Darkness Rising (The East Salem Trilogy) by Lis Wiehl

can be taught. Insanity is more organic.”
    “Have you taught, Dr. Harris? If you haven’t, you should. I wasn’t very good at it at first. I’d ask my students a question, and when they didn’t answer, I’d answer it for them. But I learned to wait them out. That’s how I met Udo Bauer, you know. He was my pupil at Oxford. After he’d finished at St. Adrian’s.”
    “Was he a good student?”
    “He was. Surprising, considering his family had so much money that he didn’t have to apply himself. I think he concentrated on art history because of his family’s collection.”
    “He didn’t study pharmacology?”
    “Oh no—why would he? Business administration. Biology too. Had the most extraordinary collection of poisonous tree frogs. How is it that God gave the most beautiful colors and patterns to his deadliest creations?”
    Dani gave Tommy a quick look. Abbie Gardener had handed him a dead frog that night in his yard, and the frog had dissolved when he threw it back into the pond. “These are the first, you’ll be the last,” Abbie had said. He’d later found a frog in a pond on the St. Adrian’s campus that didn’t try to jump away when he reached for it; it just sat calmly in his hand.
    “One of Udo’s associates told me studying frog toxins has been leading into some very promising medical applications,” Villanegre said. “Dr. Guryakin. Did you meet him?”
    “Briefly. What does Dr. Guryakin do for Mr. Bauer?”
    “He’s the head of research at Linz, I believe. Intelligent enough chap, but I don’t know what he was doing at the exhibition. No particular grasp of the subject as far as I could tell.”
    “Perhaps he was there to learn.”
    “Perhaps,” Villanegre said. “We were all there to learn something. If I may ask—are you married, Dr. Harris?”
    “I am not, Dr. Villanegre.”
    “Julian,” he said. “Please call me Julian.”
    “Only if you call me Dani.”
    “Agreed, Dani. So is there someone special in your life?”
    “There is,” Dani said. “Quite special.”
    “Then I suggest,” Villanegre said, rising to his feet, “you avoid the young gentleman by the door who has been staring at you this entire time.Unless, of course, he’s the special one. Good night, Dani. Very nice chatting with you.”
    Once the art historian was out of sight, Tommy joined Dani. “What?” he said as he sat down. “I was being inconspicuous.”
    “Obviously not inconspicuous enough.”
    “Next time I’ll cut a pair of eyeholes in a newspaper, like in The Three Stooges. So what do you think?”
    “About Villanegre?”
    “Please, call him Julian.”
    “What do you think?”
    “I’m not sure,” Tommy said. “At first I thought he was one of them, but now . . .”
    “I agree,” Dani said. “In all my years—well, okay, it hasn’t been that many years— during the time I’ve worked with the criminal element, I’ve had one criterion that has yet to steer me wrong.”
    “Which is?”
    “I like him. I’ve never liked someone who was guilty. Though I’ve disliked plenty who were innocent.”
    She was about to say something more when her phone chirped. She opened her message screen. LOOK BEHIND THE SWT’N LOW .
    She quickly scanned the room as she showed Tommy the message. She saw nothing unusual. No one was looking at her.
    Tommy jumped up and walked to the coffee station, where he reached behind the small pink packages of artificial sweeteners. He probed until he felt a small capsule. It was pale blue and about a half-inch long with no markings. He pocketed the capsule and rushed through the front door, looking both ways in the parking lot, hoping to see if someone was fleeing, but the lot was empty.
    He returned to the table and set the capsule in front of Dani. She picked it up and examined it.
    “Can you tell what it is?” he asked.
    “Not by looking at it. But I know someone who can figure out what’s inside it.”
    “Quinn?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “When are you