Formula for Danger (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Camy Tang

  “I saw Rachel run away from the man, but then my attacker said twice, ‘Shoot her.’ The second time, I took advantage of my attacker’s distraction and shoved him into the one holding the gun.”

  And he’d prayed the gun wouldn’t go off and shoot Rachel. But he hadn’t been able to think of what else he could do to stop the man from killing Rachel. He’d been almost crazed with desperation.

  “The gun fell and went off, and someone from the restaurant came out. The two men ran off,” he finished.

  The sergeant’s eyes were grave as they turned to Rachel. “Dr. Grant, I know a lot of things have been happening at the spa lately, but I’ll ask anyway. Do you know why anyone would want to kill you?”

  She closed her eyes, and a pained look crossed her face. “Whoever paid Stephanie to steal the scar-reduction-cream formulation will be developing their own product, but it will still take time to raise the plants and perfect the formula.” She swallowed. “If I die, the Joy Luck Life spa can’t release our cream. At least, not anytime soon. It clears the way for who ever stole my formula by eliminating their only competition.”

  In all the excitement and worry of tonight, he hadn’t fully realized the whys of the attack. But now the full implications of Stephanie’s theft slammed into him.

  Rachel’s life was now forfeit.

  Not on my watch.

  He needed to keep her safe until these people could be discovered and arrested, somewhere safer than her home or the spa. Somewhere no one knew about. Mama’s farm.

  When the sergeant had finished with his questions, Edward pulled Rachel aside. “We need to move you somewhere safe.”

  Her eyes were wide and dark in the feeble light from the streetlight. She looked small and helpless. “Our home has an alarm—”

  He grasped her by the shoulders. “Your father is the only man in the house, and he’s in a wheelchair.” He knew it was harsh, but he had to make her see how much danger she was in.

  Her eyes faltered and blinked. “The lab…”

  “Are you going to sleep there for days? Weeks? Whoever is after you knows that you’ll be there, working on the scar cream.”

  “What else can I do?” she burst out. “Hide in my room? I won’t go down without a fight.”

  The fierceness in her face surprised him, but it also made him want to kiss her again. “Rachel, someone wants you dead. I can’t stand by and let that happen.”

  She paused, and then her hand reached up to cup his cheek, her fingers soft as an orchid petal against his skin.

  “I want to move you to my mother’s house.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “Your mother?”

  “Mama’s farm is deep in Sonoma County. It’s hard to find if you don’t know where it is, and the lay of the land makes it difficult for anyone to sneak up on the house without being seen.”

  “Your mother isn’t going to want a stranger in her home for possibly weeks.”

  “She won’t mind, especially when she finds out why.”

  “The spa has two guards at all times.”

  “Mama’s farm would have me and Alex, and also my farm manager and eight ranch hands during the day, and three of them who stay in the house at night.”

  Rachel blinked. “So many in your mother’s house?”

  “They’re Alex’s friends from prison. I gave them jobs working Mama’s farm.”

  She gave him a half smile.

  “No one connected with the spa would know about Mama’s farm.”

  She laid a hand on his chest. “Edward—”

  He folded her hand in his own and held it close to him. “I want to move you out there as soon as possible.”

  “Let me think about this first,” she pleaded. “And I need to talk to my father.” A shadow passed over her eyes, but he couldn’t be sure in the darkness.

  “What do you think you were doing?” roared a familiar voice.

  Detective Carter threw himself out of a police car before it had even come to a complete stop in the restaurant parking lot. He stormed toward them. “I want to know what you thought you were doing. I expected better from you, Edward,” the detective raged.

  “I told Alex to talk to you after he’d told us about Steve’s address.”

  “He should have come to me first,” Horatio ground out. “You had no business talking to him before I did.”

  “You don’t understand. I needed to talk to him,” Rachel said. “I needed to see his face. I needed to look into his eyes. I was the one who hired him. I was the one who fired him when I thought he was just a disrespectful research assistant.” Her breath came in gasps now. “I had to stare into his face when I asked him why he did it.”

  Horatio had calmed during her tirade, but the lines around his mouth were still deep and grim. “Dr. Grant, you are not a police officer.”

  “I was his boss and his victim.” She pressed her lips together.

  Edward put an arm around her and addressed the detective. “Did you arrest him?”

  “We didn’t find him.” Horatio’s eyes were hard as they fell on Edward. “His girlfriend told us he had taken off and she didn’t know where. She also gave us a nice description of the two of you.” He frowned at both Edward and Rachel.

  “He’s gone?” she whispered.

  “You should have left it to me,” Horatio growled as he turned away. “Because of your visit to him, we might never find Steve Schmidt.”

  THIRTEEN

  For breakfast, Rachel’s father had coffee, eggs and the news that his oldest daughter’s life was in jeopardy.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?” he demanded, his fist pounding on the wheelchair armrest.

  “You were already asleep,” Rachel said.

  “And I wasn’t about to let her wake you,” Monica added, with a supporting nod in Rachel’s direction.

  The gesture made Rachel realize for the first time that her sisters tended to defend her to her father when they could. On one hand, she felt vindicated, but on the other, she wondered if it only hurt her cause with her father because she never stood up for herself.

  She remembered the rose garden.

  Her shoulder blades stiffened. “What would you have been able to do if I told you last night, Dad? We already reported the incident to the police.”

  Monica’s eyebrows rose slightly as she regarded her sister, but she didn’t say anything.

  Her father frowned at her. “I had a right to know. This is still my roof you’re living under.”

  “You’d only have lost sleep if I told you last night,” Rachel replied.

  “I, not you, determine what I lose sleep over,” he said rather petulantly.

  He was being exacerbating, but Rachel became aware that perhaps his grouchiness stemmed from concern for her.

  Then he dispelled that warm thought with his next words. “You should have been taking more precautions. You knew they’d gotten the formula.” Naomi gasped.

  “Dad!” Monica barked.

  “Augustus!” Aunt Becca sputtered in her tea.

  Rachel slammed her hand down on the breakfast table. “I have spent two weeks being escorted everywhere, Dad. You can’t say I haven’t tried to stay safe.”

  The silence was awful. Her father’s eyes burned into her, but Rachel didn’t back down. She wouldn’t let her sisters defend her this time. She wouldn’t let her father accuse her of what wasn’t her fault—not this time.

  Not ever again.

  Aunt Becca cleared her throat. “At least you’re all right, dear.”

  Her words prompted Monica to get up from the table and start collecting her father’s medicines to dispense, although Rachel noticed a prescription bottle that Monica didn’t normally open when she gave Dad his meds.

  “You should stay at the spa,” her father said.

  Rachel sipped her tea, curling her numb fingers around the cup to warm them. “Edward suggested I hide out at his mother’s farm.”

  “No.”

&nbs
p; She flinched at his response, an automatic reaction, but then she sat up straight in her chair. She wouldn’t be cowed again. “Why not?” Not that she had made a decision about it yet.

  “I don’t know what your boyfriend, Horatio, is doing,” he said to Aunt Becca. “Why hasn’t he caught those who are behind this?”

  “He’s doing the best he can,” Becca shot back. “These people have been working on this for two years and they don’t want to be found.”

  “What does that have to do with my not staying at Edward’s mother’s house?” Rachel asked.

  “If the police can’t find these people, we have to beat them at their own game,” Dad said. “Put out the scar-reduction cream early. They can’t produce their own product for a while, even if they do have the formula.”

  Even though she had considered this option to pursue, her father’s vocalizing it made something ignite in her chest. She shot to her feet. “What, do you expect me to stay day and night at the spa until the product is finished?”

  “No, but—”

  “Dad, I just lost my research associate.”

  “A traitor whom you hired,” he fired back.

  “That’s unfair, Dad,” Naomi objected, but Rachel put up her hand to quiet her.

  This was her battle. “That doesn’t help the situation, Dad.”

  “We need to do something. I won’t stand for these people sabotaging my business.”

  “Your business?” Aunt Becca set her teacup down with a snap. “What about your daught—”

  “Thanks, Dad.” Rachel stood up straight and glared down at him. Something inside of her had severed. “I now know that this product is more important to you than me.”

  Her bitter words echoed off the walls. A part of her just wanted to curl up under the table and cry. The other part wanted him to justify himself, to explain why he was being like this. And not because her sisters jumped into the fray to defend her, but because he respected her, Rachel, enough to be held accountable for his words.

  He’d gone white. Rachel’s vision had narrowed to just his faded green eyes, the whites of his eyes, his papery skin.

  “Well, Dad?” she demanded. She would have an answer. Something inside of her had changed. Something from last night had changed her. Somehow, he didn’t frighten her as he used to.

  His eyes dropped from hers, and his face seemed to sag. “That’s not true,” he whispered.

  “That’s how I feel, Dad. Every time you rant about what I should have done to prevent all this from happening. Do you really believe it’s all my fault?”

  “No…no….” His voice had become fragile. “I just wanted to push you to be your best.”

  “I am my best, Dad, and it’s not enough for you.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “You don’t push Naomi or Monica this way.” Time to go all out, to say everything she had been feeling but hadn’t ever said. “You don’t demand from them the things you demand from me.”

  “Now you’re exaggerating,” he said, his voice gaining some of its forcefulness back.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “No, she’s not,” Aunt Becca said.

  Dad stared at his sister-in-law. “What?”

  “Naomi disagrees with you all the time. Monica argues with you loud enough to bring down the roof. But Rachel always agrees with you.” As she spoke to Dad, Aunt Becca’s eyes grew harder than Rachel had ever seen them before. “And because she does, you don’t respect her. Or her work for you.”

  “I do respect her,” he protested weakly.

  “You don’t understand me,” Rachel said firmly.

  He closed his eyes, and a spasm of pain crossed his face. “Your mother did.”

  His words seemed to make everything stop—the crisp breeze from the open window, her heartbeat, her breathing. Then she blinked, and everything restarted.

  “You have to understand.” His voice wavered and he looked at her with desperate eyes. “I need to do something.” He grasped his wheelchair with clawed hands and shook it, once. “You are my daughter, and I need to do something.”

  Because in that chair, he was more helpless than he had ever been in his life, Rachel realized.

  His face fell. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I was pushing you because I was just trying to do something.”

  Rachel jumped at the feel of a hand on her shoulder.

  Monica squeezed lightly, then released her. At the same time, she handed some pills to Dad. “Here, Dad. Take your meds.”

  “I saw you add a dose of that sedative,” he grumbled, but he took them all.

  “It’ll start working fast, so let’s get you to your room.” Monica took the back of his wheelchair and turned him around.

  But he reached out toward Rachel, who grasped his strong, bony hand. He didn’t say anything, but he held her for a moment, then let her go as Monica pushed him out of the kitchen.

  Naomi draped her arm around Rachel, while Aunt Becca pulled her close with an arm around her waist. They stood there for a few seconds, and Rachel tried to decide if she wanted to cry or not.

  “I’m proud of you, Rach.” Naomi kissed her cheek, then let go.

  Suddenly, the doorbell sounded once, twice, three times in rapid succession, punctuated by a fist pounding the front door.

  At first, Rachel resented the intrusion, but as the knocking continued in urgency, tension began to coil in her stomach.

  “Gracious.” Aunt Becca hurried out of the kitchen into the entrance foyer, followed by Rachel and Naomi. She yanked open the door.

  Edward almost fell into the foyer, catching himself on the door frame. His eyes found Rachel. “Pack up your stuff.”

  She started to shake her head. “I haven’t decid—”

  “No time.” He strode into the house. “I’m taking you to Mama’s farm today. Right now.”

  “Edward—”

  “Detective Carter is on his way,” Alex said, following his brother into the house. “I happened to be with him when he got the news.”

  “About what?”

  “Steve Schmidt is dead.”

  Edward’s mother, Carmella, had a smile like a full-blown Spanish rose. “For the hundredth time, I don’t mind you staying with me.” She handed Rachel a plate with a sandwich and pushed her down onto a sofa cushy enough to drown her. “Most of the time, my boys spend more time working than with their mama.”

  Edward rolled his eyes in a boyish gesture Rachel had never seen him use before as he flung himself into a recliner opposite the sofa. “Mama, you only like talking about celebrity gossip.”

  “Yeah, Mama.” Alex entered the living room with an over-stuffed sandwich in his hands. “If you talked about cars—”

  “Or orchids,” Edward said.

  “—we’d spend hours talking with you.” Alex kissed his mother’s cheek good-naturedly before sitting down in another recliner and taking a gigantic bite from the sandwich.

  Their bantering eased the tightness in Rachel’s shoulders, the lingering effects of the news about Steve Schmidt.

  They hadn’t actually come straight here to Carmella’s house this morning. Detective Carter had questioned Edward and her exhaustively when he arrived at Rachel’s home, and then she’d insisted on being taken to the lab first to get some papers and fill a flash drive with some clinical-data numbers she needed to crunch.

  “What do you expect me to do at your mother’s house?” she reasoned with Edward when he protested. “Work in the fields? Clean the bathrooms?”

  She actually had no objection at being put to work, even if it was just weeding the fields, but she also knew it would be dangerous for her to be out in the open. Alex had told her that she could use his computer at his mother’s home, so when she arrived, after greeting Carmella, she had gone to the second-floor office to boot up the computer and insert the flash drive before heading downstairs again at Carmella’s insistence on feeding her.

  Edward’s cell phone interrupted them.
He glanced at the caller ID before giving his mother a rueful smile and leaving the living room to take the call.

  Carmella sighed. “So busy, that boy. I don’t think he realizes how much like his father he is.”

  “No, Mama, he’s nothing like Papa.” Alex’s tone was still jovial, but his face had stilled to a more serious cast.

  “But he’s always working.”

  Rachel looked at the doorway Edward had passed through, although she couldn’t see him. Carmella’s words surprised her. They seemed to imply Edward’s father had worked too hard.

  “Mama, you’re exaggerating.” Alex finished the last bite of his sandwich. “Edward keeps strict work hours and if he can’t finish something by quitting time, he puts it off to tomorrow. And he doesn’t work overtime unless it’s scheduled.”

  Rachel remembered being frustrated when he insisted on postponing something for her basil plants until the next day. A hazy picture of Edward’s family life—perhaps before his father died—began to form in her mind.

  “You’re right,” Carmella said with a sigh. “I know he puts his family first.”

  Unspoken was the thought, Unlike his father.

  Rachel’s curiosity must have shown on her face, because Carmella said, “Edward and Alex’s father was a bit of a workaholic.”

  “Don’t soften it,” Alex told her in a quiet voice, “or Rachel will think Edward’s reaction to him is too extreme.”

  Carmella’s face pinched tight for a moment as she remembered something. “He didn’t know how to be a better father,” she said weakly.

  “He could have been a better man,” her son retorted. “He could have at least been there for you, if not for us.”

  “He had passion…”

  “For money. Not for his work.”

  “No, he loved his work.”

  “He was obsessed with his work because it made him money.”

  Alex’s words thrummed a sour chord in Rachel’s heart. Some could say she had become obsessed with her work, too, although not for the money. Was his father’s neglect the motivation behind Edward’s coolness toward her sometimes when she harped about the things she needed to get done at the lab?