Not when someone is being abused. Hearing her own words, Edie thinks back to the first time she met the frightened little girl from Guatemala. She had been working part-time as a school nurse and counselor. The ten-year-old had been brought to her, complaining of stomach cramps. Edith had held the little girl’s hand until the pain had subsided. This small act of motherly love would forever bind Dominique to the woman, whose own heart broke as she learned about the sexual abuse being inflicted upon the child by her older cousins. Edie had filed a report and arranged for foster care. She and Iz had adopted Dominique six months later.

“Okay, doll, tell me what we can do to help Mick.”

“There’s only one solution. We need to get him out of there.”

“By out, I assume you mean to another asylum.”

“No, I mean out, as in permanently out.”

“A jailbreak?”

“Well, yes. Mick may be a bit confused, but he’s not insane. He doesn’t belong in a mental institution.”

“Are you certain, because you don’t sound too sure yourself. Didn’t you tell me that Mick is convinced the world is coming to an end?”

“Not the world, humanity, and yes, he does believe that. He’s just a little paranoid, but who wouldn’t be after spending eleven years in solitary.”

Edie watches Dominique fidget. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”

Dominique turns to face her. “This will sound crazy, but there seems to be truth in many of Mick’s delusions. His whole doomsday theory is based on some three-thousand-year-old Mayan prophecy. I’m in the process of reading his father’s journal, and some of the findings are mind-boggling. Mick practically predicted the arrival of that deep-space radio signal on the fall equinox. Edie, when I lived in Guatemala, my grandmother used to tell me stories about my maternal ancestors. The things she said were pretty frightening.”

Edie smiles. “You’re starting to scare me.”

“Oh, I know it’s just superstitious nonsense, but I feel like I owe it to Mick to at least check some of these things out. It might help alleviate some of his fears.”

“What things?”

“Mick is convinced that whatever’s going to destroy humanity is hidden in the Gulf of Mexico.” Dominique reaches into her jeans pocket and removes several folded pages, handing them to Edie.

Edie glances at the printout. “The Chicxulub impact crater? How’s a depression buried a mile beneath the seafloor going to kill humanity?”

“I don’t know. Neither did Mick. But I was hoping—”

“—you were hoping that Iz could check it out using SOSUS.” Dominique smiles. “It would make me feel a lot better.” Edie gives her daughter a hug. “Come on. Iz is in the lab.”