Library

22. Patrick

I'd been through every page of the logbook three times. On the second round, I decided to elevate my nerd game and create a spreadsheet. In every entry, except for those indicating days in which no expired drugs were found, all items were marked disposed.

"Why even have the dumb checkbox if they're always doing the same thing?" I muttered.

After staring at my screen for what felt like a million minutes, I realized Excel could do some of the work for me.

"Not the brightest bulb in the box today, are you, Patrick?" I chuckled at how I'd made everything harder than it needed to be.

I sorted by signer then item then date, searching for patterns. Sixty-one days were listed. Twenty-two days found no expired items. That left thirty-nine days with entries.

Of those thirty-nine days, Burton had completed two and Sami only one, which left Alex performing the most with twenty-four, which made sense if the expiration checks were his primary responsibility.

I was surprised to find that Dane had completed twelve, nearly two weeks' worth of checks. The one-off nature of Burton and Sam's participation made sense. Maybe Alex was busy or late for work or called out sick, but for another teammate to complete nearly twenty percent of someone else's work?

I jotted a note on a blank pad by my phone and sat back.

Alex and Dane. Dane and Alex.

This couldn't be Dane. There was no way. Dane was such a good guy. He was kind and gentle and … okay, he liked it rough against appliances. And he was fucking hot.

None of that was enough to rule him out as a suspect. Nice people did stupid things. They did criminal things too. Had Dane?

My heart tried to hold its shape but was quickly crumbling into a million pieces. I knew better than to pin my hopes on something developing after a couple of dates, but I'd begun to wonder if Dane might not become something more than just a hot hookup. I'd never really thought of him that way, and now that I was getting to know him, I didn't want to.

And even if the culprit was Alex, the very fact that I ran with a story that would ultimately see a member of his team in handcuffs …

Shit.

"There's no way this ends well for me," I whispered into my screen. The cursor blinked annoyingly but didn't respond.

Would Dane forgive me if I caused Alex to …

"Wait, I'm not causing anything," my conscience fought back.

The PD was already on this case. Whoever was stealing drugs would be found out, arrested, and face their fate, whether I ran a story or not.

If Dane was the bad guy, well, I would just have to deal with that. He wouldn't be worthy of my attention, much less my love and adoration and … ass. Damn, my ass really liked him. That one would suck.

And if it was Alex, Dane would have to get over it. If he couldn't see that I was just doing my job, he wasn't the man I thought he was. It was as simple as that.

"But if it really is that simple, why do I feel so bad about it?"

I crossed my arms on my desk and buried my head in them.

Comments

0 Comments
Best Newest

Contents
Settings
  • T
  • T
  • T
  • T
Font

Welcome to FullEpub

Create or log into your account to access terrific novels and protect your data

Don’t Have an account?
Click above to create an account.

lf you continue, you are agreeing to the
Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy.