Kingdon started to say more, but Wallace waved her silent. “That’s something we all agree on,” he said. “Zep, are you seriously offering to show my friends here how to kill Clair? Because that’s what it amounts to. There’s a big difference between having a bad feeling about someone and putting a gun to her head.” Zep was in profile to Clair as she continued along her arc around the desk. She saw his Adam’s apple bob as he wrestled with the question. It was a very real one for her too. Wallace needed to be stopped, but would that justify murdering him? “I think . . . ,” Zep said, and he nodded his head forward, raising his hands to cup his temples. As he moved, Clair saw something behind him that she hadn’t noticed before. There was a doorway set in the curved white wall, to the right of the open elevator. Small, arched, it was utterly incongruous in the otherwise magnificent dimensions of the inner sanctum. It had no obvious reason to exist in Wallace’s stupendous throne room.
