Kitabı oku: «Dangerous Conditions», sayfa 2
Chapter Two
Lou Reber showed up at the lab just before lunch wearing a long face and rubbing the back of his neck. There was no clearer indicator that he was the bearer of bad news.
“What’s happened?” asked Jeremy, meeting Lou halfway across the room.
Paige instantly thought something had happened to his wife, Miriam. The woman was so changed since that ski accident, distracted, disheveled and unfocused.
But then she realized as the pit of her stomach dropped like a broken elevator, the bad news was about Ed, her boss.
“We found Dr. Sullivan,” he said. “Constable Lynch drove his jogging route after we couldn’t find him. He’s…gone…dead. Looks like a hit-and-run.”
Paige sank to her seat on the high black stool beside the tall lab table, samples abandoned as she absorbed the blow.
“He’s got kids,” said Paige, her voice trembling as the shock of having this man so suddenly torn from her life met with denial. As if having kids somehow exempted him from premature death. Hadn’t her father’s fatal auto accident taught her that no one was immune from tragedy?
Jeremy picked up where she had dropped off. “His son’s team… He coaches for the Lions Club and Boy Scouts.” Jeremy’s head sank and he covered his face with both hands.
“Everyone… The whole village will be devastated,” said Paige as the denial gave way to grief.
“That’s certain,” said Lou. “Anyway. That’s all I know. Lynch is out there. He’s with the game warden who was in the area because of the moose. They’re waiting for the state police and the county coroner.”
“Does his wife know yet?” asked Jeremy.
“Logan’s been to the Sullivans’ home and told Ursula. She is headed to the school to pick up her son and daughter.”
“Logan’s sure it’s Ed?” asked Jeremy. His voice was soft, as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. Neither could Paige.
“Listen, that boy might not be all there but he sure knows every family who lives in Hornbeck and a fair number that don’t.”
“He was always good with names,” said Paige and both men stared at her. She realized then that she’d spoken of Logan in the past tense as if he were the one who had died. Sometimes she felt like he had. Part of him, anyway, the part that loved her.
“Did he die right away?” asked Jeremy.
Lou shook his head. “Doesn’t look that way.”
Paige gasped. Could Edward have been saved if the driver had stopped or if help had reached him? If they had reached him, she thought, taking personal responsibility.
“I should have noticed that he was late,” said Jeremy, shouldering the guilt.
“I didn’t notice he had not checked back in,” said Lou.
Jeremy’s head hung and his gaze fixed on the floor. “But I did.”
“It’s not your fault, either of you,” said Paige. But she wondered if one of them could have saved him. If she, or either man, had noticed soon enough, called, checked and found Dr. Sullivan before the minutes of his life ticked away and he died, abandoned, on a lonely road.
IT WAS HARD not to notice when the village’s new EMS vehicle, carrying her boss’s body, made its way past the manufacturing plant. Paige’s lab was on the second floor and though the plant was three blocks off the main street and down the hill, she saw the flashing lights of the procession of the state police cruisers and EMS truck. The bright red and blue lights blinked in the twilight. Paige realized, grimly, that the ghastly parade would pass directly before Ed Sullivan’s home. Would his wife and two children be there to watch?
Her phone blipped, relaying a text. She had been getting texts and phone messages all day. She glanced at her mobile’s lock screen and saw that it was three in the afternoon and that she had received an incoming text.
She stared at the message as icy fingers danced up and down her spine. Dr. Sullivan wouldn’t have taken his phone on his run, but he’d have his smart watch. With no cell service, the text could not be sent until the watch returned to the area where internet service was available. Here, at the company, their Wi-Fi cast a net all the way past the volunteer fire department. So if the watch was still with his body, the message from him was being sent now. She shivered.
Paige watched the EMS truck, imagining Ed’s bloody corpse and the watch, still sending her his message.
She unlocked her phone and checked the message, which was a series of emojis. Easier to send than typing out words, even with phone prompts. Had he been injured, dying, when he wrote this or was this before his accident? She hoped, prayed, it was before as she stared at the three emojis and one typed word.
The message was composed in the following order: a green box with a white check-mark emoji, the word MY written in capital letters, the computer emoji and finally, the face with a zipper for a mouth.
That message was crystal clear. Ed wanted her to check his office computer and keep quiet about it.
For what?
The possibility that Edward’s death was no accident flashed in her mind as her skin stippled in fear. Each tiny hair on her arms lifted like a warning flag. They would check his watch. They would see the message. They would know she received it.
Paige dropped her phone as if she suddenly discovered a ticking time bomb in her palm, because she had. Ed had just died. He’d sent a message about something on his computer. Part of that message was to keep whatever she found quiet. She began to feel that text was as dangerous as any toxin they kept in the lab.
Ed had shown her that the watch did not lock until removed from his wrist, his corpse. If it were stolen, the watch would remain locked. But Ursula might know his passcode. The police would check his messages, at the very least. Would his killers?
She tried to calm herself. She was making a big leap here—from a possible hit-and-run to outright murder. And over what? Something on his computer?
Just what had Dr. Sullivan gotten himself into and why was he dragging her along? She glanced wildly about. Her gaze fixed on the flash outside her window. There, like a bright beacon against the gathering gloom of storm clouds, the EMS vehicle’s lights blinked as the van reached Main Street and turned toward the funeral home. That was where they’d take Ed before any autopsy. Inside the flashing truck, her supervisor’s body lay strapped to a gurney. She closed her eyes at the image.
Call the county sheriff or check Edward’s computer?
She reached for the phone to call security. Lou Reber had twenty-three years’ experience as a detective in Poughkeepsie, New York. He’d know what to do about this.
Paige had the receiver at her ear with the dial tone buzzing when she realized that was exactly the move that Ed Sullivan would have made if he found something illegal. He’d call security.
But now he was dead.
Lou had a staff of four. Any one or all of them might be involved. Involved in what? Was she crazy to blow this up to DEFCON 1?
Breathe. She tried but her lungs felt like someone was squeezing them.
You’re smart. Think.
It was hard to concentrate past the buzzing in her ears.
She lowered the phone to its cradle with a trembling hand. Balling her hand into a fist hid the tremor but not the aftershocks that rolled through her body.
The computer check came first. Her throat closed against the scream that turned to a squeak at the realization that she was going to check his computer.
“Paige?” Jeremy’s voice held concern. “Are you all right? You’ve gone pale.”
She’d worked with Jeremy for four years. He was her best friend here at work. But did she know him…really know him?
Her father used to say that you would be lucky to have maybe one friend you could call to help you move the body. Jeremy was not that friend. And what would she be dragging him into if she told him?
No one knew anyone that well. If her suspicions were correct, telling anyone might involve risk. Grave risk. But so would telling no one. That watch. The one with the messages was out there, linked to her.
“Just upset. You know. Trying to get my head around it all.”
“I know. I feel sick.”
Did he? He looked just fine.
What should she do? If she used Ed’s computer, Jeremy would notice, especially if she was on there for an extended period.
There was no if, she realized. Only when. She would check his computer and she would leave an electronic trail by doing so. There was no avoiding it. Her gut told her that Jeremy was not involved. With time speeding by, she made her move.
“I have to check something.” She walked as casually as she could to Sullivan’s computer on legs that seemed to have turned to chalk.
Once she had decided to do as Edward had asked, there was no turning back. She sat at his computer and opened File Explorer, scanning the list of recent files. She was aware of Jeremy’s gaze.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But I’m doing it anyway,” she said.
His eyes rounded, but he said nothing more as he busied himself with the tasks before them, preparing the samples for quality testing.
Meanwhile, she wondered what Dr. Sullivan had been involved in and worried that, whatever it was, she was now also involved. That, alone, was reason enough to explain her trembling, bloodless fingers.
Dr. Sullivan had been a caring boss and a friend. He was…had been a good scientist. If he was the victim of a tragic accident, then none of this mattered. But if something nefarious was afoot, she had tied herself to the railroad tracks. She knew nothing about cloak-and-dagger affairs. She knew science.
And her hypothesis was that Dr. Sullivan had been murdered. Proving that theory might just get her killed.
She continued to scan the alphabetical list of files, fixing on one. A chill danced like a dropped ice cube down her spine, but she opened the file titled Testing Anomalies and scanned the contents.
Chapter Three
The state police had given Logan the terrible job of notifying Ursula Sullivan of her husband’s death. The man in charge, Detective Albritton, could not have been clearer that he did not want or need Logan’s help.
Logan had stayed with Mrs. Sullivan until her younger sister arrived and then headed to the office, leaving the two women to collect Ursula’s kids and tell them the terrible news. Logan covered the phones while the state police took care of securing the scene and began their investigation of the hit-and-run. They told him not to give out any information except that there had been a traffic fatality. But most folks calling already knew who and where and how.
No one knew who had hit Dr. Sullivan and left him in the muddy jeep track to bleed out.
And no one asked why. Except him. Why did such a good man have to leave his family?
There was a chiming sound like a child repeatedly hitting the metal panels of one of those rainbow-hued xylophones. His brain played tricks on him. Sound was the worst. The doctors explained that his hearing was perfect but the place where the sound was supposed to be sorted into useful categories was damaged. So he often couldn’t distinguish between a siren and a ringing phone.
He could tell the direction, and that helped. After that he just had to make his best guess. The office phone was easy as it had a flashing red light. His cell phone was more challenging. All the rings and dings and chirps sounded the same, so he didn’t know if he was answering a call, text or message.
He kept waiting to be what he was or what he thought he had been. His doctors said that wasn’t going to happen. There was no going back. Forward was the only option and finding what his doctors called “a new normal.”
But being the village mascot was demoralizing. He lifted his phone, saw nothing on the lock screen and then tried the office phone, which was flashing again.
“Hello. Constable’s office. This is Constable Lynch speaking.”
“Logan, what happened out there on Turax Hollow Road?”
Voices were another challenge. He could no longer distinguish male from female or familiar from stranger. It annoyed people, especially his father.
“There was an accident—” The caller cut him off.
“I know that part. Is Dr. Sullivan dead?”
“The names of those involved won’t be released until after the families are notified.”
“I’m your family, Logan. This is your brother, Connor, who is also village councilman. So tell me what happened.”
“Oh, sorry, Connor.” His problem caused some people to think he was no longer very bright, his brother included. He just wished he could get back to old normal.
“Okay. You’re sorry. Now, what happened?”
Connor was a village official, so he gave him the info. “Dr. Edward Sullivan was struck by a vehicle and died at the scene. Hit-and-run. That’s all I know.”
“Idiots,” muttered Connor, then to Logan, “Who is handling the investigation?”
Not me, thought Logan. “The state police, and I just saw the county sheriff’s vehicle drive past the window. So they’re all out there.” The light of the emergency vehicles drew his gaze from the desktop and the doodles on his blotter that looked like one of Paige’s pale blue eyes, framed with long, dark lashes. He stared through the storefront window of the former video rental place that had been turned hastily into the constable’s office here on Main Street after his position was approved. “EMS vehicle is coming up Raquette Road now.” He could see them reaching the junction of Main. “Seems like all the law enforcement vehicles, too, state police, and I think that’s the mayor’s Subaru. Guess they’re done at the scene.”
“Fabulous. Where are they going?”
“Owen’s,” he said, mentioning both the largest residence and only funeral home in the village.
There was a sound like a ringing or perhaps a song.
“Connor?” His brother did not answer.
Dial tone, he decided and returned the handset to the cradle. Then he stepped out of the office to watch the procession making the turn. The last vehicle was a white SUV driven by the sheriff of Onutake County, Axel Trace, who had not even bothered to check in with the village constable.
Logan stepped out to the street and removed his hat as they passed and came upon Paige’s daughter, Lori Morris, walking from school with her grandmother. With all the excitement, he’d lost track of time. He glanced at his watch and saw it was already a little after three in the afternoon.
He turned to Lori, dressed in a purple polar fleece jacket that added bulk to her thin frame. “How was school?”
Lori looked away from the retreating procession of official vehicles.
“Mr. Garrett got called away so we had Mrs. Unger,” she said and made a face.
Logan joined her, twisting his face as if he were poisoned. Mr. Garrett was Lori’s teacher, and a volunteer with the fire department. He was also a paramedic. And Mrs. Unger had been his primary school principal, as well. She had been universally disliked back then based mainly on her position of authority but also on her tendency to be nicer to her charges whenever a parent was around. Since leaving school, Logan had gotten to know Mrs. Unger, who also volunteered with the fire department, and had grown to admire her. She was silver-haired and tough as any US marine he had ever known.
“Still looking over her glasses at kids?”
“Yes!” said Lori and rolled her golden eyes and then did a fair imitation. “I don’t know what she was talking about. We’re studying plants and she was talking about comotosis and phototosis or something and I think that’s high school stuff. And she is so boring! She makes me comotosis!”
He laughed. Lori was funny.
“Mitosis and photosynthesis?” asked her grandmother, impatience making her voice tight.
“Maybe,” said Lori.
“And this—” she waved a finger at Lori before continuing “—is the sort of nonsense that caused me to have to speak to her after class.” Mrs. Morris turned to Logan. “I don’t see why I should be punished for my granddaughter’s disrespect.”
His brother’s new “dragon-orange metallic” Audi Q8 model SUV raced by, exceeding the speed limit. The color looked to Logan exactly like the orange flashing light on a snowplow. He frowned.
Mrs. Morris watched the SUV disappear after the procession. “You should give him a ticket.” Then she directed her cool gray eyes on Logan. “Shame about Dr. Sullivan.”
Word traveled fast.
“Did Paige call you, Mrs. Morris?”
“You can call me Beverly, Logan, as I’ve told you.”
He looked away, uncomfortable with that. He’d always think of her as Paige’s mom, Mrs. Morris, despite her insistence that he call her by her first name.
Mrs. Morris sighed. “Yes, she did call.”
“What happened to Dr. Sullivan?” asked Lori.
The two adults exchanged a look. Logan shook his head. He wasn’t speaking about this before an eight-year-old. The world had too many monsters, but the ones under her bed would do for now.
Mrs. Morris clearly felt differently for she answered the question.
“Your mother’s supervisor has been in an accident.”
“Is he okay?”
“No, I don’t think he is.”
“What kind of accident?” asked Lori.
“I’ll tell you on the way home.” Mrs. Morris set them in motion. Lori remembered to say goodbye and waved a hand sheathed in a mitten fashioned to look like a zebra puppet complete with a braided tail and pink lolling tongue. The googly eyes rolled, making it look as if it also had a head injury. Logan waved back. Then he replaced his hat and returned inside to the phones.
He made it only to the new wheelchair ramp and paused at the sound, unsure what it was. He could identify where it came from, toward the village library, on the corner of Raquette and Main, in the former home of the Hornbeck family. The village’s namesake had founded the bank back when the railroad stopped in this village. The sound reminded him of a fish thrashing in the river after it was hooked. But it turned out to be Paige Morris, hurrying along Main, passing the autobody shop and the antiquarian bookstore.
She wiped her face every few seconds with her gloved hands. Today was cold and windy, and Paige had a blocked tear duct. He remembered with perfect clarity in the winters of their childhood that the tears rolled down her left cheek and froze on the collar of her maroon nylon snow coat. Funny how he could remember that but not a minute of his time in the US Marines or a minute of his engagement to Paige.
But Paige’s tear duct dripping did not make a noise and she was making a noise. Was that pain? He crossed Main Street to intercept her. She usually walked home after five but was early today.
It wasn’t until he was nearly before her that she noticed him. The noise she was now making was obvious. Paige was crying.
Chapter Four
Paige hurried up Main Street with her head down against the wind and her shoulders bent by the weight of her troubles. Someone stepped directly into her path, bringing her up short. She startled, glancing up. Instinctively, her hand went to her shoulder bag and the printed copy of the file she had found on Dr. Sullivan’s computer.
Logan stood before her.
For just a moment he looked as he always had, back when her family had been in trouble and he’d done the wrong thing for the right reason. One look into Logan’s sympathetic eyes and she fell to pieces.
The years of his absence disappeared. Pain and fear lowered her resistance and she stepped into his arms, sobbing. He was just the right height to cradle her against his chest and rest his chin on the top of her head. His familiar scent comforted her as tears rolled down her cheeks like raindrops down a windowpane.
“Why are you crying?” he said. “Is it Dr. Sullivan?”
She couldn’t have answered if she had wanted to. And she couldn’t tell him what had happened. But she wasn’t sure who to tell about the text message or what she had found afterward. She wasn’t even sure what the document meant, just that it highlighted an inconsistency. Inconsistencies were the enemies of quality assurance.
Dr. Sullivan had found something. She suspected he reported his concerns to the head of security or to his supervisor, Sinclair Park, or even the CFO, Veronica Vitale, and then he had died.
A correlational relationship. Not necessarily causal. But she could not eliminate, out of hand, the possibility of causality.
“Is this about Dr. Sullivan?” Logan asked again.
Paige nodded, snuggling closer to the canvas jacket supplied to Logan by the village.
Logan cradled her against him. “I’m sorry about Dr. Sullivan, Paige.”
Nodding, she managed to rein in the sobs. Logan helped coach Ed’s son on basketball. He’d lost a friend, as well. Her coworker’s death would leave such a hole in the community. And his kids…his wife…
Her ragged breath and a hum in the back of her throat was all the sound emerging from her.
“He was a good man,” said Logan.
“He was.”
“They had the state police up there. County sheriff, too.”
Since they were a village of only a little over four hundred residents, they could not afford a police force. But after Logan had come home, his brother, then newly appointed to the village council, raised concerns that traffic had increased with the arrival of the pharmaceutical company two years before, the company that Connor himself had helped advocate for. Rathburn-Bramley expected the village to manage the increased traffic flow and issues arising from the daily commute of the workforce of two hundred employees, nearly all of which lived outside their community. The taxes they paid more than covered the cost of the salary of the new village constable, the hiring of whom had caused debate in the village, narrowly winning out over the placement of a traffic light on Main. Rathburn-Bramley also covered the cost of a new hook-and-ladder fire truck, EMS vehicle and emergency equipment for the volunteer fire department, continuing to make yearly donations. The company seemed interested in a good public image, and they were willing to pay for it.
Now the village had both a well-equipped volunteer fire department and a constable, who was fully trained according to New York State law. Finding a doctor to pass Logan on the medical exam had been a challenge, but Connor had managed that, too. His brother had wisely ridden the wave of pride generated by Logan’s heroism. As a Silver Star recipient, Lance Corporal Logan Lynch made his hometown proud. Because of his accident, no one expected him to do much but direct traffic every afternoon and march in the village parades.
“They’ll find who did this,” said Logan.
“I doubt it,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He drew back and dropped a kiss on her forehead, then drew back again, his face registering worry. Perhaps he thought he had overstepped.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be.” She’d enjoyed his tender touch, a reminder of his protective care of her at a time long ago.
He looked relieved. “I’m glad you walked this way.”
This route was slightly longer than cutting across Railroad Avenue and then turning up Turkey Hollow Road to Main. But she walked it daily so she could see him. He’d often walk her home, then return to the office next to the hair salon or, on evenings when she was running late and he’d finished directing traffic, he’d simply walk her home and then head to the house next door to hers. Like her, Logan had never moved out of his childhood home. He and his dad, now a widower, lived in the big yellow farmhouse north of her mother’s place, a white, two-story home that had been there for a hundred and fifty years. Both farms had barns large enough to hold a few cows and a plot of pastureland behind that was big enough to keep them fed summer and winter. The cows had been moved out long ago, before Paige or Logan’s parents purchased their houses. Paige’s dad had been a dentist until his death in an automobile accident during her junior year in college. Logan had lost his mom just after he had turned eleven.
How old were Steven and Valerie Sullivan? Paige tried to remember Ed talking about their birthdays. Steven would turn fourteen this December, old enough to try out for the JV team next year. That made Valerie…eleven. The same age Logan had been.
The ache in her heart pulsed with every beat.
Those poor kids. She was glad they had Ursula. Their mom was strong and capable. She’d be there for her children.
Paige rested her head on Logan’s shoulder and her arms hung at her sides. He patted her back while she tried and failed not to long for more than comfort from him. She lifted her head to gaze up at his big brown eyes, looking again for a flicker of recognition. She went still as her body galloped to life. Everything inside her wanted him to kiss her. Except he didn’t. He never did. The top of her head did not count.
“Why don’t you think they’ll catch who did this?” he asked.
“I’m afraid I don’t have the faith in the system that you did. Do,” she corrected. “Never have.”
“If you hear anything, Paige, you should tell me.”
“I should,” said Paige. But she wouldn’t.
She felt she couldn’t rely on Logan anymore, ever since he’d left for Iraq years ago, not telling her he was reenlisting until it was too late.
Now all memory of her as the love of his life had been blown out of his thick skull.
After her dad died, she and her mom struggled financially, and she really didn’t know if she could finish her undergraduate degree. With no life insurance and in deep debt, her father had left her mother and Paige in dire straits, with only bankruptcy protecting their home.
Even so, it was her father and mother’s mess. Not hers; certainly not Logan’s. She’d told him that and that she’d figure it out. But Logan had done what he thought best. Without consulting her. Reenlisted and volunteered for the higher-paying combat duty. She could have strangled him then and now.
She had told him, at the time, that she believed life decisions that affected them both should be discussed. He thought her ungrateful. He said he was taking care of things. The disagreement that ensued had turned ugly and he’d asked for his ring back.
She’d been so shocked that he would break their engagement especially after her father had just passed away, but she had done as he asked and returned the diamond solitaire. Logan had left for Iraq and she had not seen him again until after his accident.
“You can trust me, Paige.”
“I do trust you.” But inside, she just didn’t count on him anymore. He had improved. Was it enough to try again? She gazed up at him, wondering what he’d do if she just kissed him already. Maybe that would jog something loose inside that brain. Like the reverse of the prince kissing Sleeping Beauty.
She reminded herself how grateful she was he’d come home at all. When she’d first learned of his injuries, though, she thought he was gone in a different way, never to return. His doctors told his family that Logan would probably not be capable of caring for himself. But she had disagreed. She’d gone to him at Walter Reed and stayed right up until her due date.
When he’d finally come home, Paige had been there. But after Lori’s injury, people who knew they’d been together urged her to move on, not to burden him or herself with trying to recover memories of a relationship that had broken up anyway.
She’d tried. She still did. Until moments like this when she wanted him to remember everything, to be awakened by her touch, her kiss. But that wasn’t how brain injury and recovery worked. Some things were just gone forever. She had to accept that.
Sleeping Beauty, she thought and smiled. Logan was still beautiful. The scar didn’t change that. His dark, fathomless eyes and crisp, thick hair still tempted. Even that stupid cowboy hat made him look as handsome as any Western hero of movie or television.
She paused to face him. He pushed back the brim of his hat. She used her teeth to tug off one glove and then used her index finger to trace the hard line of his jaw. His coarse whiskers gently scraped her finger pad. She gave him her best seductive smile.
And for an instant, he was back. His eyes went wide with speculation and then came that easy, slow smile.
A familiar garish, orange Audi SUV raced by them and made an illegal U-turn right on Main. Connor Lynch pulled to a halt at the curb, and the passenger window whisked down. Logan’s brother leaned across the seat to peer at them.
As if caught doing something illegal, Paige jumped back from Logan and now glowered at Connor. He used to make a habit of interrupting them whenever he thought they might be…occupied. Some things never changed.
“Paige, you need a lift home?”
She stiffened and narrowed her eyes at Connor. This was yet another attempt to keep her away from his little brother. He’d made his feelings crystal clear after Logan finally came home. Logan was not capable of that sort of relationship, Connor had told her in no uncertain terms. And she should not burden him with trying to have one. Connor had been adamant, she’d ignored him and Lori had suffered as a result.
She’d backed off, but stayed close, watching his gradual improvement. He might not remember her, but his accident had not reduced his intelligence. Even his doctors said so. The slow speech and hearing trouble were results of brain injury. The part of his brain that handled cognitive function had been unharmed. Most people around here forgot that. Spoke to him more slowly than necessary and as if they were dealing with a child or a pet monkey. It infuriated her.
