It was humbling to see a strong man almost weep with relief. Bruce let out a mighty sigh, closing his eyes as the magnitude of what he’d just heard penetrated. The entire tone of the visit shifted once Bruce had been assured that most of his operation would be unaffected by the coming reservoir.
Bruce clapped him on the back. “Come! Let’s head into town for a beer and a celebration.”
Nick stiffened. The only nearby town was Duval Springs, and he was thoroughly hated in Duval Springs.
“Let’s stay up here,” he suggested.
Bruce pulled a frown at him. “You sure? The Duval Tavern is famous. George Washington once stayed there.”
Which was why Nick wanted to keep far away. Every time he contemplated driving those people off their land, it made the ulcer in his stomach worse. He didn’t see any point in subjecting himself to a celebratory evening in a tavern he would soon order demolished.
Over the next two days, he rode throughout the valley, surveying everything beneath the flow line that would require demolition. It added up to thirty-five farms, a dozen apple orchards, ten churches, two railroad depots, a lumber mill, two cemeteries, forty shops, and six hundred homes. All of them were going to be laid to waste, and thousands of people would be kicked off their land. It was his job to supervise the army of demolition experts and work crews that would make it happen. All he wanted was to escape this valley of doomed villages and despairing people.
He missed Rosalind. This job was hard enough without the constant longing to get home to a woman he hadn’t been able to court properly because of endless work commitments. The ache became so bad that he wrapped up the final inspections quickly so he could get home a day early. Rosalind wasn’t expecting him until Saturday, when he’d promised her a day at Coney Island with Sadie, but it was hard to court a woman with a three-year-old in tow. He arrived back in the city on Friday, early enough to have lunch with Sadie and lavish praise on her newfound mastery of using a hook to button her own shoes.
Then he put on a fresh suit, bought a bouquet of roses, and set off for Rosalind’s lab to surprise her.
Did she like surprises? He was about to find out.
Chapter
Fourteen
When Nick arrived at Rosalind’s lab, he was taken aback by a group of men he’d never seen before, bent over microscopes. Rosalind wasn’t there.
“Is Dr. Werner available?” he asked, feeling a little foolish with a dozen roses clutched in one hand and a bunch of strange men staring at him. He had to step aside as another man hustled into the room, carrying a rack of water samples in little glass jars. Where had all these people come from?
“She’s out at the reservoir taking soil samples,” one of the men said. “She’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Oh.”
Disappointment trickled through him, but he wasn’t going to wait for her here where there’d be no privacy. Ten minutes later, he had fired up his automobile and replenished the gasoline for a drive to the Boonton Reservoir. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. The forest surrounding the reservoir offered plenty of privacy, and maybe he could persuade Rosalind to neglect her duties for a stroll with a man who’d missed her desperately for the past five days.
The car rocked and bumped along the gravel path as he rounded a bend of trees and spotted the reservoir in the distance. Surrounded by a twenty-foot wall of granite block, it was an impressive system, nearly bankrupting the private investors who’d spent millions on it along with twenty-one miles of tunnels, conduits, and steel pipe.
He slowed his car, studying the reservoir. Something looked different than the last time he was here. A small building had been erected at the base of the reservoir wall. It wasn’t large enough to hold a new filtration plant, but it didn’t look like housing for the staff either.
There was no sign of Rosalind. He picked up the bouquet of roses, headed to the squat new building, and peeked inside the window. A grin spread across his face as he recognized her slender frame leaning over a table of little glass bottles. He tapped on the window to get her attention.
She looked startled at first, then afraid.
“Don’t worry, it’s just me,” he called as he headed toward the door.
He opened it and stepped inside. It looked like she had another laboratory set up here, with complicated tubing and giant tanks, all bubbling and gurgling. It smelled bad.
“I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see you again,” he admitted. He ought to be embarrassed, showing up like a lovestruck idiot with a bunch of roses, but he couldn’t stop smiling so widely that his face hurt.
“Oh,” she said. “Welcome back. Your trip was profitable?” She still had a hand to her throat, her face a combination of startled confusion and something else he couldn’t quite name.
“Nothing about dealing with Bruce Garrett is going to be profitable for the state. I was trying to figure out how much it’s going to cost us to pay him off.”
“And?” she asked as she slid around to the front of the table, blocking his view of her experiments. Which was fine. He wanted to talk about her, not test tubes or court cases.
“And I still don’t know. But I saw a vendor selling roses at the railway station, and suddenly it became vitally important for me to bring some to you right away.”
He held them toward her, but she didn’t move a muscle. Why was she acting so oddly? He pulled the roses back and shifted on his feet.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “The lab back in the city is crammed with a bunch of men I’ve never seen before.”
“Yes. We’ve brought on a few students from the college to help us with some tests.”
“What kind of tests?” He glanced at the oversized tank in the corner. He’d never seen anything like it. His smile froze as he scrutinized the odd tank. He glanced back at Rosalind, who still hadn’t answered him. “What kind of tests?” he asked again, rubbing his nose. It stank in here. Like chemicals.
The oversized tank had a rope of steel tubing coming from the top, the kind used for acidic chemicals. A shorter, squat tank had similar tubes and a flow switch attached to the larger tank. Which meant they were doing something with the reservoir water. Treating it, somehow.
He dropped the roses on the floor and looked at her in stunned disbelief. No. No, she wouldn’t dare.
“What kind of tests?” he demanded, his voice lashing out to echo in the bare brick chamber.
The guilt on her face was all the answer he needed. It was chlorine. He reached out to grab the dial beside the tank, ready to twist it shut.
“Don’t touch that!”
He whirled to face her. “What is it?”
“You know what it is,” she said faintly.
He looked at the system, the dials and switches hooked up to a complicated series of tubes, all of it carefully calibrated. It was hooked into the reservoir only yards away, chlorinating the water. Every cell in his body wanted to yank the steel tubing out of the wall, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He couldn’t risk somehow dumping an overload of chemicals into the water supply.
“Who knows about this?” he bit out.
Her face had gone chalk white, and she seemed too petrified to answer. He stepped closer, and she backed up until she bumped against the wall. He needed to know if this had been authorized by the judge, but given the guilty look on her face, he doubted it.
“Who else knows about this?”
“Just the people working in our lab,” she stammered.
The betrayal seared. The audacity and arrogance it took to build this operation was appalling, and to think, she had been a part of it all along. He couldn’t even bear to look at her.
On the worktable was a collection of bottles, sample plates filled with soil, and a stack of notebooks. One of the notebooks was open, the pages filled with charts and dates. This test had been going on for weeks!
He lunged for the notebooks and scooped them up before she could stop him.
&nb
sp; “Give those back!” she shouted, but he paid her no mind as he headed for the door.
She tried to grab the notebooks from his arms, but he brushed her aside and strode to his car. Rosalind kept trying to pry the notebooks from him as he leaned into his car to unlock the glove compartment. The moment the compartment was open, he deposited the books, slammed the hatch, and locked them inside.
“Give those back,” she demanded. “I need those notes. They prove everything.”
“What about Judge McLaughlin? He lives right across the street from you. Does he know what you’ve been doing?”
“No. He doesn’t know anything.”
“He will soon.” Nick raised the hood and began priming the engine.
Rosalind had climbed inside the carriage of the car, trying to pry the glove box open with a hairpin. It wouldn’t do her any good. The engine roared to life, and he hauled her out of the car, dumping her a few yards away.
He lunged into the driver’s seat. Rosalind was shouting at him, but he couldn’t hear over the racket of the engine. Not that he’d care to listen. He would never listen to anything she said again. Never hang on her words like the besotted idiot he’d been all because she was pretty and smart enough to pull the wool over his eyes.
She stood behind the car, blocking his ability to back up, and he couldn’t go forward because he was too close to the building to turn around. He twisted in his seat to glare at her. “Get out of the way,” he ordered.
“No.” She didn’t budge.
“Back away!”
“No. Not unless you give me those notebooks back.”
“Forget it.”
“You’re not leaving with those notes.” She smacked the back fender with the palm of her hand.
He rose up in the seat. “If you lay one more finger on my car, I’ll throw you in the reservoir.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He roared with anger. “I didn’t think you would dare dump chlorine in the water supply, but I was wrong about that, wasn’t I?”
She held up her hands in appeal. “Don’t let your temper make you do something stupid,” she said, struggling to control her breath. “If you would let me show you the results of our test, you would change your mind. Nick, it’s working. Don’t destroy those notebooks.”
“Do you think I’m a barbarian? That I would destroy something because I’m afraid of it?”
Indecision warred on her face, and she paused. Her next words made him even angrier. “Would you?”
Everything was collapsing beneath him. All his wild hopes for a future with her, a woman who seemed so smart and pure and who accepted him even though he didn’t come from a fancy background like hers.
He tried to block the bitterness from his voice, but it leaked in anyway. “No. I’m not a mindless savage who destroys information that leads to the truth. But you aren’t who I thought you were, and I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that. Now back away.”
She did. He backed his car out and sped toward the city without a backward glance. He had evidence of a crime that needed to be turned over to a judge.
Rosalind stood dazed and appalled as Nick’s car roared away, her notebooks in tow. He had the results of her research. He had stolen them! She had to get them back, but she also had to get to Judge McLaughlin’s house. She had no idea how fast Nick’s car could drive, but it was over twenty miles to get back home, and the roads were bad. A horse and wagon might be faster than his car.
She hiked up her skirts and ran to the opposite side of the reservoir where one of the filtration plant workers kept a horse and wagon for transporting equipment back to town. It took a full five minutes to get there, and she was breathless as she staggered into the clearing where the plant workers manned the filtration machinery.
“Jack! Can you give me a ride back to town?” she shouted.
“No problem, Dr. Werner,” he said as he hauled a sack of charcoal pebbles toward the storage barn. “Just let me finish unloading this—”
“Now,” she said. “I’m sorry, but it’s an emergency, and I need to get back to Jersey City right away.”
Jack dropped the sack with a thump. “Let’s go.”
The horses were already hitched to the wagon, and they were on their way within moments. She clenched her teeth as they bumped and jostled along the dirt path toward the main road. There was no sign of Nick’s car other than its wheel marks in the dust. She silently urged the horses to move faster, wondering if even now Nick was laying his case before the judge. Or destroying her notebooks. Those notes documented one of the most important scientific experiments anywhere in the world.
She couldn’t blot out the memory of how happy Nick looked when he arrived, holding those roses and his face flushed with anticipation. It had all drained away when he realized what she was doing.
Traffic clogged the roads as they got closer to Jersey City. The main street was crowded with horse-drawn wagons, bicycle riders, and pedestrians. She sucked in a breath when she spotted Nick’s car navigating traffic, jerking and stopping as he maneuvered through the masses. His sleek automobile could move through the crowd faster than their lumbering wagon.
“I’ll get out here,” she said to Jack.
“You sure? I don’t mind taking you the rest of the way.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said as she clambered off the driver’s bench and onto the street.
She could cut through backyards and get to the judge’s house faster than Nick could navigate through the traffic on the streets. There was no room for pride as she gathered up her skirts and ran. If she had a prayer of beating Nick to the judge’s house, she had to move fast.
Running behind the hardware store let her cut quickly through to her neighborhood. She cut across more backyards and scrambled over fences until she finally arrived at her street. She ran down the center of the street, trying to power through the stitch in her side that made it hard to breathe. She jammed a fist against the ache as she rounded a bend and finally spotted the judge’s house. There was no sign of Nick’s car.
She cut across the judge’s front lawn, staggered up the steps, and pounded on his door. From the end of the street came the rumbling of a car engine, probably Nick, but the curve of the road made it impossible to see.
She swallowed hard, waiting. She pounded on the door again. The judge’s wife answered. With fading auburn hair and a toddler propped on one hip, she looked like the epitome of domesticity.
“My heavens, whatever is the matter, dear?”
“Is the judge home? I need to see him at once.”
Mrs. McLaughlin’s eyes widened, and Rosalind felt the woman’s disapproving gaze travel from her disheveled hair all the way down to her muddy shoes. The older woman planted herself in the middle of the doorway, mild censure on her face.
“We’re just sitting down to dinner.” And it didn’t look like Rosalind was going to be invited inside. The chugging of an automobile drew closer and slowed down. Nick had arrived.
Rosalind pushed her way into the house. “This won’t take long,” she said, hurrying down the front hallway toward the sounds of children. Nick’s footsteps thudded on the front porch behind her.
The judge sat at the head of the dining table with children lined up on either side, a large roast and bowls of steaming vegetables already in place.
“Judge McLaughlin,” Rosalind panted. “I need to speak with you right away.”
Nick barged in front of her. “Not before you talk to me.”
“What’s all this, then?” Judge McLaughlin demanded. “I recognize you,” he said to Nick. “You testified in the water case.”
“Nicholas Drake,” Nick bit out. “I testified on behalf of the city, and this is Rosalind Werner. She’s a scientist for the other side and has been acting in bad faith. She and Dr. Leal have been ignoring your ruling.”
“We have not!” she said.
Mrs. McLaughlin stepped forward and snapped her fingers. “Come along
, children. It looks as if your father has business that simply cannot wait,” she said with a pointed glare.
Rosalind kept her eyes fastened on the judge as the children shuffled out of the dining room. He was a cool one. With steel-gray hair and the build of an athlete, he hadn’t moved from his seat as he calmly stirred a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. He took a long sip before turning his eyes to them.
“Well?” he asked as soon as the others had cleared out.
Nick pounced. “I just came from the Boonton Reservoir, and they have a chlorination system in place. It looks like it’s been in operation for weeks, maybe longer.”
The judge turned his attention to her. “Is this true?”
“Yes,” she said simply, for there was no point in soft-pedaling this.
“Everything is already in operation,” Nick said. “They’ve got dissolving tanks feeding chlorine into the city water system even as we speak. That coffee you’re drinking is full of it.”
The judge was in the middle of another sip when he pulled the cup away from his face, eyeing it as if it had suddenly sprouted fangs. “Really?” He sniffed it and took another tiny sip. “I can’t taste it at all.”
“That’s because it’s full of coffee and sugar,” Nick said. “Try drinking something straight out of the tap.”
The judge stood and headed through an arched hallway into a white-tiled kitchen flooded with sunlight from a window over the sink. Rosalind and Nick followed. The judge took a clear drinking glass from the shelf and lowered it beneath the faucet. Water gurgled in the pipe as he filled the glass. He held it aloft, scrutinizing it carefully. He wiggled it, sniffed it, and then tasted it. Rosalind held her breath as he kept the water in his mouth for a moment, swallowed, and smacked his lips. He took another sip, this time swishing it around in his mouth before swallowing again.
“Ha! I can’t taste a thing. Are you sure it’s chlorinated?” he asked her.
“I’m sure,” she admitted.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” he said, sounding almost amused.
A Daring Venture Page 17
