“Suit yourself,” he says, “but my daughter will be erased from existence before our meeting concludes, so the way I see it, we work together, trust each other, or we both lose.” His eyes aren’t smug with that statement; they hold something more like disappointment—the smallest glimpse of the world he’s been desperately trying to spin. I reach for my phone, thinking I should check on our surveillance, but Dr. Kingston raises his hand. “There’s nothing to see, son. She’s already gone. You work with me, and she returns.”
