A Taste of Tragedy (26 page)

After the patient was stabilized, Devyn reluctantly agreed to let the flight nurse pull the cactus spines and other slivers and thorns from the soles of her feet. The nurse applied a generous amount of antibiotic ointment and wrapped her feet with gauze from the balls of her feet past her arch, leaving her toes free to grip the flip flops Morgan sent along.

“Thanks. If I could also get a little something for the pain, that’ll do until we get to the hospital,” Devyn said.

“You need something stronger than ‘a little something,’” the nurse replied.

“Agreed, but if this guy wakes up, I need to make sure I can still function. He may look harmless now, but he put up quite a fight, even with a bullet hole in his shoulder.”

The woman looked Devyn up and down. “I can see that,” she replied, handing Devyn a couple of Ibuprofen and a bottle of water.

Devyn took the pills and downed the entire bottle in one drink. She hoped the pain reliever kicked in soon. It was her job to make sure if Aaron woke up that he didn’t hurt the crew or inflict any more injuries to himself. She couldn’t be distracted by her own discomfort. Besides, if he did regain consciousness, she had a very long list of questions to ask him.

The moment the helicopter landed and turned off its engine, a medical team swarmed the bird. Devyn stayed close but out of the way as Aaron was transferred to a waiting gurney. The small group rushed to the elevator that would take them from the rooftop helipad to the emergency room.

Keeping up with the medical team was difficult as Devyn hobbled along in her borrowed flip flops, trying to ignore the pain. The care the nurse gave to her feet on the flight helped considerably, but Devyn had no doubt there were plenty of spines, thorns, and slivers that would have to work their own way out over time. Some of the cuts were deep, and each one hurt, but as she placed a hand to her sore ribs, she suspected her feet injuries were the least of her problems.

When they reached the ER, Devyn spotted two men in security uniforms and a familiar face. Knowing how she looked, she wanted to duck through the nearest door, but she still had a job to do.

“
Outta
my way, Tanner, you’re blocking my view,” Devyn said as she watched Aaron’s gurney disappear through a door.

“Hold on a minute.” Tanner stuck out his hand like a traffic cop stopping cars. “They won’t let you in there, especially looking like that. They do have sanitary protocols here. No offense, but you look like a walking infection.”

“Still know how to charm a lady, I see.”

“You’ve clearly had a pretty rough night, so let’s call a truce for the moment. Nick filled me in on what happened up in Sedona. We’ve taken care of security for the suspect.”

“Suspect? I don’t look like this from suspected activity. If he wakes up, I think I deserve answers after the night we’ve had together.”

Bob Tanner chuckled. “Same old Devyn.”

Standing toe-to-toe with Agent Tanner, Devyn clenched her fists, repressing the urge to punch the smug grin off his face. She had only worked with him a couple of times, and there had been some definite power struggles though he seemed like a competent agent. She had several issues with the man, including the fact that he had bet on the shortest duration that Nick would last as her partner in the FBI-wide pool.

“Come on, Devyn. Sit down.”

As exhaustion settled in, she let Tanner lead her to a chair. He disappeared for a moment and returned with a hot cup of coffee. She accepted the cup, took a sip, and decided that maybe she didn’t despise him after all.

“Nick warned me about your appearance and asked that I make sure you got medical treatment the moment you showed up. I hope you aren’t going to fight me. I owe Nick.”

“For what?”

“Not relevant, but I intend to make sure you get cleaned up and patched up before he gets here.”

Devyn nodded, too tired to argue. When the nurse arrived with a wheelchair, she accepted Tanner’s hand and let him help her out of her seat and into the waiting chair.

“Any word?” Devyn asked as she hobbled up to Bob an hour later, who was still in the ER waiting room.

“The suspect,
um
, I mean prisoner, is still in surgery. How about you?”

“Except for two cracked ribs, more bruises and scratches than I care to count, and feet so sore and mangled that I won’t be jogging anytime soon or be able to wear sandals out in public again, I’m fine.”

“No broken bones, so I suppose it could be worse. Can I get you anything to eat or drink?”

Devyn eyed him suspiciously. “You must owe Nick big time. The last time we were together, you ditched me. I ended up walking three miles through some rural backwater to the command center in the dark. If I’d had to fend off a snake, coyote, or a bunch of drunken good old boys, you wouldn’t have gotten off as easy.”

“I really did believe you were in one of the other unmarked cars. I’d have never left you out there on purpose.”

“Bull!”

“Hey, am I late for the reunion?” Nick asked as he inserted himself quickly between the two agents.

“Devyn’s still sore about the unfortunate mix-up on the
Cocaine
Canyon
sting operation.”

“Mix-up! We all know that’s a load of crap,” Devyn hissed as she stalked toward Morgan standing nearby.

“We can rehash this over a beer another day. Bob, did you pick up Preston Hoyle?”

“No. He’s not at home and doesn’t appear to be at the office either, at least his car isn’t in the parking garage, and he didn’t answer his office phone or his cell. His wife thought he went back to work this evening, and she’s pretty worried. We have an APB out on his car, but so far, nothing’s turned up. As soon as the building opens up for the day, we’ll go talk to security. The structure has cameras running twenty-four-seven, but they’re only manned during work hours.”

“Keep me posted. What kind of security do you have on Aaron Truscott?”

“We have an agent right outside the ER door who will follow to wherever they take Truscott to recover after surgery,” Tanner replied. “The hospital also brought on extra hospital security staff to live-monitor every camera every minute and cover each door into and out of the hospital.”

“I guess that’s all we can do for now. We need to get a rental car for Devyn and me, and then we’ll head over to Morgan’s place to get some rest.”

As Agent Tanner left the ER, Nick spied Morgan and Devyn deep in conversation. The scene made him uncomfortable. He had managed to keep his past and his personal life private until now.

“Nick, we need to get Devyn to my house and get her into bed. She’s got cracked ribs. Isn’t that awful?” Morgan stated.

He had to smile. A cracked rib to Devyn was like a stubbed toe to most people, and not an unusual occurrence on the job. Doubting Morgan would find comfort knowing both he and Devyn has suffered much worse, he simply agreed. Placing a hand under Devyn’s elbow, he steered her toward the exit.

“I’m not an invalid, and I’m not eighty,” Devyn growled as she shook off his gentlemanly gesture.

“Sorry, after you,” Nick said.

Morgan joined him and the two exchanged smiles as they followed Devyn out the door.

“If you were in that much pain, I’d carry you,” Nick whispered into Morgan’s ear.

“And I’d let you.”

On the way back to Wiley’s office,
Sofia
stopped by the refrigeration units and selected some fresh berries. She really was hungry and would have liked a hot meal, but the fruit would have to do.

She hated waiting. Looking at her watch, over three hours had passed since she’d locked
Preston
in the freezer and ensured the thermostat was set to ten degrees below zero. J.R. instructed her to stay at GCF and wait for an update, but Sofia feared if she waited much longer, the workers would start arriving. She needed to be long gone before anyone arrived.

Gathering up her coat and purse, she made her way back to the freezer. Listening for several moments, she heard nothing coming from the unit’s interior. Careful not to make a sound,
Sofia
removed the shovel and returned it to its place on the wall next to the other tools. Next, she gently tested the handle. It was still locked. Either the unit didn’t have an interior override or
Preston
was too panicked to think of it.

Confident that Preston was no longer a liability,
Sofia
exited the building through an alley-facing door. She made her way to the stolen vehicle
Preston
had procured for her. Digging through her handbag, she pulled out a shoulder-length, medium-brown wig and replaced the longer auburn one she currently wore. She removed her green contacts, exposing her natural blue eyes, and all traces of makeup. Gently dabbing lightly tinted powder to her face to make her complexion paler than usual, she completed the transformation.

“Not bad for a two-minute makeover,”
Sofia
stated as she started the car and drove to the facility she had located for her interview with Morgan.

Once reaching the warehouse,
Sofia
parked her car in the ally and slipped through the back door. When her phone rang, she answered before the second ring. “What’s taken you so long to call?”

“I was waiting for my source to get back to me. He confirmed that the FBI out of
Salt Lake City
was involved. He wasn’t sure why. Aaron was captured, but is alive. He’s out of surgery and expected to survive.”

“What do you want me to do?” She listened for several minutes, not liking what she was hearing. Her long night was about to get a lot longer. In fact, night had officially passed. Dawn had broken and traffic was slowly starting to increase.

“
Sofia
, did you hear me?”

“Yes, I’ve already taken care of our old partner. He will never be able to tell anyone anything about you, me, or Coterie.”

“And you are willing to tie up the last loose end?”

Sofia
hesitated, not wanting to comply, but refusing to finish the job wasn’t an option. She didn’t know how far she dared to push back, and Aaron was now a liability. Her heart ached, but her head prevailed.

“As soon as I visit Aaron, I’ll head to the rendezvous point. I’ll call when I reach the airstrip. Anything else?”

“Take care of yourself, Sofia.
Preston
had run his course anyway, but you are valuable to me and to Coterie. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,”
Sofia
whispered. She couldn’t believe she’d uttered the words, but deep down, she knew they were true. She had tried to convince herself J.R. was just another man unworthy of her attention. She knew she should distance herself from him, but no matter how hard she tried to pull away, she couldn’t. Now she knew why. He had broken through her defenses. He had convinced her that she meant something to him.

How can this be? The only thing that matters to him is money and power. I’m such a fool, no better than my mother
.

Sofia
crouched down just inside the darkened warehouse. With her elbows on her knees, she placed her hands over her face and tried to block out all the emotion she had spent years trying to suppress.

I don’t love him. I can’t love him. If I give him my heart, he will destroy me.

Despite Nick’s clear discomfort at leaving them alone together, Morgan finally convinced him to go to the kitchen and scrounge up some food from her nearly empty refrigerator and cupboards. Devyn needed to shower and change, and she couldn’t do it alone. Even if Devyn was okay with Nick seeing her naked, Morgan certainly wasn’t.

“What secret is Nick afraid you’re going to tell me?” Devyn asked as she sat on the closed toilet seat and let Morgan place plastic bags over her feet and tape the ankles to keep water off the bandages.

“I don’t know, but he does seem nervous about us talking when he’s not in the room,” Morgan replied. “Stand up.”

Devyn obeyed and let Morgan pull her t-shirt over her head and slide her shorts off.

“The water is warm enough. Can you wash yourself or do you need me to help?”

“I got it from here. Thanks.”

“I’ll go find something for you to sleep in, and I’ll be back when you’re done to help you get dressed.” Morgan left the guest bathroom, hoping Devyn wouldn’t fall down in the shower and injure herself worse than she already had. When she heard the water turn off, she waited for several minutes before knocking on the door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Devyn replied.

“I think we’re about the same size, so these should work. Hold on to the sink and lift one foot.”

Devyn complied and Morgan helped her pull the sleeping shorts on one leg at a time. It took more effort to get the loose top over her head since it was painful for Devyn to lift her arms that high.

“Sit, and I’ll brush your hair.”

“You’re really making me feel like an invalid,” Devyn stated as she sat in front of the vanity.

“You’ve had a rough night. With those tender ribs, it’ll be pretty painful for you to lift your arms high enough to comb your own hair.”

For several moments, neither woman spoke as Morgan gently worked the knots out of Devyn’s long blonde hair. As Morgan pulled the brush through the shiny locks, she looked up and their eyes met in the mirror.

“I appreciate you following Nick down here, and I can’t believe the risks you took tonight to stop Aaron.”

“You gave us the best lead we’ve had in months, and I had to follow up.”

“Are you always this tenacious with every case? Nick indicated you’re kind of obsessed with this one.” Morgan was curious about Devyn’s motives. Was it really the case or was she following Nick?

Devyn was silent, and Morgan feared the woman could see through her question. Morgan had no right to be jealous of any woman’s attentions toward Nick, but she couldn’t help it.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that. It came out a little too direct.”

The silence continued, and the look in Devyn’s eyes was so distant that Morgan knew at that moment the reason for her arrival wasn’t Nick. Something deeper haunted the woman, and Morgan felt terrible for allowing her petty insecurities to surface, causing this woman pain.

“It took me years to get anyone to acknowledge that crimes were being committed involving pharmaceutical, medical, and nutritional research companies. In that time, a lot of innocent people died.”

“You can’t help that. You tried to bring the situation to light,” Morgan consoled her.

“It’s been eating at me, and I just couldn’t let all the accidents go.”

“Good thing you didn’t. It’s better that you’re investigating now, rather than never.”

“But not good enough for the victims.”

Morgan kept stroking Devyn’s hair, waiting for her to speak, hoping she would share the burden. Devyn had risked her life tonight, and despite the fact they’d only known each other for hours, Morgan wanted to help.

“The fall of my junior year in college, a freshman from one of the sororities turned up dead. Her body was found ten miles away from the school in the woods on state land. She had been strangled. Since it happened off campus, the school grieved, but soon, life returned to normal.”

“That’s horrible.”

“That spring another girl was found hung in her off-campus apartment. The authorities claimed it was suicide. To me, I saw two women who had the life choked out of them and who both attended the same university. My gut told me it wasn’t a coincidence. I went to the local police, the campus police, the dean of the university, and anyone I thought might listen. I tried to convince them we had a serial killer targeting college girls.”

“They didn’t take you seriously?”

“No. They said the first was just a wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time scenario. The second, they stuck to the suicide theory. Anyway, nothing else happened for the rest of the school year, and after being patronized and humiliated by those men in authority, I finally gave up.”

“Were you right?”

“Shortly after the next school year started, my roommate didn’t come home from her night class. I called campus security, and not only did they blow off my concern because I was the crazy student who was certain the campus had a serial killer stalking women, they made a crude remark about her ‘getting lucky.’ The next morning, they found her beaten and dead body behind a building.”

“Strangled?”

Devyn nodded and closed her eyes tight. Morgan could tell she was fighting for control. She wanted to tell her it was okay to cry, but she suspected that was something Devyn never did. “If you weren’t so bruised, I’d give you a hug. What a terrible thing to go through.”

Morgan had quit brushing her hair by the time Devyn opened her eyes. The woman hoisted herself up to a standing position using the edge of the vanity. Devyn turned and surprised Morgan by pulling her into a loose embrace.

After a few seconds, Devyn stepped back. “Thanks. I needed that. At first, I was laughed at by the authorities and then ignored. The other students avoided me like the plague, not knowing what to say in the wake of having a roommate murdered. No one offered to hug me.”

Morgan didn’t know if the conversation was over, but was compelled to know. “What happened?”

“To make a long story short, after my roommate’s death, the authorities admitted there was a serial killer on the loose. They tightened up security and patrols and cancelled all night classes that semester. By spring, they caught the guy during his next attempt to grab a student.”

“At least he got caught.”

“But too late for my roommate. I always wondered if I would have tried harder to convince someone to take the situation seriously, would she still be
alive?
I knew in my heart there was a killer, yet I let her walk to class at night alone. I was just being paranoid, right? There was no danger at the university. I heard that so much from so many people, I guess I started to believe it.”

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

“In my head I know that, but I let a few arrogant men bully me into abandoning what I felt in my gut to be true. They made me question myself, and I even convinced myself that I was imagining the connection. I should have kept fighting. I’ve vowed to never ignore my instincts again. Just because no one wants there to be a connection doesn’t mean there isn’t one. I guess that’s why I’ve gotten a little crazy when everyone ignored the common theme with all the deaths in the research and nutrition fields. Here again, if I could have made people listen sooner, maybe the Uinta Vitamin researchers would still be alive.”

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

“Are you two about done in there? I’ve made omelets, and nothing is more disgusting than cold eggs,” Nick said.

“You really should eat with all the pain killers you’ve taken,” Morgan stated as she turned to leave.

“Hey, I’ve never told anyone else about this. It’s not good when people think you have ulterior motives, especially in my line of work. When you have something that affects you so much in your past, everyone tries to tie everything you do back to it. My co-workers will see it as a weakness, or at a minimum, a bias with certain cases.”

“Sometimes, it’s good to let things out, but don’t worry. It’s not my story to share, and I won’t repeat it. I just hope you can quit blaming yourself someday and move on. There are a lot of real sick and twisted individuals out there. The fact that you’ve dedicated your life to trying to clean up the scum gives me a great deal of respect for you, and you deserve some happiness.”

“Thanks, and speaking of happiness, I may have met him. I, um, really don’t have a lot of experience in this area. I could probably use a little of what people call ‘girl talk,’ and unfortunately for you, you’re the only woman I’ve met that I like, so you’ve been nominated.”

Morgan laughed and opened the door. With Devyn’s arm around her shoulders for support, the two women hobbled out of the bathroom, still laughing.

The look on Nick’s face was priceless, somewhere between fear and confusion. “What have you done to Devyn?” Nick asked in alarm. “She doesn’t like women.”

“Oh, Nick, that’s ridiculous. I’ve never admitted that out loud to you,” Devyn huffed in mock offense.

“The only group more frightened of you at work than the male population is the female population.”

Devyn and Morgan rolled their eyes and proceeded arm-in-arm to the kitchen.