Deadly Code by Lin Anderson Read Free Book Online

hadn't mentioned Sean since they met. There hadn't been any reason to.
    'Husband?'
    'Boyfriend.'
    'Pity.' Andre made a wry face.
    Rhona wondered if it mattered. Instinct told her it did.
    'You ready?'
    Rhona nodded and picked up her things. She hadn't totally avoided thinking about Andre as a man. An intelligent, attractive, charming man. She had just assumed he was attached. That moment's look when he asked about Sean suggested he wasn't, but would like to be.
    Andre asked her to dinner when he dropped her at the hotel. Rhona hesitated. Saying no would be churlish and Andre's company would be better than eating alone, surrounded by the beautiful people on Third Street.
    'Look,' he said. 'If it puts your mind at rest, I am not a member of ReAlba.'
    ‘But the Jacobite warrior said . . .'
    'However, my father was, and his father before him.'
    'Oh.'
    'Rhona. My family was burned out after the Forty-Five rebellion. The tiny island they called home had one hundred and twenty-six pipers at the battle of Culloden.' Andre smiled. 'I know, swords might have proved more useful. When the Jacobites lost, the island paid dearly for supporting the cause. My family stuck it for a while, then left with the arrival of the sheep. I am an American but it doesn't stop me remembering why I am an American.'
    It was a pretty speech. Rhona wondered briefly if he had used it before.
    'Okay,' she said. 'You win. I'll be ready at eight.'
    Rhona watched the car drive away. Andre. An expert in genetic weapons who just might be a racist. An interesting combination. If she ran this past Chrissy she knew what she would say. 'So what? You've made a career out of dead bodies. That doesn't mean you have murderous thoughts.'
    The hotel room didn't feel so cool and chic on her return. It just felt big and empty. There was something wrong about coming in from the heat to the cool, instead of the other way round. It made inside feel less safe, somehow.
    Rhona wondered briefly if she should phone the flat and speak to Sean. It would be nice to hear a voice from home. She glanced at her watch. Okay, so Sean would still be in bed. Probably alone, but why tempt fate?
    Rhona had been in this state of mind before about Sean, too often for her own good. Some of the time it had been warranted, most of the time it had not (or so Chrissy said).
    Rhona decided against the phone call. She would check her email instead.
     

Chapter 7
    Two messages awaited her. Neither from Sean. He refused to go electronic. Recording a message for the ansaphone was, he declared, his limit.
    There was one from Chrissy, entitled jazz and things. The second looked like a conference memo for tomorrow. Rhona double-clicked and viewed a confirmation of her schedule, while trying not to acknowledge the sudden flutter of apprehension in the pit of her stomach.
    Now for Chrissy's message.
    The things part came first and the tone was decidedly nippy. Chrissy had gone into the lab to do some overtime but had been unable to process the tests, because the samples were gone. She had checked the mortuary but the foot was also absent. Dr Sissons had been unavailable. There was no evidence of a break-in at the lab and nothing on the security cameras. Chrissy had phoned and reported the foot and samples missing to DI Wilson, who told her he would get back to her.
    Rhona could almost hear the irritation at this point.
    On a positive note, Chrissy had taken the digital image to the computing department They had done some work on it and the result was in the attached file. Mention of the jazz club was short. Sean's new singer was good, very good. Unfortunately she had the look of heroin chic.
    Another woman reading Chrissy's email would have assumed the new singer was skinny, white, with big charcoal eyes. Definitely not Sean's type.
    Rhona knew Chrissy was telling her something else.
    Heroin chic. Translation - the new singer was at worst a junkie, at best liked partying.
    What the hell was Sean playing