Mysterious Circumstances

by Rita Herron

  “I told the cops, it was just a freaking joke,” Harlam declared.

  “And no one thought it was funny.” Craig zeroed in on the tattoos marking his arms. “Are those your initiation to an inside prison gang?”

  Harlam snorted. “I’ve had these since I was fifteen. The only thing I got in the pen was scars.” He lifted the edge of his shirt to reveal a smattering of knife wounds and jagged puckered flesh. “Since I got out, I’m trying to stay clean.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have a grudge against the Savannah Police Department for locking you up?” Craig asked.

  “Yeah, maybe you’re sending around the real thing this time,” Detective Black said.

  Harlam popped up in his chair, pulling at his hair. “You mean someone’s sending out anthrax and you think it’s me?” The vile words he uttered would have blistered paint. “That ain’t so, I tell you, I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “That’s what you said before,” Detective Black said.

  “But this time it’s the truth. Ask my old lady. She’s been keeping me under lock and key, makes me hand off that pitiful paycheck to her. I don’t have the money to buy a pack of freaking cigarettes without asking her, much less buy some kind of drug.”

  “Do you know anyone who might be selling off the street?” Detective Black asked.

  “You mean pot? Crack? Heroine?”

  Craig gave him a steady gaze. “We’re not after narcotics.”

  Harlam clawed at his arms as if he were frantic to escape. “Then you mean anthrax.”

  Craig leered in his face. “How about a germ similar to anthrax?”

  “You’re talking some scary stuff,” Harlam yelled, his eye twitching. “I don’t know nothing about it, I swear.”

  Craig glanced at Black, frustrated. They were getting nowhere. And if Harlam’s nerves were any indication of his innocence, this was a waste of time.

  Time they couldn’t afford to waste, although they had to exhaust every possibility.

  “Bring his wife in,” he told Detective Black. “Let’s see what she has to say.”

  Harlam buried his head in his arms and groaned, as if he’d just received a death sentence.

  But thirty minutes later, after Harlam’s wife corroborated his statement, Craig and Black agreed they had to release the man.

  “I’ll put a tail on him anyway,” Black said.

  Craig agreed, then decided to cut Harlam a deal. “Listen, go out there on the street and see if you hear word of anyone dealing something besides drugs, something like anthrax.”

  Harlam swallowed hard, his eyes bulging. “And what you gonna do for me?”

  “Maybe we’ll forget that I smelled booze on your breath when you came in, that you like to knock one back before you go home from work.”

  Harlam nodded. Drinking alcohol violated his parole. He obviously didn’t want to go back into the pen.

  TWO HOURS LATER, when Olivia awakened, a laptop had been placed on the oak desk. Craig had fulfilled his promise.

  Was he really as trustworthy as he appeared?

  She washed her face in the small bathroom, the scent of his aftershave wafting toward her, the sight of his personal toiletries reminding her of the intimacy of their arrangement. An intimacy she couldn’t take to another level.

  Not when there was so much at stake. She’d wanted to find the answers to her mother’s death all her life. And now her father’s. She had to know the truth.

  She booted up the computer and spent a half hour retrieving her work files. Finally, when she’d skimmed the paper’s recent articles, one of her attempted murder on page three, again written by her nemesis and co-worker Jerry, she logged on to the Internet and punched in the name Martin Shubert.

  Knowing he was a doctor helped to narrow her search. Still, there were three different listings for doctors with the same name. She cross-checked them with scientists who’d worked on assignments in Egypt the same time as her mother but found nothing. Next, she tried CIRP, but Shubert hadn’t worked there, wasn’t affiliated with them or someone had deted any references to him from the files.

  Which was possible since they kept so much of their work secret.

  She tapped her nails on her leg. How would she ever find the truth with the security measures in place on Nighthawk Island?

  “HORN, IT’S DEVLIN.”

  “Yeah, what have you found?”

  “It appears the scientists here in Europe have a similar strain of the virus that affected the Savannah victims. It has mutated slightly, but could have originated from the same source.”

  “Do we know how the patients were infected?”

  “Not yet. We’ve cordoned off the residences and work areas of each of the victims and are testing the air, walls, anything in the space which might hold bacteria.”

  “I thought we already determined that it wasn’t airborne.”

  Devlin cleared his throat. “We did, but it’s possible that the germ might have settled inside the framework, so we’re double-checking.”

  In other words, they were grasping. Craig explained about the attack on Olivia at the hospital.

  “Jeez. She must have gotten too close to something,” Devlin said. “Find out what she knows.”

  Craig swallowed, then glanced at the bedroom door. The earlier kiss taunted him; the fact that Olivia was asleep in his bed was driving him crazy. But what if she was holding back information? “I will.”

  “I spoke with a contact here,” Devlin said. “He suggested Thornbird might have been more involved with the virus than we thought.”

  “You mean he found something?”

  A long pause, then Devlin sighed. “We have to consider the possibility that he might have been the one who actually created the germ in the first place. When you asked for help, he jumped at the chance.”

  “Yes.” Craig hesitated, contemplated the possibility. “So he could throw us off?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then Thornbird might be responsible for all these people’s deaths.”

  “Right,” Devlin said. “And his own.”

  “Because he knew we might be on to him.”

  “Exactly.” Devlin whistled. “See if Olivia had any idea what her father was up to. Maybe if she knows something, we can pressure her to be a government witness.”

  Horn clenched the phone with sweaty hands as Olivia stepped from the shadows. Her face was haunted with exhaustion, the memory of his lips on hers stirring unwanted desires.

  “All right.” Anger knotted his stomach as distrust rose from the bowels of that desire, and another what-if popped into his min

  What if she had known her father had created the virus, and she’d warmed up to him to keep him from finding out the truth? Had she sneaked into her father’s office so she could cover for him…destroy his files?

  Chapter Nine

  Craig’s head was still reeling when he hung up from talking to Devlin. He’d done it again. Started to trust a woman. And all because of a pair of sexy blue eyes and a kiss that had twisted him inside out.

  A snort of derision left him. Good thing Devlin had yanked the chain on that idiocy.

  But what if Olivia didn’t know that her father might have been involved in creating the virus? What if she was innocent? Would he be able to tell her the truth and hurt her like that?

  Don’t let those bewitching eyes fool you. She’s not so innocent. She’s an investigative reporter.

  He angled his head, searched for hidden secrets in her eyes, but haunted shadows lingered from her earlier ordeal.

  The facts—he had to go on what he knew so far. Someone definitely wanted her dead. Either they believed she was a threat, that she was on to the truth, or that she already knew something. They were probably afraid she’d write the story and lead the cops back to the source.

  Even if her father had created the virus, he hadn’t orchestrated this plan alone. But he’d obviously been crazy to go along with it.

 
Had he invented the virus for germ warfare, then sold it to the wrong people? And if he had, had he known? Or had someone stolen it from him?

  The possibilities were endless. Even if Thornbird hadn’t intentionally given the virus to the person or persons responsible for the outbreak, he might have figured out what had happened. And the guilt of knowing he’d played a part in murdering innocent citizens might have driven Thornbird to suicide.

  Craig needed to dig deeper into Thornbird’s relationship with his daughter.

  “Craig, what’s going on?” Olivia asked.

  “I just spoke with Devlin. They’re retesting the facilities where the victims lived and worked to see if the virus might have settled in the vents or become embedded in the materials or structural foundation. It’s just a precaution.”

  “Then they’ll check my father’s house?”

  “Yes.” He shifted. “Olivia, were there any stories you worked on recently that might have pissed off someone enough to want to harm you?”

  She leaned against the doorway, her posture evident of the strain of her surgery. “Not really. I was investigating a story about the acrylic nail business. The possibility that the chemicals imported in vats from Asia are potentially hazardous to one’s health.”

  He quirked a brow. “Do you have proof?”

  “Not yet. But there’s some evidence that the chemicals are definitely harmful to pregnant women when it’s absorbed through the skin. And if ingested, it might prove lethal or cause birth defects.”

  “How or why would someone ingest nail chemicals?”

  “Some women chew on their nails, even the acrylic ones. But we’re still talking minimal ingestion then.”

  He frowned. “Any of the owners in particular come to mind?”

  “No, but I’ve only scratched the surface. I don’t think anyone’s going to kill me over the story.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ve made contact with an inside source investigating potential gang problems in the school system. So far, though, I haven’t written anything up.”

  His admiration rose a notch.

  “That’s the only two big stories I have at the moment. The rest have been coverage of local crimes.”

  “Can you give me the name of the undercover cop?”

  She shook her head, her long hair falling across one cheek. “I won’t reveal my source to anyone, Craig. It might endanger him.”

  He wasn’t surprised. “But you’re sure you can trust this cop?”

  “Absolutely. He’s putting his life on the line to infiltrate the gang. He’s close, but it’ll take time for him to get to the leader.”

  “Have you received any threats?”

  Another hesitation, and he knew the truth.

  His hand hit the table. “When?”

  She chewed her bottom lip, massaging her elbow where it was braced in the sling across her left shoulder. “Just one. A phone call yesterday morning.”

  He grunted. “Why didn’t you mention it?”

  “I thought it might be a crank call.”

  He paced in front of the window, heard the sound of the ocean crashing against the rocky shore and knew the turbulent tides mirrored the emotions raging inside him. “Damn it, you can’t take chances like that, Olivia. Even if you don’t think it’s serious, I want to know if you receive any more threats. Understood?”

  “Yes,” she said wearily.

  Shadows from the window darkened the room, the dwindling sunlight dappling golden hues with the murky gray. With dusk setting and the long night looming ahead, he had to rein in his emotions. Too much could happen between them when night fell, too many temptations…

  “So we’re back to the virus and suicide cases,” Craig said. “Have you questioned anyone besides Hall?”

  “Hal Oberman, the head of the DPS.”

  Craig froze, mentally replaying his conversation with Oberman. Oberman wanted Craig to take care of Olivia, had told him to do whatever he needed to do to keep her quiet.

  “And I tried contacting your father,” Olivia said, “but of course he refused my calls.”

  “He’s a busy man,” Craig said, although he knew the excuse sounded weak.

  “He supports germ warfare,” Olivia countered.

  Craig’s chest tightened, another possibility nagging at him, although he didn’t want to even contemplate that his father might be involved. But Olivia was right. His dad believed the government should protect themselves by actively pursuing germ warfare research. If the scientists on Nighthawk Island had created this virus, did his father know about it?

  The fine hairs along the back of his neck stood on end.

  And if he did, and the germ had accidentally fallen into the wrong hands causing these deaths, what lengths would he and the government go to in order to cover up their involvement?

  OLIVIA STUDIED THE TIGHT SET to Craig’s jaw and wondered why he’d tensed. Did his father know something about the germ virus research that he didn’t want revealed?

  Her cell phone jangled, and she reached for her purse, the ache in her arm and shoulder reminding her it was time for a pain pill. But she hated to take medication. She wanted to be alert.

  She snapped open the phone. “Hello. Olivia Thornbird.”

  “Olivia, thank God. It’s Jerry.”

  “Jerry?” What did he want? To take pictures of her half-incapacitated for another story?

  Craig moved closer so she covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s my co-worker from the paper.”

  He nodded and stepped into the kitchen nook to give her privacy.

  She turned back to the phone, grateful to be away from Craig’s probing eyes. “What’s up, Jerry?”

  “We’ve been worried sick about you at the paper. Where are you? I’ve called and Carter drove by your house.”

  Olivia bit her lip. Carter was just antsy for a story. “The federal agent in charge of the Savannah Suicides case thought it would be best if I didn’t go home. I’m staying at…a cabin.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.” Jerry hesitated. “Listen, I need to see you. Can I stop by?”

  Olivia gave him the address, then disconnected, surprised at the concern in Jerry’s voice. Although once or twice he’d suggested they have drinks, she hadn’t considered that he was interested in her. She’d assumed he’d just wanted to outscoop her on a story.

  The smell of food cooking wafted toward her, and she walked toward the kitchen. Craig was stir-frying vegetables in a pan. Mushroom, onions, green peppers, broccoli—her stomach growled. The morning’s pasty hospital oatmeal had been inedible. “You cook?”

  He scowled. “When I’m not eating raw meat.”

  She rubbed her arm, almost laughing at his deadpan answer. But the heat from the kitchen ws steamy as the heat rising between them. Craig Horn, all rumpled in the kitchen, was an unnerving sight. “I’m sorry. I…just didn’t see you as domestic.”

  His eyes skated over her. Dark. Seductive. “How do you see me, Olivia?”

  A loaded question. Sexy. Tough. Mysterious. Brooding.

  Naked.

  “Olivia?”

  “As a federal agent, of course,” she said instead. “Cold. Calculating. Mysterious. Suspicious of everyone and everything.”

  “With good reason.” He snorted, although a second later a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, morphing him from the enigmatic Iceman she’d believed him to be into something much more dangerous. Much sexier.

  The air grew even hotter. When he wasn’t chasing criminals, this man was probably seducing women with his dark air and that killer smile. He’d shed his suit jacket and holster, even loosened the tie at his neck. Forgetting for a moment the danger that faced them, the reason she was here, her mind took a dangerous journey, and she mentally undressed him the rest of the way. Imagined his broad chest dusted in dark hair. His narrow waist tapering to firm hips. The dark thatch of hair surrounding his sex…

  He cleared his throat. “What�
�s wrong?”

  She shook her head, embarrassed at her train of thought. “Nothing. Can I help?”

  His eyes met hers again, the memory of that kiss heating her bloodstream, sizzling hotter than the vegetables in the pan. “Grab some plates and glasses. There’s a bottle of wine in the fridge. It’s already uncorked.”

  Wine might dull the ache, better than a pain pill. She busied herself getting the table settings, then found two wineglasses and poured them both a drink. The chardonnay tasted perfect, not too sweet, not too tart. But as the clear liquid rolled off her tongue and slid down her throat, she thought of kisses. Tasting his mouth.

  Don’t go there, Olivia. You have too much work to do to think about sex.

  You’re only here because someone tried to kill you. And because your father is dead.

  The sobering thought brought reality crashing back just as he opened the oven door and removed two salmon steaks. “I hope you eat seafood.”

  “It smells delicious.”

  The muggy air engulfed them as he served the plates, and they sat down at the table. His masculine body suddenly took up too much space. They bumped elbows as they both reached for the salt, the tension so thick she could hear his every breath.

  The wine might have been a mistake, too—she was beginning to feel mellow, all languid and warm inside. She wondered if she’d have this same insane attraction to him if danger hadn’t brought them together. If she’d be just as drawn to him…

  The doorbell cut into the quiet, thankfully preventing her from making a fool out of herself by acting on the attraction brewing between them. He frowned and reached for his gun, tucking it into the waistband of his slacks.

  “That’s probably Jerry, my co-worker at the paper. He said he was going to stop by.”

  He gripped her wrist. “Why the hell did you tell him where you were?”

  She stiffened. “For goodness sake, Craig. He works with me.”

  “You’re here because you’re under protective custody, Olivia. That means you tell no one your location.”