And then she was gone. With her stinging words still echoing in the lab, she walked away from him. Something, in the twenty years they’d been together, she’d never done.
She would be back, he told himself. Of course she would. Linda took her obligations seriously. She cared about him. She’d always been there for him. He couldn’t imagine a world without her.
Determined to wait her out, he settled down in front of his computer to study the results of his latest experiment. He believed in his gut that the disease was a defective autoimmune response. If he could isolate the…
He pushed away from the computer. It was too quiet. The silence seemed a living thing that pressed down upon him, pulling the air from his chest.
He usually enjoyed the quiet, but that was before. When he knew Linda would be in her office, or showing up later. Before she’d said he was nothing and that she was ashamed of him.
He tried to tell himself she didn’t mean it, but he wasn’t sure. And with that quiet doubt came unexpected pain.
“YOUR TWO-O’CLOCK IS HERE,” Nathan’s secretary told him.
“Send him in,” Nathan said, then regretted the invitation when Grant Pryor walked into the office.
Nathan leaned back in his chair and studied the man. “And here I thought I had an appointment with a reporter.”
Grant crossed the room and sank down into one of the leather chairs without being asked. He was short and balding, pushing forty, with a forgettable face. He worked for the Seattle tabloid that passed itself off as an independent press. In truth, the rag was nothing more than an excuse for poor journalism. Grant Pryor had joined their staff about five years ago and had decided that Nathan King was his ticket to the big time. He made it a point to cover Nathan’s doings, always putting a spin on them that made Nathan look like the devil trying to destroy the fair and innocent citizens of the Emerald City.
“I was at the charity event on Saturday,” Grant said. “Always a good time. I saw the lady you were with.” He consulted his notes. “Kerri Sullivan. Not your usual type.”
“Maybe I’m stepping up to the next level.”
“We all know that’s unlikely,” Grant said. He pulled a pen out of his inner jacket pocket. “So who is she? I mean, you can tell me now and save me the research. Not that I expect you to do me any favors.”
“Kerri and I are friends.”
“Bullshit. You, friends with a hairdresser from Songwood? No way.”
Grant had a point, but Nathan wasn’t going to concede it. “Have you ever stopped to consider that in all the years you’ve been doing stories on me, you’ve never found anything out of the ordinary? I’m just a businessman, Grant. Nothing more.”
Grant ignored that. “So what’s the deal with her? You’re workin’ something. I just have to figure out what it is.”
Nathan wished briefly for a legal system that made it easier to get a restraining order against the press. But as Grant hadn’t committed any crimes, Nathan was left with the pain in his ass and little he could do about it.
“No matter how hard you try,” he said, “you’ll never get into real journalism. Not now. You’ve been a hack for too long. The New York Times won’t come calling.”
“That depends on what you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
Grant stood and grinned. “That’s what they all say. But none of them are telling the truth. Neither are you, Nathan, and I’m going to find out what’s really going on.”
KERRI HUMMED as she dropped spoonfuls of chocolate-chip batter onto the baking sheet. She always tried to be a positive person, but these days it was actually easy. For once, everything was going well.
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