Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island (16 page)

They had first become acquainted in early March. She'd asked for an appointment; she would like to meet, talk about his work and her company's ventures. They had two colleagues in common, both of whom felt it would be mutually beneficial for Dr. deBourg and Professor Rossini to know each other. Reluctance was Larry's first stance: no time, and besides, he was hardly going to speak about the Project to an unknown outsider. He answered her beautifully handwritten request with a blunt email:
Sorry. No.
Several days later, she called. Unusual since his lab's number was unlisted, not available even from Morsely University's electronic contact information. His secretary, Phoebe, buzzed him. “There's a Dr. deBourg for you, Larry. Line 2.”

“Who is that? How'd he get to this office?”

“She. And she mentioned Professor Gibbons and Dr. Heckshaw.”

Same two connections as mentioned by that woman's letter, the one from Geneva. Rude to them if he simply flicked her off? He pressed 2. “Hello, Dr. deBourg.”

“Professor Rossini. It's good to hear your voice.”

But it was
her
voice that suddenly caught his full attention. Low, with a mellow lushness to it that in his ear felt like warm silk. The only words he could find were, “How can I help you?”

“I'd very much like to meet with you. My corporation is Veritec; we're based in Geneva. Perhaps you've heard of us. I believe we share a number of interests, my board's and your work.”

Despite the warmth of her intonation, Larry felt uncomfortable. How did she know enough about his work to assume there'd be some parallel to her own? “I don't think it would make any sense for you to leave Geneva so that we can talk in person. And I'm afraid I can't leave here.”

“Oh, I'm not coming from Geneva; I'm just across the sound from you in Seattle, here for a conference. I have a car and would enjoy the ferry ride and I can see you at your convenience.”

Her accent was near-perfect British, time spent in Oxford if he had to guess. To say no to her might be a put-down to Gibbons and Heckshaw. He could give less of a damn about Roger, but Gerry was a good guy. He'd been generous to Larry a couple of years ago. “All right then,” he'd said, and they'd set a time for the next day.

The cars beside him were rolling forward. He turned his key and the engine pinged to life. Up ahead, as the final car in the earlier line drove on board, the ferry worker raised his hand to Larry's row. Larry edged forward, following the car ahead, an old Ford clunker. Now the worker motioned the Ford forward, holding his hand high to keep Larry from following. Great, first car on at 11:05. Three hours lost from Toni—but no! A wave of the man's hand and Larry was aboard. Behind him the guardrail came down.

She had arrived at his lab a few minutes before 2:00. A security guard led her through the main gate, the only opening in the ten-foot
chain-link fencing topped with razor wire, and into the building. Directly past the heavy oak doors, a small wood-walled anteroom more befitting a midsize Victorian mansion than a scientific laboratory, equipped with three stuffed chairs and a large desk, was presided over by a thin, smiling woman behind a sign that said,
RECEPTION
. Dr. deBourg mentioned her appointment. She waited no more than a minute after the receptionist lifted the phone and spoke quietly into it. A near-invisible door in the wall to the right opened, and she had her first glimpse of Laurence Rossini. He introduced himself and led her to his office, far less opulent than the anteroom: glass cases filled with antique scientific equipment; a set of nineteenth-century microscopes; surgical tools that might have dated from the 1400s; what looked like a floor-model radio from before the Second World War very like those everyone's grandfather had owned. Folding chairs along the right side wall, ready to be opened as if for an impromptu meeting. A portable whiteboard beside a bank of computers that seemed state of the art. And Professor Rossini's desk, heavy and metallic, without grace, a rolling chair behind it, two wooden chairs in front.

A stunning woman, Larry had thought. Mid-thirties perhaps? Black suit with straight skirt to just below her knee, slit on the right side. No blouse under the suit jacket, only a thin gold chain at her throat. Low-heeled black pumps. And a face of gracious beauty framed by chestnut hair that glowed even in the thin artificial light of the office. “Please, Dr. deBourg, have a seat.”

“Thank you.” She sat in front of the desk.

A non-thought-through decision and he sat beside rather than across from her. “May I offer you some coffee? Tea?”

“A glass of water would be nice.”

Her voice floated across the two feet between them and caressed his ears. He stood again, opened the door, and asked Phoebe for two glasses of water. Back beside her he said, “You work with a research corporation, you said?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Veritec. It is in fact my corporation. My father founded it in 1985. He had been working with Binnig and Rohrer till he started out on his own.”

Larry was impressed. Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer were the inventors of the scanning tunneling microscope, an impressively complex tool for imaging at the atomic level. They had been situated in Zurich, at the IBM labs, and in the 1990s were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Larry had used such a microscope as soon as he could get access to one; several of his well-received early papers would not have been possible without this remarkable instrument. “Your father's name is—Pierre deBourg?”

“Was.”

“Of course. It's an honor to meet his daughter.” He paused. “I'd read he'd died. You have my condolences.”

She dropped her head lightly. “Thank you.”

The door opened. Phoebe appeared with two glasses of water and set them on the desk. “Thank you.” She left, closing the door behind her.

“Father's name was not much in the news for the last decade. He passed away very slowly, out of the limelight.”

“I'm sorry, Dr. deBourg. But—you've been carrying on his work?”

“Yes. It's why Gerry thought it'd be a good idea for me to meet you.”

Interesting. Gerald Heckshaw was a bit of a prim fellow. Few called him Gerry. It'd taken a small celebration featuring some mighty fine single malt at the end of their joint project in photon scanning microscopy before he'd told Larry to call him Gerry.
When we work on the next project, we can call it the Larry and Gerry Show,
he'd declared. “Have you worked with Gerry, then?”

“Only indirectly.” Her lightly pinked lips opened gently as she breathed, “But we spoke at some length at the Protein Pathways Conference in Buenos Aires in February.”

Larry had considered participating—had been invited to but was so deep into his own work, he'd let the call pass. “Yes, I heard it was a successful meeting. I almost went.” He took a sip of water.

“What would you have presented, if you'd been there?”

A question he would not answer. The correct response,
My present work,
would only lead to her wanting to know its precise nature, and this he wasn't ready to divulge. So he'd said, “At the moment I'm not yet far enough advanced to present anything. I'd only have gone to hear what others were passing on.” Time to shift. “I gather Jonathan Shaw developed his work on fullerenes.”

“Yes. He and Silberberg gave a joint presentation.” She sipped her water.

“Unusual for Shaw.”

“Yes, a bit of a prima donna.”

“Occasionally I think we all can be.” He again sipped, having forgotten he held the glass in his hand. “Especially when we have something important to impart.”

The right side of her lips tilted upward a little, a half-smile. “I doubt you could, Professor Rossini.”

With that slanted mouth, she'd undermined his composure. “Please. Call me Larry.”

“A pleasure, Larry. And I'm Toni.”

He kept himself from smiling. Less of a Toni he never had seen. “Was Silberberg up to the co-presentation?”

“He's young, but he's learning.”

They both laughed. Milus Silberberg would never see the sunny side of sixty again. Gossip and shop talk with a dazzling woman, both of them with a similar sense of humor. Their laughter and professional chitchat went on for an hour and a half. They had a number of mutual friends. Nanotechnology on this level was a small world. And hard to keep projects hidden. Throughout, Toni had tried to discover his, with indirect questions and barely veiled hints that she knew more about his work than she was letting on. He parried back, his questions searching what she thought she knew about the Project. On one level, he considered a straightforward lie—Not much there yet, coming along—but then the conversation might end, and he wanted to go on talking with her for at least a few more hours.

Suddenly she glanced at the time. “Oh, I should go. The ferry leaves at quarter after four.” She half stood.

He reached out, barely kept himself from taking her forearm, and said, “You could take a later ferry. And have dinner with me.”

Her eyes narrowed as if to see him better. “Would that be wise?”

“Sure.”

Now her eyes glowed. “Are there later ferries?”

As if she were relying on his knowledge. “Oh yes, three or four more this evening. The last one leaves at five past ten.”

“That's late.” Her head shook, just barely. “And I don't like driving when I've been drinking, even if it's only a glass of wine.”

“You're right. You shouldn't.” He looked away from her. “Do you have to be back in Seattle this evening?”

She seemed to think, did she have an appointment? “No. My flight back to Geneva is late tomorrow afternoon.”

“Friday Harbor House is a pleasant inn. And they have a good restaurant. You could drive down in the morning. The university has arrangements there. I could call—”

She considered this. “You're right. That's the best plan.”

From March to now. Less than half a year. She had transformed him. His ferry pulled out of Friday Harbor. Just over an hour to Anacortes. Then an hour and a half to her. He hadn't felt so completely taken by another person since the earliest days with Maggie. Maybe not even, too long ago to compare. He'd loved Maggie then, no question. But it had faded, for both of them. His work became his infatuation, many hours in the lab. He thought she was fine, always pleasant when he came home to dinner, in the morning a wave from her in bed as he left, the outside often still dark. He learned of her longstanding affair, a divorced orthopedic surgeon attached to Duke University Hospital, two weeks after she told him she had leukemia. He'd barely noticed that she seemed unwell! Her lover had recommended she consult a colleague of his. The results of the tests were conclusive, the leukemia rampant. She told Larry she likely had less than a year to live and she didn't want to spend the rest of her time with him. Ted loved her, even as she was dying. He'd be beside her to the end. She lived another three years, the first two comparably pain-free. For a month after she died, Larry couldn't keep the guilt away. But soon he thought of her less and less, till all but early memories had faded away.