Hard Line

by Pamela Clare

  Thor knelt beside her again. “When you’re up for it, Samantha, I’m going to walk you back to your room, okay?”

  She nodded, sat up again, her hands gripping the arms of the chair. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing,” Thor said. “You haven’t done anything.”

  She slowly got to her feet, cleared her throat. “Thanks, Steve. I’m sorry you had to be the bearer of bad news.”

  Steve ran his hands through his hair, weariness lining his face. “I’ve never had to share news like that before. We’ll have a staff meeting tomorrow morning at nine. Isaksen, let’s talk after you get her settled.”

  Samantha seemed to be trapped in a nightmare as they left Steve’s office and moved down the corridor to the main hallway and back toward her room. Thor stayed beside her, his hand resting in the middle of her back. People shot her curious glances, but she barely noticed.

  They reached her door. She fumbled in the pocket of her jeans for her keys then struggled to get the key into the lock.

  “Let me.” Thor took over, opened the door for her, and followed her inside, the fairy lights still on. “Why don’t you lie down?”

  She kicked off her shoes, climbed into bed, and sank back onto her pillow. “You aren’t leaving, are you?”

  “No.” He called to Malik and Lev on his radio. “Meet me at Samantha’s room. Segal, bring a surveillance kit. Jones, bring Kristi.”

  Someone here—someone they all trusted—had killed Patty.

  It was almost too much to absorb.

  But the next thought sent ice through her blood.

  What if they killed again?

  10

  Thor stayed with Samantha while Kristi took her vitals and asked her a few questions, Jones and Segal standing outside her door. His priority was getting Samantha settled for the night and making sure she was safe.

  “I’m fine. Really, I am. I’m just upset about Patty. I packed her things.”

  “Your blood pressure is still a bit low. Have you ever fainted before?”

  “I didn’t faint. I just...”

  “Uh-huh.” Kristi clearly wasn’t buying that.

  Thor had told Samantha not to give Kristi the whole story—not yet. He wanted to check in with Tower and the Deputy US Marshal at McMurdo and meet with Hardin before letting the news out. Until then, all anyone needed to know was that Samantha was upset after packing up Patty’s things and that she’d had a dizzy spell.

  “I think you’re exhausted and grieving and have had a tough day, but if you have any other symptoms—headache, chest pain, difficulty breathing—I want you to buzz Decker or me right away.” Kristi reached into the medical bag she’d brought and pulled out a blister pack of pills. “Here are a few Xanax. Take one at bedtime. They might make you dizzy, so don’t take them during the day, okay?”

  Samantha nodded. “Thanks.”

  Kristi turned to Thor. “Are you staying with her for a while?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Call me if you need anything—or send Malik.”

  Thor waited until Kristi was gone. “I’d like your permission to set up surveillance in your room—the same kind of surveillance you saw in mine. It’s a motion-activated camera, so if anyone enters while it’s on, it will alert you—and us.”

  “You think the killer will come for me?”

  She looked so shattered at that moment that Thor wanted to hold her. Instead, he took her hand. “I’m not saying that anyone’s after you. I just want to keep you safe.”

  She nodded. “Okay. Thanks. Sure. Just tell me how it works.”

  There wasn’t room for Jones and Segal in the room with him, so he took the surveillance kit from Segal and set it up. “I think I’ll put the camera here. That way, you can have it on at night without setting it off every time you roll over. I want you to feel safe so that you can sleep.”

  “Someone killed Patty. I just can’t believe it.”

  “It’s a lot to take in.” He couldn’t blame her for being overwhelmed by it all. “We’ll do our best for her—I promise.”

  He showed Samantha how to arm the camera and deactivate it, and then he synced it with her phone and theirs. “Remember not to tell anyone about this—not Kristi, not Lance, not even Hardin.”

  “Okay.” She sat there, smartphone in hand, as if she didn’t know what to do next.

  “Why don’t I step outside so you can put on your pajamas? You go brush your teeth and do whatever else you need to do before bedtime. I’ll get water for you, and you can take that Xanax. How does that sound?”

  She got to her feet, looked up at him, a sad smile playing on her lips. “Somehow, I don’t think this is part of your job description.”

  “Keeping you safe is absolutely part of my job, but the rest of it…” He reached out, ran a knuckle over the silky curve of her cheek. “I hate to see you hurting.”

  He left her to change, joining Jones and Segal in the hallway. “She’s getting ready for bed. As soon as we get her settled, we need to talk.”

  “And then you’ll tell us what the hell is going on?” Jones asked.

  Segal answered for him. “That’s the idea.”

  Looking exhausted, Samantha stepped out of her room wearing a white cotton tank top and pink pajama bottoms with red hearts on them, slippers on her feet, a small bag of toiletries in her hand. “Hey.”

  “Dr. Park.”

  “Ma’am.”

  It was the first time Thor had seen her wearing something other than bulky sweaters. He’d been right—she was willowy, just like a dancer. She had gentle curves in all the right places, her nipples pressing against the fabric of her shirt, her waist narrow, her blond hair hanging down her back.

  By the time she returned, he had a cold bottle of water for her. He followed her into her room, handed her the water. “For the Xanax.”

  She swallowed the pill, set the water aside. “What happens now?”

  “You sleep. We’ll talk about the rest of it tomorrow.” He watched as she climbed into bed. Then he armed her surveillance camera. “Goodnight. Sleep well.”

  “Thanks, Thor. Today would have sucked a lot more without you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Thor stepped out into the hallway again, checked to make sure her door was locked. He lowered his voice so as not to be overheard. “Patty didn’t die of natural causes. She was poisoned. Methanol. Her death was ruled a homicide.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “The US marshal stationed at McMurdo wants to deputize us and have us spearhead an investigation here, to be her eyes and ears.”

  Jones stared at him. “Tower will never go for that. We’re not Sherlock Holmes.”

  “How much does she believe we can do in just a few days?” Segal asked.

  “I don’t know, but Hardin wants our help, too. I’ll check in with Tower tomorrow first thing and bring him up to date. In the meantime, nothing about our mission has changed. We keep the package and Dr. Park safe.”

  Samantha stared up at her ceiling, waiting for the Xanax to kick in and grateful for the men who stood on the other side of her door. Like everyone else, she hadn’t wanted the Cobra guys to come. She had worried that their presence would be disruptive to life on station. Now, she was glad they were here.

  She couldn’t imagine how this felt to Thor and his men. They’d come down here to do one job, and were now being asked to do another. Even so, Thor had stayed cool through all of it—getting the news, helping Samantha when she’d almost passed out, setting her up with a security camera, getting Kristi to check on her.

  They only take men who can keep their heads in a crisis.

  Well, Samantha believed that.

  But Thor wasn’t some detached, ice-cold automaton. When she’d kissed him, his reaction had been immediate and red-hot. It had been the best, sexiest kiss of her life. He barely knew her, and still, he’d been so kind to her, helping her pack Patty’s things, putting up the fairy lights,
making her a priority when he surely had more important things to do.

  I know you’re hurting.

  She wouldn’t have expected compassion like that from a military man. Then again, what did she know about military men? Apparently, nothing.

  Oh, Patty, who did this to you?

  Samantha ran through the staff, one by one, but that was too much like counting sheep, her thoughts unraveling as the Xanax finally kicked in.

  Thor didn’t sleep well, his dreams shifting restlessly from Patty’s murder to kissing Samantha. He woke at five with a hard-on and dragged his ass out of bed for a conference with Javier Corbray, Tower, and Elizabeth Shields, Cobra’s top intel analyst. He’d already spoken with Tower last night, bringing him up to date before going to bed.

  Shields’ strawberry-blond hair somehow looked immaculate even though it was midnight in Denver. “Did you get any sleep?”

  Thor could function pretty well on four or five hours. “Enough.”

  Tower looked as clean-shaven and pressed as ever. “That’s why we have coffee. Corbray, are you there?”

  Javier Corbray, a former Navy SEAL, was the company’s other owner.

  His face appeared on the screen. “I spoke with the DUSM at McMurdo—Reyna. Normally, we wouldn’t take on something like this. We supply security. We don’t do investigations. But she’s right when she says there is no one else. Apparently, Hardin offered to take it on, but she’s not confident in his abilities as a site manager to handle something like this, especially not when he has friendships with people on station.”

  That made sense. “So, now we’re deputy US Marshals?”

  Corbray nodded. “You’ll be staying until the situation is resolved.”

  Thor had thought long and hard about how to get started on an investigation last night. “We don’t have access to DNA tests or fingerprinting or any other forensic tools. There’s no surveillance, so we’ve got no video evidence. We’ll be asking people questions and relying on them to tell the truth. I seriously doubt that the person who poisoned Dr. Holcomb is going to confess.”

  Shields took over. “It’s more complicated than you know. I’ve been on the phone with the medical examiner who did Dr. Holcomb’s autopsy. I wanted to get the file for you because those details could be important. According to the medical examiner, the time it would take someone to die of acute methanol poisoning falls into a range that overlaps with the time of the satellite hack.”

  Thor stared at the image of Shields on his screen. “Then it’s likely that whoever hacked the satellite is here and that this person is also the killer.”

  Shields stifled a yawn. “We know the hack came from south of the Antarctic Circle, and we know that Dr. Holcomb died the next morning from a poison that had to have been in her system for a while. It could be a coincidence, but I don’t think so.”

  Thor didn’t believe in coincidences. “What kind of skill set would a person need to hack a US military satellite?”

  Shields was an expert on hacking. “He or she would need to be a top-shelf computer-systems expert with programming and networking skills and knowledge of military satellites and different hacking software. This person would also need access to a sophisticated computer setup with a fast satellite connection. This isn’t something that the average geek could do from the station’s computer lab.”

  That narrowed it down.

  But Thor had another question. “Why would anyone commit murder in a closed environment like this one? It’s not like someone could walk in off the street and kill her. There are forty-nine suspects. The killer would have to know we’d catch them eventually.”

  Shields raised an eyebrow. “Maybe, but you just told me there’s no law enforcement, no surveillance, and no forensic technology there. Perhaps the killer was counting on that.”

  “How was she poisoned? Did the medical examiner say?”

  “She probably ingested it.”

  Tower’s face reappeared on the screen. “Methanol is tasteless, odorless, and colorless. In an alcoholic drink, it would be undetectable.”

  Thor knew it was used as a fuel source, a solvent, and an antifreeze, so there was probably a lot of it on station.

  “I’ve never done anything like this before. How do I get started?” He didn’t have a problem admitting when he was in over his head.

  Shields, who’d helped catch the man who’d murdered her husband’s best friend in Glasgow last year, gave him a to-do list that started with interrogating everyone on station. She promised to scan the autopsy report and get it to him before she went to bed. Tomorrow, she would begin the long process of doing background checks on every person on station.

  “Just watch your six, okay? We can’t fly in on a helicopter to save your asses. Whoever killed her doesn’t want to be found. The moment the three of you start asking questions, you could become targets.”

  “We’ll be careful.”

  They had no choice.

  In Antarctica, there were so many ways to die.

  Samantha ate her breakfast in the small conference room, doing her best to remember Patty’s last day, her brain still a little fuzzy from the Xanax.

  “We recycled the fridges that morning and did some basic maintenance in the afternoon. We walked back to the station together and ate dinner in the galley. Lance sat with us—and Kristi. Then Patty and Lance left, and I went to my room to read. That would have been about ten o’clock.”

  Thor wrote down what she’d said. “Did she seem worried or upset about anything? Did she argue with anyone?”

  God, had Samantha really kissed him?

  Samantha took a sip of coffee, tried to focus. “Not that I saw, and I was with her most of the day. Well, except… But that’s stupid.”

  “What?”

  “Kazem asked her out a few times, and she turned him down. A few nights before she died, he showed up at her room, demanding to know if she’d refused to date him because he’s Muslim. She told him she was already in a relationship and tried to close the door, but he stuck his foot inside to stop her. When she told him to knock it off, he left her alone, but that startled her.”

  Thor wrote that down, too. “Did he threaten her?”

  “She didn’t mention it if he did.”

  “Did you see her drinking the night before you found her?”

  Samantha nodded. “We all split a bottle of wine over dinner that she’d bought from the store here. I drank it, too. She and Lance might have taken what was left to her room with them after dinner. I’m not sure. There was an empty wine bottle on her desk, the last bottle we shared with her. I set it aside for her shrine.”

  Then it hit her.

  She got to her feet. “Come with me.”

  He stood, too. “Where are we going?”

  “My room. There’s a test I want to try. Do you have a lighter?”

  “No, but I can borrow one.”

  They carried their trays from the conference room to the dish pit. Samantha grabbed a soup spoon from the galley while Thor stopped in the kitchen to borrow a lighter. Then they made their way to Samantha’s room in silence.

  Thor closed her door behind him. “What kind of test is this?”

  “This is the box of stuff I set aside for her shrine.” She pulled out the empty wine bottle, shook it, relieved that there was still a little left in the bottom. “I’m going to pour the dregs into the spoon. You light it on fire. If it’s ethanol—regular wine—it will burn blue. If it burns yellow, it’s contaminated by methanol.”

  She poured the last of the wine into the soup spoon, held it steady while Thor flicked the lighter.

  The alcohol went up in a bright yellow flame.

  “Oh, my God.” Samantha stared, chills skittering along her spine. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, but it was true. Someone had poisoned Patty. “But why am I still alive? Why are Lance and Kristi alive? We all drank this same wine.”

  “Maybe the methanol was added later—or maybe it’s a different
bottle with an identical label.”

  The flame sputtered out, but not before Thor snapped a photo of it with his phone. Then he grabbed a tissue from her desk and took the bottle from her. “Don’t touch this. It’s now evidence—our only evidence. I’ll put it in a safe place.”

  But Samantha was still reeling. The thought that someone Patty had trusted had given her poisoned wine made Samantha sick. Death in the guise of friendship.

  It was too hideous to contemplate.

  “Do you know anyone on station with the computer skills needed to hack a military satellite?”

  Samantha gaped at Thor. “You think her murder had something to do with that?”

  “The time range for when she ingested the methanol overlaps with the time the satellite was hacked.”

  “Oh, God.” This was all too surreal, too terrible. “Lance is our IT guy. Patty started in computer science. But I don’t know the others’ backgrounds. You’d have to look at personnel records.”

  “We’re working on that.” Thor moved toward the door, the bottle still in hand. “I’d like your help in the staff meeting here in a few minutes.”

  “Of course.”

  “Watch people’s expressions. See how they react to the news that Patty was murdered. Jones, Segal, and I will be watching, too, but you know the people here better than we do. Until now, the killer might have hoped or believed they’d gotten away with this. This announcement is going to make someone very nervous.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She walked with Thor to the B1 Lounge, unable to shake a sense of dread.

  Until yesterday, the station had felt like home, an oasis of warmth and life at the bottom of the world. But Patty’s murder had shattered her sense of safety.

  She sat toward the front of the room, Thor standing behind her, Malik and Lev beside him. People drifted in, cups of coffee or tea in their hands, curiosity on their faces.

  Lance sat beside Samantha, stubble on his jaw, his salt-and-pepper hair damp from a shower. “Any idea what this is about?”