Double Bind (8 page)

           
Again, he laughed a little.
 
“Is that so?”

           
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
 
“I didn’t do it.
 
You can’t send me to jail.”

           
He grinned at her, his eyes looking a little sad.
 
“You know, you’ve been nothing but trouble since I met you.”

           
This time she grinned.
 
“Well, I’m good at trouble.”

           
He laughed, shaking his head.
 
“Look, Sarah, I believe you.”

           
“What?” She asked, startled enough that she nearly fell out of her seat.

           
“I believe you.
 
I don’t think that you stole the chemicals.
 
I don’t think that you poisoned all those people.”

           
“You believe me!?” Sarah said, her voice squeaking in excitement.
 
“So you’ll let Davey go?
 
You’ll stop bugging me?”

           
He shook his head.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I have to follow the evidence.
 
Right now all the evidence points to you.”

           
She sighed, leaning down to put her head against the dash of his car.
 
“It’s not fair.
 
I’m so good, and now everything is ruined.”

           
He chuckled again, pulling up to her building.
 
“Everything isn’t ruined.
 
But you’ve got to stop snooping around.
 
You are causing problems for everyone.”

           
She nodded, her head rubbing on the dash, but she was too woozy to pick it up.
 
“I know.
 
Poor, poor Davey. Stuck ‘
cuz
of his stupid sister.”

           
Detective Snyder laughed.
 
“Not exactly.
 
He’s also stuck because of his own hacking games.”

           
Sarah was too far gone to hear him, or respond.
 
The detective seemed to realize this, and hurried to get out of the car.
 
By the time he got around to open the door, Sarah was leaning on it.
 
He managed to catch her before she hit the ground, but just barely.
 
The jolt sobered her up enough that she managed to pull herself out of the car.
 
“Ouch.”

           
He said nothing, but led her up into the building and to her apartment.
 
It took her several minutes to find her keys, partly because she kept forgetting that was what she was supposed to be doing.
 
When she finally got the door open, he helped her inside and onto the couch, pulling her shoes off and pulling a blanket over her.

           
She grinned up at him, her eyes already heavy lidded as she came close to passing out.
 
In the dim light, she couldn’t seem to stop staring at the detective.
 
She had been wrong.
 
He wasn’t a jerk.
 
He was a handsome stud, and he believed her.
 
He leaned over her to say something, and she reached out a hand to grab at his shoulder.
 
She didn’t want him to go.
 
She felt safe around him.
 
She wanted his eyes to get that warm glow of desire again.
 
She wanted to feel his hand on hers.

           
“Can I tell you a secret?” She slurred.
 
He paused, smiling a little.

           
“Sure.
 
You can tell me anything.”
 
He sat on the edge of the sofa next to her.
 
His hip brushed hers, and for a moment she lost her train of thought.
 
“Uh, Sarah?” he said, and she blinked.

           
“Right.
 
Secret.”
 
She giggled, sliding her hand down his arm.
 
“Well, the secret is -” Again she stopped.
 
She blinked again, trying to focus.
 
“You’re really pretty.” She finally said.
 
She was pretty sure that wasn’t what she had been about to say, but she didn’t care.

           
He laughed and shook his head.
 
“
Yeahhh
, I think it’s time you got some sleep.”
 
He stood, pulling on his jacket before he headed to the door.

           
“Rob,” she said, his name sounding delicious on her tongue.

           
He stopped in the doorway, and his voice sounded eager.
 
“Yes?”

           
“You believe me, right?
 
You know I wouldn’t hurt anybody?”

           
He didn’t talk for a long time, and Sarah almost wondered if she had passed out.
 
When he finally spoke, his voice was very sad.
 
“I believe you, Sarah.”

           
Sarah beamed, and passed out before she knew what hit her.

Chapter 7

           
Sarah woke up to the sound of her phone ringing.
 
Groggily she fell off the couch as she scrambled toward it.
 
As always, she reached it just as it stopped ringing.
 
Groaning and laying back down with the phone on her chest she closed her eyes for a moment.

           
Which was of course when it started to ring again.
 
“Hello?”
 
She said, her voice slurred and heavy.

           
“Thank heavens you answered!” It was Angela on the line.
 
“They are about to tow your car at David’s.
 
Detective Snyder just called to tell me.
 
You need to get over there in the next 20 minutes or it’s going to the impound lot.”

           
Sarah cursed as she struggled up.
 
To her horror, she found herself in the same dowdy clothes as the day before.
 
Not only that, but there were stains all down the side, probably from her getting sick from the alcohol.
 
Cursing again she reassured Angela, hung up the phone and darted for the front door.
 
There was no time to change.
 
She had to get a taxi and get to David’s right away.

           
She was lucky that Angela had already dialed a taxi service.
 
They were pulling up to the curb just as Sarah came out the front door.
 
She darted in, and practically shouted the directions at the driver.
 
He rolled his eyes, saying “I know already,” and drove off.

           
She bounced up and down nervously on the seat.
 
She couldn’t lose her car.
 
She just couldn’t handle one more single thing going wrong.
 
Not just now.
 
Hopefully not ever.

           
The tow truck was already hooked up to her car when the taxi pulled up.
 
She didn’t waste time, but ignored the taxi driver’s protests as she jumped out of the car to shout with the tow driver.

           
Reluctantly he agreed to let Sarah unhook her car, but only after she’d given him the tongue lashing of his life.
 
Scowling, and glancing back at her a little nervously, he unhooked her car and drove off.
 
The taxi driver wasn’t so easy to dissuade.
 
She had forgotten her wallet and everything at home, so she was forced to dig through her glove compartment, looking for her emergency cash.
 
Of course, once she finally found the cash he refused to give her change, but drove off with almost a whole extra 20.

           
Sarah sighed, collapsing onto the seat of her car and pressed her hands to her face.
 
Her head pounded, her adrenaline was fading and she was not in a good mood.
 
Gritting her teeth she turned on the car and started to drive home.

           
Unfortunately her windows were still open, and the wind blew her loose papers all over her car.
 
Cursing and shouting at the universe in general, she pulled over to roll up the window and put everything back.
 
There were all sorts of papers strewn through the car.
 
Old receipts, work files, even a few old parking tickets.
 
She started to shove everything together back into the glove compartment when a name on one of the pieces of paper caught her eye.
 
Valerie
Kinkade
.

           
Sarah peered at the paper, a little confused.
 
This was one of the spare pieces of paper from the weird file that she had found at her office.
 
It was a notice of intent from one of their competitors.
 
When things had been going particularly well with the
Espry
project, they had gotten involved in a long law suit from the competitor, claiming that they had been stealing formulas.
 
Of course it was nothing other than a long-winded attempt to slow them down.
  
When everything had turned out to be in the clear, the lawsuit had gone away and they had resumed research.

           
That wasn’t what was interesting about the paper.
 
What was odd was that the person from the other company who had filed the lawsuit had been named Valerie
Kinkade
.
 
That was the same name as Sarah’s friend, who had been working for
BioGen
for the last little while.

           
Suddenly Sarah couldn’t remember how Valerie had gotten hired, or how she had gotten assigned to her team.
 
It seemed terribly odd.
 
Surely the name was just a coincidence?

           
A weird suspicion in her gut, Sarah detoured to the public library.
 
She didn’t plan on doing any hacking, but this was odd.
 
She just had to find out if they were the same person.
 
Surely they couldn’t be.
 
That would just be too much of a coincidence.

           
When she pulled up the old HR files from the other company though, there was Valerie, looking just as friendly and perky as ever.
 
Her hair was longer, but otherwise she looked exactly the same.
 
Sarah suddenly paled.
 
This was very bad.
 
How could Valerie possibly be working at the same company, and on similar projects?

           
She had to get to the police station with this information.
 
She had to give it to Rob, and explain.
 
He would believe her this time.
 
He had to.

           
Suddenly she paused.
 
Under Valerie’s
googled
name something else odd had come up.
 
Sarah clicked the news link, and found herself looking at a police report dating back a few years.

           
It was about the disappearance of a police officer.
 
He had been working on a number of cases, including one about corporate takeover.
 
Sarah scanned the site looking for the reference to Valerie.
 
When she found it, she had to swallow hard.
 
Valerie had been working for the company under investigation.

           
“I’ll be sad to see the detective go,” the article said she had said, “he was always so polite and helpful.”

           
Sarah paled and continued a search for missing detectives and police officers.
 
Article after article swam up, obituary after obituary.
 
Each one regaling the death of a police officer or detective.
 
Many of them were from ordinary causes, which relieved Sarah a lot.

           
Until she got to the year of that investigation. Then there had been dozens of deaths, one after the other.
 
Nothing said that they had all been working on the corporate case, but in her heart, Sarah knew.

           
Any detective that got too close to the truth wound up dead.

           
Sarah sat frozen at her computer.
 
She didn’t know what she could do.
 
She needed to tell Rob that she knew who was behind the water poisoning, but she couldn’t tell him.
 
If he got too close . . .

           
She shuddered at the thought.
 
Then she shook her head, a little shaken.
 
What was she thinking?
 
She didn’t mean anything to Detective Snyder, and here she was thinking and worrying about him.
 
If only he hadn’t been so nice the day before.
 
If only he didn’t have that cute smile and the irritatingly handsome way of raising his eyebrows sarcastically.

           
Basically, everything would be easier if he weren’t such a stud.
 
Or even if he still was acting like such an irritating jackass.
 
Then she could tell him, get herself cleared and her brother out of jail, and not worry about the consequences.

           
But she couldn’t tell him now.
 
If he got too close, then he would be dead, and it would be all her fault.
 
Feeling like she was getting trapped, she lay her head down on the desk by the computer.
 
This situation just kept getting worse.
 
She wouldn’t be able to tell Rob until she knew everyone involved.
 
She couldn’t risk his life, until she was sure that he would be safe.

           
Somehow feeling even worse than her hangover that morning had been, Sarah printed off the right documents and gathered her things to go home.
 
She had to make a plan.
 
She had to get things right.

           
Of course, a shower and dressing herself to look like a decent human being had to come first.
 
She was glad that it had when, a few hours after she’d gotten home, her doorbell rang.
 
She pushed the papers she had been reviewing behind a couch cushion and went to peer through the peephole.

           
It was Rob.

           
Her palms suddenly sweating, and her heart pounding a million miles a minute, she opened the door a small crack, smiling tightly at him.
 
He smiled back, looking more than a little nervous.
 
He shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

           
“Detective,” she said.
 
She wished that he didn’t make her want to jump across the room and kiss him.

           
“Hi, Ms. Gaul, is it alright if we have a candid talk for a moment?”

           
She paled a little.
 
This was bad.
 
This was very bad.
 
She glanced back at her apartment.
 
At least she had put the papers out of sight.
 
For once she had managed to hide her evidence, and it was really evidence that could prove that she was innocent.
 
Why did her life have to be so messed up all the time.
 
That was when it occurred to her.
 
Now was the perfect time to make him think that she was guilty.
 
She could do more things that looked bad, and lead him off the trail.

           
“Of course, that’s fine.”

           
She opened the door and let him in.
 
She tried not to focus on the way that his cologne made her heart beat a little faster, or the little tangle of hair that was at the base of his neck from the dress shirt he wore.
 
She clenched her fists.
 
She could do this.
 
She knew she could.

           
He stood awkwardly in the entryway for a moment, and then she cleared her throat.
 
“Would you like something to drink?”

           
“Uh, no thanks,” he said, rubbing one hand on the leg of his pants.
 
He looked around her apartment and then turned to smile at her.
 
“I’m glad you are looking better than you did last night.”

           
She blushed despite herself.
 
She could not believe that he had seen her that badly.
 
She shook herself.
 
That was good.
 
She needed him to hate her, to suspect her.
 
“Well, you know, a girl just needs to let go every now and then,” she realized that she wasn’t being very good at sounding like a bad person.
 
“Like, every couple of days.” she said.

           
“Um, alright.” He said, tilting his head a little to look at her oddly.
 
“Did you sleep alright?”

           
“Oh, yes, thank you.”
 
She wanted to kick herself.
 
Of all the times to be polite.
 
“Have a seat.”
 
He moved toward the couch where she had been sitting, and she suddenly panicked.
 
“No!
 
Not there!” She said, pushing him to the other couch. He blinked, but let himself be guided to the other couch, and Sarah followed him, sitting next to him.
 
Her leg accidentally brushed his and she felt heat rise in her chest.
 
She moved her leg away.