I yelled wordless and started punching the dash of the car. After a couple of minutes of that I was wound down.

“I’m impressed,” Langdon said.

I started at her, confused. “That I punched the crap out of your car dash?”

“No, that you didn’t actually set off the airbag.”

I laughed at this.

“You feeling better?”

“No,” I said. “Now my fucking hand hurts.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

“Then tell me how you are.”

“I’m fine. I’m going to be fine.”

“I still want to know who did this to you.”

“Not going to happen. Not for a long time.”

“Then tell me this,” Langdon said. “Tell me that it was worth it. Whatever you got from them. It was worth being chucked down an elevator shaft.”

I pushed my head back against the headrest again. “I don’t know. We’re going to find out.”

There was silence. Eventually I realized the silence had gone on too long and I cracked my eyes open. Langdon was staring at me. “What?”

“So what was it like?”

“What was what like?”

“Being dead, you idiot!” Langdon said. “What happened? Did you feel anything? See anything? Hear choirs of angels? What?”

“I hit my head on the way down, I blacked out, I woke up, I had a headache.”

“That was it.”

“Yeah.”

“So, basically, death is like getting a concussion.”

“Pretty much.”

Langdon paused to consider this. “Well, that’s genuinely disappointing.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s good to know. Now I won’t get my hopes up.” Langdon started the car back up again, and carved her way back onto the road. “Now, listen. When we get to the Alberts’ I want you to stay in the car. I don’t think you’re equipped to handle Katie Albert’s hostility right now.”

I closed my eyes again. “I agree.”

“So that means now would be a good time to actually tell me what I’m going in there looking for.”

“A memory card. For laptops and cameras. You know. Like the size of a stamp.”

“I know what a memory card is. Am I looking for a particular memory card?”

“Yeah. It’s going to have a file on it. A video file.”

“Anything else on the card?”

“Maybe. I don’t think so.”

“So, a memory card with a video on it. And this will be enough for me to go on.”

“Trust me, if the video is of what I think it is, you’ll know it when you see it.”

Langdon found the video. She knew it when she saw it. And then we were on our way to see Orval Wooldridge.