statement did not sound promising. She watched him leave after he successfully avoided two more piles of books.
Was the kidnap attempt random? It hadn’t felt like it. She turned and looked out the window at the vibrant fall colors. Red and gold spread as far as she could see from tree to tree and even covered the ground. As a leaf fell, she automatically calculated the air motion necessary for it to land among the other crumbling leaves.
“You ready?” Mark poked his head in. “We’re running late.”
Right. The grants. How could she have forgotten? “Yes.” She claimed her briefcase and maneuvered around the piles of books, grabbing her raincoat by the door and heading through the quiet hallway to the breezy fall day outside. The staff parking lot was right around the corner, and she kept silent until Mark opened his car doors. “We have a good chance at getting at least one of these grants,” she said, attempting conversation as she sat and shut her door. These were the biggest grants ever created for the study of the cosmology of extra dimensions, multiverse theory, math, and quantum mechanics.
“Maybe.” Mark slammed his door, started the engine, and pulled sedately out of the quiet parking lot. “The money involved is impressive.”
She let Mark drive, her pitch forming in her head. “If we get either of these grants, we’ll have better resources than MIT, Caltech, Montana Tech, and Harvard put together.” She’d studied at all the schools but had decided to teach at her alma mater, West Coast Technical University on the Oregon coast. It was a coincidence that both of her parents had taught there. Although, sometimes when she was working late at night, she remembered them doing the same thing at the same place. As silly as it was, she somehow felt closer to them in those moments. When was the last time she’d placed flowers on their graves?
It was the proper thing to do, and the flowers looked pretty. But why was that a tradition? Her parents were long gone, and only dust and bones remained in that place. Her parents weren’t there.
Mark drove through the campus arches and headed toward town. “You ready?”
“I think so,” she said, patting the briefcase at her feet. “They have our applications; now they just want to talk. I imagine it’ll be like defending a dissertation, and that’s not very difficult.”
“For some,” Mark muttered.
She kept her gaze out the window, running through arguments as to why her university should win at least one of the grants. Pressure pounded through her and elevated her heart rate. For some reason, she flashed back to seventh grade, when she’d brought home an A− in advanced calculus and ended up grounded for three months.
Her knees shaking in her uniform, she forced herself to walk into her father’s study. Unlike her mother’s office, which was light and stacked with books, her father’s study was pristine and organized, surrounded by heavy mahogany shelves. His dark hair was cut short, and his black beard neat. He looked up from behind his desk, his dark brown eyes covered by perfectly cleaned glasses. “What is it, Promise?”
She took one step inside and threw up all over the antique Persian rug.
“Right?” Mark’s voice yanked her right back into the present.
She coughed. “Right.” She shook her head. “Sorry. I was thinking about my childhood.” Her father had been a brilliant mathematician. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings yesterday. I’m not good with people.” She never had been. Science and discovery were so much easier.
Mark sighed. “Was it something I said or did?”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “No.” Supersymmetry made her breath catch and her mind expand. Mark was just a body to see a movie with. Would she ever feel about another human being the way she did about dark matter? “I have the characteristics of a sociopath,” she murmured.
Mark snorted out a laugh. “You are not a sociopath. I’ve seen you sad and I’ve seen you more than empathetic with students. Sympathetic, even.”
That was true. And she’d cried when her fish had died in high school, so there was that. “Thank you for not being angry with me any longer.”
“No problem.” Mark drove into an underground garage, slowing down to reach a parking spot near a clearly marked elevator. He cleared his throat. “I think you should stay with me until they catch the guy who tried to kidnap you. No pressure. Just some protection.”