Page 88 of Only the Devil
If Alvin had wanted to die—and that’s an if the size of Texas—he wouldn’t have gone foraging for pretty purple flowers to brew into some medieval poison tea. He would have been direct, efficient, and final. That was his way.
The coroner saw an old man with debt and sadness. I see a thirty-year Army veteran who kept his .45 in perfect condition and wouldn’t know a foxglove from a dandelion if his life depended on it.
Which, apparently, it did.
A vision of Jocelyn’s still body sprawled out on the floor flashes. Given her corpse burned in the house fire, and they concluded it wasn’t arson, there won’t be a coroner’s report on her. Everyone assumed she died in the fire. Talk about bungling an investigation. If we’d called the medics, there would’ve been a coroner’s report. And I’d bet my ginormous CTO salary she died from the same poison that killed Uncle Alvin.
Typically, I’d text Rhodes. But this warrants a call.
“Everything okay?”
He answers on the first ring, and a strange brew of warmth and guilt simmers. He’s more than a boss—he’s a friend I don’t deserve, given I left him high and dry.
“Daisy? You okay?”
“I need to get back into ARGUS.” A pause. Long enough for me to hear him breathing.
“You still have access.” My fingers freeze over the laptop keyboard.
“You... What?”
“I never accepted your resignation. Why would you think I’d block your access?”
“Because anyone else on the planet would—” It’s been over a month since I bailed on you…
“What’s going on?”
His voice has that edge I recognize from when he’s preparing for an important meeting.
I set the phone down on the desk, eyes darting to the closed door, all paranoid-like, as I dig out my personal laptop with the ARGUS portal installed. When I pick up the phone again, he’s still waiting.
“Daisy.”
“I’m here.”
“Talk to me.”
The login screen appears, my credentials still active. Of course they are. Rhodes is pure gold.
“Reed’s autopsy came back.”
Silence.
“And?”
“Digitalis poisoning. They’re calling it suicide.”
“But you don’t think so.”
It’s not a question. Rhodes knows me well enough to read the subtext in my voice, the way I’m breathing, probably the exact cadence of my typing in the background.
“He kept a .45 in his nightstand drawer. Cleaned it regularly.” I pull up ARGUS, muscle memory navigating to the financial tracking modules. “Since when does a thirty-year Army vet go foraging for foxglove?”
“How many deaths are now tied to that company?”
“Two. Maybe three.” My voice drops to barely above a whisper. “Rhodes, I think I’m in over my head here.”
“I can be there in four hours.”
