Chapter 14 #2
“Not as smart as Eden. Or my dad.” Indy puts the mixing bowl aside and plucks a paper napkin from the holder nearby. He starts folding the paper origami-style as he continues, “That’s why Eden went into medical research. So she could try to find a cure for what killed our dad.”
“Indy. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s been a long time, you know. And Eden, she did it. The drug is still working its way through FDA approval, but once it passes… hopefully it’ll save people like our dad.”
“That’s really incredible,” I tell him. “Both you and Eden doing such amazing things. Helping people like that.”
He gives a little shrug. “I don’t know. Curing a deadly disease versus—”
“Putting your life on the line to protect your country? I think that’s pretty important.”
He focuses on the napkin, his brow creasing in concentration. Then he looks back up at me. “What you do is important, Bea. Giving people hope again. Giving them their lives back.”
“Indy.”
With a final crease, he holds out the napkin, which is now folded to look like a flower. As he places it in my hand, he says, “It’s true, Bea. What you do… you change lives. And you changed mine.”
Oh.
Swallowing hard, I say, “My dad lost his leg while he was serving. I told you that, right?”
He nods. “He was a Marine.”
“He was. And he lost his leg when I was in high school. It was hard on him. Obviously. I wanted to do something that could help, but I’m not like Yara. I couldn’t build him a new leg. But then I thought… what if I could help other people learn how to do the things they love again?”
I look down at the folded flower, my heart melting more and more with each passing second. It’s not perfect, but that Indy made it for me…
“My dad used to make them for my mom,” he explains. “Just to make her smile.”
And there’s my heart. In a puddle on the floor.
I hop off the stool and hurry around the island, flinging my arms around him. “Thank you for making me smile.”
“Bea.” His lips press to my hair. “I wish I could—”
“Guys. I found something.”
We turn in unison to find Tyler standing in the kitchen doorway, watching us with an apologetic expression. “Sorry,” he adds quickly. “I didn’t think. I should have checked first. Or…”
I try to pull away from Indy, but he holds me firmly against him as he says, “It’s the kitchen, Ty. You don’t need to check before you come in. And we were just cooking. It’s no biggie.”
Tyler eyeballs the mixing bowl with suspicion. “When you say we, do you mean Bea was cooking? Or you?”
“Me.” Indy lifts his chin. “I’m making Bea breakfast for a change. Since she cooks for us so much.”
“I’m not a bad cook, myself,” Tyler replies, more to me than to Indy. “I don’t mind taking over with meals. Kaia used to say—” His mouth clamps shut with an audible snap.
An unhappy look flickers across Indy’s face, but he quickly hides it. “Clearly, I’m not doing a great job at making breakfast, since Bea’s practically sitting on her hands to keep from jumping in.”
He and Tyler exchange a long look. Then Tyler turns to me and says quietly, “Kaia was my wife. She passed away three years ago. It’s not a secret or anything. But I’m sure you’ve wondered, with some of the comments and all.”
Oh, Tyler.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m really, really sorry.”
“It’s alright.” On a heavy exhale, Tyler crosses the room to join us at the island.
He sets the laptop I only just noticed on the end of it, far away from the mess Indy’s making.
“Anyway.” He peers at the mixing bowl and grimaces.
“I don’t want to interrupt the chef. But after breakfast, we need to talk. ”
My stomach falls to my feet.
Somehow, I don’t think this is an everything’s solved and things can go back to normal kind of talk. If that were the case, he would have said it right away. This sounds like an I have news and you’re probably not going to like it sort of thing.
Indy hugs me to his side and kisses my hair again. “It’s going to be fine,” he says. “No matter what, we’ll handle it.”
“Are you guys good to get started?”
Tyler glances at me, Indy, and Ace, and we all give him quick nods.
Then he turns his attention to the laptop set on the table in front of us and frowns at it.
“I thought Seattle was supposed to be cloudy,” he mutters as he tilts the screen to offset the glare from the morning sun filtering through the curtains.
“Seattle gets around one hundred and fifty days of sun a year,” Ace replies. “Less than the national average, but not too bad. We could be up in northern Alaska, where they get sixty days of dark.”
In unison, everyone’s heads swivel towards Ace.
Indy’s lips twitch. “I didn’t realize you moonlighted as a weatherman, Ace.”
Webb’s chuckle filters through the laptop speakers. “Thinking about a change of career, Ace?”
“Hey, you try running in the rain every morning,” Ace retorts. “Can you blame me for wanting to know when I’ll actually get to be dry doing it?”
“Don’t Rhiannon and Hawk go running every day?” Tyler muses. “Rain or shine? I’m pretty sure that’s what they said yesterday.”
In his little square on the screen, Rafe smirks. “You afraid you’re going to melt, Ace?”
Ace makes a rude gesture at Rafe. But he’s smiling as he does it. “You never know.”
“I’m sorry you have to run in the rain,” I tell Ace. Because, really, it’s my fault he’s out there. If not for me, he’d be back at B and A, doing his daily workout in the climate-controlled gym in the basement instead of dodging puddles on sidewalks.
Indy clasps my hand beneath the dining room table and gives it a little squeeze. “Don’t apologize, Bea. Ace is just being a big baby.”
Ace reaches past Tyler to punch Indy in the shoulder. “Hardly.” Then he looks at me, his expression turning apologetic. “Sorry, Bea. I was just joking. Trying to lighten the mood, you know. I don’t mind running in the rain.”
“Do you need a windbreaker?” I ask. “I could look online.”
“Nah.” He pats my arm. “It’s fine. Really. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well.” Rafe coughs. “If the weather forecast is over, maybe we can get on with this?”
Everyone sits up straight. Smiles fade. Just like the last time I sat in on a team meeting, the atmosphere shifts from light-hearted to all-business in an instant.
But unlike the first meeting, this one is being held virtually, with half of us—me, Indy, Tyler, and Ace—in Rainier Beach, and Rafe, Webb, and Eden joining in from B and A headquarters.
I was a little surprised to see Eden pop into the call, since as far as I know, she’s not involved with Blade and Arrow business, but I’m sure I’ll quickly find out why she’s here.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Indy asks in an undertone. His eyes are dark and worried as he looks at me. “You don’t have to be here for the meeting. I can tell you about it after, if that’s easier.”
I squeeze his hand back before replying quietly, “I want to be here. I need to be.”
And what kind of coward would I be if I weren’t? Everyone is here because of me.
“Okay,” Tyler says. “I’ll start. And Eden, you’ll jump in when I get to the science-y part.”
Eden barely covers a smile. “Got it. I’ll do the science-y part.”
Hmm.
Science-y stuff? I’m not sure how that ties into Jenna’s murder, but I guess I’ll find out.
Tyler clicks the mousepad a few times, and the display splits so he has the conference call on one side and what looks like a medical file on the other.
“Alright,” he says. “As you know, I’ve been investigating the hospital where Bea works.
Looking into HR complaints, any instances of patient harassment, security breaches…
and initially, I wasn’t finding anything. ”
“Aside from when we broke in there,” Indy interjects in a wry tone.
“Aside from when you broke in,” Tyler agrees. “But aside from that, nothing. I looked into all of your patients, Bea, and Jenna’s, too. And there were no red flags, nothing to indicate—”
“But a lot of those guys, they’re struggling with PTSD,” Webb points out. “And we know how that can flare up unexpectedly. Even if there’s nothing in their history to indicate a threat…”
“True. But.” Tyler zooms in on the medical file. “I don’t think this has anything to do with a former patient of Bea’s or Jenna’s.”
I lean in to peer at the file. It belongs to a man named John Adamson, fifty-seven, former patient at my hospital and—
My heart stutters.
“He’s dead,” I blurt. “He died the same day Jenna did.”
Tyler nods. “I started looking into any suspicious deaths at the hospital around the time of the murder. I figured if there wasn’t a personal motive to kill Jenna and frame Bea, it could be tied to something else.”
“Like covering up a death?” Ace asks.
“Possibly.” Tyler mouses over the section of the file that describes the cause of death. He highlights it. “The records say it was sudden heart failure. But this guy had no history of heart problems. Seasonal allergies, type-2 diabetes, but nothing that would suggest his heart was giving out.”
Even though I knew Tyler was hacking into the hospital records, it’s still jarring to see the confidential information right there on the screen in front of me. But if it helps solve Jenna’s murder and clear my name… I’m okay with it.
“People have heart attacks all the time,” Webb says. “Just because there wasn’t a history of heart problems…”
“I know.” Tyler meets Webb’s gaze. “But out of all the deaths in the hospital during the week prior to Jenna’s murder, there were only three that weren’t linked to pre-existing conditions. So I thought they were worth looking into more. And that’s where Eden comes in.”
Eden leans forward. “Right. So Tyler sent me the medical records.” To me, she explains, “I work in medical research. Biochemistry and bioengineering, specifically. So he thought I might notice something that the people at the hospital didn’t.”
Rafe glances off camera, pride evident in his gaze. “I knew if there was something, Eden would find it.”
“The other two deaths really did look normal,” Eden says.
“But this guy, John Adamson—there was something off about his bloodwork. I found evidence of abnormally high levels of a particular type of protein in his blood. Regular screening wouldn’t have picked it up.
But once I saw it, I just got this feeling. ”
“Never ignore your gut,” Rafe agrees.
“So I looked into possible causes,” Eden continues. “And at first, I couldn’t figure it out. Because there were similarities to deaths caused by fentanyl overdoses. But Adamson didn’t have fentanyl in his blood.”
“Then Eden called me.” Tyler minimizes the file and opens up a browser window. “And I started searching.”
Ace stares at the screen for a moment before cursing under his breath. “The dark fucking web.”
Tyler nods grimly. “Unfortunately, yes. I went looking for a drug that might cause similar symptoms to fentanyl. And deep in the dark web, I found it. A dupe for fentanyl called Black Cobweb.”
“Black Cobweb?” Indy’s forehead creases. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s relatively new,” Tyler replies. “It was designed to be an untraceable form of fentanyl.”
“Why would someone do that?” I ask without thinking.
Rafe scowls. “To kill people. That’s my guess. Lace something with this fentanyl dupe, the person ODs and dies of”—he makes little quotes with his fingers—“natural causes, and no one’s the wiser.”
My mind whirls as I try to fit everything together.
A patient dies in the hospital the same day as Jenna. The cause of death is presumed to be of natural causes, but it really isn’t. Instead, the man was somehow given this fentanyl dupe, and it killed him.
But why?
And how does Jenna fit into it?
How do I?
“So we’ve got a guy who died the same day Jenna was killed,” Indy says thoughtfully, “and it looks like he was murdered by someone who got a hold of this Black Cobweb shit on the dark web.” He glances at Eden. “You think the intent was to kill him?”
“I think so,” Eden answers. “Or at least, I can’t think of another reason. Adamson was recovering from ACL surgery. He was on over-the-counter painkillers, but that’s all.”
“So, for some reason, this guy’s a target,” Webb says. “Do we know why?”
Tyler frowns. “I’m still looking into it. We only discovered the connection to the drug a few hours ago. So I’m hoping I’ll have something more substantial soon.”
“Could Jenna have seen something?” Even though Jenna’s a PT and usually works with her patients in the rehab department, sometimes she’ll visit one in their room if they’re in the early stages of recovery. So it’s possible she could have been walking by, saw something suspicious…
“Maybe that’s what she wanted to tell me,” I add. “She saw something strange. Someone acting suspicious. But she wasn’t sure, so she wanted to talk to me about it first.”
Indy rubs my shoulder. “Sounds like it’s a possibility.”
“What about her boyfriend? Could he be involved somehow?”
“Unlikely,” Tyler tells me. “We’ve been watching him since the murder.
Hacking into his home security system, surveillance at his work, his personal computer…
there’s nothing to indicate his involvement.
But.” He stops for emphasis. “He’s not off the hook entirely.
Not until we have solid evidence pointing at another suspect. ”
“Okay,” Rafe says. “So we need to find a motive for wanting Adamson dead. See if anyone else has died under similar circumstances. And keep Bea safe, of course.”
Tyler lifts his chin at Rafe. “I’m working on a program that’ll search through hospital records across the country. If any deaths pop up with the same protein imbalance, we can check to see if the compound found in Black Cobweb is in their blood.”
“Are you going to tell the police?” I ask. “Or the hospital administrators?”
Rafe shakes his head. “Not yet. We need more substantial proof.” He pauses. His gaze darkens. “And if we find out who’s behind this, we’ll be having a word with them first.”
From the tone of his voice, I don’t get the feeling they’ll just be talking.
“If we find the asshole who hurt Bea,” Indy adds, “I definitely want to have a word with him.”
I don’t miss the anger burning in Indy’s eyes. Or the stony set of his jaw.
Fear flutters in my belly. “Don’t do anything too risky,” I tell him. “I don’t want any of you to get hurt.”
Indy turns to me. He’s never looked more dangerous. “When we find this piece of shit, I promise you, he’s the only one who needs to worry.”