Five slices of fresh jalape?o plopped into Noelle's cup of instant ramen. They wouldn't compensate for the freeze-dried peas and corn kernels, which were similar in consistency to the styrofoam cup itself, but Noelle could only do so much. Food was food, and time was pressing.

  Errant drips and splatters of broth went unnoticed as Noelle slurped the soggy noodles and scrolled through seven years of notes spread across ten spreadsheet tabs. A database of phone numbers, addresses, possible motives, and rampant speculations, all extensively cross-referenced with links and comments, sprawled across her screen.

  Sometimes, Noelle wondered if it was the digital equivalent of a conspiracy theorist's corkboard of pushpins and string, but there was no time to worry about that now.

  Most of her late-night phone calls had gone to voicemail, so her scramble to enlist the resources of the police would have to wait until morning. In the meantime, she mulled over what she knew and didn't know.

  Uncle Johann's shooting was disconcertingly similar to one of those locked room mystery novels she and Maria loved to obsess over. But while novelists often played scrupulously fair, she couldn't expect that much latitude from her current situation. What if the vital clues that would make it all sensible just never turned up?

  Don't be defeatist, she reminded herself. Better to assume that there really was a way to make light of things. Just keep digging.

  But even if she uncovered some explanation of the lab's work, how could she even be sure of its veracity? If the killer turned out to be someone connected with the research, they might flat-out lie about it.

  No, I shouldn't be so pessimistic. Saturn Technologies was a government contractor. Even if they hid what they were working on, they couldn't get away with lying about it, at least not for very long.

  Of course, none of this would help if that information came too late. Noelle had once flung a mystery novel out of the apartment window in a rage because it only disclosed a crucial clue after the detective had named the killer.

  Once again, Noelle chided herself for her pessimism. She might get key information later... but there was no reason to just wait around for it. Better to assume she could make some progress now on whatever and hope for the best. Maria was counting on her.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  And she had absolute trust in Maria's account, no matter how outlandish it sounded.

  With that in mind, Noelle pulled up the floor plans for the Saturn Technologies labs. During the investigation of her mother's disappearance, she'd studied the layout closely. For every room on the floor, the only exits were one door and one window.

  Thin, precarious ledges connected the windows on one side of the building, so a sufficiently agile person could exit Uncle Johann's office, hug the wall, and enter Vincent's window, but it would have to be unlocked in advance. No such exit from the machining room was possible.

  But that made it all seem impossible, unless someone had tampered with the keycard records, or there was an error in the official police accounts!

  Eliminating the impossible left her with one answer that stretched the limits of plausibility: an elaborate hoax suicide. Uncle Johann had shown signs of being mentally unwell, and was certainly paranoid.

  But he would never have framed Maria!

  So Noelle's thoughts returned once again to impossible devices. Even if Uncle Johann had been working on, say, a machine that lets people walk through walls... there probably weren't that many, right? He couldn't be mass-producing them.

  But having laid out her thoughts, Noelle found herself at a roadblock

  Perhaps she could use some inspiration.