“No one could have foreseen—”

“I could have foreseen it.” Eban stared the man down. “One conversation with any State Department official is all it would have taken to knock back that less-than-stellar plan. Nothing has changed there, in case you’re wondering.” He shot Darby a look, unable to believe she was contemplating going back.

“We have to go to where the volcanoes are. Not the other way around. We follow stringent safety protocols,” Nilsson blustered.

Eban wanted to smack the guy, but the professor didn’t know the full extent of what Darby had endured last year. He knew about the abduction, but Darby had never gone public with the days of unending sexual assaults. Jacqui could fill everyone in now, Eban thought bitterly.

“Darby was left alone on a remote volcanic island with zero protection or back up.” His voice got quieter which the professor didn’t seem to realize signaled danger. “So, it seems to me that you protect everyone except Darby. In fact, to me it looks as if you regularly throw her to the wolves.”

* * *

Darby watched a flush of guilt fill her supervisor’s cheeks.

“That’s not true,” argued Jim Nilsson. “That’s not what happened—”

“It’s exactly what happened,” Eban stated firmly.

Darby knew Quentin had confronted her advisor, and he’d claimed to be repentant when she’d returned to the Institute. Had those words merely been lip service?

Nilsson puffed out his chest and tried to look down his nose at Eban. Failed miserably. “Who are you anyway?”

“I’m one of the people who would have advised you forcibly against going to that part of the world last summer and would have emphatically discouraged you from leaving a lone female to fend for herself.”

Nilsson looked away, cleared his throat. “We try not to discriminate here.”

Shock lanced through her. Raising the issue of gender equality in this context was beyond painful and deflected the real issue of not providing adequate safety measures in the field.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Eban seemed to have misplaced his negotiation skills. He was visibly furious. “Any future field trip to that part of Indonesia should be reconsidered unless you can afford to hire a private security firm. Even then it’s a significant risk.”

“The Indonesian authorities have assured me—”

“A member of the Indonesian parliament was actively conspiring with the head of the terrorist cell out there.”

“That person was removed.”

“The Indonesian military has deep ties to the group who terrorized Darby last year.”

She felt sick. She was so lucky to have escaped at all.

“We’ll hire more security,” the professor countered impatiently.

“You will need military-grade operatives and lots of them.” Eban gritted out. “Do you have the kinds of funds necessary for that level of an operation?”

Darby’s breath jangled in her chest. Would her boss willfully endanger his students a second time for the sake of science? The work was important, but so was safety and common sense.

“We will probably have to rethink the idea anyway, but that has nothing to do with the situation we currently find ourselves in, which is the murder of Martin Carstairs’s,” the professor announced, trying to regain the upper hand in the conversation. “I spoke to the head of department today and there was a general feeling that the events of last night are bringing this Institute into disrepute. We have our reputation to protect if we want to attract quality students to the university—”