Rogue Wolf by Paige Tyler
Chapter 7
“Are you really sure this is a good idea?” Crystal asked from the passenger seat of Samantha’s car. “I mean, it’s not too late to turn around and go home. Act like this was never a thought in your clever but overactive imagination.”
Samantha glanced at her best friend, who was nervously holding a plastic bag filled with the vials holding Trey’s blood and a file folder filled with DNA profiles Samantha had collected over the past couple years from some of the more bizarre cases SWAT had been involved in. The folder wasn’t much, but those vials of Trey’s blood caught and held her attention. From how much blood there’d been, she once again wondered how the wound had stopped bleeding so quickly. Considering the number of sopping wet gauze pads she’d bottled up, anyone would assume there’d been some serious damage involved. But obviously, there hadn’t been, or she and Trey wouldn’t have spent fifteen minutes making out in the kitchen. They would have been in an emergency room getting stitches.
Tracking her gaze up from the plastic bag to her friend’s face, Samantha realized Crystal seemed genuinely nervous. She’d like to think Crystal was simply worried about driving across town with this many bloody bandages sitting in her lap, but she knew that wasn’t it. No, it was far more likely Crystal was regretting her decision to join Samantha on this late-night expedition. Saying that Crystal strongly disapproved was putting it mildly. Samantha couldn’t honestly blame her. She’d been the one who’d come up with this scheme in the first place and she still wasn’t so sure it was the right thing to do.
Crystal had shown up at Samantha’s apartment right after Trey left, eager to hear all about the date. Samantha doubted Crystal expected to find her wearing rubber gloves and stuffing bloody pieces of gauze into glass vials. The situation had gone from confused to tense when Samantha admitted the blood was Trey’s and that she planned to take the samples to Loralei, so her sister could run a full-DNA analysis on it. The idea of having Loralei compare the results with some of the previous crime scenes involving torn-up bodies had been a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.
“Good idea or not, this is what we’re doing,” Samantha said, pulling into one of the visitor spaces at Loralei’s apartment complex.
“Unless you have one of those proverbial mice in your pocket, don’t use the word we,” Crystal muttered. “This stupid scheme is totally on you, and when it blows up in your face, I’ll be right there saying I told you so.”
Samantha turned off the SUV with a heavy sigh. “You know I’m the kind of person who can’t let a mystery go unsolved.”
Her friend reached over the console to take her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “And that’s what makes you such a great medical examiner. But at the moment, it’s making you a crappy girlfriend.”
Samantha didn’t say anything as the import of the word girlfriend hit her. Crystal was right. She and Trey might not have defined their relationship yet, but they were headed in that direction. Analyzing his blood like he was a suspect in a crime was all kinds of wrong for a girlfriend to do. But if this thing between them was ever going to work, she had to know what he was hiding.
She looked at Crystal. “I have to do this.”
“And if there is something weird in his blood, what are you going to do then?”
“I haven’t thought that far,” Samantha admitted quietly.
It was her friend’s turn to sigh. “If Trey finds out what you did, you could lose him. You know that, right?”
The idea of losing Trey made Samantha feel physically ill. “He isn’t going to find out.”
Crystal opened her door. “I think you’re making a huge mistake.”
Samantha couldn’t say her friend was wrong. But it wasn’t like she hadn’t made a ton of other stupid decisions in her life. This would simply be one more on the list. She ignored the voice in the back of her head telling her this idea was raising stupid to a whole new level as they climbed the steps to the second floor.
Loralei opened the door on the first knock, a worried expression on her face. Samantha’s younger sister was wearing a pair of SpongeBob SquarePants pajama pants and matching tank top, her shoulder-length blond hair tousled from sleep. Loralei eyed the plastic bag with the samples Crystal was holding as she closed the door behind them.
“You wake me up at midnight, tell me you’re coming over and that it’s an emergency, then you just hang up,” Loralei said. “I’ve been sitting here worried sick. What. The. Hell?”
Samantha winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. Something came up with this case I’ve been working on and it couldn’t wait.”
Her sister perked up at that. “You mean the Butcher case?”
Like everyone else in town, Loralei had gotten caught up in the grisly murders and had helped out any way she could, even if it was as a sounding board for Samantha to bounce ideas off.
“No,” Samantha said. “It’s related to something else.” Grabbing the plastic bag and file folder from Crystal, she held them out to her sister. “I need you to run a full DNA profile, compare the results to the other profiles in the folder, and generally look for anything strange.”
Loralei held up the bag, studying its contents. “Strange, how?”
“Just look for anything that shouldn’t be there. And I need you to keep this top secret. No one can know anything about these samples. Don’t tell anyone, no matter what you find.”
Loralei eyed the bag again, then looked at her. “Okay, but why you aren’t you doing this DNA profile at your own labs? Your equipment is as good as the stuff we use at mine.”
“The chances of me getting anything this complex done on the down low at the institute is almost nil.” That wasn’t a lie. Each medical examiner had access to their fellow ME’s computer files. She’d never be able to analyze Trey’s blood without someone knowing. “Besides, you’re used to dealing with proprietary customers who don’t want anyone knowing they’ve given you a sample.”
Loralei seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding. “Okay. I’ll toss these in the fridge, then start on them first thing Monday morning and get the info to you as soon as I can. But you know, you could have brought this stuff over tomorrow at a decent hour, instead of waking me up.”
She gave her sister a sheepish look. “Yeah, I know.”
But then she might have come to her senses and bailed on the whole thing.
Thanking her sister for the help, Samantha apologized for waking her up, then gave her a hug before she and Crystal left.
“You are definitely going to regret this,” her friend said as they walked out of the apartment building.
Based on how guilty she felt right then, Samantha agreed. But it was too late to turn back now. There was a possibility that these samples would come back completely normal. If so, she had no idea what the hell she was going to do. At the end of the day, she knew there was something going on with Trey and his teammates. If the answer didn’t show up in his blood, she’d like to think she’d be able to simply let this all go and focus on this relationship she was developing with Trey, but part of her worried she’d never be able to do that. It was an obsession at this point, and all she could do was pray she could stop before it was too late.