“Well, anyway,” he said, trying to change the subject once the waiter had left, “I need to know how Sinclair reacted to the meeting with Tomlinson.”

“I wish I knew,” Glynis said, as she stuck a fork in one of the breaded oysters. “He hasn’t said a word about it to me.”

“You said he’s been talking with Nacho Perez.”

“Yes. Every day. Usually on the phone but several times the man has come to the prof’s office.” She frowned slightly. “I don’t like that man. He’s … he gives me the shudders. I think he could be terribly violent; I think he might enjoy violence.”

Jake muttered, “I wish I knew what they were talking about.”

“Beats me,” Glynis said.

They fell silent. Jake chewed through three of his oysters, sipped at his bottle of beer. Some spy I’m turning out to be, he thought. I can’t get any information out of her.

Glynis put her fork down and looked at him intently. “Jake … about Tim and me. I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I don’t sleep around.”

“Has Sinclair ever hit on you?”

“Now and then,” she said lightly. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle. Actually, he can be rather sweet when he wants to be.”

“He’s married, isn’t he?”

“Yes, but they’ve been separated for years.”

“Separated?” Jake asked. “Not divorced?”

“I don’t believe so,” Glynis said. “Either way, he seems to be paying a lot for her support.”

“Some marriages don’t work out, I guess,” Jake muttered, remembering all over again how lucky he had been with Louise.

Glynis shook her head. “It doesn’t seem to bother him all that much. At least the prof has never tried the old ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’ line.”

Jake nodded.

“Tim’s under a lot of pressure, too, you know. Underneath that dour Yankee hide of his, Tim is a good engineer who’s taken on the responsibility of making the big rig work. Sinclair has been riding him pretty hard.”

Jake felt his brows go up. “I thought it was the other way around: Tim wants to push hard and Sinclair wants a careful, cautious research program.”

“Don’t you believe that for a second,” Glynis said. “Sinclair may give the impression that he’s an ivory tower academic, but he’s got a white-hot ambition burning inside him.”

“He does? Then why isn’t he jumping on Tomlinson’s bandwagon? I would think—”

“Leeds has something on him,” Glynis said flatly. “I’m convinced of it.”

“His son’s job?”

“No, I think it’s something bigger than that.”

Jake leaned against the back of the booth. Glynis was dead serious, he saw.

“What the hell could it be?”