Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

RIVER

I'm not sure when my day turned to shit, exactly, but I'm hip-deep in it now. Waking up was amazing—Aqua, the most comfortable bed in the world, Aqua, the sound of the ocean, Aqua, the morning breeze drifting through the window. Oh, and did I mention Aqua?

I had a very stimulating early morning workout, followed by pouty kisses when I told him he couldn't come to work with me. If I'd been planning to be in the field today, I would have been tempted to let him come, but he'd hate hanging around while I filled out incident reports and wrote up my findings from yesterday.

Even the traffic on the longer-than-usual drive to work didn't bother me. Sure, my world got turned upside down yesterday, but I now not only have a deeper purpose to my life's work, I also have the memories of the best sex I've ever had with the sweetest man I've ever met—and the promise of more. More sex, and more time with him.

Who could be upset with that to look forward to?

That's why it barely dinged my good mood when I got to my desk and saw the email from my boss, asking me to see him urgently. I figured it was about the equipment failure yesterday. That he wanted to check on me and remind me to complete the incident report.

I was mostly right. The first thing he said when I knocked on the doorframe to his office was "You're okay? When I didn't hear from you last night, I assumed you were, but the ER cleared you?"

"Completely okay," I assured him. "No symptoms to worry about at all—other than the anxiety caused by the whole thing." We both chuckled and then he waved me in.

"Come and sit. There's something I need to discuss with you."

Anybody who's ever been called into their boss's office and heard that sentence can tell you that 90 percent of the time, good things don't follow. It seems I'm not an exception to that rule.

I sat down and said, "I was planning to complete the incident report first thing and send it through this morning."

"Yes, thank you. We'll need that. But after you left yesterday, I pulled the dive log—in preparation for appending it to the report—and I noticed that you checked out a boat on Tuesday afternoon, but you didn't complete the equipment check log after."

I stared at him. "What?" I didn't check a boat out on Tuesday.

"Normally this wouldn't even have been noticed—I know everyone occasionally forgets to fill in the log, even though you're meticulous about checking your gear—but with yesterday's incident, it poses a problem. Our insurance company checks every incident report because they take them into account when calculating our premium. The missed entry followed by what could have been a fatal equipment failure is something they would have refused to pay out due to negligence."

My brain was still stuck on the whole boat-on-Tuesday thing. "What?" I repeated.

"River, please hear me—I am completely on your side. But I have no choice but to investigate this fully."

His words began to sink in. "Uh… of course. Yes. What does that mean?" Suspension? Worse?

"I need you to submit the incident report as a matter of urgency, which you've already said you'll do. I also need you to provide a letter from a doctor that says you've had no adverse effects from the equipment failure."

I nodded. I knew he'd need that and already got the doctor at the ER to do it for me—it must be a request they get a lot, because they had a proforma template and everything. "No problem."

He winced. "Unfortunately, you won't be able to dive for the duration of the investigation."

Fuck. "How long do you think it will take?" If I can't dive while I'm on the clock, I can't use the Institute's boats—and I don't earn enough to continually hire a boat, plus all the specialist equipment I'd need. My dive gear is technically mine—I get a yearly stipend for it from the Institute because I can't do my job without it, but it belongs to me—but it's not really usable right now, even if it wasn't going to be at the center of this investigation. So that means I'll be land-locked until?—

"It could be a week, or it could be a month," he said, and my heart sank. A month ? I have enough busywork to fill a week, maybe, but after that, my research will be at a standstill if I can't dive. It would cost me thousands of dollars out of pocket—not to mention fill my weekends and early mornings—to do the research I need as a private citizen.

I mustered an unenthusiastic smile. "I guess I'll just have to hope for a week, then. I'll probably need that time to have my gear repaired or replaced, anyway." An expense I really didn't need.

He didn't smile back. "Unfortunately, there's more."

More?

"Because this is something that may impact our insurance, the outcome of the investigation isn't in my hands. It will be up to the director—and possibly the board—to make the final decision. I'm obligated to tell you that the result could be the termination of your employment if the director or the board believes that the insurance company may deem you a risk."

My. Breath. Stopped.

" Fire me? Because my equipment malfunctioned?" No. What? No.

"Because you didn't log an equipment check, and that equipment subsequently malfunctioned," he corrected, and I shook my head.

"I didn't dive Tuesday. I didn't take a boat out. I was in the lab all day!"

His brows rose. "The dive log shows that you took a boat out—and the security log shows your locker was accessed shortly before, and then again several hours later, which implies you took your gear with you."

For a wild minute, I wondered if the doctor missed something. Could I have dived Tuesday?

No. No, there was no way. I was in the lab all day. But that meant…

"Bill, I was in the lab. I absolutely did not take a boat or my gear out on Tuesday," I insisted. "Could you check IT records? They'll show me logging results and notes all afternoon. Heck, the security camera footage will prove I was here!"

Doubt flashed across Bill's face. "I can pull the notes and test results," he said slowly. "If you really did enter them on Tuesday, I'll be able to use that to request security footage—it would fall under the investigation. But I don't like the implications here, River. If you were in the labs, that means someone stole your swipe card, took your gear, signed out a boat in your name—again using your swipe card—and…" He trailed off, but I didn't need him to finish the sentence.

Did that person return my gear and fail to do a safety check? Or did they deliberately screw with it?

I fumbled for the lanyard around my neck. "My swipe card is always on me when I'm in the building," I promised. "I don't take it off, because I don't want to lose it. The only time it comes off is when it's locked in the valuables safe on one of the boats or when I'm at home." I used to take it off in my car, but too many times I'd leave it there overnight, and there was a spate of car break-ins in my neighborhood last year. Replacing a security swipe means a lot of paperwork, and nobody wants to deal with that.

Bill's frown was worried. "Let's look at that log."

Two minutes later, the frown was growing deeper as he scrolled—presumably through all the notes I'd entered on Tuesday. I didn't have the guts to go look over his shoulder. "I don't like this," he murmured. "This means there's a duplicate of your security card." He sat back and sighed. "Okay. I'm inclined to believe you because I know you, and I recognize your style of work in these notes. But I need to follow procedure here so there can be no question of what happened."

I nodded. "Okay. What's that?" And fuck. Fuck . Did someone try to hurt me? Kill me?

"I contact IT and get the second card cancelled immediately, and ream them out for allowing it to be issued. Both I and the head of IT will lodge reports about that. I contact security, put in a formal request for the footage of the lab and the locker room, and attach the report about the second card. Their system shouldn't allow one person to be in different secure parts of the building at the same time." He took a deep breath. "The footage request needs to go through several levels of clearance, so it will be a day or two until I get it. In the meantime, I'll go down to the pier and talk to the staff there. Someone has to have noticed who took boats out on Tuesday. And I need to speak to the director so he knows all of this is happening."

That made me breathe a little easier. I definitely wasn't the one who took a boat and gear out on Tuesday, and there was evidence to prove it. "So it will be at least a few days before you can conclusively prove it wasn't me."

"Yes. I need the incident report from you as soon as possible, and also a written statement summarizing everything you've told me." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Once I get the footage, the director will make the call about what to do from there. A lot will depend on what it shows."

What it's going to show is someone else taking my gear out and then returning it damaged, putting me in a very unsafe situation. "Has my gear been sent for repair already?"

He shook his head. "No—that didn't occur to me. It's in your locker." His eyes widened, and he began tapping his keyboard, presumably bringing up the access logs for the locker room. "Shit! I mean," he faltered. "I'm sorry."

I wanted to wave it off, but Bill didn't swear at work—ever. "Someone accessed my locker?" No. No no no.

"According to this, you did. Last night, about an hour after I walked you and your friend to your car. Let's go have a look."

Five minutes later, we stared into my empty locker. I swallowed hard. "Um… so I'm going to do that incident report, and then, since I can't dive anyway, I'd like your permission to set up a field lab offsite. I've got friends who live by the beach, and I think I'm going to stay with them for a few days. In a house that has lots of people living there."

Bill nodded, his face pale. "Permission granted. Though I need you to submit?—"

"An official request. I know. I'll do that right after the incident report."

"I'll be looking for it." He glanced back into the locker. "Maybe call a friend to help you pack up all your samples and things. So you don't have to walk out to the parking lot alone."

Which brings me to now, standing beside the receptionist in the lobby and resisting the urge to bite my nails while I wait for Aqua and Perry.

"Why are you being weird?" she asks.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I dunno. My roommate's best friend works in a dive bar. I've heard some fucked-up— Whoa, who is that ?"

Spotting them at the same time she does, I exhale in relief. "My friends."

" Just friends? Or, like… are any of them available?"

For the first time since Bill called me into his office, I smile. "The one with green hair and the short one are together. And the one with blue hair is mine."