Read Online Watermind by M. M. Buckner - Free Book Online

crawfish. Their squawks sounded peaceful. Halcyon, he thought, a word from one of Elaine’s perfume bottles.
    â€œThat’s about it,” Elaine said as she jogged the pages together and stuffed them in the envelope with the check.
    When she got up to file the copies, Dan watched her move. Elaine was his second in command at Quimicron. They’d worked hand-in-glove for years, and on days like this, they sometimes talked about retiring. Maybe he could guide fishermen up the bayous. Maybe she could open a day spa. Yeah. Sometimes they liked to dream.
    Elaine’s full figure gave Dan a comfortable place to rest his attention. She had tanning-bed skin, brassy curls, and eyes as blue as steel. He liked the way her body jiggled like a cluster of plump grapes. He especially favored her derriere. She noticed where he was looking and gave him a better show by bending over the file cabinet. She took out a bottle of Jack Daniels, poured two glasses and handed him one.
    â€œThank you, doll.” He held the glass without drinking.
    She said, “Rory’s got three shifts working out there. Do we know any more than we did?”
    She watched him swirl the brown liquor in his glass, then she moved behind his chair and rubbed his knotted shoulders. With his silver hair and permanent squint, she thought he looked like Clint Eastwood, only shorter. Elaine had been seeing Dan Meir on the sly for sixteen years. Though he had a wife, two grown children, dozens of friends, and a new grandbaby, still no one understood as well as Elaine did how he took things to heart.
    Usually she tried to make him forget his worries, but today, an uneasy tension pervaded the entire plant. Word was spreading about de Silva’s strange death in the unnatural ice. Along the corridors of Building No. 2, people gathered in clumps and whispered. There were no jokes in the break room. Meetings were canceled. Healthy people called in sick. And this morning, one of the computer programmers tried to sneak a handgun past the security station. He claimed it was for self-defense.
    So instead of distracting her lover with funny anecdotesand gossip, today Elaine couldn’t refrain from asking again, “Dan, do we know any more?”
    But the answer he gave didn’t settle her mind at all. He gulped half his drink and said, “Not a blessed thing.”
Waft
    Â 
    Thursday, March 10
    9:05 PM
    Â 
    Roman Sacony. CJ had heard stories about Quimicron’s chief executive. He was said to own a penthouse bordello in downtown Miami where he entertained cabinet members and admirals. Cunning, that’s what she sensed about him. Devious. But that image didn’t square with the solemn man working beside her in the lab.
    Sheathed in a white smock and latex gloves, he handled the equipment as if the lab were his second home. He’d studied science in school and liked to keep his hand in, that’s what he told her. From the way he rushed her along, though, she assumed his real motive was to get the results in a hurry. Roman Sacony came on smooth as glass, but she suspected he was hiding sharper facets.
    The unpadded work stool cut off circulation in her bum, and the climate-controlled air felt too still and dry. She straightened and stretched, knocking the rack of tubes at her elbow. Roman glanced up briefly. The pond water in the tubes sifted like pearly milk.
    He returned to his task, operating the laser nephelometer to analyze the water’s turbidity. His dark profile cast a trim silhouette against the wall as he measured the light scattered through a droplet. She watched him scribble notes on a clipboard.
    Slim and wiry-muscled, he must work out, she decided. She didn’t realize that she could smell his pheromonesand that he could smell hers. Their molecules of sexual scent wafted on air currents too fine for conscious awareness, but in the shadowy subliminal undersides of their brains, both of them recognized the chemical