Secrets and Suspense

  Secrets and Suspense

  A Clean Romantic Suspense

  Lorana Hoopes

  Copyright © 2020 by Lorana Hoopes

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For the health care workers and virologists who have been fighting Covid-19.

  * * *

  When I finished Never Forget the Past last November, I began thinking about the idea for this book. I knew it was going to be about Cara and since she was former military, I began researching if the military studied viruses. At the time, I thought it would be interesting to write about an outbreak. Little did I know that Covid-19 would hit a few months later, and we would be living through our own outbreak. That actually made this book so much harder to write because I was so tired of being in quarantine.

  * * *

  Melioidosis, the virus discussed in this book, is a real disease that the military does study. I did take a few liberties in the infection timeline, but only because the timeline to show symptoms can be anywhere from two days to fifty-two years. As this is a suspense, the story needed to cover just a few weeks instead of years. The rest of the information about Melioidosis is actually true.

  * * *

  I hope that you enjoy this story and that wherever you are, you are staying safe and healthy.

  Contents

  1. Cara

  2. Cole

  3. Cara

  4. Cole

  5. Cara

  6. Cole

  7. Cara

  8. Cole

  9. Cara

  10. Cole

  11. Cara

  12. Cole

  13. Cara

  14. Cole

  15. Cara

  16. Cole

  17. Cara

  18. Cole

  19. Cara

  20. Cole

  21. Cara

  22. Cole

  23. Cara

  24. Cole

  25. Cara

  26. Cole

  27. Cara

  28. Cole

  The Epilogue

  It’s not quite the end!

  29. Not ready to say Goodbye yet?

  30. A Free Story For You

  31. The Billionaire’s Impromptu Bet Preview

  Discussion Questions

  The Story Doesn’t End!

  About The Author

  1

  Cara

  Cara Hunter let the warm wind blow in the open window as she drove down the interstate in her red Ford Mustang. Her left hand drifted up to adjust her sunglasses, as her right tapped on the steering wheel, the rhythm close to the one blaring out of her radio. A smile played across her lips as she thought of seeing Steve again. She only came this way once a month, but it was her favorite day each month. Though she enjoyed running the bed and breakfast in Fire Beach, she missed working closely with Steve.

  Perhaps it was the military regimen or the added sense of security that she missed the most, but Steve’s dry sense of humor topped the list as well. Besides, doing the research on her own was not only lonely, but living the double life was beginning to take its toll on her. She’d noticed that in the mirror this morning as she got dressed. There were definitely more wrinkles around her eyes and a deeper crease in her forehead than there had been a year ago when she’d been forced to leave the base and create a secret identity in Fire Beach.

  At first, she hadn’t minded. It had been good to see Jordan again, and the bed and breakfast provided some relief from her other work. The work that consumed her nights and invaded her dreams. Even during the day, it kept her on edge. She had been forced to keep a tight circle of friends for fear of never knowing who she could trust, but she knew she could trust Steve. She could relax and be herself around him. These once a month visits were the only times she felt like she wasn’t lying to everyone around her. The only time the tension truly melted from her shoulders even as they discussed mortality rates and vaccine issues. She just hoped he had found more than she had.

  The last few weeks had been one setback after another. Of course, she wasn’t dealing with the live virus strands or the rats - Steve had taken that on - but mapping the epitopes was no walk in the park either. It was just a little safer.

  She slowed the car as she reached the turnoff for his street. Smiling, she wondered if he would have dressed today. He hadn’t the last time she’d come, and she’d been shocked when he opened the door wearing SpongeBob pajama pants and an old Army shirt. He’d explained that since he’d left the base and rarely seemed to leave his house, he’d taken to only changing out of his pajamas for showers which she was almost certain had become fewer and farther between. He had always been eccentric, but the loneliness and stress had certainly taken a strange toll on him. She wondered what his neighbors thought of him.

  As she parked the car a few spots from his door, a weird tingling sensation shot down her spine. On instinct, she turned the engine off and scanned the area looking for anything out of place and listening for any noise that didn’t belong. Other than the silence that seemed thicker today than normal, nothing appeared contrary to how it usually was. Perhaps the stress was getting to her too.

  She grabbed her laptop bag and headed toward his house. He’d picked a nondescript rambler in the middle of a residential neighborhood. “To blend in better,” he’d said. She supposed it worked. Sometimes hiding in plain sight was better than hiding anywhere else.

  After a final scan of the surrounding area, she knocked softly on Steve’s door. “Steve, are you in here?” A feeling of unease washed over her as it creaked open. Steve never left his door unlocked. Like her, he was paranoid of being caught doing his research. Even though they’d been sanctioned by the military, what they were doing could be dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. It was something she worried about every day, and she’d had enough conversations with Steve to know the fear had taken residence in his mind too.

  She should turn around right now. Or call Jordan. At least if she had a detective with her, she wouldn’t be blamed for whatever she might find inside, but she had to know. Careful not to touch anything more, she nudged the door open a little farther with her elbow.

  The unease burgeoned into terror as she took in the room. Or what was left of it. Furniture had been shredded and lay upended across the room. Drawers hung like broken arms from the desk. Books and papers littered the floor, and an eerie silence filled the room. How she wished she had more than the small knife concealed in her boot.

  The desire to call Steve’s name again burned in her throat, but she clamped her jaws shut. Though it felt as if whoever had done this was gone, alerting them to her presence would be reckless if they were still in the house.

  Instead, she took cautious steps around the mess, careful not to step on anything and leave footprints. As she did, she looked for any prints that might have been left by the perpetrator. It hadn’t rained lately, so the chances were slim but even an indention on a piece of paper would help.

  The living room opened to a kitchen which was equally messy. All the drawers had been emptied on the floor and the cabinet doors gaped open like hungry mouths. Someone had obviously been looking for something, and Cara knew they had probably found it.

  Steve kept most of his research in a hidden closet in his bedroom, but if whoever had done this was this thorough, it was unlikely they hadn’t found the room. She just hoped Steve hadn’t been home when they had.

  Exiting the kitchen, she proceeded carefully down the hallway. Steve’s
house was small - just a single bedroom after he and his wife had split up. That left only two more doors - the bathroom and the bedroom. Both doors were open, and Cara glanced quickly in the sparse bathroom before continuing to the bedroom.

  Fear, rage, and disgust battled for her dominant emotion as she nudged the bedroom door open further and saw Steve lying face down on the bed. The puddle of brick-colored liquid surrounding him left no doubt that he was dead, and the open door to his secret closet at the other end of the room confirmed her suspicion that his research was gone.

  There was no reason to stay any longer. She needed to get out of there before any of the neighbors saw her and tried to pin this murder on her.

  Retracing her steps, Cara exited the house and climbed back in her car. The composure she had worked so hard to contain while in the house crumbled as her door shut. Tremors took over her body as she grappled with the knowledge. Someone had killed Steve. Was she next?

  Her hand shook as she fumbled to get the key in the ignition. She needed to call Jordan and have him send someone to the scene, but first she needed to call Malone. She had to know if he knew and what he was going to do to protect her.

  She punched in his personal number before throwing the car into reverse and backing away from the crime scene. Every nerve in her body wanted her to flee, press the gas and roar out of the area, but that would only draw unwanted attention. Attention she didn’t need.

  “Cara? What’s going on?” The concern in Malone’s deep voice resonated through her car, but it did nothing to calm her racing heart.

  “Steve’s dead.” Choked with emotion, the strangled words hardly sounded like her voice.

  “What?”

  “He’s dead. I stopped in for our monthly meetup, but I was too late. Someone beat me there. They trashed the place, killed Steve, and stole the research.” Her hands gripped the steering wheel, the color in her knuckles fading to a dull white.

  “Are you sure they got the research?”

  Cara glanced down at her phone briefly as if glaring at it could send her ire to Malone. How could he sound so calm when she had just told him a member of their team was dead? And why did he appear more interested in the research than the man’s life?

  “Well, I didn’t paw through everything and leave my fingerprints all over the place, but the house was trashed. His secret room was open. I have no doubt they found everything they were looking for. Do you even care about Steve?”

  Malone’s sigh echoed through her speakers. “Of course I do, but I don’t have to remind you Cara that our work is important. We’re talking about saving lives.”

  “Right now we ought to be thinking about endangering lives. Steve had samples of the virus and mice that may or may not have been infected which means someone else now has them, and we have no idea what they plan to do with them. What if they come after me? Geez, Malone, how did they even know to come after Steve?” The questions tumbled out of her mouth like drips from a leaky faucet, but for each one she voiced, a dozen more scrambled for space in her brain.

  “I don’t know, Cara. I will look into it. For now, stay safe and see if you can get a breakthrough on that vaccine.”

  She wanted to ask him how exactly she was supposed to do that, but before she could say anything more, the click of him hanging up the phone reverberated through the car. She was on her own.

  Well, not entirely on her own. She had Jordan and the rest of her friends in Fire Beach. They didn’t know about her secret life, but she had no doubt they would help her out when she told them. She just had to make it back home.

  2

  Cole

  Criminal Investigator Cole Davenport sighed as he looked around the most recent crime scene. To say it was a mess would be putting it mildly. Papers were scattered everywhere, drawers had been pulled out of desks and overturned, shredded pillows lay like flayed corpses leaving a trail of stuffing around the room. And of course, the body reposed in the middle of the mayhem. Face down with a massive wound to the head. “Is the head wound the cause of death?”

  Wendy, the forensic technician, looked up at him and nodded. “It would appear so.” Her gloved fingers examined the wound through the dark hair. “I would say blunt force trauma with a pointed object.” She touched the skin of the body and moved one of the poor man’s arms. “Based on rigor mortis and algor mortis, I would say he’s been dead eight to ten hours.”

  Cole nodded. Eight to ten hours would put the death in the middle of the night. At least that would explain the man still being in pajamas. Odd though. If he’d been sleeping, why attack with an object? Why not use a gun or smother him with one of the pillows? There were certainly enough of those around. Perhaps the man had woken to some noise? “Is there any sign of a struggle?” If he’d woken before he was hit, surely, he would have fought his attacker.

  Wendy studied one hand and then the other before shaking her head. “I don’t see anything that would lead me to make that determination, but we could scrape his nails to be sure.”

  “Please do.” Cole bit the inside of his lip and studied the victim again. Something seemed off, but he was having trouble placing what it was. “Was he killed on the bed?”

  Wendy pushed up her glasses with the back of her hand and looked around the room. “I doubt it. There’s no spray in this room.”

  Yes, that was it. There was no splatter on the walls. If the man had been hit in the head, there would be a spray of blood. “Right.” Cole scanned the room, noticing a door open at the back of the bedroom that he hadn’t paid attention to before. He had assumed at first it was a closet, but now he saw that the closet was to his left. Nor was it a bathroom because that was in the hallway of this small one-bedroom house. So, why was there another door?

  Careful to step around the mess to avoid contaminating any evidence, he made his way slowly to the open door. Stopping at the entrance, he pulled on his gloves and stepped inside. The room was small - perhaps it had been the closet at one time? Or had it been added after the fact? Whatever it was, it was clearly the place the attack had happened. Red droplets coated the wall like a sick abstract piece of art. So why move the body?

  A shelf that had apparently functioned as a desk spanned one wall. It was devoid of anything now, but something told him it had once housed equipment of some kind. He ran his gloved hand across the surface and then held it closer to his face. What was that? Rice? A piece of grain? Removing a bag from his pocket, he dropped the speck inside to analyze later. Maybe the man ate in this room, but why? It certainly wasn’t a cheery space. A solitary bulb hung from the ceiling casting a dim, eerie light on the room.

  Underneath the shelf, he found a small fridge and a two-drawer file cabinet. Both were empty, but something inside him told him they hadn’t been at one time. What had been the purpose of this room? It seemed too dark for an office. Some sort of research? But why keep it hidden? What exactly had he stumbled into?

  Cole removed his gloves and ran a hand across the back of his neck as he stepped out of the macabre room. “When you get done processing the body, can we process this room as well?”

  Wendy looked up at him with an annoyed expression. “I’ll do the whole room, Sir.”

  Of course she would. She was one of the best technicians in the department. Thorough to a T. “Thank you.” There wasn’t much more he could do here. He would have to wait for the evidence to come in and see where it led him.

  3

  Cara

  Cara’s thoughts were still on Steve’s death as she pulled into her spot in front of the bed and breakfast. Jordan had agreed to call in the death, but his tone had been filled with questions. She knew she would have to tell him everything soon. He deserved that courtesy anyway.

  Grabbing her laptop bag from the seat beside her, she locked the car and headed into the house. There was only one guest checked in currently, but it was nearing lunchtime and she needed to prepare something for her even if it was small.

  After dropping h
er bag on the counter, she turned to the fridge to grab fixings for sandwiches. Mustard, cheese, meat. Her hand had just touched the plastic package when pain like she’d never felt before shot through her head and the world went dark.

  A soft moan escaped Cara’s mouth as she struggled to open her eyes.

  “Cara, are you okay?”

  She tried to fight the cloud fogging her brain, but it was hard. Her head pounded like an incessant drummer and everything felt fuzzy. Still, that had sounded like a man’s voice - like Bubba’s voice. What was he doing here? More importantly, why weren’t her eyes cooperating as she tried to open them? Something had happened, but she couldn’t quite remember what. It was there in the fog but just out of reach.

  “This is Captain Makenna Drake of the Woodville police.”

  A female voice she didn’t recognize cut through the foggy haze. Certainly not Bubba’s voice. It was too high, but who was Makenna Drake? Not her guest. No, her guest was an artsy, elderly woman named Gladys here to walk the beach and look for sand dollars.

  “I’m at Cara Hunter’s bed and breakfast,” the voice continued, “and she’s been injured. Please send an ambo and a local unit to 212 Whistler Avenue.”