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mother’s name. The personnel office had made a mistake printing the whole revolting thing on her badge. She nodded. “That’s me. Staff chemist.”
    The man wore casual clothes, expensive but not showy. A Montblanc pen bulged in his shirt pocket, and CJ thought he might be a lawyer. Late forties, she guessed, close to her father’s age. His features were gaunt, as if he’d been fasting, and one of his eyebrows arched higher than the other, giving him an aristocratic expression. Yes, this guy definitely qualified as handsome. She could tell he was deciding the same thing about her.
    â€œYou’re a temp,” he said.
    â€œI’m a consultant,” she bluffed. “I’m trying to bail your company out of a major jam with the EPA, and they’re waiting for my analysis. Can you help me or not?”
    The man wore his badge clipped to his belt, so she couldn’t read his name. “What are you analyzing?” He spoke with a trace of accent, as if he’d learned English as a second language.
    â€œToxic waste.” She popped her cooler lid. “Wanna see?”
    He stepped back and shook his head, then pulled his badge out on its retractable cord and waved it across the reader. The LED changed from red to green.
    He said, “Be my guest, Carolyn Reilly.”
    Inside the quiet lab, CJ locked the glass door and waited till the man disappeared down the hall. A small surveillance camera dangled from the ceiling, so she drew deep breaths and stood straighter, trying to appear official. She hoped the guy behind that camera was reading a comic book.
    But he wasn’t. Security officer Gene Becnel monitored his screens with the vigilance of a cotton rat. As soon as he noticed her presence in the lab, he checked his personnel schedule, then slotted a DVD to make a high-resolution recording. Next he took a bite of his Kit Kat bar and poised one finger over the alarm button. His great doughy buttocks inched forward in his chair, and with rapt concentration, he watched her take a Baggie of liquid from a white plastic cooler.
Spread
    Â 
    Wednesday, March 9
    4:01 PM
    Â 
    Devil’s Swamp glistened under the white-hot sun, and a vaporous stench saturated the air. A line of workers in goggles and respirators shoveled gelatinous orange sludge into barrels, then banged the lids shut with rubber mallets and loaded them on flatbed trucks. It was slow, heavy work. The toluene spill had spread over five flooded acres.
    When Rory Godchaux signaled the mid-afternoon break, everyone dropped their shovels and retreated to the shade, where Rory hosed them down from a tank on his pickup truck. Then they ripped off their gloves and goggles and headed for the water coolers.
    First thing, Max tried to call CJ. Squatting beneath a water maple, he listened to a recorded voice say the subscriber he was seeking could not be found. She had turnedoff her cell phone. Max chewed his lips. The girl didn’t go to any hospital. He should have dragged her there by the scruff of her neck. Crazy child. He keyed her number again.
    Overhead, the maple branches rustled faintly in the breeze, while blank cellular static whistled in his right ear. She must not want him to find her. He clicked the phone shut and jammed it in his pocket. He knew she was grieving for her
popa.
Her flighty turns were not always her fault, he wanted to believe that. But sometimes she drove him
gen vètij
—dizzy.
    He sighted out across the swamp and located the tupelo gums, beyond which lay the frozen pond. His muscles tightened, remembering. Everything about that ice felt wrong. He should never have given his word not to tell. He glanced at the crew chief’s white pickup. Rory was sitting inside, talking on the radio. Max worked his lips in and out. The sound of crickets sizzled through the air like hot popping grease.
    Sometimes it was right to break a promise. He had half a mind to go find the crazy child, haul her