In two nights of intimacy with Maddison, David had not felt the indentation that Mathers claimed to have seen. However, perhaps he had never touched the right place on the back of her head.

Maybe she’d suffered a blow to the skull, damaged bone that required a metal plate. A head injury would explain why she might sometimes lose focus, drift away. But wouldn’t skin have been grafted over it?

Life was getting weirder year by year, but was the world really sliding into an extended episode of Stranger Things? He didn’t think so. He didn’t want to think so.

Richard Mathers’s voice came back to David: All kinds of crazy shit is happening in biotech these days. I watch them science shows, they got stuff going on Frankenstein never would’ve thought of.

Those words stirred from memory something that Gilbert Gurion, the attorney handling the estate of Ephraim and Renata Zabdi, had said in that mansion in Montecito on Monday: Bioprinting . . . recellularize . . . Some people think certain biotech developments, like those related to AI, are a little Frankenstein.

Was that coincidence or something more, that kind of meaningful coincidence called synchronicity?

From his wallet, he extracted the card that Gurion had given him. It provided the attorney’s phone numbers, including his cell.

Ten years earlier, on the night when Emily vanished, there had been poor cell service along this sparsely populated section of the coast. Now, service was immediate, and Gilbert Gurion took the call.

“I’m sorry to bother you after hours, Gil. I’ve been thinking about something you said that is of importance to me as I consider this project.”

“No problem at all. What was it I said?”

“You were talking about bioprinting, recellularization, about the revolutionary applications of biotech, how fast everything is moving.”

“Faster and faster.”

“You said that some of this biotech, like that related to AI, is ‘a little Frankenstein.’”

“That’s not what I think, David. It’s a concern of some people who, in my estimation, are simply ignorant.”

“Quicksilver’s work in bioprinting and all that—it’s medical research. How does that have anything to do with AI, artificial intelligence? AI is machine learning, right?”

The incessant drumming of rain on the roof of the Explorer was oppressive, as it had been in the vivid dream of Emily alone in the broken-down Buick. It was the sound of isolation, helplessness, and dark destiny.

After a long hesitation, Gurion spoke with evident caution. “I may have been rash, bringing that up. I get emotional every time I visit that house. I’m not sure I should talk about . . .”

When the attorney seemed uncertain how to continue, David said, “I understand that some Quicksilver projects are related to national security. I don’t want to put you in a difficult spot.”