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PROLOGUE
As the rain pelted against her apartment window, Dr. Emma Willis was in a lively discussion about her life's work. At the age of forty-four, her entire career as a biochemist had led up to this moment. She'd had visions of this discussion—of this potential breakthrough—taking place in a lab setting or a massive boardroom of some kind with dozens of her peers in attendance. Instead, it was taking place with two of her colleagues on a video call at ten o'clock at night.
It seemed almost unofficial; the entire meeting had a casual feel despite the groundbreaking implications. She wasn’t certain, but she thought Dr. Hastings, currently situated in the bottom window on Emma’s screen, was drinking a glass of wine.
“Okay…” Hastings said. He was about Emma's age, another biochemist with greying hair and sharp blue eyes. He had a slight Dutch accent, which seemed thicker when he was excited. "So this all looks good. And good, of course, doesn’t even touch it. I’ll send it all over to the team in Tokyo and get their final confirmation.”
“This is…what…the third confirmation?” the third member of the call asked. This was Estelle Regent, an absolute rock star in the field. She was pushing seventy but often seemed to have more energy than anyone else in her close proximity.
“Yes, it’s the third,” Emma said. “But with what we’ve got here…I think it requires a second and third look. Maye even a fourth tomorrow by the guys in Houston?”
“Good idea,” Hastings said.
Emma realized that at this point, they were just hesitating to end the call. They had something monumental in their hands, and ending the call seemed almost rude. The most promising lab-tested and beta-approved approach to age reversal hovered between the three of them. It had been just tests and speculation for so long, but now they had the data, the experts, and the results to make it a reality. And it could begin its developmental rollout by the end of next week if all went well with this final confirmation out of the world's most renowned biogenetics lab in Tokyo.
“One last question,” Emma said. It was one she nearly just pushed to the side, afraid it might make her seem a bit dramatic. But with what they were dealing with, she figured there should be no stone unturned, no potential pushback ignored. “Whenever this goes public, the science behind it is bound to anger some people—particularly certain politically-driven groups. Who is going to be in charge of coming up with a response for something like that?”
“Oh, I’m several steps ahead of you on that,” Regent said. “I’ve got a PR team in New York working on it. I’ve worked with them in the past when there was public outcry over stem cell research. Trust me on this, Dr. Willis…you have nothing to fear. You need to just accept the win on this. This is huge for us all, but you’re the hero here. Let someone else worry about the not-so-pretty parts."
“Okay, thanks. I had to ask.”
"And I appreciate it," Regent said. "For now, though, I think we call it a night. I'll reach out to each of you tomorrow as soon as we get a ping back from Tokyo."
“Sounds good,” Hastings said. “Good night ladies.”
Emma and Estelle Regent murmured their goodbyes as well, and then the call was over. Emma sat behind her desk for a moment longer, her study illuminated by just the glow of the laptop and a small desk lamp. The rain continued to patter against the window as she finally got up from her desk and did her best to let the moment soak into her. She’d worked hard for this. And soon she’d be called on to speak at lectures, to serve as an adjunct professor at prestigious universities…and she wasn’t ready for any of it. But if everything came back positively from Tokyo (and she knew it would, it was really just a precaution), that’s what her life would look like.
“One thing at a time,” she told herself as she closed the lid of her laptop and left her office. She went directly to the bathroom, knowing that tomorrow was going to be packed and exhausting. Though it was a bit earlier than she usually went to sleep, she knew she needed to head to bed rather than reading or unwinding with a podcast. So, in the bathroom, she popped two melatonin and brushed her teeth.
She was unable to push the weight of the big career moment off as she tried to force an end to her day. In an odd way, it was making her feel uneasy and she wasn’t sure why. She did her best to figure it out as she left the bathroom and went through her nightly routine. She checked to make sure the door was locked, she set up her coffee to auto-brew at six in the morning, cut off the lamp in the living room and then walked through her large, expensive, eleventh-floor Seattle apartment to her bedroom. She turned the lights on to dim as she made her way over to her bureau.
As she neared it and reached for the top drawer, a flicker of movement to her right caused a little gasp to rise up in her throat. It happened more than she cared to admit; there was a full-body mirror on the opposite end of the bureau, directly beside her walk-in closet. It often spooked her because her reflection was the first thing she saw most mornings as she stepped into the closet and, not yet fully awake, it was startling. She kept meaning to move the stupid thing but had never gotten around to it.
She opened up the top drawer to grab something to sleep in, and her eyes trailed to the mirror again. Her own movements caught her attention again and—
No, what wasn’t her movement. That was something else…something else moving behind her. Her heart raced madly as she wheeled around to face the moving shape she’d seen in the reflection.
There was a man standing in her bedroom. She’d been so preoccupied with thoughts of work and the information exchanged in the call that she’d somehow missed him. For a second, her brain seemed to freeze. She wanted to scream for help, she wanted to as who he was, why he was there, how he’d gotten into the apartment…but all of those things collided and she did none of them. She simply froze, staring at him from across the ten feet or so that separated them. He was blocking her path to the door that led to the hallway, so there was no escape. She could run into the closet, but then what? Her phone was on the nightside table so she couldn't call for help if she was trapped in there. She was—
Suddenly, none of that mattered. He came rushing at her, lunging at her. Somehow, it was only in that moment that her frazzled mind noticed several things about him. First of all, he was wearing a generic ski mask, with only his eyes showing. Second, he was wearing a black, long-sleeved tee shirt and dark jeans. The hands that were grasping out to her were covered in black leather gloves.
Emma shouted out and pivoted to the left, heading for the nightstand and her phone. Maybe, she thought, she could grab it and leap over her bed. She could close him in the bedroom and call for help.
Only, as she moved to do exactly that, her left foot struck the edge of the bureau and she went sprawling to backward and to the left. In doing so, her hand flailed out to support herself against the wall and, instead, found one of the room’s two windows. She pushed herself for it, her eyes on the cellphone now just a few feet away.
But the man was there first. And instead of grabbing her as she’d feared, he did the exact opposite. He shoved her…and she shoved her hard. The back of Emma’s head struck the window. She could barely hear the glass shattering due to the thud of her head connecting. And it wasn’t just a crack, but a shattering sound. He’d shoved her hard. Right away, she could feel the patters of rain touching the back of her head, where she was also quite sure she’d been cut.
She attempted to raise her right arm to swing out at the man, but he was already coming at her again. This time, he shoved her even harder, nearly punching her with both fists. They landed along her shoulders, and she felt the shove. She then felt her body pressed back against the large picture window. And as she suddenly felt cool night air pressing against her back, Emma became aware of two terrifying things at the same time.
First, the fragments of broken glass that remained in the frame were digging into her back, having pierced her shirt and now slicing into her skin. Second, there was eleven stories of open air waiting for her.
And her attacker continued to push. He grunted with the force of it, and with one last shove of force, all Emma felt was the air. it went rushing past her so fast that she didn't even realize she'd fallen from her window until her body was wrapped in a chill and the rain was falling on her.
She opened her mouth to scream, her arms flailing. And as she looked up into the night sky, rain coming down like little stars to guide her to the street below, she saw the perfect outline of the masked man in her broken bedroom window.
It was the last thing Dr. Emma Willis ever saw.
CHAPTER ONE
