The Last Equation of Isaac Severy(64)

–?21?–


The Recluse


Hazel woke the next day with what felt like a hangover, except she was sure that she hadn’t drunk anything the night before. She squinted at her surroundings, struggling against an acute sense of disorientation. She was in a tidy, unfamiliar bedroom, but it wasn’t her brother’s guest room. As her eyes fell on a Deco chest of drawers and an Art Nouveau print framed above it, it suddenly hit her. She had spent the night at the hotel. She vaguely remembered having texted Goldie that she was staying out so that she and Gregory could enjoy their anniversary together; at least she’d remembered to do that much. But she couldn’t remember having felt this terrible ever, including the time she’d gotten food poisoning in college. Then again, she knew this wasn’t physical; this was an emotional illness, which is always worse.

She didn’t have to look at the clock to know that she’d slept most of the day. Still, when she propped herself up and grabbed her phone from the bedside table, she blinked at it in disbelief. It was four fifteen in the afternoon. Hazel fell back on the pillow and draped an arm across her face to block the light edging in around the blinds. As the events of the previous day came back to her in shaming detail, she groaned aloud and turned into the fetal position. Christ. You idiot. She could feel the entire weight of her stupidity in her stomach, tightening into a nauseating ball.

Hazel shut her eyes tight, and in the darkness behind her lids, Alex’s charming smile played for her on repeat—a smile that seemed to say, “You, my friend, have been played.” Alex had most certainly exploited her attraction to him, and by getting caught in his snare, she had failed one of the only people she had loved. What a fool Isaac had been to trust her. Hazel really hoped there was no afterlife because she didn’t want her grandfather to see the magnitude of his error.

She made a feeble effort to sit up, but the pain of Alex’s deceit seemed to be pinning her down. As did Raspanti’s admonitions from yesterday. Once he had realized that Isaac’s work was missing and that the owner of the wig was responsible, he had said darkly, “You let a man into the room, let him snoop into your grandfather’s math? Isaac should never have left it to you, that much is clear.”

“Look, I needed help—”

“And did you seek this man’s help, or did he charm his way into the room?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “I see.”

“Alex isn’t some random stranger. He’s my cousin. Isaac’s grandson.”

“One with a strong mathematical background, I’m guessing, and oh so very curious about Isaac’s work?”

“That about describes my entire family.”

Raspanti had calmly picked up the phone, dialed the front desk, and requested that a cab take him to the airport. Hazel then followed him downstairs to the lobby, where she watched him pour himself some drip coffee. She did the same and trailed Raspanti outside.

He sat hunched on the front steps, blowing at steam from his cup. She knew he was making a point of not looking at her, which only made her more angry with herself.

She sat down and took a sip of coffee. It burned her tongue, and she winced. “I screwed up. I know that.”

Still not looking at her, Raspanti said, “It wouldn’t surprise me if these people recruited a Severy mole to poke around Isaac’s things, to wait for the equation to show itself. I suppose you didn’t have a chance.”

“You don’t need to make me feel any worse. I already hate myself for failing him.”

“You think this is a simple failure? A case of family disloyalty?” He turned, staring her straight in the face. “It’s a disaster on a scale you can’t know now, but one day you will. It sounds cruel, but you will read the paper one morning, years from now, and you will know what you have done.”

Hazel set down her cup and covered her face with her hands. That familiar pressure was building behind her eyes, but she refused to cry. How could it be that Isaac had made her a custodian of such consequence?

“We could find him,” she said finally, lifting her head. “We could get the equation back.”

Raspanti removed his glasses and pushed at his eyes, as if staving off a headache. “The equation is gone. Now that they have it, it’s theirs forever.”

“So you’re just going to give up? Go back to Italy?”

“If what you say about the map is true, Isaac was killed for his mathematics. If you think they’re just going to hand it back to you, you’re delusional.”

Hazel’s stomach seized. She realized that this was the first time someone had said out loud what she’d been fearing since the moment she’d read the word assassin in Isaac’s letter. Isaac was killed for his mathematics. There it was, stated as fact.

The taxi arrived. Raspanti stood and went to meet it.

Hazel felt desperate to stop him. She felt desperate about a lot of things: about the burden she’d been carrying around for weeks, about the implied murder of her grandfather, and about the fact that she had completely and totally failed him. At that moment, she felt she would do anything to get rid of this awful feeling in her gut.

“What if you’re wrong?” she called out just as Raspanti was climbing into the cab. “What if I can get it back?”

He paused. “If you can get it back,” he shouted, “I will personally fly you and the equation to Milan, first class, and I will teach you the meaning of great mathematics!”