Chapter 2
N
usmen sat at his desk after looking at a message from Gabriella. He was furious. Dr. Gabriella Pinski had just dumped him, electronically. He had liked her, and even though he hated to admit it, he liked the feeling he got being associated vicariously with the University of Washington as her boyfriend.
She had pushed him to get into the doctoral program at the university. Nusmen was as smart as he was eccentric. He had bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Harvard, where he majored in biochemistry and minored in microbiology. That was over ten years ago. His alma mater was top of the line. He had a first-class intelligence, was a computer whiz, and the forest service contracted him on many occasions to do field research for them, occasionally with Heather as the botany expert
