42 NoraStanding, Nora plucked her digital recorder from the top of the two-shelf bookcase and checked the time.
Two-thirty.
Dropping the recorder, she spoke to Professor Jacques Fuselier. “You’re right. Our journalist should be here any minute.”
She opened the door to the professor’s office at the University of Washington.
She’d been sitting in his visitor chair for the past sixty minutes.
During their last encounter, the uncushioned wooden seat had been hard and unforgiving beneath her.
This Friday afternoon, she’d been too absorbed by his words to feel the discomfort.
In this pause, the ache announced itself painfully.
“You ready to meet the press?” she asked her arsenic expert.
The professor smoothed his lapels. “Never readier.”
After their hour-long chat, she agreed.
On her
