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"Well, by all means," Mary Adler said, "please come in."
The Adlers led them through a small foyer that emptied out into a large den. A sofa and recliner were turned to face a wall-mounted TV that was installed over the fireplace. Rachel looked around for picture son the walls or the furniture but saw very few—just a couple on the mantle over the fireplace. She and Sullivan sat down on the couch while Mary settled down in the recliner. Lawrence opted to stand.
“So, what sort of information are you looking for?” Lawrence asked.
“First and foremost, the basics…we’re trying to find out if Jane had any competitors or maybe even enemies within her field.”
“None that we are aware of,” Mary said, shaking her head. “The cops already asked the same sort of thing.”
Sullivan nodded, as if he understood perfectly. “I wasn’t originally on the case, but I have seen all of the reports and notes from the original conversations. We just like to ask again a few days later because you never know what sort of things might pop up."
“Yes…I get that, but I can’t think of anyone fitting that description.”
"Then again," Lawrence said, "she never really spoke to us about her work. She did when she was younger because she was so excited about it and just went on and on and on about it.”
“Did something change that caused that excitement to dwindle?” Rachel asked.
“No, not at all. Not that I’m aware of. She just…you know, after you spend several years in a job, it all becomes commonplace. Also, I think she just got a little tired of our confused expressions whenever she tried talking about work with us.”
“I always felt bad about it,” Mary said. “Almost stupid, really. She worked so hard to get to where she is. As early as the ninth grade, she was fascinated with the science behind anti-aging. That’s been nearly twenty-five years, so there wasn’t much to go on back then, but…she pushed and remained determined the entire time. And when she started getting those college acceptance letters as a Senior, there was just no looking back.”
As Rachel listened, her gaze coasted across the mantle above the fireplace. It was in a basic golden frame, situated beside another photo that showed Jane sitting on the beach with a dog in her lap. A few flowers had been placed inf from of the beach picture as a small memorial. But Rachel was more interested in the smaller picture beside it. Without making a comment, she got to her feet and walked over to the pictures. She looked to the smaller one in the golden frame. Jane was also in this picture. She was standing with a group of four others—two men and two women, Jane breaking the tie of the sexes.
Jane was a bit older in this picture than the one of her on the beach; in fact, she looked remarkably similar to the same age she’d appeared in the photos from the crime scene. The group was standing in front of a building. To the left, a sign barely peeked into the picture, low and squatted, no more than four feet tall. All Rachel could see from the sign because of the cut-off was YSON LABS.
But in that same moment, the portion of the sign seemed unimportant when she took notice of one of the other women in the photo. She was standing all the way at the edge of the group of five, the furthest away from the sign.
It was Emma Willis.
“Excuse me,” Rachel said, “but when was this picture taken?”
Lawrence walked over to her and smiled at the sight of the photo. “That was about four years ago.” He then looked over to Mary for confirmation. “Right? This photo from Grayson labs?”
“Yeah, that would have been a little more than four years ago. That was taken at Grayson Labs, out in Nevada.”
“Did Jane ever live out there?”
“She may as well for about half a year or so,” Mary said. “She was hired by some big pharma company to work with the team you see right there. They spent about six or seven months setting up a lab, running experiments, and speaking to potential donors. We barely saw her while she was on that job but my God, was she on Cloud Nine.”
“Did you know anyone else in the picture?”
“No. Not personally. But I think one of those women ended up moving here, to Seattle. And then then Asian gentleman and that short redhead you see there ended up getting engaged and then married. Last I heard from Jane, they were living in Germany.”
Rachel went through each face as Mary Adler spoke. The Asian man and the redhead were standing right beside one another, smiling bright. If they were indeed in Germany, Rachel felt momentarily confident in placing an invisible X on their faces. And then, of course, both Jane and Emma were dead, so she placed two imaginary Xs over their faces as well. She had just started to truly study the remaining face in the picture—a man of about fifty or so, his hair salt-and-pepper grey and his eyes bright blue—when Mary spoke up with a question.
“Is that…is that why you’re here?” she asked. “Did something else happen to someone on that team?”
"Yes, ma'am," Sullivan said from his place on the couch. "Emma Willis was also murdered."
“Oh my…oh my God,” Mary said, her hand clasping over her mouth in shock.
“Mrs. Willis, you said you didn’t know these people personally, but what about the team itself? Did they get along? Did they keep in touch after the project was over?”
“I couldn’t tell you. All I can tell you, though, is that Carl Webber put a massive smear on them. Jane never came out and said as much, but I think it’s one of the reasons that cute married couple ended up moving to Germany…to get away from it.”
“What sort of smear?” Sullivan asked.
Mary looked at them, as if shocked they hadn't already heard. "Well, on the one hand, he was sleeping with one of the interns on the job; she was nineteen when he was fifty. And secondly, though it was never proven that I know if, he was allegedly caught selling stem cells to third-rate buyers overseas. Again, let me stress that I don't think it was ever proven. But it caused enough of a fuss to send Jane into a depressive episode when it all came out."
