Fractured Oak by Dannie Boyd

Author:Dannie Boyd
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indigo Dot Press

Chapter Fourteen

Lani

* * *

Brian must be watching out the window for her because at six thirty, when Lani pulls her Crown Vic into the driveway of his two-bedroom home on a quiet residential street in Winston, he hurries outside and jogs to her car, his overcoat flapping against his suit. Thanks to Ohio’s let’s-see-how-we-can-mess-with-them-today weather, the spring temperature has nosedived to a nippy forty degrees.

Once Brian is inside the vehicle, Lani hands him a cup of coffee. “Don’t say I never gave you nothing.”

“Morning to you too, sunshine.” He smiles and gets right down to business. “She really said she had reservations about him?”

Lani knows he’s referring to her phone call with Sally McDaniels last night. “Those very words.”

“No way to prove it wasn’t an accident though. Some of those California roads can get pretty dicey.”

“Probably not, at least not now, but knowing that six and a half years ago Carver’s PhD colleague drove off a cliff to his death gives me a major dose of reservations too, especially since he and Carver had an argument over whose idea a new drug was.”

“How did Dr. McDaniels know they’d argued?”

“Overheard their conversation when she was in the women’s bathroom. They were in the men’s on the other side of the wall, and the old building carried the sound right through the vent. A little muffled, but she got the gist of it.”

“Did she know what the drug was?”

“Nothing concrete, just a sprout of an idea, but sounds like it was a weight-loss drug. Obesity was Carver’s focus there.”

Brian raises an eyebrow.

“Exactly,” Lani says. “But to be fair, the chairwoman also had good things to say about Carver. Said he was a strong researcher, a stickler for details, and seemed to have a genuine interest in helping people manage their obesity. Guess he used to be overweight as a kid. He included that morsel in his personal statement when he applied for the PhD program. So yeah, I’ve gotta be fair to the guy. You don’t want tunnel vision, or you’ll feck up the job.” Lani taps the steering wheel. “Still, something feels off about him, and the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced he created that water leak on purpose. Hoped we’d bypass him altogether in our questioning, but in case we didn’t, he had proof of the leak in his basement.”

“Well then,” Brian says, “you’re going to be interested in this.”

Lani shoots a glance his way before entering the on-ramp for I-77 south. “Oh yeah, what’s ‘this’?”

“After hearing about your extra-curricular activities last night, I felt like a slacker, so I called Chloe Sampson. Figured of Carver’s three remaining PhD students, she’d give me the most juice. Met her at the pub just as her friends were leaving. She was happy to stick around and chat.”

Lani takes in Brian’s trim, muscular frame and good looks. “I bet she was.”

“Are you objectifying me, boss?”

“You wish. And I’m not your boss. So what’d you learn from Chloe that I didn’t? Pretty sure I’m about to be shown up.

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