At His Command by Karen Anders Page B

an allergy to something he hadn’t been exposed to before is possible.” She paused for a moment and said, “But it could also be caused by ingesting a drug.”
    He reached out and snagged his coffee cup and took a sip. “What drug?”
    She leaned back in her chair in frustration. “I don’t know. I confiscated an over-the-counter irregularity product from the master chief’s locker, but the bottle was lost after he took it from me.” She could still see his smug smile and she was convinced the man had been harboring more than the secret of what was in the bottle. It was possible he could have been killing pilots. Or know the person responsible, if there was such a person.
    “So what makes you suspicious that Saunders was drugged?”
    Pushing away the emotion that was distracting her, she reached for logic. “That’s the kicker. The master chief himself. When he talked about the accidents, he shook the bottle. I got permission to search his rack after Saunders’s wingman swore an oath he saw the master chief touch Saunders’s coffee cup. So he had the opportunity to put whatever was in that bottle into Saunders’s coffee cup.”
    Chris closed the autopsy report and handed it back to her for safekeeping. “Still, all the evidence we have is circumstantial at this point, along with some healthy speculation.”
    Sia nodded. “Playing devil’s advocate?”
    He shrugged. “You did enough mock trials in law school to know about that. There’s always somebody who can trip you up if you’re not prepared.”
    She nodded, remembering those lessons from the simulated jury trials she’d participated in as a law student. “I know it’s circumstantial, but my gut tells me there was or is a liar and a killer on this ship. Lieutenants Saunders and Washington were only the latest victims. I think that you or my brother somehow got caught in that same killer’s sights.”
    “A conspiracy? Is that what you’re thinking?”
    “I don’t know.” She tucked the report back into her briefcase. “Yet. But I’ll find out.”
    “We will find out, together.”
    The inflection on the word together held a deeper, more intimate meaning. There was a time she welcomed that meaning, but now all she wanted to do was put distance between them. It kept her focused and sane.
    She shivered a little, thinking about how he’d tasted, how he’d kissed as if no time had passed whatsoever, as if they knew each other in a more profound way than even on a physical level. No, she firmly decided. No more of those thoughts. A couple of kisses was already two too many. But she found her eyes falling to his mouth. He didn’t miss the movement and his gray eyes went steamy.
    She decided the best bet was to ignore it completely. “I couldn’t go to court with this kind of evidence. But Chris, even if he had a bottle that was run-of-the-mill medication, it doesn’t mean that’s what was actually in the bottle.”
    He smiled, but it didn’t diminish one whit the heat in his gaze. “That is true. I don’t take anything at face value.”
    She mused for a moment, a thought coalescing in her brain. “All this negative evidence does add up to something.”
    “You have a theory.” He rose and gathered up his dirty dishes and she did the same. “It’s not a bad thing to talk out alternatives. You never know what correlation we might draw, or be able to put together some other lead we might have missed. Speculation isn’t a bad thing, even if it’s wrong. So let’s hear it.”
    Dumping her trash and placing her dishes in the proper place, Sia turned to him. She wanted to be mad at him, even though she realized it was just an excuse to focus her feelings of helplessness on something tangible. Or someone. Instead, she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing herself to relax. Getting worked up wasn’t going to help matters any. Besides, she’d already gotten worked up enough for one day. Her gaze slid sideways across the busy mess