Seymour’s thin lips formed what could pass as a smile.
“Our meeting’s now.”
He held up my Science Today paper. “This will take a moment.”
I waited.
He licked his lips. “Your paper.”
“Yes?”
“You made a rash prediction and didn’t pass it by me.”
“Pass it by you?”
He waved the reprint. “Incorrect projections reflect badly on MOI. Not just you.”
“Scientists sometimes make risky predictions. It’s a judgment, and it’s why they took the paper.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What?”
“They published it because the author was a Tusconi.”
I stepped closer and growled, “I do not use my father’s name to get ahead. They took it because I’m an excellent scientist.”
“Excellent?” He pointed to my nausea patch. “You can’t even handle conditions out here.”
I snatched the paper and marched toward the lab. That Seymour would throw my dead father’s name in my face was obscene.
Seymour called out, “The Prospect Institute. More unwelcome publicity for MOI.”
Harvey caught up with me. “That looked like a nasty interaction.”
I quickly told her about the hacked emails and Seymour’s accusation. “No suggestion I consult MOI’s lawyers.”
“He wants you to stew for a while.”
“Yeah.”
“And, Mara. What can you do about the email?”
“No idea. They don’t teach you this stuff in grad school. I’ll talk to Angelo when we get back.”
Angelo de Luca, my godfather, is my only family. Twelve years ago my parents died in a research submarine accident. I was nineteen when my world fell apart. Angelo helped me try to make sense of the senseless and is as devoted to me now as I am to him.
He’s my drift anchor in a rough sea.
We squeezed into the lab for our planning meeting. Head scientist, Harvey led the discussion. “We’re on schedule with the deployments. Questions?”
“When can we look at CTD data?” I asked.
Tethered to the ship by high-strength line, the Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) profiler drops through the water and records real-time temperature and salinity from the surface down. Cutting-edge technology my parents’ generation could only dream of.
“The profiler’s already downloading,” Harvey answered.
My throat tightened. What if—?
Peter asked, “Who’s up for this afternoon’s deployment?”
Ted gestured toward me. “It’s Mara’s turn.”
“What’s the report on that loose buoy?” Harvey asked.
We all turned toward Seymour, who shrugged. “Chief mate’s looking into it.”
Not a satisfying answer. Surprise telegraphed around the room.
“The buoy wasn’t well secured,” Ted said. “Are there inexperienced crew aboard?”
Standing near the exit, Seymour said, “I really don’t know.”
Peter met my look and raised an eyebrow. Figuring we were done, I was halfway out of my seat when he asked a question. I sat back down.
“I bumped into a guy in a passageway who’s not at MOI. Who is he?”
Across from me, Ted fidgeted in his chair.
Seymour answered the question. “John Hamilton’s a friend. He runs an aquaculture startup and is interested in our research. We had room, so I invited him.”
A little odd but not worth ruffling Seymour’s feathers.
“Seymour?” Peter said. But Seymour had left.
I looked at Peter. “Something wrong?”
Peter stared at the door. “Not sure.”
Harvey and Peter filed out of the lab, and I started to follow. Ted said, “Mara, have a moment?”
The small space was littered with equipment, and we stood a few feet apart. Although MOI hired Ted two months earlier, he’d been in the Caribbean doing coral reef research. I’d barely spoken with him.
I’d forgotten how attractive Ted was. A bit of blond curled at his neck and his sunburned face looked in need of a shave. Both fair-haired and tall, he and Harvey would make a damn good-looking couple.
Ted had a good six inches on me, and I didn’t want to talk to his throat. I stepped back a bit. “What’s up?”
“The Prospect Institute email. Want to talk about it?”
I took a breath and felt my back muscles relax. “That’d be terrific. I’ve never dealt with anything like this.”
“That message flabbergasted me. What’re you thinking?”
“No time to think.”
I waited for the seasick joke, but he didn’t say a word.
“Maybe I should be proactive. You know, contact the papers.”
“I have a close friend at the Portland Ledger,” he said. “We were college roommates. If you want, I could talk to him. Or you could, of course.”
“I’ll think about it. Ted, thanks a lot.”
He squinted and stared down at my eyes.
I tensed. Someone other than my ophthalmologist examining my eyes felt pretty weird. Maybe this was Ted’s idea of a creative come-on.
“What?”
“Your eyes, Mara. They’re really an unusual color. Forest green. What’s the genetics—I mean, the color of your parents’ eyes?”
Good. A scientific, not romantic, interest.
“Blue from my Irish mom and brown from Dad, the Italian side.”
“A great combination.” Ted’s smile set off two faint dimples in his cheeks. His eyes searched mine in the normal way, and he left the
