Colton K-9 Cop

Even as she asked herself the question, the memory of what she had read in the email steeled her resolve.

She was sitting on a problem and rationalizing it away at a personal moment of truth was unfair at best, flat out immoral at worst.

“I received an odd email today and I felt it was important to discuss it with you directly.”

“Odd?” Sally’s hands remained folded on top of her desk but the vapid smile that had ridden her features faded slightly.

“There wasn’t a named sender, for starters.”

“We have effective spam filters on our email but things can slip through. Do you think that was it?”

“No, no, I don’t. The email just said ‘internal.’”

“And no one signed it?”

“No.”

Something small yet insistent began to buzz at the base of Bellamy’s spine. Unlike the concern and panic that had flooded her system upon realizing what the email held, this was a different sort of discomfort. Like how animals in the forest scented a fire long before it arrived.

A distinct sense of danger began to beat beneath her skin.

“Here. Look at this.” Bellamy pulled the printout she’d made out of the folder she’d slipped it into, passing it across the desk. “If you look at the top, you can see it came from the LSP domain.”

Sally stared at the note, reading through the contents. Her expression never changed, but neither did that vague sense of menace Bellamy couldn’t shake. One that grew darker when Sally laid the paper on her desk, pushing it beneath her keyboard.

“This is a poor joke, Ms. Reeves.”

“A joke?”

“You come in here and suggest someone’s sending you inappropriate messaging, then you hand me a note that’s something out of a paranoid fantasy. What sort of sabotage are you intending to perpetrate against LSP?”

“I’m trying to prevent it.”

“By forging a note and tossing it around like you’re some affronted party?”

Affronted party? Forgery? The damn thing had popped into her inbox a half hour ago.

“This was sent to me.”

Even as Bellamy’s temperature hit a slow boil, Sally Borne sat across from her as if she were the injured party. “Are you sure about that? It would be easy enough to make a few changes in a photo alteration program and muster this up. Or perhaps you’re even more skilled and able to hack into our email servers.”

“You can’t be serious. I received this email. Pull up the server files yourself if you’re so convinced they’ve been tampered with.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary.”

Bellamy sat back, her ire subsiding in the face of an even more unbelievable truth. The director of Human Resources didn’t believe her. “You do understand the implications of something like this?”

“I most certainly do.”

Although this wasn’t the same as losing her parents, Bellamy couldn’t fully shake the sadness and, worse, the acute sense of loss at Sally Borne’s callous disregard for her word. Her truth. With one last push, she tried to steer the conversation back to steady ground.

“Who could possibly be sending messages like this? What are they trying to accomplish? And who else might have received something like this?”

“You tell me.” Sally waved an idle hand in the direction of the email now lodged beneath her keyboard. “You’re the one in possession of the mysterious email. No one else has called me or sent me any others to review.” Sally’s gaze never wavered as she stared back from her side of the large desk, her words landing like shards of ice as they were volleyed across that imposing expanse.

“Which I’m trying to get your help with. Could you imagine if this were really true?” Bellamy asked, willing the woman to understand the gravity of the situation. “We’d be putting millions of lives at risk.”

Only when Sally only stared at her, gaze determinedly blank, did the pieces begin to click into place.

“So it’s true, then? LSP is tampering with vaccines.” The words came out on a strangled whisper.

“What’s true is that you’re a financial leader at this company determined to spread lies and disruption,” Sally snapped back.

“I’m not—”

A brisk knock at the door had Bellamy breaking off and turning to see the same woman from the outer office. “Ms. Borne. Here are the details you asked for.”

A large file was passed over the desk and Bellamy saw her name emblazoned on the tab of the thick folder.

Her employment file?

“Thank you, Marie.” Sally took the folder as the helpful, efficient Marie rushed back out of the office.

It was only when the file was laid down that Bellamy saw a note on top. The writing was neat and precise and easily visible across the desk.

10+ year employee.

Steadfast, determined, orderly.

Both parents died in past year.

She was under evaluation here? And what would her parents’ deaths have to do with anything?

Sally tapped the top before opening the manila file. Thirteen years of performance reviews and salary documentation spilled from the edges, but it was that note on top that seemed to echo the truth of her circumstances.

For all her efforts to make a horrible situation right, something had gone terribly wrong.

“Is there a reason you felt the need to pull my personnel file?”

“A matter of routine.”

“Oh? What sort of routine?”

“When an employee is behaving in a suspicious manner, I like to understand what I’m dealing with.”

“Then you’ll quickly understand you’re dealing with a highly competent employee who has always received stellar reviews and professional accolades.”

Sally flipped back to the cover, her gaze floating once more over the attached note. “I also see a woman who’s suffered a terrible loss.”