by M. S. Parker
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 others 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 remembere
d 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 bringing 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.”
Dorly and Codie. Not exactly the most common names, especially not when joined together as a pair. And that’s how I knew who they were.
“Dorly’s a bouncer, isn’t she? And Codie’s a waitress?”
Addison looked startled. “They are. How do you know that?”
Shit. I painted myself into that corner. Hopefully, Addison didn’t know exactly what sort of club her friends worked at.
“I met them at work. Their work, I mean.”
She didn’t laugh or smile. She didn’t do anything, actually. She just stared at me, the color draining from her face.
“Watson.” Her voice was so soft that I almost missed it. Then I thought I must’ve misheard her. “I thought you were a Sherlock Holmes fan.”
If I hadn’t already been sitting, I would’ve fallen right on my ass.
This couldn’t be happening. It had to be some mistake or a weird joke. But it wasn’t funny. And there was no way she could know that word, unless…
“It’s for James D. Watson, isn’t it? The scientist,” she said, lifting her hand to cover her mouth. “It was you. That night at the club.”
Eighteen
Addison
It was him.
It was the man from the club.
He was the man from the club.
Cai Hunter.
I had sex with Cai Hunter.
My boss.
Fuck.
“James D. Watson,” he repeated. “Yes. Scientist.”
Even through the plastic mask of the hazmat suit, I could see the stunned expression on his face. I was pretty sure I had a similar look on my face because I’d just been completely gobsmacked.
“You didn’t know.” He made it a statement rather than a question.
“I didn’t,” I said honestly. “Not until just now, and a part of me can barely believe it. How did I not know it was you? I mean, not many men are that tall. And your eyes. I can’t believe that I didn’t recognize them. You talked different too. Because if you talked the same, I would’ve–”
I started coughing, my eyes watering as I reached for my water. My brain was still rambling as I gulped down a few mouthfuls of the cool liquid, letting it soothe the scratch in my throat.
“Addison?” Cai was on his feet and at my side before I’d regained enough breath to tell him that I was okay.
I wasn’t okay though, and I knew it. I’d spent the last few days studying all the symptoms, and I knew I had several of them already. Irritated eyes, swollen glands, an elephant sitting on my chest. I could hide those, but the coughing, I couldn’t. I just had to either convince Cai that it was dry in here or distract him. Considering what we’d just discovered, I was going to go with distraction.
I waved him away as I took as deep a breath as I dared.
“I didn’t know either,” he said quietly. “Not that night, not until you said…what you said.”
“I figured,” I said, my voice hoarse. “You have too much integrity to sleep with someone you work with.”
He looked surprised at the comment, then pleased. “This is why I don’t do relationships.”
“What is why?” I asked as my breathing returned to normal. Relatively normal, anyway.
He looked away as he perched on the edge of the bed. “Two years after I first came to the CDC, I was on a team sent to this little village in South America. They had an outbreak of what they thought was a strain of typhoid, but some things didn’t add up. I was assigned to follow Dr. Lawrence Tighe, this brilliant guy only a few years older than me.”
I leaned forward, my own discomfort forgotten.
“On our third day there, Dr. Tighe was pulling out a needle he’d had in a patient’s arm when she started having a seizure. The needle went through his suit and into his arm.”
Damn.
“It ended up being an exotic strain of a flesh-eating bacteria. After two weeks, we found a way to cure it, but it was too late for Dr. Tighe.”
“Cai, I’m so sorry.” I put my hand on his arm.
He nodded. “When we finally returned to Atlanta, his family had already had the funeral, but I went to their house to offer my condolences. His wife was polite, but she told me something that I’ve never forgotten. She told me that the work we did at the CDC was important, but that I should never mistake it for being safe. She said she’d loved her husband, but she wished she’d never met him.”
I was starting to understand where this story was going.
“I decided then that I would never put anyone through what I’d been through, watching my friend die. And I’d never put a woman through what Mrs. Tighe went through.” He glanced at me then. “No relationships for me.”
“I get it,” I said. “A lot of people wouldn’t, but I do. I don’t do relationships either. I saw too many screwed up ones.”
After a moment, he spoke again. “Can I be honest about something?”
“Of cours
e.”
“When I said no relationships, I meant friendships too, especially at work.” He reached down and took my hand for a moment, giving it a squeeze. “But I messed that up with you. Even before I found out about what happened…that night…I’m going to fix this, Addison. I can’t watch…I won’t watch you…you’re more than just another co-worker.”
He stood up, but not before I saw the pain on his face. It broke my heart to see it there, but it also sent warmth through me. He didn’t see me as a nuisance, or even simply another co-worker. Whatever this strange thing was I’d been feeling between us, it wasn’t only me. We had a connection.
Not a romantic one, of course, but a connection nonetheless.
“Where do we go from here?” I asked. “I mean, about what happened at the club. Do I transfer to another supervisor? Do we have to talk to someone about it? Fill out a form or something?”
“No.” He shook his head, the entire top of the suit making the movement too. “What happened, it never should have happened. Not because I didn’t enjoy what we did, but because of who we are to each other. Interns and supervisors…it’s not done.”
I knew exactly what would happen next, and I said it before he could. “We’re going to pretend it never happened.”
“We’re going to pretend it never happened,” he echoed.
Just like I was pretending that every inhale didn’t take a massive amount of effort. After all of this, I knew I couldn’t do anything that could possibly remind him of the friend he’d lost. I couldn’t let him be distracted by me. He needed to focus on his work. It wasn’t only my life at stake here.
Still, even my determination couldn’t stop the coughing fit that left my ribs aching and my breath coming in ragged gasps.
“I’ll fix this,” Cai said as he eased me back onto the pillows. “You rest. I’m going to get to work, and I’ll make you better.”
All I had the strength to do was nod.