Read Online The 100 Year Miracle by Ashley Ream - Free Book Online

of rain and the rot of leaf litter. In another half hour or so, her colleagues would be waking up, too, but for now she saw no one and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her.
    Cold in her stocking feet, she listened. There were birds and leaves that rustled. She heard those right away. No fans or sprayers though. She had half a second of relief and then stilled her breath and listened harder. Maybe there was something, or maybe it was the blood rushing in her ears. She pressed the side of her face to the cabin door. There. There she could hear something. She could definitely hear something. She pulled her head away. Still, Rachel could hear the sound, faint but there. Faint enough to wonder if she was imagining it but distinct enough to tell herself that, no, she just knew what to listen for. She pressed her ear to the door two more times and then walked around the side.
    The ground was muddy with only a layer of pine needles over it that went from thin to downright sparse. She could feel her feet sinking in like pressing a handprint into wet clay. She’d never get her socks clean again. Almost to the window, she stopped. There were already footprints here, larger ones with the tread of a hiking boot. When and who? Careful not to disturb them, she tiptoed up to the glass and listened. It was thin, single-paned. It was easier to hear through the window. And maybe someone had heard, someone who had stood right there.
    Her stomach roiled with worry like a snake in death throes.
    Shit.
    She needed to do something, and she had no idea what. She hadn’t brought any soundproofing materials with her, and she didn’t have time to find a hardware store and shop for something suitable. She tried to follow the trail of boot prints, but they disappeared in the leaf litter almost immediately. It was hopeless and a waste of time.
    Rachel ran back around to the front, her feet sinking deeper in the mud.
    And then she screamed.
    She had been looking down at her feet, scanning the ground, and she had not seen him. The top of her head bounced off his chest, and John reached out a hand to steady her then withdrew it sharply as though he’d been given an electric shock.
    “What are you doing here?” Rachel demanded.
    “Can I come in?”
    “No.” The single syllable came out fast like a punch. He started to respond, but she cut him off. “Wait, show me the bottoms of your shoes.”
    “What?”
    She was looking at his feet, but he didn’t raise one up. “Show me your tread.”
    He did not comply. “Dr. Bell, there are some issues I’d like to go over with you.”
    “I explained myself earlier,” she said.
    His were more like running shoes than boots. She thought the prints had been made with boots, but she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t even be sure what the bottoms of her own shoes looked like.
    “Well, apparently, I didn’t explain myself.”
    He took a step forward, coming uncomfortably close. She stopped thinking about feet. Her heart, already jumpy, shifted into the next gear. He was too near her. She didn’t like it.
    “You can find me at the site,” she said.
    “I’ve found you now.”
    “Now isn’t a good time.”
    “Really, why?”
    Rachel wanted out of the conversation. She wanted him to go. “What I do on my off hours is none of your business.”
    John leaned in, closing the space between them that was too small as it was.
    “What you’re doing will destroy the breeding, which makes it absolutely my business.”
    “That’s not true. You shouldn’t lie.”
    “We are here to study,” John said. “We take only what we need to understand and, by understanding, to protect. No more.”
    Anger bloomed beneath her nervousness. He was so conceited, so demanding and entitled. He had walked in off the street and dared to treat her as an underling to be dictated to. It was so like that kind of man to expect her to acquiesce.
    “This is a biological phenomenon. It doesn’t belong to anyone, including