The Tombs (A Fargo Adventure) Read Online Free PDF Page B

finery.”
    He shook his head. “I just smile a lot. It means I’m guileless and friendly.”
    She finished with the lines, then stepped to the cabin and tugged once on the new padlock. “Guileless? Being transparent isn’t the same as being guileless. Take me to a long hot shower, a good restaurant, and then maybe we’ll talk about the friendly part.”

 
L
A
J
OLLA,
C
ALIFORNIA
    S ELMA W ONDRASH SAT AT HER DESK IN THE OFFICE ON the first floor of the Fargo house on Goldfish Point in La Jolla. It was still early evening in California, and she looked up from the book she was reading to see the sun beginning to set over the smooth expanse of the ocean. She loved the moment when the sun seemed to sit on the horizon like the yolk of a fried egg. The long Pacific swells came in below the house at the foot of the cliffs, and she thought about how they came to her from across the world. She seldom had time to read books for pure pleasure, but the Fargos had been in Louisiana for nearly a month and what they were doing didn’t require much research effort from her.
    She ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair, closed her eyes for a moment, and thought about the book she was reading—
The Greater Journey
, David McCullough’s book about nineteenth-century Americans who went to Paris. They were like her, people in love with knowledge. For them and her, to learn was to live.
    She had, she thought, succeeded in finding the place for her.
    As a child, Selma had sometimes imagined a painted portrait of herself, a mousy, uninteresting creature—
The Girl in the Front Row With Her Hand Up
. She had begun as a prodigy, a child who read at two, and kept reading, learning, studying, calculating, and here she was, a master researcher.
    Catching sight of her reflection in the big shiny surface of the window overlooking the ocean, there she was, a small—perhaps compact—middle-aged—no fudging about that—woman, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and khaki pants. Well, these were Japanese gardening pants, and stylish.
    She had been working for Sam and Remi Fargo for quite some time now. They had hired her right after they had sold their company but before they had built this house. Remi had said, “We need somebody to help us do research.”
    “On what?” asked Selma.
    Remi answered, “On questions. On anything and everything. History, archaeology, languages, oceanography, meteorology, computer science, biology, medicine, physics, games. We want somebody who will hear a question and devise ways to answer it.”
    “I do that,” she’d said. “I’ve studied many of those fields myself, and taught a few. When I worked as a reference librarian, I picked up some sources and know many experts on the others. I’ll take the job.”
    Sam said, “You don’t even know the salary yet.”
    “You don’t either,” she’d said. “I’ll accept minimum wage for three probationary months and then you can name the figure. I assure you, it will be much higher than you know. You’ll be much more appreciative then than you are now.”
    She had never been less than delighted that she’d chosen to work for the Fargos. It was as though she had never looked for a job but instead was to be paid for being a good Selma. She even helped Sam and Remi plan this house. She had researched architecture and architects, materials and sustainable design, and because she had already studied Sam and Remi she could remind them of things they liked and would need space to accommodate. She had also explained what was necessary for a first-rate research facility.
    The telephone rang, and she considered letting Pete or Wendy, her junior researchers, pick it up. The idea lasted a half second before she became, as always, the victim of her own intense curiosity. “Hello. This is the Fargo residence. Selma Wondrash speaking.”
    “Selma!” came the voice.
“Meine Liebe, wo sind Ihr Chef und seine schöne Frau?”
    “Herr Doktor Fischer.
Sie sind tauchen im