And it had remained pure fantasy until one day near the end of the term…

Nadia shifted to banish the faint tingling in her pelvis. Doug Gleason was the man in her life now—now and forever.

“You owe him enough to play guardian angel?” Jack said.

“Curtis Sliwa I’m not. But what should I do when I think that the man who inspired me toward my life’s work and gave me my first job is being coerced into doing something most likely illegal?”

“How do you know it’s coercion?” Jack said.

“Come on. If a known thug is physically pushing him around, I’ve got to believe he’s pushing him around in other ways as well.”

Jack was nodding slowly. “Yeah. That would follow. So what would you like me to do about it?”

“A number of things.” Nadia had worked out an algorithm for the Monnet situation, much like the ones the medical journals worked up for diagnosis and treatment of a given disorder. She pictured the boxes and decision points in her mind as she spoke. “First we have to determine the connection between Dr. Monnet and Milos Dragovic. If it’s all perfectly legal—which I very much doubt—then we drop it right there. If it’s not so legal, then we move on. And if Dr. Monnet is being coerced, I want it stopped.”

Jack’s eyes bored into her. “And if he’s a willing participant in something illegal, with no coercion, then what?”

That was the final leg of Nadia’s algorithm, a blank box she hadn’t filled in. She hoped, prayed she wouldn’t have to. She couldn’t imagine Dr. Monnet willingly involved in anything illegal. He was already wealthy. He didn’t need money.

But then she thought of the sleazy junk bond dealers in the eighties who’d ripped off hundreds of millions in a single year. But did they quit while they were ahead—way ahead? No. They wanted still more. The money itself had ceased to matter. It was the high from the risk that kept them pushing for more and more until finally they were caught.

Was Dr. Monnet’s aloof demeanor merely a facade? Could a hunger for risk, a need for speed, a jones for adrenaline boil beneath that controlled surface?

This man sitting before her might come up with answers to questions she didn’t want asked. But she had to do something. And she had to trust that an important person in her life did not have feet of clay.

She sighed. “I don’t think you’ll find that. But if you do, I’ll make up my mind then.”

“Fair enough,” Jack said. “I’ll need some addresses—his home, the company’s corporate offices—phone numbers: yours, his, work, home, and so on.”

Nadia pulled an envelope from her purse. “I’ve got them all right here. I’ve also written up what I know of his life, his training, his research, plus all I know about the company, GEM Pharma.”

Jack smiled. “Efficient. I like that.”

“There’s just one problem,” she said, feeling her stomach tighten. Alicia had told her about the Repairman Jack’s usual fee. “Money.”