By 9 A.M. he was back in the lab. Larraby and Grooms were there and the other techs were trickling in. There was an electricity in the lab. Everyone was catching the vibe and was excited about the presentation.

Brandon Larraby was a tall and thin researcher who liked the convention of wearing a white lab coat. He was the only one at Amedeo who did. Pierce thought it was a confidence thing: look like a real scientist and you shall do real science. It didn't matter to Pierce what Larraby or anyone else wore as long as they performed. And with Larraby there was no doubt that the immunologist had done so. Larraby was a few years older than Pierce and had come over from the pharmaceutical industry eighteen months before.

Sterling Grooms had been with Pierce and Amedeo Technologies the longest of any fulltime employee. He had been Pierce's lab manager through three separate moves, starting at the old warehouse near the airport where Amedeo was born and Pierce had built the first lab completely by himself. Some nights after a long shift in the lab the two men would talk about those "old days" with a nostalgic reverence. It didn't matter that the old days were less than ten years before. Grooms was just a couple years younger than Pierce. He had signed on after completing his post-doc at UCLA. Twice Grooms was wooed by competitors but Pierce had kept him by giving him points in the company, a seat on the company's board of directors and a piece of the patents.

At 9:20 the word came from Charlie Condon's assistant: Maurice Goddard had arrived.

The dog and pony show was about to begin. Pierce hung up the lab phone and looked at Grooms and Larraby.

"Elvis is in the building," he said. "Are we ready?"

Both men nodded to him and he nodded back.

"Then let's smash that fly."

It was a line from a movie that Pierce had liked. He smiled. Cody Zeller would have gotten it but it drew blanks from Grooms and Larraby.

"Never mind. I'll go get them."

Pierce went through the mantrap and took the elevator up to the administration level.

They were in the boardroom. Condon, Goddard and Goddard's second, a woman named Justine Bechy, whom Charlie privately referred to as Just Bitchy. She was a lawyer who ran interference for Goddard and protected the gates to his investment riches with a lumbering zeal not unlike a 350-pound football lineman protecting his quarterback. Jacob Kaz, the patent attorney, was also seated at the large, long table. Clyde Vernon stood off to the side, an apparent show of security at the ready if needed.

Goddard was saying something about the patent applications when Pierce walked in, announcing his presence with a loud hello which ended conversation and drew their eyes and then their reactions to his damaged face.

"Oh, my gosh," exclaimed Bechy. "Oh, Henry!"

Goddard said nothing. He just stared and had what Pierce thought was a small, bemused smile on his face.

"Henry Pierce," Condon said. "The man knows how to make an entrance."

Pierce shook hands with Bechy, Goddard and Kaz and pulled out a chair across the wide, polished table from the visitors. He touched Charlie on the expensively suited arm and looked over at Vernon and nodded. Vernon nodded back but it seemed to cost him something to do so. Pierce just didn't get the guy.

"Thank you so much for seeing us today, Henry," Bechy said in a tone that suggested he had volunteered to keep the meeting set as scheduled. "We had no idea your injuries were so serious."

"Well, it's no problem. And it looks worse than it is. I've been back in the lab and working since yesterday. Though I'm not sure this face and the lab go together too well."

No one seemed to get his awkward Frankenstein reference. Another swing and a miss for Pierce.

"Good," Bechy said.

"It was a car accident, we were told," Goddard said, his first words since Pierce's arrival.

Goddard was in his early fifties with all of his hair and the sharp eyes of a bird that had amassed a quarter billion worms in his day. He wore a crème-colored suit, white shirt and yellow tie and Pierce saw the matching hat on the table next to him. It had been remarked in the office after his first visit that Goddard had adopted the visual persona of the writer Tom Wolfe. The only thing missing was the cane.

"Yes," Pierce said. "I hit a wall."

"When did this happen? Where?"

"Sunday afternoon. Here in Santa Monica."

Pierce needed to change the subject. He was uncomfortable skirting the truth and he knew Goddard's questioning wasn't casual or concerned conversation. The bird was thinking about ponying up 18 million worms. His questions were part of the due diligence process. He was finding out what he was possibly getting into.

"Had you been drinking?" Goddard asked bluntly.

Pierce smiled and shook his head.

"No. I wasn't even driving. But I don't drink and drive anyway, Maurice, if that's what you mean."

"Well, I am glad you are okay. If you get a chance, could you get me a copy of the accident report? For our records, you understand."

There was a short silence.

"I'm not sure I do. It had nothing to do with Amedeo and what we do here."

"I understand that. But let's be frank here, Henry. You are Amedeo Technologies. It is your creative genius that drives this company. I've met a lot of creative geniuses in my time. Some I would put my last dollar behind. Some I wouldn't give a buck to if I had a hundred."

He stopped there. And Bechy took over. She was twenty years younger than Goddard, had short dark hair, fair skin and a manner that exuded confidence and one-upsmanship.

Even still, Pierce and Condon had agreed previously that she held the position because they believed she had a relationship with the married Goddard that went beyond business.

"What Maurice is saying is that he is considering a sizeable investment in Amedeo Technologies," she said. "To be comfortable doing that, he needs to be comfortable with you. He has to know you. He doesn't want to invest in someone who might be a risk taker, who might be reckless with his investment."

"I thought it was about the science. The project."

"It is, Henry," she said. "But they go hand in hand. The science is no good without the scientist. We want you to be dedicated and obsessed with the science and your projects.

But not reckless with your life outside the lab."

Pierce held her eyes for a long moment. He suddenly wondered if she knew the truth about what happened and about his obsessive investigation of Lilly Quinlan's disappearance.

Condon cleared his throat and cut in, trying to move the meeting forward.

"Justine, Maurice, I am sure that Henry would be happy to cooperate with any kind of personal investigation you would like to conduct. I've known him for a long time and I've worked in the ET field for even longer. He is one of the most levelheaded and focused researchers I've ever come across. That is why I am here. I like the science, I like the project and I'm very comfortable with the man."

Bechy broke away from Pierce to look at Condon and nod her approval.

"We may take you up on that offer," she said through a tight smile.

The exchange did little to erode the tension that had quickly enveloped the room. Pierce waited for somebody to say something but there was only silence.

"Um, there's something I should probably tell you then," he finally said. "Because you'll find out anyway."

"Then just tell us," Bechy said. "And save us all the time."

Pierce could almost feel Charlie Condon's muscles seize up under his thousand-dollar suit as he waited for the revelation he knew nothing about.

"Well, the thing is… I used to have a ponytail. Is that going to be a problem?"

At first the silence prevailed again but then Goddard's stone face cracked into a smile and then laughter came from his mouth. It was followed by Bechy's smile and then everybody was laughing, including Pierce, even though it hurt to do so. The tension was broken. Charlie balled a fist and knocked on the table in an apparent attempt to accentuate the mirth. The response far exceeded the humor in the comment.