Relentless Suspense

RELENTLESS SUSPENSE

A.J. SCUDIERE

Copyright © 2018 by AJ Scudiere

Griffyn Ink. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

Books by A.J.

A.J.’s Renegades

Resonance

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

The Shadow Constant

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

God’s Eye

Foreword

I. Pins

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

II. Haystack

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

III. Through The Eye

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Phoenix

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Dumb Blonde

Chapter 1

Twisted

Chapter 1

About the Author

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Look for other novels by A.J. Scudiere.

Available in bookstores, online, and at ReadAJS.com.

THE NIGHTSHADE FORENSIC FILES SERIES

Book 1 - Under Dark Skies

Book 2 - Fracture Five

Book 3 - The Atlas Defect

Book 4 - Echo and Ember

Book 5 - Salvage (A Shadow Files Novel)

Book 6 - Garden of Bone

Book 7 - The Camelot Gambit

Book 8 - Dead Tide

Book 9 - Sabotage (A Shadow Files Novel)

Book 10 - Vanishing Point

Book 11 - Beneath Memory

Book 12 - The Axis Legacy

Book 13 - Sacrifice

NightShade Vol 1

NightShade Vol 2

NightShade Vol 3

NightShade Complete Series

THE BLACK CARBON SERIES

Book 1 - The Hunted

Book 2 - The Surface

Book 3 - The Tempest

Book 4 - The Swarm

Book 5 - The Taken

Book 6 - The Night

Book 7 - The Edge

Black Carbon - Vol 1

THE HANGMAN’S SHADOW SERIES

Book 1 - Bad Name

Book 2 - In the Temple

FORTUNE

FORTUNE (Mia)

FORTUNE (Rafe)

FORTUNE (Mia & Rafe)

THE VENDETTA TRIFECTA

Vengeance

Retribution

Justice

Becoming (short story)

Inheritance (short story)

The Complete Vendetta Trifecta

STAND ALONE NOVELS

Resonance

Dissonance - a companion novella to Resonance

God's Eye

Phoenix

The Shadow Constant

The Landa Landa & The Aellai

Dumb Blonde (short story)

Twisted (short story)

Relentless Suspense Bundle: Resonance, God’s Eye, Phoenix, The Shadow Constant, Twisted, Dumb Blonde

A Collection of Blogs

Smart Chickens - Deliver Us From Email

Smart Chickens - We’re Not Like Other Families

Smart Chickens - Tele Me More

Smart Chickens - Omega Dog

Join A.J.’s Renegades here: www.ReadAJS.com

PRAISE FOR A.J. SCUDIERE

There are really just 2 types of readers—those who are fans of AJ Scudiere, and those who will be.

-Bill Salina, Reviewer, Amazon

For The Shadow Constant:

The Shadow Constant by A.J. Scudiere was one of those novels I got wrapped up in quickly and had a hard time putting down.

-Thomas Duff, Reviewer, Amazon

For Phoenix:

It's not a book you read and forget; this is a book you read and think about, again and again . . . everything that has happened in this book could be true.  That's why it sticks in your mind and keeps coming back for rethought.

-Jo Ann Hakola, The Book Faerie

For Eli

without whom none of this would have been possible

Human life is important only to humans

– author unknown

Man’s greatest triumphs stand no chance

against the whims of nature

– author unknown

PROLOGUE

Twelve years ago, airline pilots had to recalibrate their compasses. This was because the exact location of the magnetic poles had drifted, and it was a first in aviation history. Six years ago the poles had drifted even further, causing the need to again reset the compasses. They recalibrated again three years ago, then two, then one, and are currently realigning every three months.

Approximately 200 million years ago map north was magnetic south. But ten million years later, the poles switched places. They’ve traded again approximately every sixty million years, the last of which was sixty-five million years ago.

It is theorized that the dinosaurs achieved such great size due to the slightly larger magnetic field of their time. Today some living things - like homing pigeons and honeybees - are highly dependent on the earth’s field. Even those creatures that don’t seem to notice it are in jeopardy if it changes, since we don’t know how they use their internal magnetics, only that they have them.

Like us.

And the earth we are sitting on is five million years overdue . . .

CHAPTER ONE

Stupid paleontologists, he thought to himself. Didn’t know how to grid a dig properly. Morons .

What had he been thinking? Sharing a site with the dino boys? And now he had chunks of strata strapped to his waist, each meticulously labeled in the dino boys’ lazy scrawl. Each clearly mislabeled for direction or depth of find. They had acted like they understood the dip and the horizontal. But the markings were clearly honked up. Yet, some of the rocks looked right. Which was the ultimate insult. David couldn’t even count on them to be wrong.

Maybe they were fucking with him, he sighed into the deep night, that was a sincere possibility. There was nothing like envy laced with continual disagreement to drive a wedge of dislike between two people. Those two people being him and anyone else on the dig. Your choice, as it was pretty much unanimous.

The paleo guys were all out for drinks and a discussion of the day’s successes. There was that one big heap of bones, and oh yeah, that other big heap of bones, then there were the bone chips.

Using the winch and harness system they had set up, David lowered himself down the incline, tiptoeing and letting out line as he went. Not because he couldn’t have scrambled his way down - he could have, the slope was a just walkable 45 degrees - but, in order to go on foot, he would have to dig in with his toes to get purchase and the dig would have been forfeit. Couldn’t have that. At least he and the dino boys agreed on this one thing.

The other thing they had agreed to was not to hang out in the dig alone. That, of course, made sense. No one wanted to be the one left at the base of the site with a broken leg while everyone else ate lunch, or worse yet stayed out all night drinking. And no one wanted to be the one who mucked up the site, with no one around to say what went where.

But just because he had agreed to it didn’t mean that he agreed with it. And, well, if David was being honest, they had already ruined the site, what with all the mislabeling and everything. Therefore the only thing he was risking was his own night out under the big black sky with a few broken bones. So he slowly kept letting out the line, getting a little further down the slope each minute. He didn’t go too fast, for God’s sake he wasn’t stupid, and the pitch here was a bit on the sharp side.

His foot hit the first grid line. A thin white string wound round a short post hammered into the ground denoting the edge of the official dig area. David swore a few times under his breath, sure that he had scuffed a few loose pieces of rock into the dig. And that would earn him nothing but verbal and social hell come tomorrow morning. He decided to take it all a little more carefully. Besides now he was far enough down the backside of the slope that he wouldn’t be spotted. The camp was on the other side of the crest where it wouldn’t interfere with the dig, and no party-poopers making their way back early would see his beam as long as it was a small one. And that meant no bright headlamps. So he pulled the flashlight free, slipping it from the carabineer on his belt with a flick of his wrist.

Crap, he had shoved some pieces under the grid edge. Softly he stepped down and began flinging the loose gravel away. After five minutes at it he figured that he had covered his tracks well enough for a man who was probably going to get caught anyway and he decided to get down to brass tacks.

Pulling one zipper bag from its carabineer at his waist he tacked his line and used both hands to pull the rock from its baggie. Tilting his head, with the small Maglight firmly between his teeth, he read off the coordinates, then picked up the line. David let himself down a few more feet and high-stepped to the right about fifteen yards, watching carefully for the meter lines that ran the grid. They had originally been only a few inches off the surface, but as this dig had progressed they had altered the smooth plane to extremely uneven, leaving the ground anywhere from just a few inches to just over a foot below the grid lines. The perfect heights for getting an ankle tangled and then bashing into the slope of the dig. And, oh yeah, breaking said ankle and mucking up said dig while you did it.

He moved slowly and carefully, each footstep set methodically into the loose ground, so as not to grind or scour any of the precious soil or bone chips out of place. And lifted high with the same care. Right foot right, find footing, left foot follow, set down carefully.

It seemed to take an eternity to get to the other side of the fifteen yard grid to the labeled home of his rock. As he landed, finally, in his square, he tacked the guide line again, allowing his weight to sit back against the taut rope. With the light in one hand he held up the baby rock and turned it over.

It was sedimentary, full of fossilized organic matter and exactly what anyone would expect of a layer from this location. His eyes perused all of this, reading it the way you would read a newspaper, for the whole story and never one letter at a time.

This piece had clearly belonged to an ancient streambed. From what the dino boys were finding, the water had nourished a whole bunch of critters up until the very last moment. What caused that last moment was David’s job.

He liked the rocks, and it was natural to assume that he had gotten into this profession because of his father. The layers reminded him of his Dad a lot: cold, hard, and unreadable to all but the most trained of observers. David was an expert reader of both. Although, in his estimate, the rock was always easier to get a bead on at first and easier to get along with. Also, the rock always gave up the whole story eventually.

The streambed and the sediment was ABCs. What David was reading as he rotated his chunk of old earth and his flashlight was the tiny shiny chips in his piece. Now they were talking. And they said that the Paleo boys were retarded.

Shaking his head, he used the letter and number code on the tape to line the rock up with the direction and pitch it was supposed to have come from. Letting a little more slack into the line, he leaned down and placed the rock into the spot it supposedly called home for eons, until yesterday.

David’s head tilted. His Maglight circled, and he studied the lay of the strata in the bed and the rock. It looked a little too damn good. Not to mention the remaining side of the bed from which the piece he held had been chipped. The two sides fit together like a puzzle piece.

Shrugging, David slipped the rock back into its baggie and pulled the permanent marker from his back pocket. He checked the upper right side of the label and clipped it back to his pants just as his stomach let a loud growl. His head perked, just as it had when he was a boy afraid of getting caught. But no one appeared to have heard. Hell, no one appeared to be within fifty miles of the site.

Cursing silently to himself, he wondered why it would have been so hard to slip a piece of jerky into a pocket, or for god’s sakes, make a sandwich. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a belt full of zipper baggies already. But he didn’t have time to go back. He needed to check his pieces and not make more enemies on the dig than he already had.

So he pulled the next rock from its zipper pouch and carefully began making his way to another grid square. Lift foot, set foot, lift other foot, set foot.

Four hours later he hadn’t tripped at all, which was a miracle since he was silently swearing a blue streak. The dino boys hadn’t mislabeled a single rock, which only made him more furious. Hell, you couldn’t count on them for anything.

And if the rocks were all aligned right, then the rest was all aligned wrong. An eddy in the stream could explain one spot, maybe even a few, but not the consistency of the whole dig.

A bright light shone into his eyes, blinding him more easily than the dark of night ever had.

Hey, pretty boy! It was Greer. David had always figured that ‘pretty boy’ was the best Greer could come up with since he wasn’t one much inclined to the use of the more apt asshole. You done checking out our grid markings? You didn’t break any bones did you?!

No, Fuckwad, I didn’t. David held his hand up in front of his face. He was going to catch hell for this. He knew it now.

That’s too bad. Greer directed his five-billion megawatt stadium light at the ground and slowly David’s sight came back. He started climbing the slope cautiously and methodically, as Greer taunted him all the way. Well, seems we disappointed you didn’t we? You thought we had mislabeled all your stones.

They’re not stones. David growled as he climbed.

"Too bad. Now you’re going to have to do some real geology work. Not just come out and wave your hand like you always do and spout off what’s just so obvious that the rest of us must be blind."

Congratulations, Greer. You are right on so many counts. My rocks were in fact labeled correctly-

How many of them? Greer taunted.

"All of them."

Uh huh.

And I do in fact have little bit of work to do when I get back to the tent- He stopped climbing.

Greer spotlighted him again. It would have blinded him, but he wasn’t looking in front of him, just staring into the space ahead. If it meant what he thought it meant. . . well, . . .

What is it David?

I want everyone off the site tomorrow. Just you and me. I need to check all other possibilities.

Everyone off the dig tomorrow!? Jesus, David, do you know what you’re asking? Is your Daddy gonna pay our salaries?

No, but the royalties off my paper will. Dammit, Greer, clear the site tomorrow.

If it was what he thought it was . . . well, he might just prove that the David Carter II geology center had been worth its money.

God, what was it that made her feel like such a fool? All that school, all that ‘prestige’, and yet she stood there like a moron. Eyes wide, ‘yes’ ‘yes’ monosyllabic answers to each question. The horrible, lost feeling of being in an unfamiliar institution.

So you two are the new peons.

Jillian nodded. Yes. There it was again. The idiocy.

The guy beside her - Jared? Jeff? Jacob? - was cool and only raised his eyebrows to the question.

Dr. Landerly was hunched over his desk and had whitish hair that stuck out in about fifty different directions and looked as though it hadn’t made friends with a brush in a lifetime or so. He had male pattern balding and probably arthritis, judging by the way he held his pen. Whether he didn’t look at them because of pain or out of sheer rudeness was anybody’s guess. You two turned in all your documentation and fingerprinting crap down in HR?

Jake ? flicked the new badges hanging from their pristine white jackets, Yup, hence the ten a.m. arrival.

Ready for the tour?

At the sound of yet another one word answer, he finally looked up at them. For a moment he simply looked them both up and down, taking their measure. Jillian did the first proactive deed of her day and sized him up too. Landerly’s face reminded her of a grandfather, not her own, but that old man look, crossed with a little mad scientist. With his focus turned on them, she felt the same intensity that the papers he was marking on must have felt just minutes before. She was surprised the pages hadn’t burst into flame before she and what’s-his-name walked in and pulled a little of the good doctor’s attention from them.

Well, you must be Jillian Brookwood, and you must be Jordan Abellard.

Jordan! That was it.

Landerly tapped his forehead, Deductive reasoning. And despite the insanely poor joke, she began to like him.

He simply turned and began walking down the hallway, talking as he went and expecting them to keep pace behind them. He never checked. This is your office. He pointed to his left into an open door and what could only be called a large cubby. He was already walking away. Jillian had to nearly run to catch up with him, already midsentence.

- that whole half of the building is I.D. That part you’ll only go in on an ‘as needed’ basis. Which basically means never. Unless you get promoted, or we decide we don’t need you or don’t like you but can’t think of a better way to get rid of you.

For the first time Jordan turned to her, his eyebrows raised until she shrugged in return. Dr. Landerly’s voice trailed off as her focus slipped to the signs on the wall. Every etched plate had the tiny inscription on the top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But Landerly was old-school and still referred to it as the CDC.

Not ten minutes later Jillian realized that they had walked a short circle, and Jordan wasn’t missing that fact either. That’s it?

Sure. Landerly fixed them with another stare. If you want to see the Infectious Disease side, you can go get your own tour. I told you, you’re peons.

I’m a- Jordan stopped himself. We’re physicians.

Yes, and you’re underlings. And you’re at the CDC. On my team you’ll be spending a lot of time drawing blood and writing reports.

Which, Jillian admitted, had been exactly the job description. So she wasn’t sure where Jordan got off being upset. In truth, it had been just that part of the work that had made her apply. She had spent all that time and money on medical school, only to find out that she hated the endless churn of minor complaints that flowed through a doctor’s office. This job had been her proof that she hadn’t chosen the wrong profession.

Landerly had disappeared back into his office, and by craning her neck she could see him scrubbing through the most disorganized desk ever. But he held out two identical key chains and spoke again. Keys to your office and your lab next door. Go check it out then get cracking, you’ve already got three cases sitting on your desk.

There was no other dismissal, no wish of good luck or welcome, just the turn of his shoulder and the intensity of his focus directed elsewhere. The two of them no longer existed to him.

Turning, they silently followed Landerly’s instruction walking two doors down to the plaque that read G-1763 Lab 13, Landerly.

Hi. Jordan’s voice filled the empty space around a young man with inky hair who stood at the basic black lab island dialing the micropipette to a new measure.

Oh, Hi. You two must be the new docs. I’m your tech. For a brief moment he held out a gloved hand before realizing what he was doing and withdrawing the offer. I’m Mark. I’m prepping slides for Landerly right now, but let me know what you need. My desk is in the back. He pointed to the corner, to a table piled with skewed stacks of loose papers and file folders of various colors.

Nice to meet you. Jordan pulled back out of the doorway and wound up leading her back to their office, where they spent four minutes choosing which side of the large desk they each wanted, then another hour exploring the file cabinet they shared, and finding out what the previous occupants had left for them. Which turned out to be an odd mix of pens, pencils, microtesttubes and pipette tips, and one stick of mint chewing gum.

After a half-hour of hardly speaking she finished up organizing her drawers and labeling her hanging files, only to look up and find Jordan watching her from across the desk. It’s two-thirty, are you hungry?

She nodded. But he spoke again before she could get in a word edgewise. You find the cafeteria and I’ll treat.

She would have rather paid, but she held her tongue. She could do this, right? On the ‘tour’ Landerly had pointed down one corridor and mentioned food and vending machines. With a deep breath she marched off in the general direction they had started, and faked it to the best of her ability.

Two corridors later she could smell that she had found the right one. Then, after they ordered, she completely disoriented them on the way back. After they got situated and endured a few minutes of silent chewing, Jordan leaned forward. Since we get to stare at each other until one of us goes insane or gets promoted, why don’t we get started with the usual stupid questions?

She almost smiled. Almost. The usual ones?

Like ‘Where are you from?’ He leaned back and Jillian barely covered her gasp at realizing the vast majority of his lunch had already been reduced to empty wrappers. I’m from Lake James, North Dakota. Where it’s colder than a w-. . . well just about anything, and there’s really a lot more bible thumping and militia than you might guess. College and med school at UCLA. Your turn.

Emory Med, but I grew up in Chattanooga. Same town through undergrad. She smiled from behind her limp cheeseburger. Favorite fast food? Mine is Chick-Fil-A nuggets.

What’s Chick Fillay?

Ahhh, I’ll take you tomorrow.

Jordan shrugged. Favorite burger is Jack in the Box Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger.

Jack in the Box? She supposed that’s what happened when you met someone from the opposite end of the country.

Ahhh, good, cheap food. College student fare. Too bad I can’t return the Chick Fillay favor. Jack-in-the-Box is only out west.

Satisfied that she had the basics, Jillian figured it was time to start earning her keep. We should get to work on these cases.

Can I just guess now? Botulism, gas leak, and Salmonella.

Really? She put her hand to her hip. I would have had you pegged for a ‘secret government weapons being tested on our own people’ type.

Nah, I’m a realist. He picked up the folder and started through it, while she made a thinking noise. He laughed. Do you realize that you even ‘hmmm’ with a southern accent?

She nodded. Can’t be helped.

Jordan was pissed. The cases in their box this morning had turned out to be botulism, botulism and botulism. One, he was mad that his guess was wrong. Two, he had skipped the invite to UCLA’s PhD program to come here and do research as a physician, even though he would only occasionally be putting the vast majority of his med school skills to work. He had thought that this would be more exciting than telling mothers that their kiddies had ear infections or strep throat. Three, they hadn’t even had to leave their desks to figure the damn thing out. Four, Miss Jillian had turned out to be anal retentive. Although ‘turned out’ was being generous. She had looked the part from moment one.

Aaaaaaaack. Where was the next AIDS when your life needed a spark? Miss Jillian was sitting across from him diligently making notes in the two files that she held while he scanned the new one that had turned up in their inbox this morning. Jillian gave him a dirty look that he wasn’t helping her write reports, and it occurred to him that Landerly had done this on purpose. Jordan was to be the forward thinker, the one who would make those reasoning leaps, and Jillian was the workhorse.

Her nose wrinkled and she brushed her hair back again. Not that it accomplished anything other than her getting to move her arm. The hank of hair fell right back over her shoulder. The phone buzzed, startling him about three feet into the air, and he was already trying to cover that fact before he was even back down. Landerly wants us.

Jillian stared a brief moment through not entirely open eyes. That was so not smooth. But she followed him next door and graciously didn’t mention it again.

Landerly stood as they entered the office, his attention a physical sensation as it turned from the phone to the two of them. This is why I created you guys.

Like God? Jillian’s voice was dry and Jordan wasn’t sure if she was kidding or what. But Landerly was, and he laughed a good guffaw and responded with Maybe a demigod, before continuing.

So Jillian was already his favorite. How could two people on this earth have that same sense of humor?

The older man held up a file before speaking. I’ve got a little girl in Deltona, Florida with a spider bite reaction that the local docs say doesn’t look like your basic anaphylactic shock. They think the spider has some new venom or maybe is a vector carrying something else. She’s all yours. He handed the file to Jillian just as Jordan decided that there wasn’t anything he could do about it. And maybe he hadn’t been hired to be the brilliant theorist. Which of course meant he would have to get his butt in gear and do some work.

Anne in reception will have your schedule. You need to leave this evening to see the reaction and do anything before it gets worse. And like turning off the light, his focus was off them and they were expected to find their own way out.

By now Jordan knew his way around and he certainly knew Anne. She was the adorable blonde in reception, and he had made those thoughts clear to her this morning. Anne handed each of them an itinerary, but it was Jordan her eyes remained on. Not that he was going to dip his pen in the company ink, but there was a certain warmth in knowing the ink was receptive to being dipped. Jillian was walking away before he realized it and he smiled good-bye to Anne before turning to follow his cubby-mate down the hall.

At their desk, Jillian turned and stared at him, leaving him ready for some scathing remark about his behavior, but instead, with no preamble, she asked about Landerly. Do you think he’s just too old to go off gallivanting around the country? Why do you think he set up his team of two here? Why us?

Jordan had no good answers and he told her so. But he did offer to make up for getting lost on the way to lunch yesterday and asked where he could find this Chick Fillay. We have time to do fast food, right?

And the fast part is the part you seem to be having trouble with. She didn’t look up and he couldn’t decipher the dryness in her tone. He had heard it several times now and he truly wasn’t sure what to make of it. That scared the crap out of him. And given that they were on their way out the door for a company road trip, and since she was a co-worker, he figured he’d better find his footing right away.

Are you mad at me because I got us lost yesterday? Or for something else? Her face was unreadable. Well, he thought it was. She just looked a little confused and maybe perturbed.

No, I’m not angry. After tilting her head to the side for a moment, she nodded. You’re worried that I’m one of those ‘my feelings are hurt’ girls. Well, I’m not.

Then why no fast food? She was still looking at him and Jordan figured that was the best way to read the book, when it was open. But Miss Jillian seemed to be written in a foreign language, one he only understood random phrases of.

Her words were slow and methodical. Because I want to have time to pack. And because you got lost the last time the directions were ‘three miles then turn right.’ I just don’t have time. Before she even finished the sentence, her purse was over her shoulder and she was heading out the door, See you at the airport.

He was still looking confused when he heard her footsteps change directions and saw her head reappear in the open doorway. Should I pick you up?

Again she read his expression before he got his words together. We’ll both get there, and only one parking charge.

I can drive.

She nodded. So can I. And I know my way around. If you want to contribute you can pay the parking fees.

They’re reimbursed. So that wasn’t much of a contribution at all.

I know. I just hate expense reports. She disappeared beyond the opening and this time didn’t come back even as he muttered to himself.

And here I thought you loved paperwork.

In a few minutes he had cleared his thoughts and headed home. It took him a while to locate things from the boxes. Jordan had lived here all of one-half a day longer than he had been working at the CDCP, and it showed. He found his only two suits - one still in the dry-cleaning bag. Scrounged up socks, without holes. Underwear, also without holes. Then went in search of his hanging bag. This, of course, was pristine. It had been used once, for his interview here.

He pushed that thought aside and turned back to his packing. There was no way of knowing how long they would be there. He had to plan for the possibility of a full week, so he stuffed all the spare pockets and pouches with extra clothes and, in a glimpse of reason, all seven of the ties he owned. After staring at the bag and waiting for it to tell him what else to pack, he finally realized that it would say no such thing, and so he threw in a few pairs of khakis for good measure.

The last step was to change himself. Jeans, tee, a sweatshirt, and an old pair of sneakers seemed the best bet for flying. They’d go see the little girl after they got settled in a bit, right? He decided to believe what he wanted and pulled the sweatshirt over his head, just as his stomach grumbled and the doorbell made the horrid high-pitched noise that the manager had called a chime.

Coming! Jordan crossed the short distance from the very back to the very front of the apartment and pulled the door open. Hi.

Hey! Jillian walked through the open doorway and past his open mouth. I think you actually have a bigger place than me. You ready?

Yes. Getting his bags took less than half a minute; his thoughts would take a little longer to gather. What was up with Jillian? She looked all of nineteen in her jeans and small white t-shirt, what with her dark hair pulled back in that ponytail. If she was in the airplane seat next to him, people would think he was a dirty older man.

But none of it even registered in her expression as he grabbed his luggage and trailed her down the stairs and out to the eerily quiet street. She simply popped the trunk of her little white car open and let him throw his bag on top of the two she had stacked back there.

What is this?

Rav-Four. She slid in behind the wheel, no longer Miss Jillian of the CDCP, but a complete stranger. It has its quirks, but it’s reliable and, one day, when I get a dog, she’ll go in the back.

She laughed most of the way to airport, navigating into long-term parking with ease. Her matching carryon was slung over her shoulder and she wheeled her hanger bag behind her, never fussing at the long wait at security. And when the plane took off from the runway at Atlanta International she was already asleep in the seat beside him.

Becky sat knee deep in shallow, muddy stream water, her long bangs falling into her eyes. Melanie wasn’t listening to her, Brandon had wandered off somewhere, and her mother was going to be mad. She was wet, a little on the cold side, and she was the only one who hadn’t caught anything yet. She raised a hand to push her hair out of her face, not remembering until she felt the cold that her hand had just been in stream water that was not clear. Oh well, the muck would help plaster her hair out of her eyes.

For a moment she gathered her breath, then she yelled, Brandon! Mom’s gonna be angry if you don’t stay with me. Get back here! But Becky didn’t wait for him to show up. He would, and so she turned back to searching the running water for the small frogs she wanted. One jumped in front of her container and with a quick movement she completely missed it.

With a deep sigh she lifted her head up, and let out another long yell. Brandon!

"I’m right here, Becky." He shook his head as he looked down on her, holding the bottom of his shirt in front of him making a scoop in which he piled all the containers he had filled with one frog each. Just like she had asked.

And to think biology had seemed like such a great field to go into. She had her doctorate, and yet her little brother and sister put her to shame at ‘obtaining specimens’. The only consolation she had was that Brandon and Melanie had also seriously shown up every other biologist and assistant she had brought out for the job.

Becky, look.

Yeah, you did great.

No, He scooted closer. She knew that he would have grabbed her arm. He had tried, but his lightning reflexes had him straightening the tumbling containers before they got too far. Pick up that top one, he’s the biggest.

With a smile of pride on her face, she held the clear Tupper up over her head and let the light shine through on a good size rana. One of the larger ones caught here, but certainly not the largest. He is pretty big. You holding out for more money?

"Becky! I thought you were smart. Look at him! He’s got four legs, you retard!"

Melanie also looked up at the underside of the container, although what she could see from about three feet away was anyone’s guess. Frogs all have four legs, retard.

Becky shifted to give both of them dirty looks about the name calling, but left it at that, knowing full well she couldn’t win.

Brandon rolled his eyes with all the meaning a ten year old could muster. "Four back legs."

Huh? Becky held the Tupper aloft again, this time higher to catch rays from a break in the tree cover. Frowning, she looked him over, and she didn’t see it until he jumped: four hind legs, two per side, coming out of the hip flexor joint. Holy crap! She shook the plastic container a bit. Yup, all functional. Okay, I’ll give you two bucks for him.

Brandon still clutched the edge of his shirt holding the ten containers stacked precariously in there, but his expression said that he wasn’t moved by the two dollar offer. They’re all that way.

What? She reached down and pulled another container from his clutch. Holding it high she gave it a slight wiggle and watched the small frog try to rebalance itself. Four hind legs. All functional.

She quickly set it down and grabbed for two more. Both had a second pair of jumper legs. In under a minute her breathing had sped up and she had ascertained that Brandon was correct.

But that would be wrong. Very wrong. With her brows pulled together, she went over to check the row of tuppers that the kids had caught here. It had been hard to see those spare legs at first. Maybe they just hadn’t noticed. But her little sister was a sharp one, and she’d already checked the locals out. They’re all normal.

So, Brandon, there were . . . she counted, eight six-legged frogs where you were? And you caught them all? He was a good catcher. Once he spotted it the frog didn’t stand a chance.

No, they were all like that. At least I think they all were. Almost. There are more. I just ran out of lexans.

Where!?

Brandon took off with Becky right behind him, Melanie would catch up, she knew. The trail was well-worn and well-known from her own childhood days, and they bounded down it, anticipating every fallen tree and protruding rock. She just kept running after Brandon, never having heard of anyone finding a full clutch of six-legged frogs before. A tree branch, that Brandon had held out for himself, came slapping back at her, but even without her conscious thought, her hand was there to catch it.

Six legs occurred in nature, and didn’t kill the frog most of the time. Usually they were slow and so predators got them. But it was a growth mutation, not a genetic one. It also usually resulted in just one spare leg, a five-legged frog. These all had six. So how would you get a whole clutch of them? Unless something was wrong with the site . . .

There was a nuclear reactor program a little west of here: Oak Ridge, where they had built the A-bomb. There were always stories of Melton Lake Dam being shut down for mercury levels being too high. But this?

They had run a long way before Brandon finally stopped. He pointed to a section of the stream. There was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary to the human eye. Even the trained human eye. I caught them all here.

Becky slowly walked to the stream edge then kept going right in, her shoes were already caked in mud and silt and of absolutely no concern to her. So would you say about a third of them were that way? Maybe a tenth?

Brandon shook his head, "No, I’m telling you they all are."

Slowly she squatted down, getting a good focus through the running water. There were frogs here, lots of them, but with the movement and the refraction, those back legs were hard to distinguish. Hell, they’d been hard to spot at first in the lexans. Shit! She had run to the site with no tuppers!

Becky swore at herself a little more, then went back to peering through the water. But it wasn’t helping. She needed to see these guys up close. Looking back at Brandon she asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar-question, Do you think you could catch one bare handed?

Small deep breaths came from just behind her, Melanie had caught up to them. You . . . . don’t . . . . . . have . . . . . to.

Becky turned to find her baby sister, leaned over, huffing for oxygen, but in Melanie’s outstretched hand was a tall stack of tuppers, with all the lids shoved down in the top one.

Becky shrieked. You are a genius!

I . . . . know. Job done, Melanie sat back to watch Brandon get frogs and Becky try.

Becky held each new catch aloft, the fifth came up with normal legs, prompting a question. Brandon, how many normal frogs did you throw back?

Two.

"Just two?"

He nodded.

The sun was setting by the time Melanie arrived from her return trip to get the wheel barrow. As Becky had ordered, each of the frogs from the other site bore a scrap of masking tape across the lid. And all the lids bore a single digit - the number of legs on the contained frog. There were so many 6’s that Becky had to look again. Each time she thought the numbers must be off. But they weren’t. She stacked the five four-legged frogs from this site in one spot, thinking they would be as useful as all the sixes. Why hadn’t they changed, too? And how did their numbers get to be only one out of ten?

Becky was frantically writing on the scratch pad she had brought along in case any question popped into her mind. She was beginning to think that today the fifty sheets the pad claimed to have weren’t going to be enough.

She just couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary. It was your standard East Tennessee summer day by all measurable counts. So what was up with the frogs?

Eventually she had to give up. She had no barometer, no litmus paper, and no Geiger counter, so there wasn’t much more she could measure, even if she wanted to. The Geiger counter gave her pause. What if there was some sort of radiation leak? If the government had buried some sort of waste here? Wasn’t it possible? There were always news stories about plutonium being flown in and out of the labs. Could it have gotten here? And had she exposed her brother and sister to it, for . . . she checked her watch . . . four hours? God, her lack of protocol had been horrible.

CHAPTER TWO

Jillian closed the door behind her. No longer ‘Miss Jillian’ in his mind. My God, she was a little chameleon. In the airport she had looked like a kid, ponytail and all. And less than fifteen minutes after they had arrived she knocked on his hotel door, business professional from head to toe. In a deep teal suit that looked like it had been cut just for her and brought out her eyes. He hadn’t realized there was so much green in them.

She had, of course, immediately told him to quit staring, that yes, she did in fact own several suits and he needed to get it together. Jordan had never had a woman beat him at getting ready before. And certainly not look so good doing it.

She had thrown her lab coat over her arm then peeled off her jacket just like he had in the stifling Florida humidity. He had sweated buckets just on the drive over. She had looked cool, I’m from the south, remember? All he could do was swear to slap anyone from LA who ever bitched about the ‘humidity’ again. And ask God’s forgiveness for all the times he had done it himself.

He pulled his jacket back on to cover his sweat stains as they entered the hospital flashing their CDCP credentials. Jillian clearly actually owned some of the adult faculties he was pretending to. Everyone spoke to Jillian, wanted her opinion first. She was smart, confident, and on top of it. A million miles from the woman who would pour over paperwork, pulled her hair back in a barrette, and had that weird flat sense of humor. It almost pissed him off.

It also lent a lot of credence to his new hypothesis that he wasn’t the brilliant theorist. And if that were the case, why was he here? He’d made his own diagnosis. But Jillian had given the same one, and they had all asked her first.

She followed him out of the little girl’s room to confer in the hallway. What did you think?

He shrugged out of his lab coat. Same as you.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? West Nile with anaphylactic shock caused by the spider bite.

So we’re here for another two days at least.

Why? She looked perplexed and he had the feeling he was about to be shown up again. It didn’t sit well.

Because you can’t tell West Nile from Yellow Fever or Dengue Fever without a viral analysis or waiting out the symptoms. By his count, two days was the least amount of time they might need to see the distinction. He waited for her to tell him all about the new reasons he was wrong.

But she didn’t. What’s the difference?

You don’t know? He was shocked.

She shook her head, her expression suddenly clearly belonging to the girl who had inhabited the other side of the desk from him. It just pissed him off. I hate you, you know. You walk in there, all confidence and knowing all the answers then only confess out here that you don’t.

Her head tilted, and she smiled, No one wants to believe that it isn’t an exact science. And that family has had doctors telling them that they have no idea what it was and that they called in the experts. That’s us, Starsky.

He sunk into one of the doctor’s lounge chairs. It was unfamiliar, but so much like every other hospital’s lounges. The way I’m feeling I think we should go by Bonnie and Clyde.

She laughed, lightening the load on his shoulders. Nah, Bonnie and Clyde actually knew what they were doing.

Yes, Mom I’m home. Jillian had the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear while she folded her clothes.

How are you feeling?

Like crap, Mom. I just walked in the door twenty minutes ago. And, well trained girl that she was, she was already putting her clothing away. And calling her Mother.

So now you’ve been with this job, like, a week? And you haven’t had a day off, what are these people doing to you? Jillian heard the slight intake of breath and she knew what was coming. I just don’t see why you couldn’t have gone into private practice. . . why you didn’t-

Mom. The sigh behind her own voice was deeper and well worn. I never deluded you about wanting a private practice. I never intended to come back to Signal Mountain and check ears and throats for a living. I don’t have the touch for that. Nor the desire.

Nor was her mother getting the everyday prestige from having her little girl go off to Emory for medicine and come back to help serve the community. But her mother’s high hopes had been just that. And they belonged entirely to her mother. So, as far as Jillian was concerned, her mother could figure out what to do with them.

So you enjoy traveling all over the place with no days off?

Mom, I have days off. Then, just to be a little facetious she added, You know, saving the world doesn’t happen on a nine to five schedule.

That managed to shut her up for all of the three seconds it took her to shift gears. So are you meeting any nice doctors?

Her shoulders ached. Slowly rolling the one that wasn’t cramped up under the phone, she gave the same answer she had been giving for two years, since the end of her last major relationship. No, mom, they’re all assholes.

There it was, the expected intake of breath, but she spoke again before her mother could criticize her language. But I did meet a really nice janitor, and he wants to take me out on Thursday- Oh Mom! That’s the other line! Maybe it’s him. I’ll call you next week! I love you!

She barely waited for the resulting I love you, too. Before hanging up the phone and tossing it on the dresser. God hang her for using her mother’s prejudices against her, but . . . she just couldn’t put up with it any more.

The bed beckoned. She was tired of being good, tired of putting her clothes away, tired of explaining her life choices to her family. In Chattanooga, smart girls married men with money. Even in this day and age. She knew three girls who attended one semester of freshmen year, just to say they did it, before they went off and married their much older boyfriends. Jillian had wanted her own career, and her own life, and apparently you couldn’t have both.

She flopped back onto the comforter - tomorrow she had to go into the office and they had to write a report on the spider bite, and then there were four glorious days off until Monday again.

She had been in the apartment for all of two and a half weeks, and since starting her job she estimated that she had been here maybe twenty-four hours total, including sleep time. Shaking her head, Jillian decided to pass out.

After half an hour of staring at the ceiling while her thoughts ran rampant with her, she finally accomplished her goal.

This is silly, Rebecca.

Ooooh, Dr. Warden had downshifted to ‘patronizing’. As her boss, his only real function seemed to be the monitoring of anything he deemed to be under his control - which included employees, discoveries, and even paperclips. Becky just knew she wouldn’t last three minutes without actually hitting him.

Taking one deep solid breath, she nodded. All right. I understand. My resignation will be on your desk in fifteen minutes.

Rebecca, where would you go? You can’t just resign.

She faked a startled look. My parents live down the street. And I’m sitting on a huge discovery that will pay off in a little while. I’ll be fine, but thank you for worrying about me.

Turning, she began to walk out of the office. His voice caught up to her quickly. That’s my paper. Those frogs are university property.

But she was done. She squared up to face him, as he towered over her tall frame, making her feel small, but she knew she was in the right. No, it’s not your paper.

He started to talk but she held up her hand. Just because three of those frogs are sitting in my office, doesn’t make them university property. I would point out that my purse also sits in my office. Most of those frogs are still at my home. Sitting under a lamp I bought. They were caught in Tuppers that I purchased with my own money, I have a receipt. She grinned, then continued, even as she talked this was getting better. They were caught by my siblings, on land owned by my parents, and since you haven’t anted up a penny for them yet, I’d say you would be pretty hard pressed to prove that I don’t own-

He interrupted, as she knew he would. In your contract with the university it says that all related discoveries-

She laughed; God, her day was getting better. She had come for a reward for her brother and sister, and when he’d childishly refused, she’d upped the stakes. And now she was going to walk out with a paper. "Doctor Warden, your contract might stipulate that, but mine doesn’t. I crossed those lines out, on the advice of my brother. Harvard Law, ninety-eight."

Warden paled, and it was all she could do not to dance a little jig right there in the second floor J hall of the Reynolds building. She forced a smile and continued. You can sign reward checks for my brother and sister, and my paper will have your name on it. Or I’ll go draft my resignation, effective immediately, and you can explain to the higher-ups why this doesn’t say ‘University of Tennessee’ all over it.

He didn’t say anything. Just turned and went back to his office.

Becky tried to keep her voice light. I’ll be back for those checks in an hour.

But- He didn’t finish and she just smiled.

It was down the corridor, around a corner and through another lab that her office sat. Definitively out of the way. She went in and started writing up the findings, but after starting with the date, time, and location she realized that she couldn’t do anything. Not anything. Not until Warden put it in writing that the paper belonged to her and anyone else who she chose to have on it.

If she used university equipment or wrote up anything, the frogs and the paper could legally become property of the UT Biodiversity office. And, since finding new and unusual species and behavior was what the Biodiversity team did, she would be hard pressed to prove it was a personal project. So, for the moment at least, her hands were tied.

The ranas stared at her from their Tuppers lined up on her shelf. Three of them. All in a row, all looking right at her, their little throats bobbing as though with their breathing. One big, one little, one medium. There was nothing extraordinary about any of the three, other than the obvious extra legs.

Becky was suddenly extremely grateful to Aaron. That he had chosen law school and in his own arrogant way had decided that no man was complete without some knowledge of the law. He said she’d be grateful when she was in her first car accident or bought her first house. Neither of those things had happened yet. But she sent up a silent thank you as she sat there.

She was also grateful for her own error, remembering how frustrated she had been, making an extra trip to the restaurant supply store for the lexans she had forgotten to bring home with her. It was all lining up. If she jumped ship she wouldn’t regret it. And if she got fired. . . well, she really still wouldn’t.

She filled her time reading emails, and doodling, and finally gathered the lexans into her arms. The water sloshed as she walked, the frogs trying to stay motionless out of fear, but constantly having to squirm to correct their balance.

Warden looked up as she entered. You’re leaving?

Yes.

I have your checks. But he didn’t hand them over.

If she was fired, it would be worth it just to spend this minute watching the prick squirm.

Do you have your resignation? He eyed her, and leaned forward but didn’t ask again.

No. Not if I get my checks now and tomorrow morning I have it in writing that the paper is mine and mine alone. She took the checks and balanced the frogs in one arm while reaching into her pocket to pull out a sticky note. Here’s my home phone number so you can call me and tell me when it’s ready. Already knowing he wouldn’t take it, she stuck it on the nearest bookshelf.

Against the ropes, he nodded, swallowed a bit, then reached out. Mind if I take a look?

Just before his mealy hand closed on one of the Tuppers she turned away. Yes, I do. These are still my frogs.

It was two city blocks to the parking garage then up two floors, and all the way to the back. And this was privileged parking. She was only allowed here as an employee. Students had to park even further away. Her jacket was cloying and constricting, but she wouldn’t set down the frogs. They were her future right now. And something was very wrong with them.

Her folks’ home was a ways out in the county, it was the only way they could have all that land. It just wasn’t as far out as it had been when she was small. Several of the neighbors had parceled large properties and housing developments now stood where nearby farms and fields had been.

She followed the local school bus the last few turns to her home and met Melanie and Brandon as they leapt down to the gravel roadside. No one believes we caught six-legged frogs! The wail was that of a plaintive seven-year-old who was about an inch from a seriously good pout.

But that telling everyone part made her nervous. Becky scooped up her little sister and asked Brandon to grab the Tuppers out of the front seat. Let’s not tell people just yet. They’ll believe you when they see your picture in the paper, even if it doesn’t happen for a while.

Melanie consented, and after a slow evening her father showed up and her mother took advantage of adult company, pouring them three glasses of wine from the box in the fridge, if it could be called ‘pouring’. But it wasn’t bad, and partway through nursing her drink and contemplating how she had destroyed her future and was now the proud owner of forty-three frogs she couldn’t investigate any further than a good once-over, Brandon called up from the basement.

Becky, your frogs are all staring at me! They’re weird!

Her mother yelled back, but didn’t move an iota. Of course they are, they’ve got six legs for chrissakes!

Becky, can we rotate them?! Melanie wanted to torment the frogs, and Becky wished she hadn’t started those early biology lessons with her little sister. The girl was too bright - it would be great if she forgot something just once in a while.

No!

"But