Addison Fox - Colton K-9 Cop

A distinct sense of danger began to beat beneath her skin.

“Here. Look at this.” Bellamy pulled the printout she’d made out of the folder she’d slipped it into, passing it across the desk. “If you look at the top, you can see it came from the LSP domain.”

Sally stared at the note, reading through the contents. Her expression never changed, but neither did that vague sense of menace Bellamy couldn’t shake. One that grew darker when Sally laid the paper on her desk, pushing it beneath her keyboard.

“This is a poor joke, Ms. Reeves.”

“A joke?”

“You come in here and suggest someone’s sending you inappropriate messaging, then you hand me a note that’s something out of a paranoid fantasy. What sort of sabotage are you intending to perpetrate against LSP?”

“I’m trying to prevent it.”

“By forging a note and tossing it around like you’re some affronted party?”

Affronted party? Forgery? The damn thing had popped into her inbox a half hour ago.

“This was sent to me.”

Even as Bellamy’s temperature hit a slow boil, Sally Borne sat across from her as if she were the injured party. “Are you sure about that? It would be easy enough to make a few changes in a photo alteration program and muster this up. Or perhaps you’re even more skilled and able to hack into our email servers.”

“You can’t be serious. I received this email. Pull up the server files yourself if you’re so convinced they’ve been tampered with.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

Bellamy sat back, her ire subsiding in the face of an even more unbelievable truth. The director of Human Resources didn’t believe her. “You do understand the implications of something like this?”

“I most certainly do.”

Although this wasn’t the same as losing her parents, Bellamy couldn’t fully shake the sadness and, worse, the acute sense of loss at Sally Borne’s callous disregard for her word. Her truth. With one last push, she tried to steer the conversation back to steady ground.

“Who could possibly be sending messages like this? What are they trying to accomplish? And who else might have received something like this?”

“You tell me.” Sally waved an idle hand in the direction of the email now lodged beneath her keyboard. “You’re the one in possession of the mysterious email. No one else has called me or sent me any others to review.” Sally’s gaze never wavered as she stared back from her side of the large desk, her words landing like shards of ice as they were volleyed across that imposing expanse.

“Which I’m trying to get your help with. Could you imagine if this were really true?” Bellamy asked, willing the woman to understand the gravity of the situation. “We’d be putting millions of lives at risk.”

Only when Sally only stared at her, gaze determinedly blank, did the pieces begin to click into place.

“So it’s true, then? LSP is tampering with vaccines.” The words came out on a strangled whisper.

“What’s true is that you’re a financial leader at this company determined to spread lies and disruption,” Sally snapped back.

“I’m not—”

A brisk knock at the door had Bellamy breaking off and turning to see the same woman from the outer office. “Ms. Borne. Here are the details you asked for.”

A large file was passed over the desk and Bellamy saw her name emblazoned on the tab of the thick folder.

Her employment file?

“Thank you, Marie.” Sally took the folder as the helpful, efficient Marie rushed back out of the office.

It was only when the file was laid down that Bellamy saw a note on top. The writing was neat and precise and easily visible across the desk.

10+ year employee.

Steadfast, determined, orderly.

Both parents died in past year.

She was under evaluation here? And what would her parents’ deaths have to do with anything?

Sally tapped the top before opening the manila file. Thirteen years of performance reviews and salary documentation spilled from the edges, but it was that note on top that seemed to echo the truth of her circumstances.

For all her efforts to make a horrible situation right, something had gone terribly wrong.

“Is there a reason you felt the need to pull my personnel file?”

“A matter of routine.”

“Oh? What sort of routine?”

“When an employee is behaving in a suspicious manner, I like to understand what I’m dealing with.”

“Then you’ll quickly understand you’re dealing with a highly competent employee who has always received stellar reviews and professional accolades.”

Sally flipped back to the cover, her gaze floating once more over the attached note. “I also see a woman who’s suffered a terrible loss.”

While she’d obviously registered the note about her parents when the file was dropped off, nothing managed to stick when she tried to understand where Sally was going with the information. “I lost my parents earlier this year.”

“Both of them.”

“Yes.”

“Were they in an accident?”

“My father has been ill for many years, the repercussions of a serious accident. My mother’s health, unfortunately, deteriorated along with his.”

“It’s sad.” Sally traced the edge of the damn note again, the motion drawing attention to the seemingly random action. “Illness like that takes a toll.”

A toll? Obviously. “Dying is a difficult thing. Nothing like the slow fading we see on TV.”

Sally continued that slow trace of the paper. “It’s also an expensive thing.”

“You can’t possibly think—”

“It’s exactly what I think.” The steady, even-keeled woman was nowhere in evidence as Sally stood to her full height, towering over her desk like an avenging cobra. “And you think it, too. You dare to come in here, convinced you can blackmail this company into giving you money for some concocted lie of immense proportions.”

“You can’t think that.”

“I can and I do. And I want you to pack your office immediately. Security will escort you there and off the premises.”

“But I—”

Sally pointedly ignored her, tapping on her phone to summon Marie. When the woman scrambled in, Sally didn’t even need to speak. Marie beat her to it. “Security will be here momentarily.”

“Excellent.” Sally shifted her attention once more, her gaze fully trained on Bellamy as she pointed toward the door. “Don’t expect a reference.”

Dazed, Bellamy stood and moved toward the exit. The meeting had been nothing like what she’d expected. Surreal at best, even as she had to admit it was fast becoming a nightmare.

Lone Star Pharmaceutical had been her professional home for more than thirteen years and in a matter of moments, that home had been reduced to nothing more than rubble and ash.

Chapter Two

Donovan glanced around the large, welcoming, airy living room of the main Colton ranch house as his mother settled two glasses of iced tea on the coffee table. She’d already bustled in with a tray of his favorites—cheese and crackers, a bowl of cashews and a tray of gooey Rice Krispies Treats—and had topped it off with her world famous sweet tea.

Perhaps that was a stretch, but she had brought her tea to every gathering ever held in Whisperwood. Someone had even asked him about it at work one day, rumors of his mother’s special recipe having reached as far as Austin. Donovan reached for his glass and took a sip, more than ready to admit every sugary drop deserved its near-reverent reputation.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” She glanced down at Alex, her smile indulgent as she pet his head. “Glad you’re both here. Though to what do I owe the pleasure?”