Page 17 of Fatal Conspiracy

“While anything is possible, I find it highly improbable that he’d put ethylene glycol in his boss’s water bottle and then go fishing less than twenty minutes from the murder scene.”

“How did the antifreeze get in the water bottle then?” Selina asked. “Someone had to do it.”

“That’s the $64,000 question,” he said, leaning against the television stand. “We’ll poke around the security camera footage and our programs while the cops run down other leads. I’m not saying we’re going to solve a tech billionaire’s murder. I’m saying we’ll make sure none of us end up in front of a judge for it.”

“Fine, but not until everyone gets some sleep. You most especially,” Selina said, turning to Alayah. “If you want that ankle to feel better, you must let your body rest.”

“After I see Derek,” she said, forcing as much conviction into her voice as possible.

“I’ll check him out, and if I think he needs to go to the hospital, we’ll get him there,” Selina promised. “There’s no need for you to worry about it. Sleep while you can. They’ll need you to comb through those videos tomorrow.”

“Not until I see Derek,” she said again as Cal’s phone beeped.

“He’s in his room,” Cal confirmed when he glanced up. “Alayah, get your walker, and I’ll give you five minutes with him while I talk to Selina. Then, you sleep for at least five hours.”

Well, great. The night just went from bad to worse. Not only had she picked up a stranger off the side of the road,but she broke another promise to boot. “I don’t have my walker.”

“What now?” Cal asked, hand on his hip. “Our agreement was that you took it with you everywhere, even if you don’t use it.”

“Cal, I had ten minutes from when I entered the doors of Secure Inc. until I left them again. My walker was in the back of the other car. I was so tired, I didn’t even think about it.”

“I did,” Selina said, standing and walking to the door. Alayah’s purple posterior walker sat in the hallway when she opened it. “We didn’t find it until we cleaned out the SUV to head down, or I would have sent it with Kieran.”

“Thanks, Selina,” she said as she unwrapped the ice pack from her ankle and slipped her shoe back on. She could admit it felt a little better, so she’d make sure to put some ice on it while she was sleeping. At least the hotel would have an endless supply of it.

She grabbed the walker handles and pulled it around behind her to appease them, but there was no way she’d let Derek see her using it. She paused to ask herself why she cared if he saw her using the walker, but she already knew the answer. She was embarrassed. Should she be? No. She’d used a mobility aid for years and was never embarrassed or humiliated about it, but when it came to Derek Benjamin, she was. Later, she’d have to unpack the reason why, but that was a problem for another day when they didn’t have a murderer to find.

“What’s his room number?” she asked Cal.

“Selina will take you,” he said rather than answer the question. “She wants to put eyes on him immediately before he gets too comfortable.”

“I’ll wait here for a bit and give her time to do that.”

“As if,” Selina said, holding the door open. “You’d ditch that walker the moment I turned my back.”

They left her no choice, and as much as she hated to admit it, she was probably about to make her smartest move all night.

“Now that I’m standing again, I can see that I’m too tired to do anything more than take a shower and crawl into bed.”

Selina offered her a sweet smile, telling her she knew exactly what she was doing but wouldn’t say it in front of Cal. Alayah could be happy about that, at least.

Cal walked to the door before he stopped and looked at his watch. “We’ll convene in our conference room at 0900 hours. Breakfast will be waiting.”

That gave her six hours of sleep. Not ideal, but doable, so she nodded. “Wait, do we still have a room? Isn’t the conference over?”

“Only postponed as of right now,” Cal answered. “The organizers are waiting for the police to give them the go-ahead. They want to be sure this was an isolated attack before they proceed. Last I heard, they were considering reopening the conference around noon. Of course, they’d be using a different area for the presentations, but the police still need to clear the scene before letting anyone back in. I should know more in the morning.”

“That’s going to stretch us thin if we have to run security for the conference and try to comb through yesterday’s situation.”

“I agree, which is why I brought in more people. They’ll run the conference if they restart it, while those of us who witnessed the murder will work in the background.”

“I’ll be there with bells on then,” she said with a smile, fatigue washing over her.

“We’ll let you get some sleep. Call me if you wake upwith more pain in your ankle,” Selina said, and Alayah nodded in agreement.

“And for the record,” Cal said as he started closing the door. “I may not like what you did tonight, but I respect you for following your gut and helping someone who needed it. In the future, I’d just prefer if you didn’t lie to your only backup.”

“Heard and understood, and I’m sorry for worrying you.”