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long-held beliefs of what mattered in the world. She quit the NRI and become a lobbyist for causes she believed in: education, health care, the war against cancer. For the first time since college, her life had taken on a sense of normalcy. There was peace and contentment and traffic; there were office parties, shopping malls, and bills.
    And there was Marcus.
    She sat back, trying to fight the waves of nausea. Deep, slow breaths helped calm her, but tears welled up in her eyes as she thought of the man she’d spent her year of civilian life with.
    Leaving the NRI had been harder than it appeared. There was a definite disconnect with the regular world, a feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. But Marcus Watson had been at the NRI when she started there. They knew each other, even had a past together. He’d already made the transition to the real world and he helped show her the way.
    It had been a great year, an easy year after so many hard ones. Their joint experience with the institute gave them common ground to work from, and in many ways it had been nice to let someone else hold the reins for once. But even as Danielle took to this new, normalized version of life, a strange reversal of circumstances had begun.
    At his university in New York, Professor McCarterhad grown increasingly interested in the artifacts they’d found. He soon began pestering her for information and then, realizing she no longer had access, he went directly to Arnold Moore.
    As it turned out, McCarter wasn’t the only one with the artifacts on his mind. The NRI scientists were becoming concerned with a growing wave of energy emanating from what they now called the Brazil stone. When McCarter explained a theory he’d developed, that the stone was one from a group of four, Moore decided it was imperative that the NRI find the remaining stones before anyone else did.
    McCarter volunteered to begin the search, but shortly afterward, he was attacked in Guatemala. It became clear that he needed protection, but McCarter didn’t trust the NRI. It was an uneasy alliance to pursue something he wanted to find. He wouldn’t have some gun-toting bodyguard at his side like a chaperone.
    Fearing for McCarter’s life, and for the success of the mission, Moore came to Danielle and begged her to return.
    The timing could not have been worse. Marcus had just asked her to marry him, and she had hesitated. Moore’s arrival was gasoline on a fire and it triggered endless fighting. It was a special kind of hell, having someone she loved ask her to leave a friend to the wolves.
    She spent three days trying to make him understand and then, after an argument for the ages, she’d gone to the airport, bought a ticket, and left for Mexico. She’d boarded the plane fairly certain that she’d destroyedeverything. And after all that, she’d failed to help McCarter anyway.
    “What have I done?” she wondered aloud. “What have I done?”
    As a new wave of sickness broke over her, she felt a great urge to lie back down. How much easier it would have been to just give up and die. But the thought disgusted her. As guilt-ridden as she felt, she knew that any hope of making up for what had occurred, any hope of seeing the people she cared for again, began with getting out of that room.
    Relying on sheer willpower, she stood and crossed the floor. The carpet felt soft and well padded under her bare feet.
    She reached the door, checking it just to be certain. Of course it was locked. There was an electronic keypad on her side, probably a card reader on the other. She moved to the desk and opened every drawer, one after another.
    Empty, all of them.
    She slammed the last one shut and sat down, her head throbbing ever harder. Either the lights were absurdly bright or something was wrong with her eyes. It almost felt as if her pupils were dilated, which suggested that strong drugs had been used against her. The terror of her dream and the disjointed, fragmented pattern