Jenna Kernan - Dangerous Conditions

Her phone blipped, relaying a text. She had been getting texts and phone messages all day. She glanced at her mobile’s lock screen and saw that it was three in the afternoon and that she had received an incoming text.

She stared at the message as icy fingers danced up and down her spine. Dr. Sullivan wouldn’t have taken his phone on his run, but he’d have his smart watch. With no cell service, the text could not be sent until the watch returned to the area where internet service was available. Here, at the company, their Wi-Fi cast a net all the way past the volunteer fire department. So if the watch was still with his body, the message from him was being sent now. She shivered.

Paige watched the EMS truck, imagining Ed’s bloody corpse and the watch, still sending her his message.

She unlocked her phone and checked the message, which was a series of emojis. Easier to send than typing out words, even with phone prompts. Had he been injured, dying, when he wrote this or was this before his accident? She hoped, prayed, it was before as she stared at the three emojis and one typed word.

The message was composed in the following order: a green box with a white check-mark emoji, the word MY written in capital letters, the computer emoji and finally, the face with a zipper for a mouth.

That message was crystal clear. Ed wanted her to check his office computer and keep quiet about it.

For what?

The possibility that Edward’s death was no accident flashed in her mind as her skin stippled in fear. Each tiny hair on her arms lifted like a warning flag. They would check his watch. They would see the message. They would know she received it.

Paige dropped her phone as if she suddenly discovered a ticking time bomb in her palm, because she had. Ed had just died. He’d sent a message about something on his computer. Part of that message was to keep whatever she found quiet. She began to feel that text was as dangerous as any toxin they kept in the lab.

Ed had shown her that the watch did not lock until removed from his wrist, his corpse. If it were stolen, the watch would remain locked. But Ursula might know his passcode. The police would check his messages, at the very least. Would his killers?

She tried to calm herself. She was making a big leap here—from a possible hit-and-run to outright murder. And over what? Something on his computer?

Just what had Dr. Sullivan gotten himself into and why was he dragging her along? She glanced wildly about. Her gaze fixed on the flash outside her window. There, like a bright beacon against the gathering gloom of storm clouds, the EMS vehicle’s lights blinked as the van reached Main Street and turned toward the funeral home. That was where they’d take Ed before any autopsy. Inside the flashing truck, her supervisor’s body lay strapped to a gurney. She closed her eyes at the image.

Call the county sheriff or check Edward’s computer?

She reached for the phone to call security. Lou Reber had twenty-three years’ experience as a detective in Poughkeepsie, New York. He’d know what to do about this.

Paige had the receiver at her ear with the dial tone buzzing when she realized that was exactly the move that Ed Sullivan would have made if he found something illegal. He’d call security.

But now he was dead.

Lou had a staff of four. Any one or all of them might be involved. Involved in what? Was she crazy to blow this up to DEFCON 1?

Breathe. She tried but her lungs felt like someone was squeezing them.

You’re smart. Think.

It was hard to concentrate past the buzzing in her ears.

She lowered the phone to its cradle with a trembling hand. Balling her hand into a fist hid the tremor but not the aftershocks that rolled through her body.

The computer check came first. Her throat closed against the scream that turned to a squeak at the realization that she was going to check his computer.

“Paige?” Jeremy’s voice held concern. “Are you all right? You’ve gone pale.”

She’d worked with Jeremy for four years. He was her best friend here at work. But did she know him…really know him?

Her father used to say that you would be lucky to have maybe one friend you could call to help you move the body. Jeremy was not that friend. And what would she be dragging him into if she told him?

No one knew anyone that well. If her suspicions were correct, telling anyone might involve risk. Grave risk. But so would telling no one. That watch. The one with the messages was out there, linked to her.

“Just upset. You know. Trying to get my head around it all.”

“I know. I feel sick.”

Did he? He looked just fine.

What should she do? If she used Ed’s computer, Jeremy would notice, especially if she was on there for an extended period.

There was no if , she realized. Only when. She would check his computer and she would leave an electronic trail by doing so. There was no avoiding it. Her gut told her that Jeremy was not involved. With time speeding by, she made her move.

“I have to check something.” She walked as casually as she could to Sullivan’s computer on legs that seemed to have turned to chalk.

Once she had decided to do as Edward had asked, there was no turning back. She sat at his computer and opened File Explorer, scanning the list of recent files. She was aware of Jeremy’s gaze.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But I’m doing it anyway,” she said.

His eyes rounded, but he said nothing more as he busied himself with the tasks before them, preparing the samples for quality testing.

Meanwhile, she wondered what Dr. Sullivan had been involved in and worried that, whatever it was, she was now also involved. That, alone, was reason enough to explain her trembling, bloodless fingers.

Dr. Sullivan had been a caring boss and a friend. He was…had been a good scientist. If he was the victim of a tragic accident, then none of this mattered. But if something nefarious was afoot, she had tied herself to the railroad tracks. She knew nothing about cloak-and-dagger affairs. She knew science.

And her hypothesis was that Dr. Sullivan had been murdered. Proving that theory might just get her killed.

She continued to scan the alphabetical list of files, fixing on one. A chill danced like a dropped ice cube down her spine, but she opened the file titled Testing Anomalies and scanned the contents.

The state police had given Logan the terrible job of notifying Ursula Sullivan of her husband’s death. The man in charge, Detective Albritton, could not have been clearer that he did not want or need Logan’s help.

Logan had stayed with Mrs. Sullivan until her younger sister arrived and then headed to the office, leaving the two women to collect Ursula’s kids and tell them the terrible news. Logan covered the phones while the state police took care of securing the scene and began their investigation of the hit-and-run. They told him not to give out any information except that there had been a traffic fatality. But most folks calling already knew who and where and how.

No one knew who had hit Dr. Sullivan and left him in the muddy jeep track to bleed out.

And no one asked why. Except him. Why did such a good man have to leave his family?

There was a chiming sound like a child repeatedly hitting the metal panels of one of those rainbow-hued xylophones. His brain played tricks on him. Sound was the worst. The doctors explained that his hearing was perfect but the place where the sound was supposed to be sorted into useful categories was damaged. So he often couldn’t distinguish between a siren and a ringing phone.

He could tell the direction, and that helped. After that he just had to make his best guess. The office phone was easy as it had a flashing red light. His cell phone was more challenging. All the rings and dings and chirps sounded the same, so he didn’t know if he was answering a call, text or message.