The Recovery Window

The sample came back from space. Its paper trail did not come back clean.

During a routine confirmation scan, Elena Castellanos notices an unusual pattern inside a tiny fragment returned by the Meridian-7 asteroid mission. Her mentor, Thomas Renwick, offers a plausible explanation. Elena wants to verify it before the material moves on.

The records will not cooperate.

What begins as a question about a laboratory sample becomes a search through transfer documents, mismatched catalog entries, and material dispersed among partner laboratories. The researchers need to establish what they are studying, where it has been, and whether the evidence can still support the tests that matter.

Renwick once helped rescue Elena's career from another scientist's misconduct. Asking the necessary questions now means risking the relationship that allowed her to rebuild it.

With access controlled, samples finite, and official scrutiny closing in, Elena and her collaborators must preserve a discovery without repeating the compromises that put it in danger.

The Recovery Window is a near-future scientific suspense novel about custody, gratitude, and the moment an honest investigation reaches someone you owe.

Book 4 of The Unfinished Sky. A complete story that can be read independently.