Chains of Ice Read Online Free PDF

shots.”
    “Thank you!” She waved and grinned. She couldn’t stop grinning.
    “I’ve got a reservation for dinner. We’re going to have to hurry if we’re going to make it.” Father smiled charmingly at the group of graduates and their parents. “You’ll forgive me if I take Genny away for a private celebration, won’t you?”
    “Of course!” Brianna’s father shook his hand. “But if you get a chance, stop by the house. We’re having a party to celebrate the girls’ accomplishments.”
    “We’ll be there!” Father promised, taking Genny’s hand, swinging it as they walked away. As soon as they were out of earshot, he muttered, “Pompous ass.”
    “He’s not really. He’s nice.” Genny didn’t know why she tried. Brianna’s father was a top exec, had used his influence to help Genny land the job; and if he knew about her father’s disgrace, he never indicated it by word or deed.
    Yet Father didn’t care. For him, the humiliation of his disgrace was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.
    So Genny told herself stoutly that she didn’t care if she went to the party with her friends. She had her father.
    Father always said if he couldn’t dine as he chose, he wouldn’t dine at all. So they never went out to dinner.
    But he must have been saving up for this one grand gesture, because the restaurant was among Manhattan’s finest. As they walked behind the maitre d’, she prayed they wouldn’t be seated by the restrooms or in a corner. She didn’t want her father in a bad mood all evening, angry because he’d been slighted.
    Luck or providence or Father’s expensive suit worked for them, because their table was against the window with a view of Manhattan’s lights laid out like jewels tossed on a black velvet cushion. The waiter was attentive, and Genny relaxed into the evening—her pleasure complete as she watched her father transformed from the bitter worker into this cool, elegant gentleman.
    She had a bad moment when he ordered for her. Yes, perhaps a gentleman did order for his date, but this was her father. He didn’t know her tastes; he only knew what he wanted her tastes to be. But it was a small quibble, not worth fighting about. When the appetizers arrived, she had a nibble of each—she hated caviar, but he insisted—then Father pulled an envelope out of his jacket and pushed it across the gleaming white tablecloth. “Your graduation present.”
    “What’s this?” She picked it up gingerly, half afraid—well, more than half—he was giving her a gift certificate for another course on how to crush your business opponent.
    “Open it and see.” He leaned back in his chair and watched with a satisfied smile as she broke the seal.
    She slid a travel itinerary out of the envelope. She examined it. One round-trip plane ticket in her name, leaving next week, returning in September—New York to Berlin, Berlin to Moscow, Moscow to . . . someplace called Rasputye? Bewildered, she looked up at him. “I don’t understand.”
    “Remember that Russian woman? The one with the cats?”
    “Lubochka Koslov?”
    “That’s her.”
    What that had to do with this ticket, Genny didn’t understand. “They’re not just cats, Father. Koslov is the world’s leading expert on the rare Ural lynx, one of the big cats believed to be driven to extinction at the start of the twentieth century. She proved a small group had survived in the depths of the northern Ural Mountains in the area spanning the border between Europe and Asia. She spends her summers studying the lynx, and her winters lecturing at universities to raise money to support her research.” When Lubochka Koslov had come to NYU, Genny had gone to hear her speak and been enthralled. “Her team is the only one who’s ever taken pictures of the big cats in the wild.”
    “You already filled me in. When you came home from her lecture.” He sounded bored, but . . .
    “You remembered I went to one of her lectures?” Genny was