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Officer Richards leaned down to look Lori in the eye. “My dear, you forget why you were in hiding all day. You knew we were looking for you to question you about the flu vaccine and the missing vial of pneumonia. And your daughter assaulted an officer and several other people today. We have plenty of cause to arrest both of you.”

  “Lori,” Caitlyn said. “You were so confident that you had everything figured out, yet your arrogance led you to make some critical errors. Like the gun.”

  “How did you know where to leave it?” Mandy asked.

  “That was a coincidence. I threw it outside to get it out of here and kept the bullets in case it found its way inside again.” She smiled and crossed her arms. “Think about it. Where would you get a gun like that? You’d have to be law enforcement or go to a bigger town than this one.”

  “You still can’t prove anything,” Lori hissed. “All of your precious documents have been destroyed and the digital trail is too convoluted to put together definitively.”

  Megan looked up from studying the documents on Caitlyn’s phone. “They’re a mess, but a professional can sort them out. I can already see Mr. Harris’s and Mandy’s fingerprints all over this stuff. Access codes, authentication verifications, and account and deposit records – it all points right to them.”

  “Where did you hide your phone?” Officer Richards asked. “I checked you this morning and didn’t see it.”

  “I left it here last night. You didn’t let me go back in my office to get it this morning before our meeting, so I held on to it. You should be glad I did. It unraveled this whole scheme.”

  “Considering everything that’s happened, it will probably be overlooked.”

  Elly sighed. “You know a lot about technology. No doubt, that’s one of the advantages of being married to a computer technician.”

  Caitlyn nodded. “I’m grateful for his insistence on keeping me up to date with technology.”

  “I have the best surprise of all for you,” Officer Richards said, pulling a phone out of his pocket. “Did you get all of that Officer Burton?”

  “I sure did,” a female voice said. “Do you want us to come over now?”

  “Please do. I’ll have Elly open the back door for you. The front door is jammed. See if you can figure out why.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “So you had a phone too!” Caitlyn said. “Has the line been open all day?”

  “No; just since lunch. I heard noises from that office down the hall, and I wondered if somebody was creeping around in the tunnel. I called headquarters and asked them to keep this line open.” He winked. “That tunnel is a myth to youngsters like you, but older folks remember it.”

  “There’s just one question,” Caitlyn asked. “Mr. Harris is in the middle of all of this, but where is he?”

  “On the way to the morgue,” the voice chimed over Officer Richard’s phone.

  “What?” Officer Richards asked.

  “The officers dispatched to search Ms. Selter’s house found several drops of blood next to her back door. We brought in the search dogs and they found him buried in the woods behind her house. He was stabbed multiple times. The house had been cleaned, but we found traces of bloodstains on the floor and wall in the kitchen with our infrared lights. The coroner thinks he died last night, but we’ll have to do a full autopsy to know the time range of his murder.” There was a crackle as the woman paused. “They also found a significant amount of cash in a fire safe box they broke open.”

  Mandy turned on Lori in shock. “Why didn’t you tell me when we met this morning?”

  Lori hung her head. “I didn’t have time.” She sighed. “He came by yesterday afternoon, after he left the hospital. I found a plane ticket in his pocket – one ticket, not three like he promised. The doctors on staff at the hospital told him Wednesday that they were thinking about calling in the Health Department to investigate this outbreak. He tried to discourage them, but they were adamant and he found out he had no authority to stop them. He was afraid they would trace the pneumonia back to me, and put it all together to incriminate him. He panicked and wanted to make a run for it; alone. We got in a fight, and he pulled out a knife. I don’t know where it came from.” She visibly shuddered. “I was going to tell you later.”

  “Why is his car still in his driveway?” Officer Richards said.

  “He lived a mile away from me. He always walked through the woods behind my neighborhood when he came to see me and came in the back door so he wouldn’t be seen.”

  They saw a group of uniformed officers pull up, sirens blaring. Elly stood. “I’ll let them in.”

  Officer Richards pulled Lori and Mandy to their feet. “Ok ladies, let’s go.”

  Chapter 15 (4:30 P.M.)

  Caitlyn, Megan, Elly, and Officer Richards breathed a collective sigh of relief as the patrol car drove off with Lori and Mandy in the back. Mandy had broken off the key in the front door, and a locksmith was changing the lock on the door. They had everything back up and running, and had no problem downloading the information Caitlyn had collected for them through her phone. Now they were standing outside, preparing to leave after an exciting day. Their hearts were heavy, because they found out that Valerie died from complications with her asthma and the pneumonia while their drama unfolded. The only good news was that the Health Department determined there was no threat to the community and lifted the quarantine on Woodland Memorial Hospital and Medical Complex.

  Officer Richards returned Megan and Elly’s cell phones. “Thanks for your help. We couldn’t have pulled it off without your ingenuity. I must say I’m impressed. I didn’t realize you ladies were so well trained in self-defense.”

  “I’m not trained,” Elly said. “I learned that from soaps.”

  “And a twin brother,” Megan said.

  “And going to the firing range.”

  Everybody turned to stare at Caitlyn.

  “What? Jared’s grandfather left him several guns and we decided to learn how to handle them safely.”

  Officer Richards nodded slowly. “Go home, ladies. I think we have everything we need from you for now. We’ll call if we have any further questions. Thanks for all you did today.”

  “What now?” Elly asked. “Do we go home, have a nice weekend, and come back Monday morning like nothing happened?”

  “That’s exactly what you do,” Officer Richards said. “You’ve been through enough today. But you’ll have a while to recuperate. The Health Department wants to close your office Monday and Tuesday to do an investigation. We’ll notify your staff.” He winked. “For now, go home and spend time with your families. You have a long road ahead as we build the case against Lori and Mandy, and no doubt you’ll be called in for depositions. For now, your job is to remember what happened today, be glad the worst of it is over, and enjoy life.” He looked at his watch. “You better get going. Reporters will be here soon. We’ll handle them.”

  “That sounds good,” Megan said. “I don’t feel like being in the news anyway. My makeup has worn off and I look like hell.”

  They shared their first genuine laugh of the day as Elly set the alarm and locked the door.

  Chapter 16 (5:00 P.M.)

  Caitlyn breathed in the crisp fall air and admired the golden sunshine sifting through the colorful trees as she rode her bike home. She often lamented about wasting such beautiful days locked in an office, but today she was glad to be alive. She smiled as she walked in the house. Despite the stress of the day’s events, she was glad to be home.

  “Hi guys, I’m home!”

  Jared gave her a hug as Toby, her parrot, said “hey” and scrambled for her shoulder with a hop and flutter of his wings.

  “Did you have a good day?” Jared asked.

  She smiled. “It was interesting. Thank God it’s Friday.”

  “Is that dust on your sweater? What did they have you doing today?”

  She laughed. “You’ll never believe how this happened.”

  He loo
ked at her curiously. “A ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ story?”

  She nodded. “Let’s get a drink. I need it, and you will too by the time this story is over,” she said, locking them in the warm house and heading toward the kitchen as twilight fell on another day in the quiet town of Woodland.

  ###

  Chapter 17 (About the Author)

  Sherri Fulmer Moorer is a freelance writer and is also the author of two other books: an inspirational book titled Battleground Earth – Living by Faith in a Pagan World (PublishAmerica 2004) and a young adult mystery novel titled Blurry (Wings ePress 2011). Her next novel, a supernatural mystery titled Anywhere But Here (Whiskey Creek Press), will be released in April 2012. She has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of South Carolina and works as a Program Assistant for the State of South Carolina. Sherri is a lifelong member of Mt. Tabor Lutheran Church in West Columbia, SC, where she serves on the Evangelism Committee and is a greeter. She lives in Columbia, SC with her husband, Rick; and their birds, Zack, Chloe, and Oliver. For more on Sherri, please visit her website at http://www.sherrithewriter.com/ .