Jessica Andersen - Under the Microscope

Ike sneered. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

But Raine shook her head. “No, I don’t. What I can do is tell you that I’m not interested in him that way anymore.” Or rather, she was determined not to be. “I don’t want a man who puts women on pedestals and wants to keep them there.”

That got Ike’s full attention. “He told you about his DIDS?”

“His what?”

“Damsel In Distress Syndrome. That’s what we called it back at Boston General. Max has a near pathological need to save women, and isn’t attracted to normal, healthy females who don’t need saving.” Ike shrugged. “He was losing interest in Charlotte even before she took off. Once she didn’t need him anymore, she just wasn’t that much fun for him anymore. He needs to be needed.”

Though Ike’s words confirmed Raine’s instincts, they stung her a little with the knowledge that she couldn’t win. If Max was attracted to her, that meant he still saw her as a victim. If she were able to prove her strength to him, he’d lose interest. She was better off staying far away.

Too bad she couldn’t convince her libido of that. Her dreams. Hell, even her waking fantasies had begun to star Max Vasek in lurid hi-def color.

Trying to make a measure of peace with her un wanted roommate, Raine said, “Look, I didn’t handle it well-I won’t argue that. But it doesn’t make me responsible for Max’s choices after he left.”

“You are in my book.”

Raine stared down at her hands. “I knew how I felt-confused and scared and needing some time alone to figure it all out. But I didn’t know how he felt. How could I? It’s not like he came looking for me after I left.”

A small, sad part of her had hoped he would, even as the larger part of her had known they were better off apart. She hadn’t been good for herself for the half year following the miscarriage. She wouldn’t have been good for him.

Ike’s eyes glinted. “I tracked you down about a month later and gave him your address in New Bridge.”

Raine froze, remembering the crummy apartment in a slightly less crummy neighborhood, where she’d hit rock bottom and started the climb back to functionality. “He saw me there?”

“I don’t know.” Ike returned her attention to the computer as though she’d made her point. “You should ask him yourself.”

“I will,” Raine said. I shouldn’t, she thought. It was too late to go back there.

Wasn’t it?

“I’m going to take that shower now,” she said to nobody in particular, mind reeling. Max had known how to find her. Instead, he’d ended up with someone named Charlotte, who’d left him with an empty apartment.

And though Raine told herself that Charlotte wasn’t her fault, guilt beat at her as she undressed and climbed into the shower. Remorse drummed through her as the water sluiced away the grime of the day.

And a wish to go back and do things differently hammered inside her as the tears began to fall.

MAX WAITED ON THE CONNECTICUT Interstate 84 overpass, hoping Charlie would show, hoping this wasn’t some sort of runaround.

It was odd that his informant wanted to meet so far from their normal places, but then again, Charlie was a strange guy. He pulled down a hefty six figures as an attorney in downtown Boston, yet he sold information on the side for a few hundred a pop, and made his clients visit out-of-the-way places and use dumb passwords.

“Weird-ass James Bond wannabe,” Max muttered under his breath. “Couldn’t have picked someplace warmer, could you?” He turned up his coat collar and shivered in the rising wind. Below him, the occasional car zipped by, going from white high beams to red taillights.

He’d been there twenty minutes and he had yet to see another car besides his own on the overpass road.

“I swear, Charlie, if you blow me off, I’ll-”

“No need for threats, Vasek. I’m here.” Charles Lavone appeared out of the shadows, wearing dark colors that blended into the night. His salt-and-pepper hair was hidden beneath a black skullcap, and he wore tight black gloves on his hands.

For a crazy moment, Max thought the nutty son of a gun had climbed up from the road below. Then the other man swung a leg over, and Max realized he’d ridden in on some sort of motorcycle-black of course, running without lights and so quiet the engine noise was lost beneath that of the passing cars.

“You’re late.” Max shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. On the right side, he felt the comforting weight of his old revolver, which he’d brought just in case. “And why the hell’d we have to meet out here? It’s bloody cold.”

Charlie stepped closer and dropped his voice. “I wanted to keep this on the QT.” He paused. “Besides, old retrievers catch young chicks.”

Max sighed, but obliged with the countersign Charlie had given him earlier in the day. “And young chicks like old dogs.” He didn’t want to know what that said about the lawyer’s love life. “What’ve you got for me?”

“How’s the ex-girlfriend?”

The good news about Charlie was that he knew things, often things too deeply hidden for Ike to find with her borderline legal methods. That was also the bad news.

Charlie knew things.

Max looked out over the sparse traffic below. “Raine isn’t my girlfriend. Never was, never will be. And there isn’t a soul alive-except maybe my mother-who’d pay you money for that info.”

“Your love life’s that good, huh?” Charlie smirked. “Sorry to hear it.”

“I’m waiting.” Max held out a legal-sized envelope. Inside rested ten crisp new fifties. “It better be good. I’m freezing my-”

“I promise,” Charlie interrupted. “It’s better than good.” He leaned even closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “What do you know about The Nine?”

Max nearly laughed aloud. In a normal voice, he said, “You’re joking, right? Please tell me you’re joking.” When Charlie didn’t respond, Max scowled, pretty sure he’d been had. He pulled the envelope back and dropped it close to his side. “The Nine is nothing but an urban legend.”

“Some urban legends are based in fact.”

“You’re serious?” Max couldn’t believe his ears. “You don’t actually believe there’s a powerful group working behind the scenes to control the entirety of worldwide scientific progress, do you? Come on, that’s Wizard of Oz stuff, not real life.”

“Life. Fiction.” Charlie shrugged. “Both strange. I’m serious. The Nine are real.”

Coming from anyone else, Max would’ve dismissed the foolishness at once. Coming from Charlie-who was weird but almost always accurate-the possibility tweaked his curiosity. “Based on what evidence? And why tell me here? Now?”

Charlie looked away. “I don’t have anything concrete. That’s why the group is a damn urban legend. Besides, it’s not in my best interest to look too closely. But I think it might be in yours.”

A sliver of ice formed in Max’s gut. “You’re telling me The Nine is involved in what’s happening with Thriller and Raine Montgomery?”

That was utterly impossible. The Nine didn’t exist. The group was an easy excuse, an inside joke among scientists.

When an important paper was rejected for no good reason, the authors often said it was The Nine at work. When that last big experiment-the one required to prove an important hypothesis once and for all-failed repeatedly, the lab techs would say it’d been sabotaged by The Nine. And when a promising grad student, who’d seemed well on his or her way to Nobel-level work, faded into obscu rity or left the field, it was whispered that The Nine had gotten to them.

It was all fantasy, of course. A way for researchers to explain the inexplicable that was all too common in science.