"Mary Janice Davidson - Delightful Deception" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Mary Janice)

Chapter One
^┬╗




Thea Foster, MD, PhD, MBBS, andтАФthis one had been for funтАФPharmD, was a woman with a
mission. Specifically, her mission was twofold: a) avoid termination, and b) avoid boredom. She was very
much afraid that if she accomplished the first, the second was inevitable.

She pressed her thumb to the ID plate, waited a moment to be scanned, then stood by as the door to
BioSecurity slid open. "Good morning, Dr. Foster," the computer husked, and she nearly grinned. Those
fools in IT had been fooling around with Central's voice programming again. How else to explain why she
had just been greeted by Marilyn Monroe's breathy contralto?

"Good morning, Central. Any schedule changes I should be aware of?" Probably not; as head of
BioSecurity, there were precious few changes that were not immediately brought to her attention.

"No, Dr. Foster. I downloaded the new CEO's presentation into your Palm last night; nothing has
changed."

Thea felt her mouth turn down in a grimace. The new CEO. Right. Not that she had forgottenтАФshe had
a photographic memory and it was, unfortunately, impossible for her to forget anythingтАФbut she'd
shoved it to the back of her brain for awhile.

After last quarter's debacle with the theftтАФOK, the donationтАФof PaceIC, the company's bottom line
had gone well over into red, with no hope in sight.

There were other eggs in Anodyne's basket, of course, but nothing near completion. PaceIC had been
their shot, and now it was gone. Well, not entirely gone, but now there was market competition, and their
profit margin had been considerably narrowed.

Thanks to me.

Well, yes. Thea hadn't liked the idea of making the suffering pay through the nose forher invention,
thanks very much. She had expressed this thought to Nicholas Jekell, aka the Jackal. The Jackal had told
her that as an employee of Anodyne, anything she invented was the company's property, what they did
with it was none of her damned business, and if she didn't like it, she could shove it up her frozen ass.

Forty-eight hours later, the head of security had left for the day, completely unaware that she was
carrying a vial worth billions. Dr. Jekell never pieced it togetherтАФnot all of it. For once her IQ, rep had
been the saving of her. No one had considered for even a nanosecond that Dr. Foster had jettisoned
PaceICтАж to benice .

Motivated partly by altruism, but mostly by vengeance, Thea had been shocked at how much she had
enjoyed the great good fun that had resulted. The ensuing chaos had been the most interesting thing to
happen in years, and if Renee had had a rough time of it at first, things had turned out all right for her in
the end. Thea soothed her mildly guilty conscienceтАФpricked by the memory of gunshots and police