Irrefutable Proof: Mars Origin "I" Series Book II Read Online Free

apartment. Very neat , she thought as she glanced around. She
breathed in the smell of lemons and disinfectant. A dead man’s home. Everything
looked scrubbed clean.
    She
surveyed the room. His things were now just things. They had no meaning.
Perhaps if he hadn’t been involved in things that didn’t concern him, he might
have been home right now. She patted her hand on the couch pillow.
    Quite
pleased with herself, she had never spoken to Ghazi before the day she had set
up the meeting to have coffee with him. It was such a clever little ruse she
had come up with, and it had worked wonderfully. Poor Ghazi , she
thought, a grin curling up the side of her lip. He said he didn’t even know any
other languages. Perhaps he didn’t know what was in the untranslated copy of
the manuscripts.
    Oh
well. Next time I’ll find out more about the person before I make a rash
decision on what to do ,
she thought. Shouldn’t be too hasty . But what’s done is done.
    She
snickered. “Perhaps I should have let him have that cafè macchiato,” she said
to the room. “It was, after all, the last thing he would ever have to drink.”
    She
walked over and stared out of the solitary window in the room, replaying the
morning over in her head.
    His
pupils had started to dilate even before he excused himself, she remembered,
abruptly calling their meeting short. He had to leave, he’d told her, because
he felt a headache coming on, licking his lips and swallowing hard. No doubt
his mouth and throat had started to get dry. She cocked her head to the side
with a smile, recalling him shielding his eyes from the sun that suddenly
seemed too bright. She chuckled at how he had to steady himself when he rose from
the table. Staggering down the street, not the same easy gait as when he
arrived.  He didn’t make it across Mevo HaMatmid before he collapsed.
    Maybe
even convulsing as he fell ,
she mused.
    It
had all been so alarming. Everyone ran to him. A man walking close behind seemed
to almost catch him. She wasn’t quite sure, but it looked like a man that had
sat near them in the café.
    She
ran her fingers across the back of the cushion of the square, orange sofa. And
then there were the flashing lights . The paramedics arriving. By then it
was too late.
    “Yes,”
she said out loud. “It was really much too late for that.”
    A
black iron and wood bookcase stood against the living room wall. She walked
over to it and picked up a picture of Ghazi standing with two women and three
men. Maybe his family. Maybe friends. As she held the picture, she stared at
the faces. They all smiled up at her, and she smiled back at them. A much
happier time for poor, dead Ghazi.
    In
the corner, by the window, set a metal desk. A brown mailing wrapper sat atop
of it. She walked over and touched it. It had folds just where a notebook would
have been.
    This
could be it.
    She
remembered well the first day she’d seen him at the university. He’d come with
Dr. Margulies, and had had that beautiful smile, the same one he had worn today
when he walked toward the café. He had really captured her imagination.
    And
on that fateful day, nearly a year later, as fortune would have it, she had
been near the Dead Sea Scrolls Translation Committee’s rooms visiting one of
the scholars who was working on a commentary of the Scrolls when she ran into
him again.  She had shared lunch with the scholar. Keeping up with news about
the Scrolls, her interest going back to the days when Samuel Yeoman had been
Editor-in-Chief. Walking back from lunch, she had spotted Ghazi.
    Standing
flush along the wall, just around the corner from the receptionist’s desk, she
stepped back, and ducked out of sight. She wanted to watch him. To look at him.
She peeked her head around to see him.
    Maybe
when he leaves I’ll walk out and bump into him , she had thought, she remembered biting
back a giggle.
    Ghazi
stood, his elbows resting on the high-top counter, and spoke to the