Phoenix Heart by Carolyn Nash Page B

has a mind of its own.”
    Andrew reached over and picked up my hand. “You are really
something,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for a better friend. The very fact that
you have offered means a great deal, but, I am not going to let you do it.”
    Friend.
    I pulled my hand from his.
    “Okay,” I said.
    “Okay?”
    “Yes. Okay. But what are you going to do?”
    “You do ask the difficult questions, don’t you?” He rubbed
the back of his neck. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. The only way I can
prove that J.P. had anything to do with this is to find some kind of hard
evidence. I doubt I’ll find the proverbial smoking gun, but what I might be
able to find is some evidence that he’s been the one plagiarizing my work, and
not me, his. If he has been doing the research, he’ll have lab notebooks with
daily records, experiments that worked, experiments that didn’t, conditions
used, all the kind of intimate detail that can’t be faked. If he has tried to
fake it, I’ll know it, and I can prove it to someone else. I’ve got to get into
his lab, find the evidence, and get it to the police before his people can get
to me, or before he has time enough to alter it.”
    “Oh, and in your spare time you’ll discover the Unified
Field Theory, the meaning of life, and chocolate that tastes as good as the
real thing but actually has negative calories. Look, I’m sorry but you need
help. If not mine, somebody’s.”
    He shook his head. “I’ll manage.”
    “But…”
    “I said I’ll manage.” His face was deadly serious. “I am not
letting anyone else get in the line of fire. I almost lost one friend already. I’m
not risking anyone else.”
    “Okay.”
    “You said that before.”
    “I know. But, okay. Will you do me one favor?”
    He eyed me suspiciously. “Tell me what it is first.”
    “You don’t trust me?”
    “Should I?”
    “I guess not. Look, all I ask is that you call me and let me
know what happens. I’ll be at the Pacific Crest Hotel. I’m not sure exactly
where it is, but...”
    “I know where it is.”
    “Okay, good. Just call me. I’ll want to know how everything
turns out.” I was leaning forward talking earnestly, and suddenly, it was if I
had stepped back into the aisle and looked down on the two of us sitting in
those extra-wide, first class seats. In the window seat, Andrew Voted-one-of-America’s-twenty-five-most-eligible-
bachelors Richards. My major professor. Escort of supermodels. In the aisle
seat, Melanie Brenner, the meek and mild. The insignificant. The plain and
dull.
    I sat back. “I mean, call if you have time to call, but if
you don’t, it’s okay, I’ll understand.”
    Andrew reached out absently and lifted a thick strand of my
hair from where it had fallen down next to my cheek. He ran his fingers down it
then dropped it back over my shoulder. He touched my cheek lightly. “I’ll call
you.”
    “Good.” The word came out clearly, not choked as I would
have thought considering my heart had risen and was now beating wildly in my
throat.
    He sat for a minute staring into the distance, then, he
began to grin. He slanted an eye at me. “Greek, huh? I always thought I looked
English.”
    I groaned and looked away up the aisle, trying to see if
they had some sort of emergency ejection handle so that I could propel myself
out of the plane toward the much more desirable end of crashing to the earth
rather than my imminent death by embarrassment.
    He blinked in surprise. “I’m sorry. Did I say something?”
    “Shut up, please.”
    “Shut up? My goodness. We’re a little sensitive about
something.”
    The loudspeaker over our heads crackled and a garbled voice
began to say something. I sat up straight and put a hand to my ear. “Oh, gee,
listen. Hush a minute. They’re making an announcement and I do so want to hear
this.”
    “I know they’re fascinating, but...”
    I gave him a stern look. “Please. I’m trying to hear.”
    He laughed. “Of