Chapter 11
The lady in the green dress at the ball gave me a strange sense of déjà vu. I didn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I thought about her.
The moments our palms touched, I sensed something unusual.
But I was sure I didn’t know any lady who looked so gorgeous and glamorous as her, she was really intriguing.
I tried to get her contact after the dance but I was interrupted, before I could glance up she was gone, as if she disappeared into thin air.
Soon morning came, by seven I had asked four people at the institute indirectly, the way I had learned to gather information without appearing to want it – whether they knew about the lady I had danced with yesterday but none of them did.
Jonathan found me in the corridor at half past eight with his expression arranged in the careful neutral he used when delivering news he expected me not to enjoy. “You have the meeting this morning,” he said. “With the research team.”
I had forgotten. The mate bond neurological trauma research – I had been tracking this project for months. Independently reviewed, independently verified, original methodology, the kind of work that appears once in a generation if the field is fortunate.
And Tracy’s condition was worsening in the worst way possible: the cognitive deterioration, the dysregulation, the progressive unraveling of someone who had once been precise and controlled and was now neither of those things.
I needed her in that trial, it was as simple as that. The institute’s leadership made the introduction in a small meeting room off the main corridor.
The man who stood to greet me was tall, with an easy quality to his posture that I catalogued automatically and assessed as non-threatening.
“Alpha Rivers,” he said. “Marlon West. Senior researcher, associate director.”
I shook his hand. “The project lead,” I said. “I was under the impression it was a woman.”
“Dr. Carter,” Marlon confirmed, without any shift in his expression. “She does keep to herself. She finds direct communication with external parties disruptive to her research process so I handle representation on her behalf.”
“Her agent,” I said.
“Her colleague,” he corrected, mildly. “If there’s anything you need from the project team, I’m the right person to come to.”
I sat as he sat. I had prepared for this meeting, which meant I knew the research.
I had read every published paper, every preliminary report, every peer review. I understood what this project was attempting and why it was significant and what the trial protocols required.
Marlon listened as I talked. When I was done, he was quiet for a moment. “You want to put Tracy Ceaser on trial,”
he said.
“I want to explore whether she qualifies,” I said. “And I want to make clear that the pack will provide whatever material support the project requires. Equipment, funding, space. Whatever would be useful.”
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Marlon looked at the table for a long moment and then back at me. “I’ll take it to Dr. Carter.”
“How long?”
“As long as she needs.” He said it without apology and without aggression. “She’s the principal investigator. It’s her decision.”
I had expected that, but I had not expected to find it as frustrating as I did, which was probably less about the project timeline and more about the fact that I had been awake since three in the morning thinking about a woman in a mask and was operating on the frayed patience of someone who has slept badly and knows it.
“Tell her,” I said, “that I’ve read the methodology. All of it. And that whatever she decides, I think what her team has built is extraordinary.”
Marlon looked at me as his expression did something I couldn’t quite read. “I’ll tell her,” he said.
I spent the afternoon in meetings, going through the motions of diplomacy while Storm moved restlessly through the back of my mind, pulling toward something I couldn’t identify.
He had been doing this since last night, since the waltz with the masked woman whose eyes behind the mask had been doing something complicated that I kept thinking about but couldn’t figure it out.
Jonathan met me outside the last meeting at six. “Anything useful from the morning?”
“The meeting was productive,” I said. “The agent is smart but I want to know more about Dr. Carter.”
Jonathan’s expression did something careful. “What kind of more?”
“Professionally,” I said. “She’s the one I need. If she decides this trial doesn’t suit her project objectives, that decision holds regardless of what I offer the institute. I want to understand how she thinks.”
“I can make inquiries.”
“Discreetly,” I said, which was redundant. Jonathan did everything discreetly, it was one of the things I valued about him- but I said it anyway.
I went back to my room. I stood at the window for a while, watching the institute’s lights, thinking about the waltz and the woman that still kept bugging my mind. Storm pressed against the front of my mind, heavy and intent.
What? I asked him.
He didn’t answer in words, so I turned away from the window.
In the morning I would follow up on the discussion, I would do the work I had come here to do. I would not stand at the windows thinking about those eyes behind the glasses.
Storm made a sound that was not agreement. I ignored him and went to bed, and stared at the ceiling for another two hours before sleep arrived, and when it did, I dreamed about a green dress moving away from me across a crowded floor.
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