The Hunter Brothers Complete Box Set

by Parker, M. S.

  “I’ll go.”

  “Let me.” Addison didn’t look at me as she flexed her hand. “I think I can convince him that he’s not going to be in any trouble.”

  “What makes you think that’s why he lied?” Pansy asked, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Some kids just like to lie.”

  “Maybe,” Addison said, “but most kids lie when they’re scared. Usually when they think they’ll be punished.”

  “I agree,” I said. “Go talk to him.”

  After she left, Pansy came back over to my side. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to let an intern do that?”

  I ignored her, tired of her constant second-guessing everything to do with Addison. When we got back to Atlanta, I’d deal with it. For right now, I had people to save.

  * * *

  I stared at Addison. “They did what?”

  “They broke into what they thought was Wally’s dad’s hunting cabin, but what turned out to be the attached shed where Wally’s dad and his friends cleaned the animals they’d killed.” She wrinkled her nose. “When Wally realized where he was, he and two of the older kids decided to scare the younger ones with some of the bits and pieces the men had left behind.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Pansy said.

  That, I agreed with.

  “Does this mean it’s a disease spread through the animals? Their blood and viscera?” Addison asked.

  I lifted a shoulder, thinking through all the possibilities. “I’m not sure.”

  “No,” she said, “it can’t be only through contact with the animals or their carcasses. It wouldn’t explain Nurse Diaz. How would she have come into contact with any of that?”

  Dammit.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t give us the exact source. But it does give us a starting point.” I looked over at Pansy. “I need you to go to the cabin and take samples.”

  She made a face. “Wait until the other agents get here.”

  “We can’t. We’ve got two men on ventilators, and a couple others who’ll probably be on them before the night’s out. I’ll go.”

  “You can’t.” Addison popped to her feet. “I don’t have nearly enough experience to work on a cure myself, but I can take samples.”

  I cursed the damn storm, willing it to abate so the rest of the team could get here.

  The thought of her being out there alone, in a place that could be teeming with whatever infection had more than a dozen people in quarantine…it bothered me on a level I didn’t like.

  “Pansy will go with you,” I said and gave the woman a hard look, daring her to complain again. “Even though she currently doesn’t act like it, she’s been in the field enough that she can help you. Both of you, suit up.”

  Sixteen

  Addison

  I didn’t like this. In fact, I hated it.

  I was in a full hazmat suit with a hood and gloves and an air filtration system, standing in the middle of a shed that reeked of blood and shit…and that had nothing to do with why I hated my life at this moment.

  No, that honor went entirely to the woman sulking next to me.

  “Don’t get any ideas.” Pansy broke the silence after nearly fifteen minutes of following me as I took samples.

  “I think Cai appreciates any input he receives about the case,” I said, pretending to misunderstand what she meant. I hoped she’d take the out, because this wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have.

  “You know very well that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  It appeared we were going to go there. I sighed. “Pansy, we’re doing something really important here. Can this wait until we’re back home?”

  “No, it most certainly can’t.”

  I was going to kill Cai for insisting Pansy come with me.

  “And it’s Dr. Hunter, not Cai,” she said stiffly. “You shouldn’t attempt to make yourself more familiar with him than is appropriate.”

  “You call him Cai,” I pointed out as I leaned down to take a swab of a streak of blood. I slipped the swab into a collection tube before dropping it into a plastic bag and straightened.

  “Because he and I have been friends for years,” she said. “Besides, my relationship with Cai isn’t any of your business.”

  I turned so I could look at her. “You’re right, it isn’t. The same as my relationship with him isn’t any of yours. If he has a problem with me, he can tell me himself.”

  “You don’t have a relationship with him,” she hissed, stepping closer, her gloved hands clenching. “And you never will. He’s just too polite to say it.”

  I glared at her for a moment before turning away. I spotted a piece of bloodied fur and used my tweezers to pick it up and deposit it in another bag. “I’m here to work, Miss Kemyss. My interest in Dr. Hunter is purely professional. He’s a brilliant doctor who works in a field similar to mine. I’ve admired his work for years.”

  Unfortunately, even that didn’t shut her up.

  “I see the way you look at him, you know. You think he’s attractive.”

  I threw a look over my shoulder before swabbing some mud. “I’m not blind. Of course, I think he’s attractive. That doesn’t mean I’m going after him or want anything other than an opportunity to see how his mind works.”

  Pansy snorted a laugh. “I’m sure that’s what you want.”

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “You don’t know me. Please don’t pretend you do. I’m here to do a job, not to get between you and him.”

  “Like you could,” she muttered under her breath.

  This place was filthy. Dirt and layers of dried blood on the floor. The table had newer blood caked on top of old. Bits of guts and fur stuck to the top. A knife was stuck in one corner, the blade dulled with blood.

  “You need to request a transfer,” she said.

  Enough.

  I turned around to face her. “No, Miss Kemyss. I am not requesting a transfer. I will continue to work for Dr. Hunter until my internship is done or he wants me to transfer to another doctor. Whatever issues you have with him, you need to work out on your own, because they aren’t my concern. The only thing I’m concerned about is getting the samples that Cai needs to figure out what’s wrong with those people, and how to fix them. I’ll continue to do whatever he asks of me because he’s my supervisor.” I let silence hang for a moment before asking, “Are we done?”

  “Yes,” she said mulishly.

  “Good.”

  I turned back around, completing my pass by stopping next to a pile of…well, of a lot of stuff I either couldn’t, or didn’t want to, recognize. I took a sample, then stepped over it to reach the door.

  I jerked to a stop, stumbling back a step. My brain spun, trying to figure out what had snagged my suit. My foot came down on a piece of what looked like rabbit hide, and I slipped. My hands flew out, trying to find anything to stop myself from falling. I managed to grab onto the doorknob, preventing myself from going to my knees. The bag hanging over my arm swung back and forth, hitting my hip. Thankfully, I didn’t have any liquid samples inside.

  I took a breath and tried to get my feet under me. It wasn’t until I was halfway around to warn Pansy to be careful that I realized the air tasted different. Rancid. Rotten. Putrid. All the words that brought with them the foul, heavy stench now filling my suit.

  Horror filled me as I realized what it meant.

  “Oops.”

  I looked up to see Pansy standing in the middle of the pile I’d almost fallen onto. She had an unpleasant smile on her face…and my air hose in her hand.

  She’d just exposed me to whatever shit was floating around this shed. On purpose. With a smile.

  “You really should be more careful, Miss Kilar.”

  Seventeen

  Cai

  The rest of the team had gotten here about thirty minutes ago, and I’d finished briefing them less than five minutes ago. At this point in a regular case, I would’ve excused myself for some food and sleep, letting the o
thers pick up where I left off. I’d get several solid hours of sleep, refreshing my mind, and then be ready to join back in as soon as I woke up.

  But this wasn’t a regular case, not anymore.

  I’d found an empty room away from the rest of the team, and now I paced there, trying to work up the nerve to go to quarantine.

  No one blamed me – or at least they said they didn’t – and I knew that, logically, I couldn’t have known what would happen when I’d sent Addison and Pansy into the field together.

  It didn’t stop me from running through a thousand ways things could have gone differently. I could have insisted Pansy go alone to take the samples. Or have let Addison go alone even though it would have distracted me, knowing she was alone in a strange place, doing a job she’d never done before. It was well within the perimeter of her job description. I could have waited for the others and damned the consequences. The delay might not have been deadly, and I wouldn’t have spent the last hour and a half pretending to get work done when all I could think about was how calmly Addison had walked down the hall and into quarantine without a word to me.

  She wasn’t paying attention, Pansy had said. Rushing around like it was a race or something. She said she wanted to get back to you. The next thing I see, her air hose is loose. I grabbed it, hoping I could get it back to her before any damage was done. I don’t know why I thought that since I know what protocol says, but I was only thinking about her.

  She’d said it all with a straight face, and if I hadn’t known her for years, I might’ve been fooled into believing her story. I knew her tells though. A shift of her eyes to the left. Scuffing the toe of her left shoe against the floor. Twisting her fingers together. All those things had told me that Pansy was lying. For a moment, I’d hoped that the reasoning behind the lies had been to protect Addison. Maybe she’d broken protocol and Pansy had been covering for her.

  Even as I thought it, I knew that wasn’t the case. Pansy had made her dislike of Addison known from the moment the two women first met. Besides, I’d gotten to know Addison well enough that I knew trying to hide a mistake was against her character.

  I’d made Pansy stay behind and had gone to quarantine to find out what really happened.

  Addison hadn’t pointed fingers. I was almost done and stepped over a pile of waste. I jerked to a stop and nearly fell. When I regained my footing, I realized that I could smell the room. I turned around, and Pansy had my air hose in her hand.

  She’d fallen silent for a minute, her expression telling me that she had some sort of inner debate going on. Finally, she added the rest of the truth.

  I didn’t see her grab the hose and pull it out. It could have caught on something. But I don’t think that’s what happened. She said oops and that I should be more careful. And she’d been smiling when she said it.

  I hadn’t wanted to believe it. I still didn’t want to believe it. I’d always known Pansy could be mean at times, but that had been beyond pettiness and cruel remarks. Her actions could cost Addison her life.

  The very thought made my blood turn to ice.

  I tried telling myself that I’d be equally as concerned if it was any other team member exposed to an infection we hadn’t yet identified. If I was a little more worried, it was only because Addison was an intern, not one of the doctors who’d signed on for this sort of thing. Plus, I was responsible for having put her in a position to be infected. I hadn’t done anything reckless, but it had still been my call.

  I’d always been better at avoidance than lying, and now that lack of expertise was coming back to haunt me. Even though I’d always kept my personal feelings out of my professional life – or thought I had – Addison had somehow snuck past my defenses. I’d come to look forward to seeing her each morning. Talking to her as we worked. Her smile and her laugh had become bright spots in my day.

  I needed to see her again.

  I didn’t say anything to anyone when I retrieved my suit, but I saw the puzzled looks. I excelled at my job but interacting with people had never been a strength.

  I was unzipping the second barrier when Addison saw me. She’d taken off her suit, leaving her barefoot and in a pair of jeans and a rumpled t-shirt that made her look years younger than her actual age. She came over to meet me as I stepped inside, her expression strained.

  “Any news?” she asked as she looked up at me.

  “No progress on identification or treatment,” I said, wincing at how blunt my words were. “But we have four more people working on it now. We’ll have something in no time.”

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  “You should be resting,” I said.

  “So, should you,” she countered, folding her arms across her chest. “Last time I checked, I’d gotten more sleep since we arrived here than you did.”

  She had a point, but I wasn’t going to let her know that. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll sit in the chair if you lay on the bed.”

  “Sit on the bed,” she countered.

  I sighed, certain that was the best I was going to get out of her. “All right.”

  We moved back over to the bed she’d claimed as hers, and I sat in the chair as she sat on the bed, facing me. For several long seconds, neither of us said anything, and I wondered if I’d ruined everything between us by putting her in such a risky position.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, breaking the silence.

  “What’s not?”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “You’re far too smart to be playing dumb. You think I don’t know why you’re here? You’re blaming yourself for what happened. It’s not your fault. You sent me into the field the same as you would have any other person with the right expertise. What happened out there…you’re not to blame.”

  I noticed she didn’t say anything about the specific event. Had she been lying and was now hoping I wouldn’t press the issue? That didn’t make any sense. The only logical reason I could come up with was that she didn’t think I believed her.

  “I fired Pansy.”

  Her eyes widened. “You did what now?”

  “Technically, it must come from her direct supervisor, but she intentionally put a team member in danger so there’s no question about it,” I said. “Justifiable termination. I told her to return to Atlanta and clear out her desk.”

  She looked stunned. “She admitted that she pulled out my air hose on purpose?”

  “Not exactly,” I admitted. “And I can’t believe that she was trying to hurt you, but she did knowingly let you venture into a dangerous position.”

  “You’re saying that you fired someone you’ve known since college because you believe she let me go somewhere that was dangerous.” Addison shook her head. “You can’t expect me to believe that a brilliant scientist like you actually believes that.”

  I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Yes, you do.” She reached over and sipped some water. “What did Pansy say when you asked her what happened?”

  I reached up to rub the back of my neck, then remembered that I was wearing a hazmat suit. “She said that it was all you. That you were rushing around, trying to get things done quickly.”

  A flush crept up her neck and something sparked in her eyes. “That’s not true.”

  “You said yourself that you didn’t actually see her do anything,” I pointed out.

  “I didn’t.” Her hands tightened into fists. “But the fact that her story doesn’t match mine at all tells me that my hunch was right. It wasn’t an accident.”

  “You think that because her series of events isn’t the same as yours that she’s lying?” I hoped she saw that I wasn’t trying to argue with her. I wanted to understand her way of thinking.

  “I think that if it’d actually been an accident, she would have told you something that would’ve made sense with what I said happened. Her telling you that I was rushing, not doing my job properly, she told you that to make you think you’d made a mistake bri
nging me.”

  I shook my head. “Why would she do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  She laughed, then coughed, reaching for her water again. After she drank some of it, she spoke, “You’re joking, right? You really don’t see it?”

  “See what?” I asked.

  She sighed, pushing herself back to lean against the pillows. “I think that’s something you should talk to her about. It’s not my place.”

  I puzzled through her statement for a moment. “Perhaps, or maybe it’s more important that you know she won’t be causing you any more problems at work.”

  “I still can’t believe you fired her.”

  “I won’t have someone on my team I can’t trust,” I said. “And I don’t trust her.”

  Part of me wanted to say more, to tell her that, as much as I didn’t want to believe that Pansy could do something so awful, I believed Addison’s version of the story. The reason I fired Pansy had been because I hadn’t been sure I could speak with her without shouting. If something happened to Addison because of Pansy Kemyss, I’d never forgive myself.

  But I wasn’t ready for any of that conversation with myself, let alone her.

  “Ms. Bairstow asked how you were doing,” I said the first thing that popped into my head. “I thought that was nice of her.”

  “It is,” Addison agreed. “She’s been very…nice to me. In fact, she mentioned that the two of us should go out to celebrate when this is all over.”

  I opened my mouth to say something about that being a nice offer, but before I did, I realized exactly what Addison was saying. “She asked you out?”

  “Not exactly,” Addison said. “But my gaydar’s gotten better since I’ve been spending time with Dorly.”

  “Who’s Dorly?” The name sounded familiar, and I wondered if it was one of the new members of the maintenance staff.

  “Oh, my roommate.” Addison smiled, her entire face lighting up. “I was a little worried when I moved here because she and I had only talked a bit via text, but we clicked right away. Then I met her girlfriend, Codie, and it just got better because the three of us get along so well.”