Free Supersymmetry by David Walton Page A

behind him. It wasn’t a proper interrogation room—no mirrored one-way glass—but she guessed they had it bugged. She scanned the ceiling for hidden cameras and saw none, but that didn’t mean much.
    If her experience was any judge, it would be a long time until anyone came back to question her. They would let her sweat, put her off guard. It’s what they did with everyone. She thought about her father’s strange refusal to come with her. What had he been hiding? She tried to imagine him devising a high-tech bomb to kill thousands of people, and she just couldn’t do it. There was no reason in the world that might prompt him to such an act. But then why had he lied to her?
    When Detective Melissa Messinger finally came in, only about a half-hour had gone by. Sandra was surprised, having expected at least an hour. Messinger was short, stocky, with a hard expression and tired eyes. She was everything Sandra admired and aspired to: a full detective, trusted with some of the department’s most serious and public cases.
    â€œWhere is your father, Miss Kelley?” she asked without preamble.
    â€œHe wasn’t at his house? That’s the last place I saw him.”
    â€œWe sent officers to question him, but he was gone. Your mother claims to have no idea where he is. We need to understand the nature of this conspiracy between your father and your sister, why they committed these crimes, and what they hope to gain.”
    â€œThere’s no conspiracy—”
    â€œWhere is your father?”
    â€œI honestly don’t know.”
    â€œWhere is your sister?”
    â€œI don’t know that, either. She’s not a killer, though; I can tell you that.”
    â€œOver a hundred people saw her shoot Secretary Falk in the chest. So either she did it, or it was her twin sister.” Messinger smiled, but there was no humor in it.
    Sandra didn’t take the bait. “I haven’t talked to Alex in days. I haven’t seen her for weeks.”
    Messinger was meticulous. She walked Sandra through every part of her conversation with her father: exactly what he had said, whose idea it had been that the destruction had followed a multidimensional pattern. She asked for every detail Sandra could remember about recent conversations with Alex, including dates and times, and wrote it all down in a notebook. Then she went through the same questions all over again.
    â€œFifteen years ago, your father was charged with murder, and then acquitted. How much do you remember of that experience?”
    Sandra frowned. “Very little, actually. It was Alex who spent a lot of time with Dad during that time.” In fact, that had been the main difference between them, from the beginning. Alex had been there with Dad, had hunted the varcolac with him, while Sandra had not.
    â€œWould you say, then, that Alex and your father shared a special relationship?” Messinger said.
    â€œYeah, you could say that.” It came out with more emotion than Sandra had intended.
    â€œMore special than his relationship with you?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo there might be secrets he and Alex have together. Things they think about and talk about that you wouldn’t necessarily know.”
    â€œI can see where you’re going,” Sandra said. “Yes, they were close. No, I don’t think either of them are capable of the crimes you suspect them of committing.”
    Though she wondered. Not whether they would intentionally kill. She was certain they wouldn’t. But a ten-dimensional explosion? It had to have been done by someone—or something—with a deep understanding of quantum physics. Alex and Dad wouldn’t have been so stupid as to try to bring back the varcolac, would they? Could they actually have been so foolish as to tamper with those forces again, after it had nearly killed their whole family fifteen years ago?
    â€œIf you had to guess where your