Eph hung the receiver up on its hook. Nora and Setrakian waited for him to say something, but an entry on Jim’s phone log had piqued Eph’s interest. Each one of Jim’s contacts was entered last name first, all except one. A local exchange, to which Jim had made a series of calls within the past few days. Eph picked up the landline and pressed zero and waited through the computer responses until he got a real Verizon operator.

“Yes, I have a number in my phone and I can’t remember who it connects to, and I’d like to save myself some embarrassment before placing a call. It’s a 212 exchange, so I believe it is a landline. Can you do a reverse lookup?”

He read her the number and heard fingers clicking on a keyboard.

“That number is registered to the seventy-seventh floor of the Stoneheart Group. Would you like the building address?”

“I would.”

He covered the mouthpiece and said to Nora, “Why was Jim calling someone at the Stoneheart Group?”

“Stoneheart?” said Nora. “You mean that old man’s investment company?”

“Investment guru,” said Eph. “Second-richest man in the country, I think. Something Palmer.”

Setrakian said, “Eldritch Palmer.”

Eph looked at him. He saw consternation on the professor’s face. “What about him?”

“This man, Jim Kent,” said Setrakian. “He was not your friend.”

Nora said, “What do you mean? Of course he was…”

Eph hung up after getting the address. He then highlighted the number on the screen of Jim’s phone and pressed send.

The number rang. No answer, no voice-mail recording.

Eph hung up, still staring at the phone.

Nora said, “Remember the administrator for the isolation ward, after the survivors left isolation? She said she had called, Jim said she hadn’t—then he said he just missed some calls?”

Eph nodded. It didn’t make any sense. He looked at Setrakian. “What do you know about this guy Palmer?”

“Many years ago he came to me for help in finding someone. Someone I was also keenly interested in finding.”

“Sardu,” guessed Nora.

“He had the funding, I had the knowledge. But the arrangement ended after only a few months. I came to understand that we were searching for Sardu for two very different reasons.”

Nora said, “Was he the one who ruined you at the university?”

Setrakian said, “I always suspected.”

Jim’s phone buzzed in Eph’s hand. The phone did not recognize the number, but it was a local New York exchange. A callback from someone at Stoneheart, maybe. Eph answered it.

“Yeah,” said the voice, “is this the CDC?”

“Who is calling?”

The voice was gruff and deep. “I’m looking for the disease guy from the Canary project who’s in all that trouble. Any way you can put me through to him?”

Eph suspected a trap. “What do you want him for?”