Phoenix Heart by Carolyn Nash

been different, wrong. All of a sudden J.P. had a new Mercedes, was taking
flying trips everywhere, showing up at fundraisers where I knew good and well
that the tickets topped a grand, hobnobbing with very wealthy people. At first
I thought, great. The guy deserves some fun. But it escalated and then I
started hearing little comments, choice little remarks about me that appeared
to come from him, questioning the value of my work. I tried to talk to him
after I’d heard four or five things, but he was always unavailable, always had
just stepped out, or just gone into a conference.”
    “Maybe it was just coincidence.”
    “Was it coincidence that it all started, after the
discovery? After I’d FedExed him thumb drives holding the bulk of our results?”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah, ‘oh.’ So, I stopped sending him any information. And
after a couple of weeks, he called me.”
    “And?”
    Andrew shook his head. “I was straight with him. I told him
I’d heard some disturbing things, and that I didn’t feel that it was right to
continue our collaboration until we’d had a chance to talk. He blew. He started
accusing me of holding out on him, trying to steal the thunder, to steal his
work.” Andrew looked at me. “It was my work.”
    “I know,” I said.
    “But that’s not what you were thinking.”
    “I wasn’t thinking anything,” I lied.
    “Right,” Andrew said.
    “I wasn’t!”
    “You see?” he said. “And you know me, at least a little. You
think anyone’s going to believe me against J.P. Harrison?”
    “Look, I don’t know you at all,” I said truthfully and with
a little temper. “Do you expect me to just automatically believe everything
without any doubts or questions?”
    “I guess not,” he said after a few moments.
    “Okay,” I said. “Besides, you haven’t told me anything
beyond the fact that Dr. Harrison was spending a lot of money and maybe told
some people some things about you. Hell, maybe a relative died and left him a
packet.”
    “Granted,” Andrew said. “It could have happened that way,
but it didn’t. Two weeks ago somebody broke in my lab and stole my lab
notebooks. Thankfully, it was my copies of my graduate school notebooks that
disappeared and not my current journals.”
    “But why do you think it’s Harrison?”
    “Why?” He smiled a smile so painful that I had to look away.
“Because this morning, it was J. P. who denounced me to the police. He told
them that he had carried me through grad school, that I’d barely squeaked
through my post doc, that my research at the University had been a sham, that I
had stolen his work and was about to pass it off as my own. My mentor, the man I
respected more than anyone, attempted murder and then accused me of it.” I
stared at him in horror, at an absolute loss for anything to say that could be
anything more than totally inadequate.
    “Could I offer you an hors d’oeuvre?”
    I nearly screamed. The voice had come from right behind me,
and it was everything I could do to keep from leaping out of my seat. Somehow I’d
completely forgotten that I was on a plane full of people. The black-haired flight
attendant stood just behind me, holding a tray.
    “Sorry if I startled you.”
    Andrew quickly slid his glasses on and raised a hand to rub
his forehead as he turned toward the window.
    I laughed. “No, no it’s fine. And nothing for me, thank you.”
    “Something to drink?”
    I smiled. “Nothing thanks.”
    “What about you sir?”
    Andrew ignored her.
    I glanced over at Andrew then back to the flight attendant,
and crooked a finger at her. “To tell you the truth,” I whispered as she bent
down, “he’s nursing a hangover that would kill three ordinary men. I don’t
think he wants anything.”
    “Oh, I understand completely,” she whispered, then she moved
on down the aisle.
    When I turned back Andrew was looking at me, his glasses in
his hand again, studying my face as if he couldn’t quite figure out what it