Hurricane (Hive Mind Book 3) by Janet Edwards

Author:Janet Edwards [Edwards, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-07T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

“So one of our suspects, and to be completely honest our main suspect, is the Admiral’s wife,” said Adika. “If the people delivering the furniture didn’t know in advance that it was going to be used by us, they’d have had very little chance to get hold of poisonous chemicals. Tressa had ample time to poison the mattress though, either earlier this morning or during last night.”

“That’s true,” said Lucas.

“Does it seem credible that Tressa is our target, Lucas?” asked Emili. “You’ve spoken to her about our accommodation, so you must have an opinion about her character.”

“I haven’t been able to form much of an opinion about Tressa at all,” said Lucas. “Whenever I contacted her, she either kept the call sound-only at her end or replied with a text-only message. I assumed that was because she was Outside, and considerately avoiding sending potentially disturbing images to someone at the Hive, but now her pattern of behaviour seems more ominous.”

Lucas pulled a face. “Tressa is currently at the top of our list of suspects, but Admiral Tregereth is deeply attached to his wife, so we’ll need to arrange an opportunity for Amber to read her mind discreetly rather than make open accusations. If Tressa does turn out to be guilty, then we’ll be able to close this case extremely quickly, but we need to consider other possible explanations as well.”

“But there aren’t any other possible explanations,” said Adika. “Tressa and the Admiral are the only two people who knew in advance that we’d be using the furniture, and we know the Admiral is innocent.”

“The other possible explanation is that another person learned about the furniture,” said Lucas. “The Admiral or Tressa could have accidentally revealed the information, or someone could have eavesdropped on my communications with Tressa.”

Lucas shrugged. “The data integrity defences on the Hive call system prevent anyone from monitoring calls, and our electricians have now set up what should be a totally secure communications link between our unit and the Hive. My earlier exchange of calls and messages with Tressa had to go through the standard sea farm call system though. If that system uses similar low level technology to everything else we’ve seen here, someone could have monitored those calls.”

“People in Sea Farm Security use surveillance equipment to watch what people at the sea farm are doing,” said Adika. “They may be able to monitor calls as well.”

“Exactly my thought,” said Lucas. “We need to arrange for Amber to read Tressa’s mind, but also follow my original theory about our target being a member of Sea Farm Security.”

He paused. “If that theory is right, then the sequence of events was that the second murder made the Admiral go to the Hive to ask for help. Our target wanted to know how the Hive would respond, took the obvious step of monitoring calls to the Admiral’s wife, and learned all about our plans. They then had plenty of time to find some poison and use it on the mattress before our aircraft arrived.

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