see her swimming in springwater so clear and deep that he’d felt he was looking into the core of the earth whenever he’d stared into the depths. Suddenly, with a stab of guilt, Angus thought of his deceased wife, Linda.
“I thought I’d better call,” Jack continued. “I told Ariel to keep the town’s business history out of the story since the piece isn’t supposed to be a coal-industry exposé….”
“You wanted to see if dredging up past history would cause me any trouble,” Angus guessed. Before Jack could answer, he continued, “I appreciate it. And yeah, I’d prefer to keep my name out of any story about Core Coal and Bliss. I did have some involvement down there.” And now, when he thought of the place, his heart ached. It was the only place he’d ever seen that was as lush and green with vegetation as the rain forests he’d come to tend and love. “You say the woman’s name is Ariel Anderson?”
“Uh…yeah. Why?”
“No reason. Just curious.”
“I don’t know much about her,” Jack offered, “except that she came from Bliss and wound up at the University of Pittsburgh. After grad school, she came onboard at WCBK, and she’s been here three years. So, she’s still young. Thirty, tops. A tough cookie. Ambitious. One of those people who’s out to prove herself.”
Angus knew the type. He’d been well into adulthood before he’d realized that the phantoms from which he’d been running had only existed in his own imagination. “And she’s from Bliss?” he said, soliciting a chuckle from Jack.
“A town that’s aptly named, I’d imagine. I don’t know why, but most women I’ve ever met who’ve come from those West Virginia hills are gorgeous, and she’s no exception. Tall and blond, with incredible skin and a smile that stops every man in his tracks.” Jack laughed. “Not that she bothers to use it. A yuppie with a heart of steel, with a Southern twang wrapped in a throaty voice that sounds just like Kathleen Turner’s. I think her boss, a guy by the name of Ryan Vermere, has got a hopeless crush on her.”
“If I ever meet her,” Angus said, “I’ll keep all that in mind.”
“No chance, Angus. This one’s made for glass and concrete. Two-martini lunches. The kind of girl for whom nothing’s ever going to be enough. Definitely, she’s not the type to stop and smell flowers, so I doubt you’d ever bump into her in a rain forest.”
That was exactly why, thought Angus as he hung up the phone and reached for his suitcase, he was heading for Bliss, West Virginia.
Atlanta, Georgia
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
“THIS BETTER BE GOOD,” Rex Houston muttered good-naturedly. Holding out his arms, he let a tech disconnect the air hose attached to the white suit, then Rex went next door where, once more, he held out his arms and let another tech hose him down, then help him strip off the gear.
Butt-naked, he headed for yet another shower, then for a locker room where, without bothering with underwear, he shoved long legs into jeans, and sockless feet into leather Dockers. He was still buttoning a white shirt as he strode down a hallway toward his boss’s office.
Behind him, somebody wolf-whistled. One of the techs called out, “Sexy Rexy.” He was used to the teasing. Tossing a bemused smirk over his shoulder he pushed open a door. He stared at his boss and said, “You called?”
“Come on in. Sit.”
“Nothing like your bedside manner.” Sauntering into the room, as if he’d had nothing better to do today, such as be suited up in the bio-level-four lab, he seated himself in one of the leather roller chairs. Not bad, he thought, his eyes taking in the plush office, for a lady who’d never seen field action. Nope, Jessica Williams—an upper-crust type from South Carolina who’d been born and bred in a navy suit—would never get her lily hands dirty with viruses as deadly as Ebola or hantavirus.
“I have an assignment for you.”
The words were pure bliss, and Rex’s pique evaporated like water under a hot sun. “An assignment?” Already, in his mind’s eye, Rex was packing…traveling to one of the world’s hot-spots, probably some small town in Africa. Already, he could hear the chopper blades beating and the clipped tone of a pilot as he put the bird down while filling in Rex’s team, regarding the number dead, the course of some new unknown disease. “What’s the bug look like? Has anyone identified it?”
Jessica shook her head. “Actually, nothing’s really happened yet. We just got a call from a local.”
Rex’s mind was racing. “Only one call?” That was hardly enough to interest the CDC, much less to get people such as him—known in the field as cowboys—involved in a case.
“Homeland Security,” Jessica reminded.
Since 9-11, anything that vaguely smacked of bioterror needed to be checked out thoroughly. “And you don’t have any information?” That would make the case even more interesting. Rex was part of a team that had traced more than one virus back to its native origins. “My shots are up to date,” Rex assured, “and I’m ready to go. I can be on a plane within the next hour.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Now that he knew an assignment was involved, he was relieved to be getting out of the lab in Atlanta. “Where to?”
“Bliss.”
That stopped him cold. He stared.
“Bliss,” Jessica repeated, now looking as if she were bracing herself for a fight. Not a good sign. “West Virginia. An overnight trip,” she added quickly. “To be honest, we got a hysterical call from an elderly woman named Elsinore Gibbet—”
“Since when does the CDC respond to hysterical calls from elderly women?”
“Careful or I’ll cite you for sexism. She called the World Health Organization and the Department of Homeland Security,” Jessica continued.
He sighed. If anything really happened, Jessica wanted to make sure CDC got dibs. “Let me get this right,” Rex muttered. “Some lady called and—”
“Look, I just want you to go test the water. You’re in, you’re out. Overnight. If you don’t find anything, World Health won’t go down.”
“I’m not a fireman who chases kittens up tree trunks.”
“I need an M.D., not a tech. If you go, the other organizations are covered. Besides, there might be something to the complaint. There have been times when something odd happens in this town. Like unexplainable blackouts.” Pausing, Jessica shoved a file across her desk. “It’s all right here.”
Rex didn’t reach for the case file.
“I’m thinking you might find evidence of the virus we’ve nicknamed Romeo,” she prodded.
“Why me?” Rex groaned. According to office rumors, the virus to which she was referring had only been documented once, in South America, two years back, and then the documentation had mysteriously been lost. Most people assumed the bug had never existed, and that the references to it had been created as a joke. “You’re sending me to look for the love bug,” he said flatly. “You’ve
