face show in the aura of the lantern, she might see him. But she didn’t want to get close enough for him to touch her, grope her, strangle her—

He set something on the table beside him. He’d kept it hidden behind his back. As he produced it, he leaned forward, and she saw his face: older but fit, frowning but with the wrinkles of laugh lines around his eyes, as if he waited to see how she’d react to a joke.

Her voice almost failed her. “Damon Parks.”

The West Plaza security guard.

Beside him, on the table, his hand rested on a leather gauntlet with a silhouette stitched in gold onto the back of the hand: a hawk in flight, wings stretched back, ready to strike. The History Museum’s permanent exhibit on vigilante crime fighters had one of those gloves on display.

“Oh my God,” she murmured.

“I knew you were smart,” he said.

“I don’t understand.” Her heart raced, making her dizzy. She had to focus on every breath.

“I have some information for you.”

“What, me? But why—I mean, you’re the Hawk; if you have information, why don’t you do something about it?”

“Because I’m retired.”

“Then you should give it to my parents, the Olympiad—”

He shook his head. “They won’t admit it, but they’re not at the top of their game anymore. It’s time they pass the job to the younger generation, like I did.”

“But I’m not the younger generation. I’m not heir to anything, I don’t have any powers—”

“Neither do I.”

That came like a punch in her gut. A judgment. Proof positive that not having powers wasn’t an excuse for anything. “I can’t take on that mantle.”

“You’ve been looking for a connection between these robberies. Between the gang members who committed them.”

“Not really—”

“And you think there’s a connection—maybe even a mastermind—Simon Sito, maybe?”

“I don’t know. If it is, he’s changed his MO.”

“But you’ve been digging.”

Celia didn’t have to wonder how much he knew about what; as Damon Parks, working at West Plaza’s front desk, he probably saw a hell of a lot more than anybody realized. He’d have seen the logs; he knew she had a key card to the West Corp archives. He was good at his job. Both of them.

“I’ve been digging into Sito’s case, not the current crime wave. If there were a connection between them, somebody should have found something by now.”

“Fair enough. So maybe it isn’t Sito.”

He reached behind him. On the table, in the dark, lay a manila folder. He offered it to her, and she accepted. Inside, she found dozens of newspaper clippings. She’d expected something more high-tech: stolen spreadsheets, classified files. Not data available from vending machines on every corner of the city.

In all of the articles he’d cut out, he’d highlighted names. She recognized a couple, and she was sure if she checked they would belong to gang members arrested during the recent robberies and kidnapping attempts.

“Not quite retired,” she said, eyeing him. “You’ve been busy.”

“This is just a hobby,” he said.

The headlines of all the articles were some variation of GOVERNOR SNYDER ISSUES PARDONS.

She looked through the clippings again, to be sure she hadn’t missed something. “That’s the connection? All the gang members were convicted felons who received executive pardons?”

“That’s right.”

“It’s a coincidence. They all got out on the same day and hatched the plan together.”

“Everything you’ve seen, everything you know, do you honestly believe that?”

She didn’t, not for a minute. “What are you saying? That Governor Snyder is the mastermind?”

“It’s a lead. I thought you’d be interested.”

“You’re crazy; this is crazy. The Hawk retires, then gets a job working for the next generation of vigilantes as a security guard? You didn’t retire, you traded down.”

He hopped off the table, fished her attaché case from the laundry hamper, and gave it to her, then picked up the lantern and his glove. He wore a cocky smile, like the afternoon had gone exactly as he’d planned.

She said, “People have been trying to guess who you are, who the Hawk is, for forty years. Why reveal yourself to me?”

“Because I trust you.”

She laughed. “Then you’re the only person in Commerce City who does.”

“Celia, I saw you during those years. I saw what you were going through. I might even understand it. I know Dr. Mentis does. I bet he trusts you, too.” He handed her the glove. Absently, she crushed it in her hand.

As the light moved, a passage became visible, an open tunnel that presumably led out. He prepared to walk away.

“Wait—where are you going?”

“Me? I’m retired. I’ll go play bocce or something.”

“What about me?”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way out.”

“Why couldn’t you fucking mail this to me?”

“Maybe I wanted to show you what a real kidnapping looks like.”

He and his lantern walked away.

She followed him. She didn’t have a choice. When he left, so did the light.

Damon Parks was the Hawk, the city’s original hero, who’d kept his secret identity secret for forty years. What could she do with that information? How much would the Eye pay for it? Not that she had any proof. Not that anyone would believe her.

Ahead, the circle of white light bobbed along, traveling down the damp, concrete tunnel. Parks turned left, passed the next intersection, then turned left again. Celia kept on twenty or so paces behind him, trying to avoid puddles even though her loafers were already soaked. He had to know she was following him. Maybe he was leading her into another trap. Maybe this was a test. A heroic initiation. Can she survive the maze?

But she already had the folder of information tucked into her attaché, along with the Hawk’s glove. Parks didn’t care about testing her. He’d just thrown her into the deep end and expected her to swim.

The light faded, and for a moment she was afraid she’d let him get too far ahead. But no, the lantern light faded because a brighter light came in from above—sunlight through a sewer grate. Parks climbed a ladder that went up, jostled loose the grate, and disappeared to the street level.

She hurried after him, climbed the same ladder, awkwardly tucking her attaché under her arm. Just as she reached the top, the grate closed back over her.

“Bastard!” she shouted at him. “Inconsiderate bastard!”

The grate wasn’t that tightly set in. A quick push with her shoulder knocked it aside, and she managed to wriggle through to the outside. She was in an alley, hidden behind a garbage Dumpster. No one passing by on the sidewalk even looked twice at her.

She hurried to her feet, quickly moving to the end of the alley and looking down the sidewalk in both directions, but Damon Parks—the Hawk, bane of criminals and one-time guardian of Commerce City—was gone. Of course.

A sudden breeze pushed her, causing her to step back to keep her balance. In the blink of an eye, seeming to appear from nowhere, Robbie Denton stood before her. The Bullet, actually, wearing his skin suit and mask. He’d run so quickly from wherever he’d been, she hadn’t see him approach.

“Hi,” she said.

“Celia, where have you been? Breezeway saw you fall through the grate—that wasn’t an accident was it? Did you escape? Who did it? What happened?” He was almost dancing in place, arms half-raised and fists clenched, like he wanted to grab her.

She could give Damon Parks away. He had to know that. Did he trust her not to, or was he prepared to have his identity exposed?

Or did he know that she’d keep his secret, because it was one piece of information she had that no one else did? Information was power, and she had so little of it.

“I’m okay,” she said, trying to sound reassuring instead of tired. “I don’t think I was in any danger.”

“Your folks are going to want to hear about this.”

Right now? she thought. “Yeah, I bet they will. How about I come over to their place this afternoon?”

He hesitated. He probably had meant right now.

“Really, Robbie, it’s okay. It wasn’t what you think.”

“Okay,” he said finally. “This afternoon. I’ll let them know.”

“Thanks.”

He stepped back from her, watching her with that worried frown that had never really gone away since her teenage years. Then, with the gust of a vagrant breeze, he disappeared.

Her mother left three messages on her cell phone. Arthur left one. Everyone knew about the kidnapping, its speed and ruthlessness, its frightening effectiveness, and its puzzling outcome. It didn’t match the Strad Brothers’ MO. There hadn’t been any robberies reported.

She went home and showered. Her subterranean trip made her grubby and cranky. A hot shower cured all woes. Or, most woes. When she returned to the living room, the folder of newspaper clippings still sat on the table, staring at her. What did that psycho expect her to do with this? She wouldn’t, wouldn’t don a mask and start rappelling from the tops of buildings in a quest for justice.

What would she do if this was part of her job? Well, that was easy. She went to the city library.

A true skeptic would question whether the newspaper clippings were even legitimate. They could have been faked—the Hawk might have a grudge against Governor Snyder for some reason and could be trying to frame him. So Celia needed to both verify that the news articles were genuine, and find out if there was a connection between the Hawk and Snyder. That seemed so unlikely as to be ridiculous. The Hawk had retired decades ago, and Snyder had only been in office a year. Not to mention that Snyder had trouble getting through a press conference without offending someone—usually hitting on one of the female reporters—or committing some ludicrous verbal gaff. Celia had trouble seeing him as a criminal mastermind. But maybe that buffoonish politician image was a front. She’d heard weirder theories.

She spent an hour with a microfiche machine and the last two years’ worth of the Commerce City Banner. She didn’t need much time to confirm the articles—Parks had annotated them with dates and page numbers.

She also confirmed what Parks hadn’t been able to, double-checking articles listing the names of the men who’d been arrested for the recent crime sprees and cross referencing them to the list of pardons—all of the identified perpetrators of the Baxter Gang and Strad Brother jobs had been pardoned by the governor.

Then she found the photo of Governor Snyder, looking goofy in his pin-striped suit and too-shaggy toupee, shaking hands with Commerce City Mayor Anthony Paulson. It had been taken about eight months earlier and accompanied an article about Paulson negotiating with newly elected Governor Snyder for state funding to help with his epic revitalization program. Paulson had campaigned heavily for Snyder, and apparently called in a ton of favors upon Snyder’s election. Among the proposals Mayor Paulson had offered to help pay for the rebuilding of Commerce City’s industrial area: furloughs and pardons for a chunk of the state’s lesser criminals. Snyder was apparently happy to comply.

That added a new loop to the knot, didn’t it?

So the pardons were Mayor Paulson’s idea? But why? Was there a reason other than funding? Where was the conspiracy, except in her own mind? And wasn’t that healthy?

She called Mark. The phone rang and rang; either he wasn’t around, or he was still screening calls from her. She left a message.

“Hi, Mark. It’s me, whether or not you want to hear from me. If you’ve got the time I’ve got some research for you. I think I have the connection between all your Strad Brothers and Baxter Gang suspects. They all received pardons from Governor Snyder, at the suggestion of Mayor Paulson. Maybe you can figure out what your father was thinking. Look up these articles from the Banner.” She gave him the dates and references. Mark was a smart guy. Surely he’d give her a reasonable explanation for the so-called coincidence.

When she set off for West Plaza an hour later, she took a cab. It was much later than she’d intended; the research had drawn her in. She’d get lectured for it. Maybe she could distract her parents with the information she’d dug up.

The guard sitting at the front desk was a young man with an earnest expression. She leaned on the granite surface of the desk.

“Can I help you?” the guard said.

“Can you tell me when Damon Parks comes on duty?”

“Who?”

“Damon Parks. The security guard who works the evening shift here.”

“Oh, the old guy. I’m sorry, ma’am. He handed in his resignation today. Is there something I can help you with?”

Parks had planned it this way all along.

“Do you have a home phone number for him or something? I really need to get in touch with him.”

“I’m not sure I can give out that information—”

He’s the Hawk, goddamn it! she wanted to shout, but didn’t.

“Celia?”

That reflexive chill she always got at the sound of her father’s voice crawled up her spine. She repressed the shiver and turned around. Warren West, looking shockingly normal in a gray business suit, had entered the lobby through the front door and was walking toward her.

The security guy stood at attention. His eagerness cranked up about ten notches, which Celia hardly thought possible.

“Mr. West, sir, welcome back, sir!”

“Thanks, Joe.” Warren smiled warmly at the security guard, who seemed to be on the edge of actually swooning. The smile fell when he looked back at Celia. “Robbie says you have a story to tell.”

“Um, yeah.”

“I’ll walk you upstairs.”

In silence, they entered the private elevator that went straight to the penthouse. As the elevator began its ascent, she stole sideways glances at her father, who focused his gaze intently on the digital numbers flashing the changing floors.

He wasn’t going to believe what had happened. None of them would. Well, Arthur would.

She closed her eyes and calmed herself. Her father chose that moment to speak.

“Are you all right?”

She needed a moment to process the question. She wasn’t used to him sounding so genuinely … concerned.

“Yeah,” she said at last. “It happened so quickly it barely registered.”

“Good, I’m glad. I mean, I’m glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks.”

The elevator stopped and opened.

The penthouse doors swung in from the elevator lobby. Warren walked with her into the foyer and around the corner to the kitchen. They were there, the whole Olympiad. All wore civilian clothes. It might have been a casual supper party. Suzanne paced along the edge of the kitchen. Robbie leaned against the counter, his arms crossed. Arthur Mentis sat at the table. He smiled at her.

Suzanne’s expression melted when Celia appeared. Celia met her mother halfway and hugged her, before she could burst into tears.

“Celia, we expected you hours ago! Are you all right? Are you hurt? What happened?”

“Shaken, not stirred,” Celia said weakly. “I’m fine.”

“Have you eaten? I can heat up some lasagna—”

Of course she could. “That sounds great. Thanks.”

So the meeting of the Olympiad commenced at the kitchen table, over lasagna.

“I’ve walked on that grate a hundred times,” Celia said. “Who knew it could even move? The whole thing was planned to the second. Even if you’d gotten down to the tunnel, I wasn’t there anymore. He moved me into a side room.”

“I know,” Robbie said. “I did get down there.”

“Do you know who did it?” Suzanne said.

Celia took a deep breath. “It was the Hawk.”

They stared at her.

“Are you crazy?” her father said.

“How do you know it was him?” Suzanne asked.

She produced the gauntlet from her attaché and laid it on the table before them.

Warren picked it up first, studying every inch of the leather, fingering the embroidered hawk. The leather was worn, stained with sweat and age, the stitching around the fingers frayed, and scuffed patches showing around the thumb and pads of the palm. The embroidery was also frayed, loose-colored threads poking up. The glove was old, used.

“Could it be a fake?” Arthur asked.

“It’s something the Hawk would have done,” Celia said.

“He hasn’t been active in twenty years,” Warren said.

“I believed him,” Celia said. She didn’t have to reveal who he was. They’d all assume he’d been in costume, with the mask. “He gave this to me.”

She produced the folder with the newspaper clippings. Her parents and Robbie gathered around the open file, sorting through the clippings, their expressions growing more confused as the moments passed. Arthur didn’t bother looking; he watched her. He could learn everything he needed to from her roiling thoughts. She tried to stay calm, for his sake.

Celia said, “It’s the connection between the robberies we’ve been looking for.”

“But it doesn’t go anywhere,” Robbie said. “Does it? It’s a coincidence. It has to be. Unless you’re saying Snyder is the mastermind?” The possibility seemed ludicrous. Governor Snyder came across as being harmless, if ineffectual.

Arthur crossed his arms, which made him look hunched-in and thoughtful. “These names—they’re all suspects that have been arrested in connection with the spate of robberies. They have no other prior relationship to each other. They weren’t part of the same gang before, they didn’t serve prison time together. They’re not second cousins. The one commonality are these pardons. The idea of Snyder being involved in this—it’s improbable, not impossible. We have to consider it.”

“Not Snyder,” Celia said, “Paulson.” She showed them the last article she’d discovered, and the buried information that Paulson had been the one to suggest the pardons as a way to help balance the budget. But she wondered if he might not also have suggested the names of inmates to be pardoned.

The group needed a moment to process this. Celia waited.

“It might not be him,” Suzanne said. “It could be someone associated with his office. Someone else pulling the strings.”

“Do we trust the information?” Arthur asked.

“They’re newspaper clippings; I verified them all,” Celia said. “The Hawk just left the clues, but we’re drawing our own conclusions. That’s what we have to trust.”

“All right, then,” Suzanne said. “What do we know about Anthony Paulson?”

“He’s got a son on the police force,” Celia said, unable to keep the bite out of her voice.

“He’s on his second term of office, and is running for a third,” Arthur said.

Warren leafed through the clippings. “Arthur, have you ever read anything off him?”

“I’ve never tried. I can’t recall ever being in the same room with him. You three always handle the public appearances.”

“Maybe you ought to arrange a meeting.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“It’s time to pull his file up on the computer,” Warren said, indicating the back hallway, which led to the Olympiad’s command room. The others agreed and started to move on. Suzanne collected the file folder.

This was in their hands now, and Celia ought to have been happy to wash her own hands of the responsibility. Except she wasn’t. She sat in the kitchen chair and grit her teeth, gathering the courage to just stand up and follow them. It shouldn’t have been that difficult.

Arthur leaned on the back of her chair and whispered at her ear. “Come on, Celia. You’re invited.”

The wave of relief she felt shouldn’t have been strong enough to start tears pricking in her eyes. She blinked them away and hurried to follow him.

The wood door at the end of the hall looked like every other door they’d passed, the ones leading to bedrooms and bathrooms. But this one had a security keypad by the doorknob. Suzanne punched in a code, and a scanner read her thumbprint. The door slid aside, rather than swinging open.

The Olympiad command room was everything a starry-eyed admirer of superhuman vigilantes could hope for. The cavernous space offered secret elevators and passages to different parts of the building, including the hangar in a warehouse a block over that housed some of the team’s vehicles. Computer banks made up an entire wall: keyboards, indicator lights, printers, scanners, and analyzers. One of several screens showed a map of the city, and a radio monitored police frequencies. A gleaming steel table and chairs occupied the middle of the room. This was where the Olympiad had formed hundreds of plans, hunted hundreds of foes. Sparsely lit—only the table and computer banks shone brightly—the place was a den of shadows.

Celia had seen it before, but not for years. Disconcertingly, it hadn’t changed at all. There might have been some new equipment, upgraded computers and communications systems, but the hardware blended in with what had been there before. She felt sixteen again. The others walked right in; she stopped and stared.

When she was growing up, if she wanted to find her parents, she checked her father’s office first—his normal office, for his job running the normal company. She checked the command room second. She’d been frightened by it. It was slick, steel, all gleaming surfaces and intimidating equipment filled with buttons, dials, screens flashing between a dozen scenes from closed-circuit cameras all over the city. The place hummed with the constant noise of hard drives and cooling fans at work. She’d call them on the intercom, and they’d open the door for her. She’d find her parents leaning over some monitor or printout, piecing together clues from the latest crime spree or tracing the Destructor’s whereabouts. Invariably, her question of “Can I make some popcorn?” or “Can you sign this permission slip for school?” seemed to pale beside whatever they were doing.

A couple of times she’d sat at their conference table for a debriefing, telling her side of whatever kidnapping she’d been involved in, recording her story for posterity. She couldn’t remember ever sitting at the table as an equal. Or as something resembling an equal—as someone who actually had something to contribute.

Warren said, “Why did the Hawk give this to you and not us?”

“I asked him the same thing,” she said. “He said you weren’t at the top of your game anymore. That you needed to hand things off to the younger generation.”

“How do you like that?” Robbie said with a laugh.

“The younger generation? He didn’t mean you, did he?”

Celia’s face flushed. She knew this was how this conversation would go. “I would think maybe he meant Typhoon or Breezeway. Block Buster Junior. One of that crowd. I told him I didn’t have any powers. Then he said, neither did he.”

During another long silence, Celia wished for a moment she was Arthur, so she could know what the others were thinking.

—Or not.—

She glanced up and caught him looking back at her. She blushed and quickly looked away. He’d been prying. Or she’d been thinking too loud. He said that happened sometimes.

Suzanne went to the computers. “Let’s run the mayor through the database.”

The database retrieved and cross-referenced Mayor Anthony Paulson’s information, producing the standard biography and a detailed listing of policy decisions and political records. Anthony Paulson was something of a Commerce City folk hero, a hard-luck case made good, an orphaned child adopted into a middle-class family and risen through the ranks of the city’s elite through his own hard labor. His policies were moderate, he was fiscally conservative, pro-labor, pro-education, and antisocialization. He was a politician everyone could love, and the greatest buried scandal of his life involved a college liaison with an underage girl—he’d been eighteen, she’d been two days from sixteen. The scandal died a quick death—the girl was Andrea, and the couple married three years later.

“We’ve got nothing on this guy,” Robbie observed. “He’s clean as a whistle.”

“If we’re not entirely wrong,” Warren said. “There’s got to be another connection. I still think Simon Sito is behind this somehow.”

Arthur rubbed his chin, considering. “That’s our problem. We have too many explanations that are possible but unlikely.”

“Isn’t that always the way?” Suzanne said.

A photo of Paulson smiled at them from the monitor. That’s what Mark will look like when he’s older, Celia thought. Not a bad-looking man at all. He even had an intriguingly wicked glint in his eye, like he knew very well how to use the power he’d acquired.

Something in his eyes made her stomach go queasy. She’d looked him in the eye before, at the symphony gala, and the dinner at the mansion. But he’d been in a more personable state both times. This photo was from his last campaign; here, he was predatory. Celia recognized the expression. She hadn’t noticed it right away because she’d never expected it. Not in this context.

He looked like a young Simon Sito. He had that glint in his eye that the Destructor always showed before he pressed the button.

“Celia, what is it?” Mentis watched her closely.

She’d been hypnotized by that image without realizing it, gazing into that man’s eyes and falling back in time, even more so than when she stepped into the command room in the first place. She must have looked lost, staring blank-eyed at the screen.

“I don’t know. Just … thinking.” She couldn’t say it out loud. It would sound ridiculous. Sito had nothing to do with this current crime wave. He wasn’t masterminding anything anymore.

Paranoia. It was just paranoia.

Fortunately, Mentis was too polite to press the question.

Warren, Captain Olympus, took charge. “Mentis, see if you can get close to Paulson and read anything off him. We need other leads to confirm this. If he’s behind the gangs, he has to be paying them. We have to be able to trace the stolen items back to him.”

It sounded like accounting to Celia. “I have some sources I might be able to check on.”

“I thought you weren’t working,” said her father.

She was too preoccupied to glare properly. “Public records are public, one way or another.”

“You don’t have to help. Thanks for bringing us this, but it’s not your responsibility.”

“I spent a lot of years in college learning how to do this kind of thing. Let me help.” She hated begging. She ought to just walk out and go back to her ice cream.

The others waited for Warren’s cue. Why couldn’t any of them stand up to him? Because he was the Captain. If he didn’t want her to help, they wouldn’t argue.

“Fine,” Warren said at last. Grudging for no other reason than to be grudging.

The planning continued. Robbie appointed himself for surveillance duty. Suzanne would consolidate information from the captured gang members, to try to learn who had hired them.

Celia continued to think, half-distractedly. Anthony Paulson was adopted. Sito couldn’t possibly be his biological father. That explanation was so mundane. So simple.

And if it were true, it meant Mark was Simon Sito’s grandson. Confirming the relationship should be a simple matter, if she could find Paulson’s original adoption records—fifty years old and certainly sealed. A paternity test would also do the job.

“Mom? Does the computer have Sito’s DNA on file?”

“Yes, I’m sure. We collected everything we could about him. As much good as it did in the end. Why?”

“No reason. Curiosity.”

“Something to do with one of your sources?” Arthur said. He’d be perfectly justified in telling on her. He had to know what she was thinking. Either it was a measure of his trust that he said nothing—or he thought the idea was as outlandish as she did.

“Something like that,” she said.

“You’ll need access to the computer. You should have access to the computer, if you think it’ll help.” Suzanne gazed at Celia, bright-eyed and earnest.

She meant the Olympiad computer. As much raw computing power as Warren West’s fortune could buy, and the Olympiad database, which held information available from no other source. She meant free access to the command room to use the computer.

Suzanne glanced at Warren, who pursed his lips, and while he didn’t nod or give wholehearted assent, he didn’t argue. Didn’t say no.

“Okay. If you think it’s best,” Celia said, a little breathlessly.

“You might need something, and if none of us is around—” Her mother smiled. It was like she’d been waiting for years to give Celia access to the command room. To initiate her into the club.

No one was protesting.

Suzanne brought her to the main terminal and had her put her thumb on a scanner, to record her print, to confirm her authorization. The computer accepted her with glowing green lights.

The numeric code for the outer door was Celia’s birthday.

Her mother fussed over her some more and wanted to feed her even more lasagna, when what Celia really wanted to do was start pouring data into the mainframe. But she didn’t want to do it with everyone hovering over her. Arthur took the cue and excused himself, claiming he had some work to finish up at his psychiatry practice—his office was halfway down the building. So, the group dispersed, and Celia promised she’d get a good night’s sleep, and the data crunching would have to wait until tomorrow.

When she left West Plaza for home, she checked her phone and found she’d missed a call. The Olympiad conference room blocked such transmissions.

Mark had left her a message. He sounded angry. “Celia. I got your call and checked up on your information. I don’t know what you’re implying about my father. You’re obviously bored out of your skull to go through this much trouble to dig up this trash. I think your parents’ paranoia has rubbed off on you. You’re looking for conspiracies that don’t exist.” He clicked off.

Maybe she could find a few of his hairs on her pillow, to compare against Sito’s DNA. She doubted she’d be getting any other kind of genetic material from him any time soon.