Bad Nerd Falling (38 page)

***

“
I met the creeps in
Helena’s old lab.” Vlad glared at the computer screen as he
announced this.

“
Creeps?” Shively swiveled
to look at him.

He offered a succinct rundown of his
impressions of Helena’s current colleagues. Like the trained
professionals they were, he was certain the SEALs each filed his
information away for future use.

“
You hated leaving her
there,” Ben stated. It certainly wasn’t a question.

“
You could say that.” A
tight feeling of unease had followed him out the door and
remained.

“
What is your gut telling
you?” Beaumont didn’t look up from the computer in front of him. He
appeared enmeshed in whatever data ran on the screen.

“
To grab her and carry her
as far away from that lab as possible.”

No one laughed. They must all be
feeling a similar sense of unease. They, like him, respected a
person’s instincts, that gut reaction. It kept them
alive.

“
Why are you feeling that
way?” Ben also turned away from his computer. It wasn’t because he
was bored.

“
That’s what I’m
wondering.” There was something there, something he should look
into.

“
You didn’t like the feel
of the
lab
, or
the feel of the
people
in the lab?” Tigger dug a little deeper.

A good question. “I didn’t
like the feel of the
people
in the lab.” As he thought on it, that niggling
question finally became substantial enough for him to sort through.
“There are four new members.”

“
Four new ones from
when?”

“
Since Helena moved to the
palace lab.” His thoughts raced. “She’s worked at the palace lab
less than three months.”

Ben glanced sharply at him. “And there
are already four new people?”

Beaumont asked a few pertinent
questions and as fast as he answered them, added the info to his
database.

It didn’t take their tech wizard long
to discover the hospital personnel records and soon he was
scrolling through them. In a few heartbeats Beaumont segregated the
seven people who worked in the lab with Helena.

“
Here they are.” Beaumont
sent the info to their computers.

He scrolled through their employee
pictures and then the extensive info that followed.

Tigger grunted. “There’s a lot
here.”

“
Their intel is as good as
ours,” Ben agreed.

“
I wouldn’t go that far,
but my dad tends to be careful.”

They all turned to stare at
him.

When he looked up, he encountered
three sets of speculative eyes. “My dad runs the hospital,
remember?”

Beaumont’s eyes narrowed. “Does your
dad interview every person who is hired at the
hospital?”

He shook his head. “He meets them,
even briefly, but he doesn’t have time to do the
interviews.”

“
So he’s met the three men
who have been giving Helena trouble?”

That question yanked him out of the
file he was perusing. “I’m sure he has. He knows everyone’s name.”
Leaning forward, he picked up the phone and dialed his father’s
work number.

“
Graham
Wellington.”

“
What do you know about
the three men working in the hospital lab with Helena?”

“
Good morning to you too,
son.”

Vlad grinned. “Good morning, Dad. Now
can you please answer the question?”

“
Let me guess, you’ve been
working since the predawn hours.”

“
I have no idea,” he
prevaricated. He wasn’t about to tell his father that until this
mess was finished, he was never off duty. They took breaks to eat
and sleep but that was it.

“
Can’t tell me then. Now,
the three men you’re interested in…” The tapping of computer keys
was steady on his dad’s end. “What exactly are you looking
for?”

“
Are you aware that they
harassed Helena for months, if not years?”

“
I suspected, but until I
could prove it, as per bureaucracy, I couldn’t do a
thing.”

“
Why didn’t you ever ask
her?”

“
What makes you think I
didn’t?”

He frowned at his father’s answer.
“You did?”

“
I sent your mother into
that lab a few times and she heard enough to validate my
concerns.”

“
That’s why Helena was
sent to the palace lab.” His smile was more of a
grimace.

“
Yes. I also managed to
remove some of the people in that lab, but the three men who
harassed her were really careful. Plus, one of them is a top guy in
laboratory systems. I couldn’t get rid of him without a
lot
of
evidence.”

“
Of which you had
none.”

“
Correct. I had no way of
proving what was happening. Other than employing illegal listening
devices.” His dad sounded frustrated.

“
Thank you for moving her
to the palace lab. Why did you also choose Mom?”

“
She was having similar
trouble in her lab. Not to the extent Helena suffered, but there
were some women there who made life pretty miserable for
her.”

His jaw hurt because he was clenching
his teeth. “You couldn’t do anything about this?”

“
I moved both women and
Jorge to the palace lab when the opportunity arose.” His dad’s
voice and inflection didn’t change.

All of his friends were staring at him
with varying degrees of surprise. Like they couldn’t quite believe
what they were hearing. What did they expect? This was his
family.

“
Thank you for that.” He
wiped a hand over his face. Maybe he needed more sleep. Usually he
didn’t get this emotional. In fact, he couldn’t remember
ever
getting emotional
while on a job. Or off it, if he was being honest. But that family
thing changed everything.

“
You’re welcome. I’ll also
have you know that those people I knew were giving others a hard
time did not receive bonuses. Thought that might offer the message
that we were well aware of their treatment of others.”

“
I see. That was probably
good. Did any of them refute this?”

“
No, because their bonus
was determined by the annual employee review. I made certain to sit
in on a select few. With me there, they knew then that I was aware
of the complaints.”

“
Yet those three idiots
are still in Helena’s lab.”

“
Yes, they’re there.
Unfortunately there are four new people in that lab…” his dad kept
talking but a light snapped on in his brain.

He scrambled for the notepad lying
beside Ben and quickly scrawled his note. Then he held the pad up
and the three SEALs read it quickly then nodded. Their eyes, as a
collective, turned dark and cold. This is the other part that was
bothering him.

“
Why are there four new
people in that lab?” From the abrupt silence on the other end, he
must have cut that good man off, but he was in the zone right now.
He was all business, emotions were shoved deep and locked down as
of now.

“
Because the four who were
there have all moved on. We shifted Helena to the palace lab where
I understand she is doing extremely well.”

“
She is. She loves it
there.”

“
Right, that’s what I’ve
heard. Your mother is every bit as happy. And from what I gather
from Jorge, he’s enjoying his work again.”

“
He wasn’t happy in the
hospital either?”

“
No, he kept being passed
over for promotions. I still haven’t sorted that out. The man
should have been heading a lab by now, but in each case, someone
younger and female, and incidentally, attractive usually snagged
those positions.”

“
We can guess what
happened.”

“
Right. And I can’t remove
the head lab man because there isn’t anyone else who can do his job
at the moment. We’ve got feelers out. He also didn’t receive a
bonus and I told him right to his face why. Now that he knows I’m
well aware of his lecherous ways it seems he’s being
careful.”

“
How do you
know?”

“
Because the woman who
leads Jorge’s old lab is happily married, with kids, and is
extremely competent. She doesn’t carry a high opinion of the lab
head, but she’s very good at what she does. When I personally
recommended her to the lecher, I made certain that she was the only
person I expected to see in that position.”

“
So she did get the
job.”

“
Oh yes, because I
implied
he’d
be
out of a job if she didn’t.”

“
She’s who you’re grooming
to head the labs.” He smiled because he understood exactly how
Graham Wellington thought. His brain worked in similar
patterns.

“
That’s correct. She holds
a Master’s degree and is smart, decisive, and capable. But she’s
not quite ready, even though I believe she’s probably doing the
bulk of the work anyway.”

“
How will you get rid of
the top man?”

“
We’ve enough complaints
against him now to fire him.”

“
Is he aware of
this?”

“
I don’t know. But I have
noticed the complaints have stopped recently. He appears to be more
circumspect with the younger women.”

Lechers were usually not people they
investigated but he asked for the man’s name. This type of man
didn’t have many scruples so working with a terrorist group who
hated women wasn’t a stretch. His early note had been about the
traitor possibly hiding among the hospital staff. An ongoing,
uneasy niggle pointed toward this being somehow related to
terrorists. His instincts told him he was on the right path even
though it made little sense.

During the conversation with his
father, he noticed Beaumont working hard at his computer. He didn’t
doubt they’d have a full dossier on each of the members in Helena’s
lab. He scribbled the man’s name on the notepad and passed it to
Beaumont.

Without any further communication,
Beaumont added the man to the list. In a few minutes, they’d know
more about the lecher than his own mother did.

“
Thank you for this
info.”

“
Is it useful to your
investigation?”

He grunted in answer.

His dad’s voice was threaded with
amusement. “Can’t answer that, can you, son?”

“
What do you think?”
Amusement appeared in his own tones.

“
Do you think there might
be a problem, a much bigger one, at my hospital?” This time there
was no amusement, just utter professionalism.

“
We’re checking
everything.” He shouldn’t have even said that much.

But if there was one trustworthy man
in Rurikstan, it was Graham Wellington.

He would stake his own life on it.

Chapter 29

Since Vlad’s visit this morning, this
lab was indeed bearable. Definitely more than it had been when she
left. Apparently presenting a huge warrior as your protector made
an excellent deterrent to nasty people. This relieved her
greatly.

The three jerks aside, she rather
liked the older woman and the two new men. It was the younger woman
she was leery of. Which was stupid because other than that cold
look she thought she saw, the woman didn’t give off bad
vibes.

No, that wasn’t true. She did. That’s
why she wasn’t interested in getting chummy with her. The vibes
from this woman, Anna, were like those of the women who had
preceded her. Outwardly friendly, but the minute she was out of
earshot, would trash her to their colleagues in a
heartbeat.

Only this young woman seemed far more
malignant than even the nasty women before her. There was something
about her that she couldn’t trust.

Because of her observations, she spent
a lot of time working on her projects, hurrying to finish. There
was no way she intended to remain in this lab for five days. She
couldn’t.

They’d have to check her into the
mental health wing.

Charlene, the older woman, proved to
be interesting and immune to the nasty chill in the lab. Anna, the
younger woman, lingered with them and laughed and joked, and did
nothing wrong. She was quiet and attentive. Shy even, but still not
trustworthy.

The two other men in the lab she soon
learned she could work with if need be. The younger one was
definitely shy and awkward, so she treated him like a brother. The
older man was funny and smart, and he was a joy to work with. If
she had to remain in this lab, three of the new members would have
made the job easier.

The jerks left her alone, thank
goodness. She didn’t even have to threaten to sic Vlad on
them.

She was well aware that Vlad would
relish the opportunity. Although doubtful in the past, it did
appear the jerks were smarter than she suspected.