The Immortalist Read Online Free Page A

call?”
    â€œHello, Hank.”
    He looked at her nervously, forcing a smile. “You wouldn’t be here for the Vector, would you? The grand unveiling?”
    â€œYou know what it is, Hank.”
    â€œYeah . . . t hat .” His smile wilted. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
    â€œAre you going to let me in?”
    â€œSure, sure.”
    She pushed her way inside, trying not to look at him. He still had those lanky, Gary Cooper looks that had made her heart stop the first time she saw him. Now there were flecks of gray in his stubble beard, but otherwise he was the same. Still those rower’s shoulders, still that rugged nose and jaw, still that little boy’s glint of mischief in his eye. He looked more like a carpenter on his day off than someone who had once published the founding paper on the statistics of viral recombination.
    â€œYou cut your hair.” She stirred at the sound of his voice—dry and warm, like musk wafting over charcoal. She had forgotten what his voice could do to her.
    â€œI cut it some time ago,” she said tersely. “It’s growing out.”
    â€œI like it.”
    She bristled at his presumptuousness. It wasn’t a style decision, you jackass. “I did it . . . for Étienne.”
    Hank heaved the door shut. “Yeah. Of course. I heard about him. Sorry. I was never in the guy’s fan club, to be sure. But, what happened was—”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it.”
    She stepped into the small living room, cluttered with books and old newspapers and journal reprints. She clung tightly to her pocketbook for a moment, then set it down on the sofa table. She was determined not to stay a minute longer than she had to.
    â€œCan I get you anything?”
    â€œCoffee. Black.”
    He went into the kitchen, an open area separated from the living room by a breakfast island, and poured her a cup from the coffeemaker. “I thought you were in Africa.”
    â€œI was.”
    â€œYou’re back early, then.”
    â€œMm-hmm.”
    He brought her the coffee in a mug without a saucer. She tested it gingerly for hotness, then took a bracing, bitter sip.
    â€œGorgeous summer weather out here,” he said cheerfully. “Emmy and I were going to take the Bay Dreamer outfor a sail next week. Up to Halifax.”
    She could barely resist tossing the coffee in his face. “Did you not get my goddamn e-mail?”
    Hank went pale. “Look, I can explain—”
    â€œExplain? You’re back on the bottle again, Hank. The police said you had a fifth of bourbon in the pickup with you. Nearly empty. And you had the gall—the fucking gall—to take our daughter— my daughter—out on the road when you were too soused to know the difference between a guardrail and a double line. Forget that you almost got her killed. What the hell kind of example was that?”
    â€œShe’s okay. A couple of stitches.”
    â€œTen fucking stitches, Hank.”
    â€œI haven’t had a drop since.” He placed his hand over his heart as if to make light of it, but real remorse was in his eyes. “There’s just . . . there’s been a lot of pressure. They’ve taken my lab away. I’ve gotten on the wrong side of these corporate bastards that Charles brought in to run the institute, and I’m . . . I’m just one slip away from losing my job here. Plus, you know, money. I had to refinance after the divorce, and the interest rates—”
    â€œSkip it, Hank. I know all about you and pressure.”

    Hank had seemed like a real up-and-comer when she first met him. He was a visiting professor at Harvard-MIT, teaching a seminar in statistical virology, where he opened her eyes to a new way of using mathematics and computers to investigate how viruses changed over time. They had met, of all places, in a bicycle smashup at