“No problem. I only have about an hour, though.”

“Of course. Come on in.”

Lisa turned, leading them into the empty building. None of this seemed like normal protocol, which made Jess feel like she’d swallowed battery acid. “I have to admit I’m really confused about why this is so urgent.”

“I’ll explain everything once we’re inside.”

Jess followed her through the double doors and down the long hallway she’d walked the last time she was here. Everyone was clearly done for the day; the offices were dark and vacant in that way that made even innocuous spaces seem creepy.

In the conference room, Lisa gestured to six people seated around a large table. River wasn’t among them.

“Jessica, I’d like to introduce you to our executive team.”

Their what now?

“This is David Morris, the principal investigator in charge of the original research, and the CEO of GeneticAlly.”

A man to her right stood, stretching out his hand, and Jess recognized him as the person she’d met after overhearing River call her “entirely average.”

“Jessica. It’s so great to see you again.”

“You too.” She wiped her palm on her pants before shaking. And then it sank in: Original research. CEO. “Right. I guess I didn’t realize who I was meeting in the hall the other day.”

He laughed a big, open-mouthed laugh. “Well, it feels a little douchey to say, ‘I’m CEO David Morris.’ ”

“Maybe,” Jess said, “but you’ve earned the right.”

“I’m friends with Alan Timberland over at Genentech,” he said, still smiling, “and he’s mentioned some analytics help he had. After looking at your intake information from the other day, I put two and two together and realized you’re the brain behind their new high-throughput screening algorithms.”

Jess was a wine bottle, slowly uncorked. Oh, this is about data? Had GeneticAlly brought her here to talk about algorithms?

“Alan’s great,” she said carefully. At the prospect that she was here for consulting, not because she had lemur DNA, the nausea slowly cleared.

Lisa gestured to an overly tanned man to David’s left. “Brandon Butkis is our head of marketing.”

Another hand closed around Jess’s, another face gave her an urgent, vibrating smile. All she could see was blindingly white capped teeth.

After Jess had shaken every hand in the room, Lisa gestured for her to sit down in the direct center seat at the table.

“It’s probably unexpected to walk into a full room like this,” Lisa started.

“A little,” Jess agreed, “but I know how important it is to get data organized, and how hard it is to do that when the data set is as big as yours.”

David and Brandon exchanged a quick look. Lisa’s smile slipped for only a second, but Jess logged it. “That’s definitely true. I’m sure you know that better than anyone.”

A man—Jess thought his name was Sanjeev—on the other side of the table caught Lisa’s attention. “Is Peña coming in for this?”

“He’ll be here,” Lisa said, and then turned to Jess. “Sorry to make you wait, Jessica.”