Rita Herron - Mysterious Circumstances

“Dad, nothing’s going to get me. I’m coming in.”

“You don’t understand.” He waved his arm frantically in front of the window. “The government wants it kept quiet. I can’t protect you anymore.”

Olivia dashed forward, shoving away from Craig when he grabbed her arm. “Dad, it’s okay. I’m right here, I’m coming in….”

Thornbird suddenly disappeared behind the wooden frame of the house, and Craig’s instincts kicked in. “Olivia, stop!”

A gunshot pierced the air.

Olivia screamed and vaulted forward, but Craig caught her. He didn’t have to go inside to know Thornbird was dead.

And it was all his fault.

“NOOOO!” OLIVIA’S LEGS buckled as the guttural protest tore from her throat. Grief and shock welled inside her, overflowing. People shouted, officers mumbled and chaos erupted around her. Doubling over, she crumpled to the ground, but Agent Horn caught her as the police rushed into her father’s house. Sobs racked her body, the tears spilling over, the anguish so deep she couldn’t contain it.

Her father, the only family she had left, had just shot himself.

She clutched the agent’s shirt, dazed and confused and too weak to stand. Horn stroked her hair and back, rocking her in his arms as he coaxed her to the front porch where she collapsed onto the stoop.

“Damn you, Horn,” she exploded, jerking at his shirt, “this is all your fault. If you’d called me sooner, maybe I could have saved my dad. Why did you get him involved in this case?”

He clenched her wrists to stop her assault, but she lurched up and tore away from him, determined to see her father. Maybe he was still alive…

He grabbed her, yanked her back. “No, Olivia!”

“I have to see him. He might still make it!” Shoving him with all her might, she pushed past the police through the front door and into the foyer where she’d greeted her father so many times. The familiar details of the house registered—the same yellowed walls, the oak rolltop desk, the potted plant she’d given him for Christmas, now dead.

Then she spotted him lying on the faded beige carpeting. Face up, his jacket was open, his mouth gaping, his eyes glazed over in death. Blood splattered the floor, the walls, the charcoal gray suit he always wore, even his hands. A shotgun lay beside him, blood dotting the barrel.

The room spun. The stench of death and foul body odors assaulted her. The reality that this wasn’t a story she was working on, but her own flesh and blood, hit her.

Mindless of what she was doing or saying, she dropped to her knees and cradled his hand in hers. “Daddy, please don’t die,” she whispered. “Please. I need you.”

But the limp hand that met hers told her it was too late. Her father was already dead.

A FEW MOMENTS LATER, guilt churned at Craig as he dragged Olivia from her father. The EMT had already checked for a pulse while the police secured the scene and the CSI team rushed in.

He’d known Thornbird was behaving oddly, but hell, the man was strange, eccentric, had wanted to work on the case so much that he’d literally thrown himself into the job 24/7. Thornbird had never mentioned suicide though.

Or had Craig missed the signs?

Olivia’s sobs finally quieted, but the glazed shock and pain in her eyes cut him to the bone.

“I’m sorry, Olivia.” He rubbed her back to calm her, then gestured toward the kitchen which was visible from the small den but far enough to get her away from the body. “Come on, let’s sit down.”

She swayed as he guided her to a kitchen chair. Braced for another assault, Craig reached inside the battered cabinet, found a glass and filled it with tap water, then pressed it into her hand. “Drink this.”

She obeyed, her acquiescence a definite sign of her devastation. Craig zeroed in on the details of the house. It smelled old and musty, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Haphazard piles of notes, medical magazines and journals cluttered every conceivable space. The furniture in the house looked Early American, all in golds and avocados, an obvious indication that Thornbird didn’t value material wealth. He guessed the furniture had been early marriage. Other odors permeated the stale air—cigarette smoke, perspiration and rotting food. Fruit flies swarmed around two blackened bananas, and a dead fly floated in a glass of milk that had soured.

In the den, he spotted a yellowed photograph of Thornbird and a woman he assumed to be his wife. The woman had burnished copper hair instead of Olivia’s gold, and it was straight, not wavy, but those killer blue eyes came from the same gene pool. The first picture was of their wedding. The next, the couple held an infant, obviously Olivia, in their arms, as they stood beside a faded green Chevrolet. Thornbird looked happy, content, so much younger that Craig barely recognized him.

The Thornbird he knew had empty eyes, and he’d never smiled. A strangled sound caught in Olivia’s throat as she set the glass on the table, then she looked up at him with tears pooling in her baby-blue eyes.

“You got him involved in this,” she said in a choked voice. “He got sick because he was investigating that rash for you, didn’t he?”

He swallowed, aching for her, yet unwilling to show it. “I can’t talk about the case.”

She grabbed his shirt and shook him. “This is my father we’re talking about, Agent Horn, not some anonymous stranger. He was working for you, and that job killed him.”

Craig couldn’t reply without compromising his case, but he couldn’t argue with her, either.

Most people thought he was a coldhearted bastard. The Iceman, his co-workers called him.

Olivia thought the same, too. But he had to be the Iceman in order to do his job.

Just like he’d have to live with the guilt and the anguish in her eyes the rest of his life.

As Craig checked on the progress of the investigation, his head rattled with questions about the rash, the possible virus and how the victims had contracted it.

Even more unsettling—how would they stop this illness from spreading and taking more lives if they didn’t identify it soon? Worse, they’d have to keep things hush-hush to avoid a potential panic across the country.

Had the scientists at Nighthawk Island been researching the virus, or had they created it?

While the CSI team photographed the body and processed the crime scene area, the detectives were taking notes and talking in low voices.

“Canvass the neighbors,” Detective Fox told two other officers. “See if anyone had a clue as to what Thornbird had planned or what was troubling him.”

“Check and see if he had any recent visitors, too,” Craig cut in. “I’ll talk to his co-workers at CIRP.”

Detective Black nodded and the men dispersed just as Agent Devlin approached him. “Did he give you any information about the research before he died?”

“No, but I’ll question his colleagues, find someone who understands his work and can pick up the thread where he left off,” Craig said. “Maybe his files will aid in the identification process.”

Devlin pocketed his cell phone and glanced at Olivia. “She going to be all right?”

Craig shrugged. “She’s in shock.”

Devlin nodded. “Don’t suppose she’ll be writing this one up.”

Craig grimaced. True, but callous. He supposed it went with the agent’s job. They’d both seen the darkest sides of life and survived. “She blames me for getting her old man involved.”

“Don’t go there, Horn. From what you told me, Thornbird volunteered to study this virus. I did some checking on the man. He was obsessed with his work. I think it had something to do with the way his wife died.”