Free Watermind by M. M. Buckner Page A

team will be here tomorrow.”
    He meant the science team. Two experts were flying in from Miami. CJ felt ambivalent about meeting them. “I’m tired, Roman.”
    It was the first time she’d called him by name. Did most people call him Mr. Sacony? She couldn’t remember. Anyway, to hell with it. “I spent last night with your guards in the locker room.” After saying this, she giggled at how it sounded. Then she slid off the lab stool and swayed. “Whoa. I think I’m dehydrated.”
    Roman filled a clean test beaker with water from the lab sink, and she drank it. He wiped the dribble from her chin with his handkerchief. “You’re exhausted. I forgot about your night of incarceration. Come, I’ll drive you home.”
    She wavered, imagining his car, the contained smell of leather, the intimate privacy. In his car, she might be tempted beyond her scruples. But her Rover was still parked at the end of a dirt road somewhere near the levee. “I have—”
    â€œOne condition, right.” He arched an eyebrow. “We’ll stop for pizza.”
Drum
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    Thursday, March 10
    11:45 PM
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    Later that night, long after CJ had eaten her fill of oily Sicilian crust and gone to bed alone, Max continued to shuffle groggily on a creaking wooden platform, rasping his calloused fingers over his
frottior
. The waterfront bar smelled of urine and smoke, and a cloudburst drummedon the roof. The raindrops kept better time than the
nomm
standing next to him, smacking the congas out of rhythm. Max was playing with a pickup band for fifty dollars, and he needed the money. His five-year-old daughter had to see the doctor again.
    Marie kept having earaches. Sonia, his ex-wife, said it was nothing, but Max worried anyway. He agonized over Marie’s baby teeth, like satiny seed pearls. He imagined they were growing crooked, or too far apart, or too crowded. He fretted about her lungs. Her chest seemed so thin and delicate.
    Yet Marie was a lovely girl. Small for her age but full of sparkling mischief, as quick and lithe as a water sprite. He felt unprepared for such a beautiful daughter. Her fragility made him ache. She’d inherited Sonia’s green eyes and brown hair, but she had her father’s complexion. And she loved to dance the zydeco.
    As Max shambled his heavy limbs in time with the music, Marie’s laughter echoed through his head, winsome, merry, like water flowing over round stones. He wanted to write a song like that. Lately, he’d been working out a melody just for her. He pictured her kicking up her little feet to his tune in shiny white patent-leather shoes. He wanted to give her new clothes and a pretty silver necklace. He wanted to send her to a fine school. He wanted so much for Marie, so much more than he’d ever had. Sometimes the volume of what he wished for her crushed him like a wave.
    He felt that wave now as his weary fingers scratched the rubboard. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep for two days. Almost mechanically, he moved his feet to the rhythm and mouthed the lyrics. Cold spring fog drafted through an open window and soothed him. The rain beat time overhead. Only a little while longer. The bar closed at midnight. Then he could go home.

 
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Drizzle
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    Friday, March 11
    7:45 AM
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    The sloughs and marshes of Devil’s Swamp exhaled a chilly breath of ground fog that hung translucent in the air. Droplets beaded on waxy leaves, and water trickled in rivulets through the spongy biomass of soil and rot. Pools shivered beneath an icy drizzle, and bubbles rose. In the crescent-shaped pond, the dense bottom layer of fluid suddenly inverted to the surface, trapping warmer layers beneath. And the mud sighed with osmotic fullness.
    Back at the Roach Motel, CJ found most of the extra-large pizza still waiting on her kitchenette counter when she woke. Barefoot and cold, she stood in her underwear and wolfed down a