Chapter 3 #2
“If she gets to be too much, I better not complain because that will be the first thing that I get dissed about, and the minute that happens,” she added, “I’ll be lucky if I get any job.”
Joel frowned, and Sterling asked her, “She’s really that much of an ogre?”
“Yep, she is, and she runs it all. So, what can I say?” Sterling eyed her in surprise. She shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve had bosses like that too.”
“Yep, sure have,” Sterling confirmed. “They didn’t usually last though.”
“Well, she’s been in this position since forever, so it’s not like she’s going anywhere … Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m almost done.”
Sterling pointed his phone her way. “And I hear that sense of finality in your tone, that hint of joy that already conceals a whoop.”
“This is what I’ve been working on for years. There’s such a sense of freedom in knowing that I can get an education, leading to a real job, and the chance to do something I like.”
“Why medicine?” Sterling asked her curiously.
“It just felt like the right place to go.”
“I won’t say it wasn’t the right place. As somebody who has needed an awful lot of nursing help, I definitely appreciate anybody who goes into that field.” He gave her a smile. “So I can’t see anything wrong with the decision. It’s just not easy to watch you suffer at this woman’s hands.”
She waved it off. “It’s not a big deal because soon it won’t be an issue.”
He laughed and looked over at Joel. “I guess we’ve tried to outlive and outwork all kinds of people too, haven’t we?”
Joel nodded. “We have at that. Sometimes you just can’t outrun them though, and they keep coming back, like bad pennies.”
They reminisced over a couple of the men they had worked with.
When they came back from their tours, they had hoped that these men on base would have been moved on.
Yet they hadn’t, even though Joel and Sterling thought for sure it would happen each time.
They were still laughing when Sterling served up pasta, and they sat down to a late dinner.
“Did you tell Toby you wouldn’t be there for dinner?” Chelsea asked Joel.
“Nope, I sure didn’t,” he replied, “but I’ve already done one delivery run for him today, so I don’t think he particularly cares.”
“Are you sure?” Sterling asked, with a laugh. “I imagine he does care, but he is also happy to see you out and about.”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I was getting pretty housebound there for a while.”
“That’s to be expected when you first get out. That’s why landing at Timber’s place is so good for guys like us. I heard one of your friends has done a lot of cybersecurity work, right?”
“Yep. Riley.” Joel nodded, smiling. “I was wondering about going into some of that myself.”
Sterling nodded. “Well, if he’s got a job for you, that could be a good avenue. Certainly an awful lot of people are out there dealing with cybersecurity issues.”
“I did a lot of computer hardware repair and builds,” he shared. “So, for me, it would just be another avenue to consider. I’m just leaving it open at the moment.”
In truth, he had contacted Riley, and they were talking, but hadn’t really figured out what he could do, what he would do, and where he would do it from.
The one thing Joel refused to do was be stuck in an office, and Riley knew and understood that.
He was a computer nerd who basically worked in his basement, had it all decked out—not quite as a gamer room but almost. An IT computer hacker’s dream location, … and nothing was wrong with that.
Joel joined them for pasta and, when he was done, he stood up, looked over at her, and said, “I’ll head back now that I know you are safe.”
She groaned. “You won’t let me off the hook on that one, will you?”
“Probably not,” he replied, with a nod and a bright smile. “Promise me that you’ll be smart from here on out.”
She frowned. “What am I supposed to do though?”
He looked back at Sterling, who was staring at her. “You must be very diligent in all your dealings from now on.”
“You say that,” she pointed out, “but it’s not like I put myself in danger. It’s not like I’ve deliberately done anything.”
“No, maybe not, but that doesn’t change the fact that somebody is after you. So, short of one of us going with you everywhere”—she immediately shook her head—“then you must now do everything you can to keep yourself safe.”
She nodded. “That’s all well and good, but I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to do differently.”
He smiled. “Well, if I were to say you shouldn’t go into work alone anymore, how would you respond?”
“I’d laugh and tell you that’s impossible.”
“Right, and if I were to tell you that you needed to maybe change up the way you go to work and back every day so he can’t follow you home, what would you say?”
“Well, that would be kind of foolish because I’m so tired when I get off work that I head straight home.
Even if I took the long way home, I still end up here.
So all the maneuvering won’t matter if he’s following me.
In fact, if I’m that tired, and I do take the long way home, there is just an added risk of having an accident.
I’m just that tired—emotionally, mentally, and physically.
Now I’m off to bed.” She stood, moving slowly.
He nodded. “That’s kind of what I expected you to say.” He looked over at Sterling. “And would you agree?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” he muttered. “She does come off work very tired, like at the end of her rope tired, and she isn’t necessarily going to know who and what’s going on.”
Just then a phone rang, and it was hers. She looked down at it and groaned. “It’s Richard. I wonder what happened because I was expecting him to call a whole lot earlier.”
“You haven’t talked to him yet?” Joel asked in surprise. “I thought you told me—”
“Apparently he was busy,” she snapped, glaring at him.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and then looked at Sterling. “He shouldn’t be that busy.”
“We did dump a murder on him,” she pointed out.
He sighed, nodded, and conceded, “Okay, points for that one.”
When she answered the phone, she spoke with him for a few minutes and then disconnected.
Joel asked her, “What was that about?”
“The victim’s name is John Peacock,” she began, “and he was in the hospital in one of the areas where I would have been too. So, in a way, it does make sense that I sort of recognized him. That’s all he was calling about.”
“Do we know the cause of death or anything?”
“Don’t know that, but John was in the hospital and was released just two days ago—not in good shape. He was supposed to go to hospice care.” She yawned, losing her balance.
“Go to bed,” Joel barked immediately. “Get to bed and get yourself some rest, like actual quality sleep before you start all over again tomorrow.”
She gave both him and Sterling a big hug and then headed off to bed.
Sterling stared at Joel intently. “What do you make of it?”
“I don’t like anything about it,” Joel declared. “I also don’t understand why somebody who was in the hospital, somebody who she had seen—”
“And a lot of other people have seen,” Sterling pointed out.
“Yes, and that’s a good thing, but it’s odd that somebody she had seen at the hospital would show up at the Haven. It’s the location that gets me. Unless somebody was literally just trying to get rid of a body and thought it was a deserted road.”
“That hospital lead is a good one.”
“True. That should have left some tracks then,” Joel noted.
“Yeah, and we need to find out how he left the hospital. Was he picked up, or was he walking on his own? I mean, if he was heading for hospice, he was really sick. Did he call somebody to pick him up, or did anyone visit him? We need to find out from the hospital just how he was moved from one medical space to the other.”
Joel grimaced. “That’ll be Richard’s department.”
“It is,” Sterling agreed, “and I get that, but we must protect our own, knowing how busy Richard is.”
Joel winced and nodded. “Yet you and I both know that protecting our own can get messy when it comes to local law enforcement.”
Sterling grimaced and nodded.