High Energy, Joy, Dara [books to read this summer .txt] 📗

It's a little… dry."

His eyes sparkled. She knew right then he was not going to take the bait.

"Dry? Now you've challenged me, Zanita. I'm going to show you how exciting it

can be."

He was talking about physics, wasn't he? By his expression, she wasn't so sure.

Well, she had given him his out and he chose not to take it. "Thanks a lot,

but—"

"No thanks necessary. The joy is in the teaching." His eyes danced as if they

held secrets he would be more than willing to share with her. He came up on the

same step and placed a warm hand at her back, gently but firmly urging her back

to her seat.

"It's like this: you blundered in here, now we're going to keep you. Right,

lads?" He addressed the class at large.

The class heartily concurred. Not that Zanita expected them to do anything else.

It was obvious that the sun rose and set on this man as far as they were

concerned.

Stan turned in his seat, grinning up at her. "You're stuck with us, Zanita."

She turned to look up at Tyber, who stood over her shoulder. He knew very well

he had cornered her.

He winked! Who was he to…

She suddenly remembered where she had heard his name before.

Tyberius Augustus Evans was a brilliant, renowned eccentric, who held thousands

of patents on various devices and was sought out by heads of state, scientists,

business corporations, research facilities—in short, by anyone who thought they

could get something from him. His explorations, which he conducted in the

privacy of his walled estate, took him down various paths of endeavor. From what

she remembered, some were sublime; some seemed to her sort of silly. But who was

she to judge? The general consensus was that everything he produced displayed

the rare genius he was known for.

What else could she recall? Ah, yes. He worked strictly by himself; in other

words, he did not owe his soul to the company store. He guarded his privacy, and

he never, never, gave an interview.

She smiled slowly at him. Random element, indeed.

The information she needed on psychic healing she could pick up elsewhere. She

still fully intended to investigate Xavier LaLeche, but a class on psychic

healing wasn't anywhere near as important as the possibility of gaining an

interview with this man.

In a lightning display of deductive reasoning that would have fascinated Tyber

had he been aware of it, Zanita calculated her chances. There was no real

decision to make.

"I'll stay." The class applauded, but she barely noticed. Her sights were on

Tyberius Augustus Evans.

Tyber narrowed his eyes slightly as he studied the woman in front of him. She

had the look of his cat. Yes, when the cat was about to do something very

cunning.

Tyber smiled to himself. He always loved a mystery.

He knew exactly what to do next.

The first step was to test the water. As she was taking her seat, he decided to

shake her up a bit. Just to get it rolling.

"I'm going to follow up on that idea of yours."

She looked up at him in horror. Had he seen through her already? "What idea?"

Her voice wavered.

"Vibration." He leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Energy." His warm breath

tickled the side of her neck. "Resonance…"

She swallowed nervously, refusing to look at him. It was uncomfortably obvious

to Zanita that for whatever reason, the man had taken up the challenge.

It was also obvious that he intended to enjoy it.

She sighed as her earlier conversation with Mills passed through her mind. Here

was the perfect justification for her convictions. Damn, but he had a

mischievous look on his handsome face.

Nothing was ever simple when a man was involved.

Boil them in oil.

Chapter Two

« ^ »

"That is why, in later years, Newton was responsible for sending several men to

their death on the gallows. We physicists don't get mad; we get even."

The class laughed appreciatively at what Zanita suspected was in-house humor.

"Those of you who know me," Tyber went on, "know that I'm not much for a

structured academic environment. What say we meet tomorrow night at Mickey D's

on Route Nine?"

"The playground?" someone yelled out from the back of the room, making everyone

laugh.

Tyber grinned. "Not a bad idea, but I'd hate to have to defend my place in line

at the slide—some of those kids are meaner than I am. I think inside should be

acceptable. How many of you can make it?" Almost the whole class raised their

hands. Zanita was a noticeable exception.

"That many. I don't think we should have too much of a problem, as it's after

the dinner hour. Okay, so tomorrow night—same time, different location." The

class applauded the lecture as they vacated their seats.

Tyber's icy eyes lit on Zanita. "Ms. Masterson. I wonder if I might have a few

words with you before you leave?"

Zanita, who had been slinging her bag over her shoulder, looked up in surprise

and nodded.

Tyber, having got her consent, turned to a colleague who was asking him a

question.

By the time Zanita made her way to the front, Dr. Evans was already surrounded

by a group of sycophants who were panting around him like starving academic

dogs—not that she wouldn't have liked to pant around him as well, but for

entirely different reasons.

She waited patiently toward the back of the small crowd for the intellectual

fallout to clear. After about fifteen minutes, Zanita started getting impatient,

as the adoring masses did not seem to be thinning out. She was weighing the

prospect of leaving against the slim chance of gaining an interview this evening

when Tyber glanced her way and skillfully called a halt to the chit-chat,

promising to continue the discussion tomorrow evening.

The room emptied so fast, you might have thought an air raid siren had gone off.

Of course, these guys would have gone toward ground zero, not away from it.

Zanita smiled to herself; it had certainly been an interesting evening.

Tyber folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the desk. "You

didn't like the class, did you?"

Zanita was surprised. "Why do you say that?" She thought she had managed to hide

her confusion very well.

"You didn't raise your hand when I asked who could make it tomorrow evening. And

there was that other thing…"

"What other thing?"

"The way you kept crossing your eyes