Toxin Alert

by Tyler Anne Snell

  “You know, during all of this there’s one person whose name keeps popping up on all sides.”

  “Noah,” Carly guessed.

  Rihanna nodded.

  “Do you trust him?”

  Carly was caught off guard by the question but, even more, by her answer.

  “I think he’s trying to help when there’s no gain in it for him. And I don’t think that’s something we’re used to seeing all that much.”

  Rihanna agreed to that, but before she left the stairs she paused. Carly followed what she said with a question. “Do you? Trust Noah?”

  Rihanna considered that a moment. What she decided on hadn’t been what Carly had expected, either.

  “I don’t have a lot of information on him and that makes me nervous.”

  They both said good-night, and Carly made her way to her room, still unsettled and restless.

  She took off the robe she’d thrown on to go to the kitchen and sat cross-legged in her T-shirt and underwear on the bed, with microwaveable noodles in her hand and thoughts of a certain farmer in her head.

  It was almost midnight and, as far as she could tell, she was probably the only one still awake. Or, at least, moving around. She’d heard Selena take Blanca out in the yard an hour before, but then both had gone quiet in the next room. Axel, a pacer by nature when it came to a particularly hard case, had worn the carpet out along their hallway for a half hour in thought. If he was pacing now, it was in the quiet of his room. As for Max and Aria, Carly had heard them talking next to the bathrooms, something about their kids, an hour or so before, but now both parents were behind closed doors.

  Carly poked at the plastic container with a fork. She let her thoughts wander, but they were coming back to a very specific path.

  A path they had been exploring since her first moment seeing Noah in Potter’s Creek. A path she had no time to travel, yet there she was.

  Thinking about Noah Miller and wondering if she really did trust him.

  He had good intentions, but good intentions were just actions not yet taken. They weren’t worth much and could change as swiftly as the weather.

  They also didn’t equal trust. But there was just something about Noah. He’d come to her rescue. He’d been genuinely concerned for her, even worried.

  She didn’t not trust him. That would have to be enough for now.

  Her eyes unfocused as her thoughts shifted.

  Despite all of their discoveries that day, no one had any new answers. Her own contacts hadn’t yet traced this strain of anthrax to a particular lab or vendor, but more testing might yield better results. Axel had spent the remainder of the day in David Lapp’s house, trying to piece together a profile, but had come up short. He wanted another crack at it in the morning. Selena and Blanca hadn’t found anything new, either, and would be turning back to transportation angles of how the anthrax came to Potter’s Creek. Aria and Max were also trying to figure out where one might get that much anthrax and said they had a lead to follow first thing the next day. Opaline was also still doing her internet thing, while Alana said she was reaching out to some of her contacts in Washington for more information that might help them.

  Everyone was working, yet there she was in her underwear at a bed-and-breakfast, with no real progress.

  She hated it.

  Every day, every moment counted, and she felt like she was wasting precious time running down information that was leading nowhere faster than they were leading somewhere.

  Carly didn’t realize her gaze had drifted over to her empty coffee mug across the room until a familiar ache thumped in her chest.

  Button it up, Welsh, she thought. Let’s go back to thinking about the farmer and how he’d made a shovel sexy.

  It was a self-imposed distraction, but it did the job.

  Carly imagined the man sitting next to her, his deep voice intriguing not only her mind but her body, and repeating his earlier suspicions before he’d dropped her off at the inn.

  “Nothing ever happens here in Potter’s Creek, and now? Biological weapons, a missing boy who happens to be a suspect in the attack and an unknown man found hidden in his basement along with a chair that couldn’t have been used for anything good? That can’t be a coincidence. They have to be connected, right?”

  It certainly felt like they were.

  But who had poisoned the fields?

  Who was keeping whom in that basement?

  Why couldn’t they find anything on the man who had attacked her yet?

  And where was David Lapp?

  Carly looped a noodle around her fork’s prongs.

  Connected or not, him being right or wrong didn’t matter. Noah stayed in her thoughts as she finished eating, brushed her teeth and eventually crawled beneath the bed sheets.

  Whatever the next day might bring, she found herself looking forward to seeing him again.

  Invisible walls and all.

  * * *

  THE AGENT TURNED off the light at fifteen minutes past one. Darkness filled the room. It triggered the camera’s night-vision mode. Suddenly the small bedroom was shades of gray, green and black.

  He watched as Agent Welsh turned onto her side, her hair shifting over the pillow behind her. Her phone was on the nightstand, a light flashing as it charged.

  She had no idea she was being watched.

  Which was good, considering this was his Plan B.

  “It’s not right to watch a woman like that,” said the boy next to him. He was dreadfully annoying. His mother, even more so.

  She wasn’t with them now, but he had no doubt she would have something to say tomorrow when the boy told her. Or maybe she’d just give him that judgmental look she was so good at.

  She might not have approved of him or his methods to get what he wanted, but he had enough leverage on her so that it didn’t matter what she approved of or liked.

  She had to follow his instructions.

  Or face the consequences they both knew she wasn’t willing to face.

  “I wouldn’t have needed you to put the camera in if you’d done your job in the first place,” he reminded the boy. “This is your fault, not mine.”

  The boy went quiet, a pout pushing out his lip.

  “You’re going to sit here until she wakes up and then tell me everything she does or says relating to the case,” he continued. “Any phone calls she makes or any visitors she has. If you see her writing anything down or anything else of interest, then we’ll just have to send our secret weapon in there to get whatever it is. Got it?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Good.” He stood and stretched. He wanted a beer or some whiskey. Though he’d take some vodka if it was offered. He pulled his coat off of the back of the chair and slipped it on, the keys in his pocket rattling at the movement. When he was all situated he motioned to the bank of other monitors around the room. Five more screens showed sleeping people in shades of green, gray and black.

  “The same goes for the rest of the agents.”

  * * *

  RODNEY LEE HAD a rap sheet that was as long as his anger was deep when he finally woke up in the hospital. Opaline got a hit on his identity around the same time he managed to knock out an orderly and put the deputy guarding his room into the ICU.

  Carly got the first call while she was riding in silence with Noah. It was almost ten in the morning, and they’d just left the interview with Eli Zook and his father.

  Eli might have been an angry, angsty teen but as far as Carly was concerned that’s where it began and ended. Unless they found evidence to the contrary, Carly took him off their list of suspects.

  “He has one count of grand theft auto, a slew of misdemeanors for drug possession and a few disorderly conducts with one drunken disorderly...” Opaline’s words trailed off. Carly could hear fingers clicking across the
keys on a keyboard. “The last of the charges was three years ago in Detroit. After that he disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Carly repeated. “How so?”

  “The trail for him goes cold a day after he was released from the police department after spending the night in the drunk tank. He was supposed to report for a hearing a month later but didn’t. According to his landlord at the time, one day he was there and the next all of his stuff was gone with no forwarding information. He even left his car in the parking garage.”

  “And no one reported him missing?”

  There was movement on the other side of the call. Carly could imagine Opaline’s pink-tipped hair nodding along with her head.

  “His grandmother filed a missing persons report a week after he was released, but the detective who was working the case concluded that Lee had taken off of his own volition. He didn’t figure out where that was or why.”

  “And there’s no connection or reason you can see that Lee would be here in Potter’s Creek?”

  “Not so far. His grandmother is his only listed relative and the people he used to pull stunts with are still local to Detroit.”

  Carly took in a deep breath of frustration.

  The scent of trees and spice almost made her stumble in her response—was Noah wearing cologne?—but she caught herself.

  “We need more information. David Lapp is our lead suspect right now, and it can’t be coincidence that a man like Lee is just chilling in his basement, waiting to attack federal agents. When he wakes up, we’ll have to see if we can’t get more.”

  The second call came as Carly asked Noah to drop her off at the community barn. Since she’d pried into his past with his father the day before, he’d gone quiet on her. Only spoken when she prompted him or if the interview called for it.

  Carly decided she didn’t like not talking to him, even if it was just about the case.

  So much so that she was about to ask if she could treat him to some lunch for all of his help when her phone started to ring.

  This time it was Rihanna.

  Her words were clipped.

  “Carly, Rodney Lee escaped.”

  That changed the rest of Carly’s day on the spot. Noah, who must have heard Rihanna, kept on to the community barn but sat quiet as she made call after call. When she was finally off of the phone, lined with enough tension to give a taut rubber band a run for its money, she did one thing that normally she never would.

  Carly leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  Then Noah put his hand on her shoulder, like he had standing on the Lapp front porch.

  Carly opened her eyes, startled, but met his gaze.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said, all baritone. “I promise.”

  Carly didn’t like promises—giving or trusting them when offered—but, in that moment, she believed Noah’s.

  There was just something so simple and comforting about it.

  So straightforward and reassuring.

  It had been a long, long time since she’d gotten that feeling from someone, and it made no sense that it had come from a man she barely knew.

  Yet it had.

  Carly watched as his eyes dropped to his hand. He didn’t take it away.

  Suddenly its weight was all Carly could think about.

  Its heat was all she could feel.

  The world and its terrible troubles quieted.

  How complicated would it be to kiss him?

  To see if his lips provided the same escape that a simple hand on her arm had already made her imagine?

  He had saved her life, right?

  A kiss could show gratitude.

  A kiss could show appreciation.

  A kiss could—

  Carly’s phone rang one more time.

  Noah retracted his hand.

  For a moment she was tempted not to answer, but every wandering thought she’d just entertained was a reason to pick up the call.

  She was on a case.

  Her team was on a timeline.

  There were bad people appearing in Potter’s Creek with no hesitation to do bad things.

  She had to stop them.

  And that could only happen if she stayed focused.

  Carly answered the phone. There was a touch of excitement in Opaline’s voice.

  “I hope you like karaoke, because this new lead I just got you is about to get musical.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “If you had asked me what I’d be doing this holiday season, I don’t think I would have guessed this.”

  Carly was a sight to behold.

  Her lips were turned down, dark red and pouty, and her eyes were surrounded by black eyeliner and, if Noah wasn’t mistaken, glitter. She had on tight dark jeans, instead of her slacks, that made the urge to let his eyes wander instead of be respectful a constant battle, and she was absolutely rocking a long-sleeved red blouse that dipped into a low V and made the imagination stand at attention.

  It was a definite contrast to the natural beauty that was a part of her FBI look, but tonight Carly Welsh wasn’t an agent.

  She was just a woman on a date.

  With him.

  At a bar in the city, half an hour from Potter’s Creek.

  “Going undercover at a dive bar with a former Amish farmer to try to get information on a criminal who just escaped from the hospital?” Noah smirked. “I don’t know about you, but this is how I always bring in the holiday season.”

  Carly had been stiff since she’d received the call about Rodney Lee’s escape. That stress had stayed throughout her meeting with her team and their new plan to try to get a lead on Lee. Now she rolled her shoulders back and snorted, letting that tension go.

  Or at least hiding it before they went inside.

  “I knew you were mysterious, Noah Miller, but I didn’t know you were that mysterious.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. Noah started to lead the way, but Carly caught his arm. The smell of her perfume surrounded him. It was also in the distracting column.

  “And, just for the record, I’m not singing on any stage, no matter what Opaline suggested. Ever,” she added. “Not even for a cover.”

  Noah chuckled.

  “Understood.”

  The bar was called the Wallflower and, despite its more hipster name, it had the look and feel of a motel bar located near the airport. This bar, however, was down the street from The Grand Casino and, given how the waitress greeted them after they sat down in a booth in the corner, it catered to patrons when they were done with their gambling.

  “We don’t take poker chips as payment. Only card and cash. If you can’t do that then you can leave. No swiping our Christmas decorations, either, or you’ll have to answer to the boss.”

  Carly shared a look with Noah. He could tell she was fighting a laugh. The only decorations he could see that were holiday-themed were a few plastic light-up Santa Clauses on the bar top, clusters of candy canes with rope lights in them seemingly spread at random, and balding, metallic green garland lining the space between each booth seat and the next. It was more than he’d expected to see in the bar, but he wouldn’t have thought it valuable enough to be targeted for petty theft.

  Yet there the waitress was, serious as serious could be.

  “None of that will be a problem,” Noah assured her.

  “We’ll be on our best behavior,” Carly added.

  Another couple came through the main door, earning her suspicious gaze. Still, she took their drink orders. When she was gone Carly finally let out a little laugh.

  She lowered her voice and leaned in so he could hear her whisper. The tabletop between them was small which put the smell of her perfume right back in Noah’s area. He made sure to keep his eyes, once again, away from her curv
es at the movement.

  Maybe volunteering to act as her undercover date while the rest of her team kept following their own leads down wasn’t the best idea.

  Yet, there they were.

  “Is it bad I felt the need to go for my gun during that?” she asked. “I mean, dang, but I guess I can see how she might act like that if she has to deal with people like Lee as a regular.”

  At her own words, Carly looked toward the front doors. The waitress had directed them to sit in a booth that had a sightline of the entrance and the hallway opening that led to the bathroom and, he assumed, the back office and doors. The Wallflower wasn’t particularly a large place, but it had several tables for seating between them and both exits. Noah watched as Carly scanned each patron sitting down with their drinks already.

  “Not that I expected it, but Rodney isn’t here,” she said through a smile meant for a couple on a date and not an FBI agent trying to solve a case. “Neither is Rob Cantos.”

  Noah in turn did his own look around of the other patrons. The picture he’d been shown of Rodney Lee’s friend, Rob, wasn’t matching any of them.

  “I still can’t believe your tech guru found a connection,” he admitted. “But I guess that’s the pitfall of social media. One way or the other you wind up on the internet because of it.”

  Carly snorted.

  “Especially if you’re running around with someone like Rob, who obsessively posts pictures and videos on his Stories.” The picture Carly had shown Noah was a selfie of Rob with Rodney in the background. It was, according to Carly’s friend back at their headquarters in Traverse City, one of nearly fifteen pictures spread over the course of six months where the two had shown up together. Most of them were geo-tagged at the Wallflower. That had been enough of a lead for the tech guru to sleuth out that Rob didn’t just like the small dive bar, he was a regular.

  A regular who was there every night.

  And if they couldn’t find Rodney, then maybe his friend could help them with that.