Dangerous Conditions (Protectors At Heart Book 4)

by Jenna Kernan

  “Perhaps you will think us hasty with our newest hire, but with our new products coming online and the fourth quarter earnings in mind, the board and I have brought in a highly qualified individual to step into the role of senior quality assurance specialist.”

  Jeremy gave her a look, as shocked as she was that overnight, they had replaced Dr. Sullivan, especially since Paige or Jeremy could have handled the responsibilities, even applied for Ed’s job at the appropriate time.

  “This is Carol Newman.” Drake motioned to the woman in the purple blouse. “Carol, stand up, please.”

  Paige didn’t hear all of what came next because she was overcome with sadness for Dr. Sullivan—all he would miss and how he would be missed, and how quickly the company execs were moving on. She did catch that Carol had worked in the Ohio branch of Rathburn-Bramley in the same department, and then they were dismissed, to Paige’s relief. She needed to get out of that room and process what she was feeling and what had just happened. Ed was gone, and they already had a replacement?

  Paige almost made it out when Vitale called her and Jeremy back. Both of them were introduced to Dr. Carol Newman. Paige felt she was making a fool of herself, barely able to keep the tears from streaming down her face, so Jeremy did the talking for them both until they were finally released to get to work.

  Jeremy was the first one into the office, holding the door for Paige. She was still wiping her eyes, which now burned, and blowing her nose as she entered and ran straight into Jeremy’s back.

  “Whoa!” he said.

  Paige glanced up and saw what had brought Jeremy up short. Dr. Sullivan’s workstation had been stripped. Already. “They took his computer,” said Jeremy, pointing.

  Paige’s skin began to tingle. She glanced toward the door, resisting the urge to run. Instead, she swallowed back the lump in her throat.

  “They took everything. It’s like he never even existed,” said Jeremy, his arm falling back to his side. Then he turned to her. “Is that normal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I mean, looking at it would make me sad, too, but taking everything, it also seems wrong. Do you think it’s because of the investigation?”

  Paige shook her head, at a loss. She didn’t know. She only knew that she was in deep trouble. What would happen to her daughter if she was fired? Paige began to recalculate the cost of following the directions in Dr. Sullivan’s text.

  She made it to her stool before her knees gave out. What was she going to do?

  “Paige? What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.” She was on the verge of telling Jeremy, but then she stopped herself. If he was involved, telling him was dangerous. If he was not involved, telling him would be dangerous to him.

  She decided to try the state police once more, and she pulled out her cell to call the number now in her recent call list but not wanting to let Jeremy know what she was up to, she stepped out of the office.

  She needed to reach a state police investigator today. She’d text an excuse for her absence to Jeremy later.

  Unfortunately, Dr. Carol Newman caught her at the elevators and turned her right around.

  “I was hoping to get brought up to speed,” Dr. Newman said with artificial cheer. “Shouldn’t take too long. I’ve heard good things about you.”

  The entire morning was spent on getting Carol current with their projects. The woman asked the usual questions, and showed some gaps in knowledge of all the processes they used for quality-assurance testing. She seemed especially sensitive to the difficult situation into which she had been thrust. Paige almost felt sorry for her until she saw her sitting at Dr. Sullivan’s place at the lab table.

  Paige glanced up at the security camera that covered most of the lab, except the sample storage area. She’d never really thought about the glowing red eye that captured everything, but that was because, until today, she’d never had anything to hide.

  Chapter Seven

  Logan got the call around ten in the morning from Sheriff Trace to find the coroner and bring him to Dr. Sullivan’s house. Trace told him that he had tried the funeral home and gotten the machine and tried the doc and gotten his voice mail.

  “What’s happened?” asked Logan.

  “Just get him and bring him here.” The sheriff’s voice held irritation and then the call disconnected.

  Trace hadn’t asked for Dr. Koutier, the general practitioner who had a small practice in town in addition to acting as their coroner. He’d asked just for the coroner. That meant someone was dead. Three terrible possibilities rose in his mind: Steven, Valerie or Ursula.

  Logan recalled that Dr. Sullivan was to be transported today to Albany Medical and so he started at Owens and got lucky.

  He found the doctor on the steps, leaving the front door of the funeral parlor. Dr. Brock Koutier was one of two county coroners and the one covering this half of the territory. The man wore practical clothes, rubber boots and a trench coat and carried a heavy shoulder satchel that he adjusted as Logan greeted him. In his late fifties with penetrating gray eyes and a hairline that teetered from receding to gone, his most notable feature was the thick graying mustache that would have been the pride of any buckaroo.

  Logan relayed the message and then followed the doc to the Sullivans’ home and found the county sheriff waiting for them in the yard. Trace shook hands with Koutier and then gave Logan a stiff handshake, pulling him in for a thump on the back. Sheriff Trace was also a vet and a former US marine. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he remembered all his time in the service and was haunted by different sorts of ghosts. Trace had comrades he could not save and once told Logan that he admired and envied him for having the chance to rescue three of the men in his unit.

  Logan didn’t know if he should be flattered by the warm greeting or annoyed at the abrupt ending of their call.

  Blond, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, the sheriff carried himself with an air of authority that Logan admired.

  “What’s the situation, Trace?” asked the doctor.

  “Mrs. Sullivan appears to have overdosed. Paramedics already called it on arrival. Just waiting for you to make it official.”

  Logan felt all the air go out of him. Dr. Sullivan’s wife was dead?

  “Who called it in?” asked Logan.

  “Neighbor.” He checked his notebook and read the name. “Freda Kubr.”

  “That’s not her neighbor. Freda is Ursula’s sister.”

  “Her sister is Freda Kubr?”

  “Yes.”

  “I asked her to wait,” said the sheriff. “But she was gone when I got here.”

  “Where is she?”

  Trace shook his head.

  “She was here last night,” said Logan. “Where are the kids?”

  “In school. I called and checked,” said Trace.

  “Do they know?” asked Logan.

  “I’m not sure. Unlikely.”

  “Who got them up? Who got them to school?” Logan asked.

  Trace had no answers.

  Logan couldn’t remember basic training, but he remembered the day Dr. Sullivan told him that he was an only child and that his wife had just her younger sibling. He had expressed sadness that his kids had no uncles or cousins or grandparents. Their only kin was Ursula’s younger sister, unmarried, working at Hornbeck Central as principal Unger’s office administrative assistant and now a village councillor.

  “Freda works at the school. Did you call to see if she’s there?”

  “You call,” said Trace. “Doc, come with me.” Trace turned away. Logan kept talking.

  “Freda was here last night, in this house. I saw her. She might even have spent the night here, gotten the kids to school and checked in on her sister after she got back.”

  “But why would she leave?” asked the doctor.

  T
hat didn’t make sense.

  “See if you can find her, Logan. If you do, ask her to call me. I need to speak with her, and I need to know if she will take custody of her niece and nephew.” Trace rubbed his neck. “Those poor kids.”

  Doctor Koutier followed Trace into the Sullivan home. Logan dialed the school and was transferred to Mrs. Unger. He asked about Freda.

  “I can’t really say where she is. But she did take a personal day today.”

  “The Sullivan kids are there? She didn’t take them?”

  There was a pause. “Take them? Logan, what’s going on?”

  He told her the bad news. When he finished, Mrs. Unger spoke, her voice now exhibiting an uncharacteristic waver.

  “She brought in the kids this morning. About an hour later she called me and said she needed a personal day. She sounded...panicky. I asked what was wrong and she said she was going out of town for a few days. She didn’t tell me anything else, but if she already knew her sister was dead, how could she leave those kids?”

  He didn’t know. What he did know was that Freda would not have gone if she saw another way.

  “She’s running,” said Logan.

  “From what?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  * * *

  PAIGE DROVE TO Main and parked on the street in front of the constable’s office at eleven but found the clock decal turned to tell visitors he would return at 1:00 p.m. Too early for lunch, she thought, but wondered where he might be.

  The poster told visitors to call the state police in an emergency by dialing 911. But this wasn’t an emergency. At least not yet.

  She then made an uncharacteristic decision. She wasn’t going back to work. She couldn’t. Not until she had spoken to someone in law enforcement about the information she’d uncovered.

  Logan found her a few moments later, standing before her locked car, fumbling in her bag for her key fob. He pulled his truck behind hers and stepped out, greeting her and then drawing her out of the street and back to the sidewalk.

  When he asked why she was there, the words tumbled out of her as if they were a waterfall. She babbled and raced until she reached the events of this morning and the missing computer and sudden new supervisor.

  “Why not go to Lou Reber? He’s your head of security down there,” asked Logan as his worried eyes watched her.

  “Because that is exactly what Ed would have done. If he found an irregularity or something that broke our security policies, he would have gone to his direct supervisor and to Lou.”

  “And now Ed’s dead.”

  “Exactly!”

  “We need Albritton. He’s the investigating detective in charge of the Sullivan case.” Logan spoke in a clear, measured cadence that she now found reassuring. “He’s with the state police, and he needs to hear this.”

  Logan made two calls and then tucked away his phone.

  “Found him. I’ll drive. My truck’s right here.” He nodded to his vehicle behind hers,

  “My car’s probably faster.” She pointed to the old gray Volvo sedan she’d bought used from a classmate during grad school. “You ride shotgun.”

  Before he had a chance to respond, she released the car locks and glided into the driver’s seat. He stepped around to the passenger side and got in.

  In a few seconds they were headed for the state police headquarters in Massena.

  Outside Mill Creek he asked her to pull into a convenience store. She parked in a space directly before the doors, but he did not get out.

  “Before we go further, I need to tell you something that happened this morning. The detective might know, too.” He proceeded to inform her of Ursula’s death.

  Stunned by the news, Paige sat motionless, gripping the wheel with tight fists as if they were still underway, suddenly very glad they were not. Her mouth opened and then she closed it again. Her eyes teared and she blinked to clear them.

  “It has to be accidental. She’d never... Oh, those poor kids.”

  He told her that Freda had left town without explanation. That news sent a shiver through her. Her hands dropped to her lap. Freda loved her sister. Yet, she’d left her niece and nephew after Ursula’s death.

  “She knows something. Whatever Ed told his wife, she probably told Freda.”

  Logan nodded. “Possibly.”

  She stared at the storefront, not really seeing anything as she groped for answers. All she knew was that the walls around her were closing in and she didn’t know why.

  “I’m afraid that giving this file to the state police could get me fired.”

  “That file might be the reason Dr. Sullivan is dead. You owe it to him to do as he asked.”

  Logan had such a clear moral compass. He wasn’t afraid, never had been. That was probably why he was able to pull three wounded marines to safety under heavy fire.

  Logan was a living reminder that there were drawbacks to bravery. She did not want to leave Lori orphaned, like the Sullivan children. She understood Freda’s need to run because she was battling the same impulse.

  “Want me to drive?” he asked.

  “No. I’ll drive.” She got them back underway and to the New York State Thruway, her mind racing with the vehicle.

  Forty-three minutes later she pulled over at mile marker 167, just shy of Exit 41 on the Northway. Ahead of her, the lights of several state police cars flashed against the gray afternoon. Her stomach churned with acid. Paige flicked the key to the off position and placed both hands on the wheel. They were so close, and yet, once again, something was in their way, this time what looked to be an accident up ahead. Logan exited and came around to her side, giving her just enough time to reconsider her convictions and wonder if she was making a terrible mistake.

  Logan opened her door and offered a hand. She slipped her palm against his, the feeling as natural as breathing. Until their eyes met, and her heart took over, beating a steadily increasing pace.

  He isn’t the same, she told herself. He doesn’t remember. If she told him again about Lori, would he remember this time? Logan no longer went to therapy. She had seen no more evidence of the early trouble he’d experienced with short-term memory. His recovery was complete, wasn’t it?

  Paige needed to speak to someone about this, his doctors, she thought. She needed to hear from them that, despite the gaps in his memory, he was now capable of remembering and that she was not, again, misjudging his condition or seeing only what she wished to see. She didn’t want to do anything that would hurt Logan or endanger Lori. But would loving him really place her daughter at risk?

  He was no longer impulsive. He listened now. She didn’t think that this Logan would do something like reenlist without even consulting her. Sound still confused him. But he worked successfully with kids as an assistant coach. Under supervision, she reminded herself.

  Apprehension zipped through her. Here was Logan again rushing to her rescue, as he had done by reenlisting. Here they were preparing to become irrevocably involved in this investigation and possibly place herself and her family in danger. Paige stopped walking.

  Logan was again ignoring self-preservation as he had done by reenlisting and by saving those men. But he did not have a daughter. Paige wondered if seeing Albritton was a terrible mistake and wondered, too, if she was a coward for her doubts.

  Logan gave her an odd look. There was no doubt in his expression and no fear. She began moving again, knowing that if she didn’t, she’d run all the way back to Hornbeck. He walked her up the road past the dying flares, reduced to small piles of gray ash, and the swirling lights of the trooper units. Logan spoke to the young female trooper who was directing traffic into a single lane. She radioed ahead and then told them that the detective was coming back to meet them.

  Detective Albritton arrived a few minutes later in a trooper’s uniform and the iconic flat-brimme
d Stetson with the purple hatband. He was tall, in his midforties with a bristle of hair so short the color was impossible to determine. His sunglasses shielded his eyes, but deep lines flanking his mouth spoke of a man who performed a difficult job.

  Logan introduced her and explained where she worked and that the man who had died yesterday in Hornbeck was her coworker. He did all that with hardly a missed word or hesitation.

  She explained her relationship to Dr. Sullivan and the text message that she received, showing Albritton the message on her phone. He photographed the screen and then said he would be certain that Dr. Sullivan’s watch was collected as evidence.

  “Initial findings are accidental death. But this puts things in a different light. Did you happen to check his computer, as he directed?”

  Paige told him that she had and that Dr. Sullivan’s computer had since been removed and swapped with a new one for his replacement. She handed over one of the two copies of the file that she found most troubling.

  Detective Albritton opened the page and read.

  “So this document seems to be a letter Dr. Sullivan composed and addressed to Mr. Sinclair Park. Who is...?”

  “Production manager at Rathburn-Bramley in Hornbeck. He is also Dr. Sullivan’s direct superior. My position, a quality-assurance specialist, is to test the products. We work in conjunction with production to assure the safety, consistency and quality of each drug produced on site.”

  Albritton nodded and his gaze flicked back to the page. “Did Park receive this letter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Albritton studied the paper copy. “Sullivan writes here that he has noted that samples from several batches of production have ‘not been correctly logged and the oversight might result in some product going into the marketplace without all quality testing in place.’”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But you do not know if he sent this to Park via email or by paper copy.”

  “I do not,” said Paige.

  “Let’s back up a minute, Dr. Morris. Doctor of what, exactly?”