The Molly Sutton Mystery Series, books 1-3

Chapter 22

Chapter 221967Albert Desrosiers slammed his desk drawer shut and stood up suddenly, scowling. I’ve been a fool, he thought. A ridiculous, damned fool.

He had been working on one project for the last two years, and it was nearly finished. If he managed to pull it off, it would make him a very rich man, no question about that. There had been problems, of course—delays, many times pursuing a path that turned out to be fruitless, brick walls that took him a week or even months to find a way around—but Albert had every confidence he would succeed. Even though his invention did not yet exist, he could physically feel it somehow, the shape of it was so clear in his mind. Its essence was alive to him, and all he had to do was make it concrete with wires and solder, and investors would be falling over themselves trying to get a piece of it. Money was never his prime objective and it was not his focus then either, although he did find himself thinking of things he would be able to buy that he had never been able to before. Instruments, mostly.

And also, perhaps, the right piece of jewelry might bring her around?

Albert strode to the window and opened the shutters, looking out at the sidewalk in front of his modest house.

Where is she? Why does she not speak to me? Ma belle, I need you…

With a shuddering sigh, he went back to his desk and picked up his tiny pliers and swiveled his magnifier back into place and went to work. He needed to have tremendous control over his body to do the work because it was so painstaking, and the slightest jiggle would wreck the whole enterprise. Over time, he had trained himself to be still, to keep from trembling, but a large part of the secret to doing that was maintaining an emotional equilibrium that for the last few hours had been impossible.

I bring her flowers but she looks away from me. Are the flowers the wrong ones? Is it hopeless?

Albert was thirty-six years old. Too old to be so much in love, he believed. Too old to be chasing after a woman who was never going to relent.