Dangerous Conditions (Protectors At Heart Book 4)

by Jenna Kernan

  “Where’s Ed?” she asked Jeremy, referring to Dr. Edward Sullivan. Her boss, and the head of product quality assurance, was generally here at six in the morning because he said that was the only time he could get anything done. Then he left at three so he could coach his son’s travel basketball team over in Mill Creek.

  Jeremy glanced up from his computer. He was her height, ten pounds lighter and of Chinese descent. He wore his straight black hair short on the sides and long on the top. He had a habit of pushing his bangs back off his forehead when thinking, only to have them fall back in place the instant he removed his hand. Only his protective glasses ever managed to keep his hair back from his face.

  Jeremy glanced at the clock on his computer screen. “Wow, he’s really late. I’m not sure where he is.”

  “You got that report done?” she asked. The monthly quality control statistic compilation was Jeremy’s job.

  “I need Ed’s results from the last round,” he said.

  “Want me to get it?” They all knew each other’s login information as the company had yet to adopt a file-sharing system that worked. The bugs in the current one caused it to take forever to transfer data and, as flash drives were not allowed by company policy, they had resorted to this workaround.

  “No. It can wait.”

  Her department did all the quality assurance testing for all pharmaceuticals produced on site including liquids, gases and solid tablets.

  Paige stowed her lunch in the mini fridge and her purse beneath her desk. It wasn’t like Ed to just not show up.

  “Maybe I’ll call Lou.” She already had the handset to her ear. Lou confirmed that Ed had logged in at 5:37 a.m. and left at 6:00 a.m. to do his run. But he had not checked back in before Lou arrived at eight, and Lou had not seen him since arriving. She lowered the phone. “That’s odd.”

  Paige relayed Lou’s information.

  “Call Ursula?” Jeremy suggested, referring to Ed’s wife.

  “Maybe.” Paige retrieved her mobile phone and considered her options. She didn’t want to worry Ursula unnecessarily. “I’ll try his cell.” She did and got his voice mail. “It’s Paige. Call me back when you have a chance.”

  Something didn’t sit right. It was dark out when Ed ran and there was no shoulder on most of the county roads. He could be lying in a ditch right now. Then she thought of what Lou had told her just this morning and sucked in a breath.

  “Does he run on the cutoff on Turax Hollow Road?”

  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 somet
hing 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 w
ith 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.