Chapter 2
Two
Harmony considered the words of the stranger who bought her breakfast for a full week before she finally reached out to Captain Marcus Patrick and said she was willing to meet with the man whose life she supposedly saved.
“He’ll be happy to hear it. I’ll call him right now.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Captain Patrick chuckled. “I think it’s a good thing.”
“Someone else told me the same thing. You can give Mr. Pickens this number if he still wants to reach out.”
“Thanks, Ms. Gibbs.”
“You’re welcome.”
Harmony hung up the phone and wondered what drove her to accept the reward. Even as she questioned it, she knew the answer.
Damien.
The man made her curious. What kind of person buys a stranger breakfast and talks to her for half an hour but doesn’t ask for more than that?
Harmony shook her head. It didn’t matter. She’d never see him again.
Work went by quickly, and without interruption since she wasn’t allowed to have her phone in the lab. Harmony was finishing up for the day when one of the grad students stopped and asked her about the work they were doing.
“Doctor Griffiths said I need to test this again, but I’m not sure why.” The irritation and exhaustion in Parker’s voice were clear.
Harmony looked over the results and smiled. “Everything we do needs to be repeatable. If you get one answer, and think that’s good enough, you’re never going to make it in this business.”
“How many times do I have to repeat a test?”
“As many as it takes to be confident in the answer.”
“Have you done this test?”
Harmony nodded. “I have. It was on a different drug, but I’ve done the same thing.”
“How many times did you have to do it?”
Harmony snickered. “As many as it took.”
Parker rolled their eyes. “That’s all you’re giving me.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, but there’s no definitive answer. It might be ten, it might be a hundred.”
“Are you joking?”
Harmony shook her head. “Sorry, Parker. How many samples do you have?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Set up ten of them at once. Then you’re doing the same amount of work, but batching it like that will make it easier on you. The equipment can run five tests at a time, so if you have them all set up, you can do back-to-back tests and be done in half the time.”
“That’s genius. I never thought about that. Thank you, Harmony.”
Harmony smiled. “You’re welcome. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Parker hurried back into the lab to keep working.
Harmony was happy to go home. To have a night off from the lab.
The work they did was important. She loved it.
But working in pharmacology was taxing. Few people went into it because it required a lot of education and the payoff wasn’t always high.
Most of the money came from grants, and it took years sometimes for their research to be complete.
Harmony’s thesis was nearing completion, which meant she was at the end of her contribution to the project she’d been working on. She hoped to be hired full time after graduation, but her biggest competitor was a decade younger than her, and his parents were friends with Doctor Griffiths.
In all her life, Harmony worked hard and landed on her feet, and she knew this time would be the same, but she hated not finishing something.
After her dad died, she inherited his medical debt.
She walked away from her undergraduate program to work full time to pay back what he owed.
It took her twice as long to finish undergrad and three times as long to finish her Ph.D.
, but she didn’t give up. Even if her colleagues thought she should have.
At thirty-six, Harmony had sacrificed more than all the others in her program.
She didn’t date, she didn’t have a social life, and she didn’t do anything except eat, sleep, and breathe for her program.
The only reason she was so close to graduating was because she was offered a position at the college doing research in addition to her required coursework.
When she was done, she would work only one job for the first time in almost half her life.
Harmony was almost to her car when her phone beeped, alerting her to missed messages and calls when she was working.
Since no one relied on her, she ignored the messages until she was home.
She kicked off her shoes and dropped her sweater over the back of a chair, then released the knot that held her hair out of her face for the day.
She opened her fridge as she unlocked her phone. She tapped the voicemail that came from a local number she didn’t know and was surprised when she hard her name.
“Hello, Ms. Harmony Gibbs. This is Grant Pickens. I am happy to hear you are willing to meet with me so I can thank you properly. I cleared your schedule for Friday morning so you can spend that time with me. I will be waiting for you at nine in the lobby of my building. I look forward to meeting you in person.”
Harmony pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. Was he serious? He cleared her schedule? What did that even mean?
She played the next message and got her answer. Doctor Griffiths was not thrilled that Grant Pickens had called to request Harmony had the morning off, but he approved the request with the requirement that Harmony make up whatever work she missed.
The next call was from someone wanting to help her with nonexistent tax debt. Harmony rolled her eyes and deleted the message and blocked the number. She didn’t have time for scammers.
Harmony closed the fridge and opened the freezer, remembering what she was doing before she listened to the messages. She grabbed a frozen meal and tossed it into the microwave while she went to change out of her work clothes.
With her half-hot, half-cold, all meh dinner, she curled up on the couch and turned on the TV. She needed to calm her mind before she tried to go to sleep, and a good romantic comedy would do the trick.
Two hours and plenty of laughs later, Harmony jumped in the shower, then fell into bed, wondering what Grant Pickens was going to be like and why he felt the need to manage her time for her.
She would find out soon enough.
Grant Pickens was an asshole.
Harmony cringed when she met the man. He was slick and cocky and acted as though she should be honored to be in his presence.
He asked to meet her for fuck’s sake!
He spent the first hour after Harmony arrived at his office building telling her how wonderful he was. How he gave back to the community and was a supporter of different causes. It felt… rehearsed. Like he needed her to know how great of a person he was.
She didn’t care.
Sure, it was good that the man she supposedly saved was a decent guy, but that wasn’t why she did it. Harmony would have made that call no matter what building those men were breaking into. That it happened to be Grant Pickens was irrelevant to her.
And then to parade her around and keep her away from work for half a day… Harmony was done.
“I should get back to work, Mr. Pickens. I appreciate the tour and knowing more about you. It sounds like you are great for the city.”
“I am,” he said, his smile tipping into threatening, reminding her of the first press conference she saw with him when she felt exposed. Vulnerable. When she decided not to meet with him before his relentless efforts wore her down. “It’s not an act, Ms. Gibbs.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“You can’t leave yet.”
Harmony’s spine tingled. “Uh, excuse me?”
They were on the penthouse floor, thirteen stories above the rest of the city. The view was spectacular, but it didn’t do much for Harmony. Even less when she was told she was a prisoner.
“The media will be here soon. I’ve arranged a press conference for us.”
“I… I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Well, who wouldn’t want to tell the world how brave they are?”
“Um, me? I really wasn’t that brave. I just made a phone call.”
“A phone call that saved my life. One that meant I’m here to continue doing all the good things I do for the city. That makes you a hero in the eyes of a lot of people.”
A knock on the door interrupted them before Harmony could say she wasn’t interested in being a hero or being in front of a camera.
The police found no evidence of a second or third person that day, and Mr. Pickens insisted there was only one in his office, but Harmony knew what she saw.
If they were still out there, would they come after her? Would they want to silence her?
“Mr. Pickens? They’re almost ready,” his assistant, Jasmin, said.
The woman was stunning in her sky-high heels with red soles and red pencil skirt.
The white blouse she wore was a little too on the see-through side for Harmony, but she wasn’t about to judge the woman for the way she dressed.
If she was confident in her appearance, she needed to dress in a way that suited her.
“Thank you, Jasmin.” He turned to Harmony. “We should go.”
Harmony nodded and followed the man out of the office. He walked to the elevator and held the door for her to step on with him. When the doors slid closed, he spoke.
“I would have thought you’d be more grateful for my appreciation, Ms. Gibbs. I’ve looked into you. I know you are buried in debt and are not the top pick for staying on after you finish your education.”
“Excuse me?” Harmony stammered.
“Ms. Gibbs, we both know what’s going on here.” Mr. Pickens turned to face her, scanning her with a sneer that said how he felt about her. “You’re playing innocent, but we both know you’re not so innocent.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I thought we were going to have a productive meeting, Ms. Gibbs. I’m disappointed.”
Before Harmony could ask what the fuck was going on, the doors opened, and they were swarmed by lights and cameras.
The man next to her stepped forward, shoving Harmony into the middle of the chaos. He smiled at the crowd, but there was something in his eyes. Something dangerous. Something… wrong.
Something directed right at Harmony.