“He was a great guy,” she said softly.
“I believe you,” he assured her.
“Wow,” she said dryly. “In real life, we’re almost stereotypes.”
He laughed. “Worse things to be. Anyway, fake life...”
“Fake life, as you said, similar. Great idea, because you don’t mess up as much in any casual conversation.”
Wes nodded. “Second honeymoon. We’ve been married for three years, but both got so involved with our careers that we haven’t spent enough time together. We thought about an Alaskan cruise, but like the sun too much. Oh, and our families are all over the country, so it wasn’t like we could visit folks in one shot, and we needed together time more than anything else, so...”
“So, here we are. Diving—even though we spend ourreallives diving.”
“Ah, but we’re excited to be on the cruise. We’re diving different places for fun and for me especially, a true escape. I’m not responsible for the health and safety of others on this trip! It’s just exploring the wonders of the sea with my beloved who is usually too busy babysitting insecure artists to really enjoy the water with me.”
He was grinning at her. The guy seemed to be okay.
Great. She could get along with him. And pray, of course, that he really did live up to his reputation and would have her back.
He frowned suddenly, staring down at his screen.
“Succinylcholine,” he murmured.
“What?”
A total change in the conversation.
He looked at her. “We just got some info on a few of the follow-up autopsies. They dug up the dead and did more detailed tests. And our cases are beyond a doubt related—the victims were dosed with a paralytic before death, succinylcholine, not something generally sought and discovered in the usual autopsy of a shooting victim unless such a factor had been indicated. Also, by the time a person’s remains get to an autopsy, it’s had a chance to dissipate. But apparently, they are finding trace amounts.”
“That would explain the perfection of the shots on that many people. Straight through the heart, which typically doesn’t happen unless your victims are nonmoving targets. So, they are drugged with a substance that leaves them awake but paralyzes them. How are they getting it into the victims?” Chloe asked.
He shook his head. “No answers on that yet. But, hey, we’re putting together a nice sheet on people who were related business-wise to the victims, a few very wealthy, a few not so wealthy... Your sheet is up! Read, see what you think. Also, they followed the movements of these people over the last year in which all of this has occurred. They all attended special meetings or conferences which put them in the same general area as those who died.”
She studied her computer. They’d been sent a list of six names, plucked from the many by a combination of factorssuch as possible resentments or goals and assessments and proximities from a profiling team.
She quickly saw that yes, everyone on the list worked in the computer field in one way or another. Naturally. But closer looks showed that each of the six had been working with—or against—those who were dead. In a few cases, the names of those on the list worked for the same companies.
In some cases, they worked for rival companies.
A few had been a few rungs lower on the corporate ladder.
“Edward Thompson,” she murmured.
“Saw it,” he said. “A vice president with the hosting symposium, Milestones, a company which among other things is creating a special screen for gamersandan affordable system that will also allow for hours upon hours of computing. Edward Thompson makes a nice seven-figure income yearly. But the pressure is surely hard on him at all times.”
“Then there’s Amelia Swenson,” Chloe said, looking over at Wesley. “She was under the first man who, hm,committed suicide. Frank Adams. He received a promotion that she had been up for, too.”
“Her income is not enormous,” Wesley noted.
“But better than most these days.”
“True. Except in the tech world—” he began to remind her.
“You have the possibility of becoming a multimillionaire.”
Wesley nodded. “Next. Broward County last week. A party of six. Five were shot and killed, and as Alonzo told us, the sixth person, a young woman named Jane Sewell, was found with her gun in her mouth. Ballistics matched. Six shots, five through the heart with one remaining so that she could kill herself when she finished with the others.”
“And they’ll discover that she and the others have traces of the drug in their systems—which explains the perfect shots. Seriously, very few people just stand there when a gunis pointed at them and they’ve already seen their friends or associates shot,” Chloe pointed out. “We knew there was something off about it.”
