“Listen, we all need to go to the police together and make a statement.”

“A statement about what? He must have fallen in. He was drunk. It happens to dozens of people every year. And he was just monstrously unlucky.”

“We have to tell them. Like, how are they to know he was at that hookah bar?”

“Why do they care?”

“So they can do their detective thing. So that they can detect.”

“Carmen . . . What are they going to detect?”

“So you think it was an accident?”

“Wait, so you think it wasn’t?”

“. . . He could have been pushed.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Listen, let’s just think about it. Okay, it’s like 4:00 a.m. in this station. There’s nobody around. Very few subway stations have cameras, by the way. I looked it up online. So let’s say somebody comes up behind him. Atif’s drunk. That person shoves him off the platform just as the train is approaching, just as it’s coming down the tunnel. It’s basically the perfect crime. Everyone thinks it’s an accident. The police don’t even investigate.”

“Jesus, thought a lot about it? I can barely deal with this hangover.” Kierk rubs at his face, massages his temples.

“No, but this is odd: I think there’s almost two hours between the time we left, or when I’m pretty sure we left, and when he gets hit and the ambulance responds.”

“How do you even know when the ambulance responded?”

“The police file everything online now. It’s all available. The ambulance responded at 3:47 a.m. but we left the bar at like 2:00, as far as I can put together.”

“Poor guy probably just stopped to puke.”

“I’m afraid that’s what the cops are going to think. But they wouldn’t—” Carmen leans in, whispering, “—they wouldn’t understand the sensitive nature of his work. So of course they’re not going to suspect anything.”

“What’s there to suspect?”

“Don’t do that.”

“No, I want you to say it.”

There is a stalemate as they both stare at each other.

“Fine, I’ll say it,” Carmen exclaims. “They won’t suspect he was murdered because of what he does, what he did, what we all do. He’s a scientist who studies consciousness. Was. Studied.”

“Carmen, this is . . .”

“How can you of all people say that? You saw what they’re capable of. And you heard about what happened to Melissa Goldman, right? She got that box of bomb materials. What if SAAR was involved?”

Kierk shakes his head. “Atif had just arrived. He was barely part of Melissa’s lab.”