Free Nano by Robin Cook Page B

the lobby of the facility, breathing shallowly to avoid the smell. He was disgusted, and hated himself for it, knowing as he did how tenuous the threads of nerve fibers were that separated his mental state from that of his mother’s.
    Berman emerged into the gathering gloom as the sun had settled behind the mountains to the west. Darkness fell rather quickly as he walked across the lawn and the parking area on his way to his Aston Martin.
    With the engine purring under the hood, Berman checked his watch again. It was time to go back to the lab and find out what it was that Stevens, the investigative leader on the Chinese study, who had texted him yet again, wanted to talk to him about so urgently. It sounded ominous, and Berman did not like surprises. Pulling out onto the road, Berman laid a strip of rubber as a defiant adolescent gesture.

8.
    PIA’S APARTMENT, BOULDER, COLORADO
    MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013, 6:15 A.M.
    George stirred from his place on Pia’s lumpy couch and felt his back complain. After settling in for the night, he’d woken every half hour or so and tried to get comfortable, but with little success. He sensed he wasn’t going back to sleep. He checked his watch, and it was early in the morning for Colorado but even earlier by his body clock, which was on Pacific time. It took George a second to realize where he was. Then he heard the shower come on, so Pia was obviously awake and getting ready for the start of her workweek. He thought about going into the bathroom and getting into a conversation with her while she showered, but he chickened out. He guessed she would think of it as an intrusion, not as an endearment. After not inviting him into her bedroom the previous evening, she had made it obvious that she wanted to maintain her space. He lay back down.
    George’s visit was hardly going as he had intended, or hoped. He understood he had shown up unannounced and uninvited, but he had expected Pia to be more welcoming. Although she had allowed him to stay in the apartment, for much of the previous evening she had acted as if he weren’t there. Her nap had turned into a three-hour epic. It had gone on for so long that George started to wonder if she was done for the night. Since he’d come without much forethought, he’d brought nothing to read. Pia didn’t have a TV, or even a radio, so he listened to music on his iPod and flipped through some of the immunology textbooks piled on her dining-room table, hardly recommended pleasure reading.
    Pia finally had surfaced in her bathrobe at eight, just after the sun had set, like some sort of vampire, or so George had thought, irritably. She clearly wasn’t in the best of moods or primed for conversation. This apparent depressive behavior caused George’s concern for her that had started in Los Angeles to ratchet upward. So far her actions there in Boulder weren’t doing much to alleviate his worries.
    George couldn’t help but wonder about the simple necessities of life that Pia was obviously neglecting: there was the almost-empty fridge and a lack of personal possessions in her apartment. Pia always acted as if she were just passing through, but there was less of Pia’s stuff here in Boulder than an overnight traveler would bring to a hotel room. And then there was the situation with Zachary Berman, who his intuition was telling him was not as copacetic as Pia seemed to want him to believe. The last thing George wanted to do was fuss over Pia or nag her, because he knew she’d push back big time, but he wanted to show that he was thinking about her well-being without irritating her. The question was how to do it.
    Pia had suddenly appeared from her nap and had gone into the kitchen. George had followed her, leaning on the countertop as she got out some green tea from a cupboard and put on the kettle to boil. As the water heated, she looked over at George. To George she appeared both sleepy and defiant at the same time.
    “So, George. I sense from your